Today you get a tour of U.S. minor league baseball, Maine-style! because I’m still slamming on the koi quilt… as a teaser, here’s a close-up of one of the koi and some of the beading. More soon…I know I keep promising…. I finished the beading after dinner tonight, and started the facings (hand sewing). Hope to take pics tomorrow, then send the entries to Houston on Weds. or Thursday. And oh yeah… work out again. I remember that. My expanding waistline keeps reminding me….

In the meantime, I’m clearly hopping all over my Frayed Edges / Portland long weekend..during which I took nearly (Gasp, Gulp) 200 photos! I started with the last thing first, which was my previous post about Jan and Dwight’s artists’ reception for their art quilts and photos. I worked like a madwoman on my koi quilt until 3:05 pm Saturday, and had to be a 90 minute drive away in about 110 minutes (but needed a shower!). Fortunately, the car was already packed except for rolling up the koi. Anyway, I left home finally at 4 pm Saturday, and got home about 5 pm Monday, and it was such a wonderful break that it felt like a restorative two week vacation!

The first part of this mini-vacation to be planned was Sunday. As soon as tickets went on sale, Paul bought our “summer” Sea Dogs (minor league team for the Boston Red Sox) tickets. We’ve made a tradition I guess of going on Memorial Day weekend, which we combine with Paul’s birthday. The unseasonable heat of Friday (92! in Camden) and Saturday (upper 80s) was abated, and Sunday was glorious and even got a bit chilly by the end of the game, which the Sea Dogs won. We ate dinner out at Fuji, an awesome Japanese restaurant in downtown Portland, and spent the night before returning home.

I am absolutely NOT a sports fan, and especially not of pro ball. But the Sea Dogs are totally cool, and it is baseball the way it ought to be! The stands aren’t so vast, and you can see the faces of the players even if you are in the back row. There is usually someone from the team signing autographs during the first few innings down near the concessions stands, and vendors hawk “Sea Dog Biscuits, get your Sea Dog Biscuits Heaah” (that’s Mainer for ‘here’). The team has fun stuff between innings, and Slugger the Sea Dog (a name for a seal) mascot.

The game began with a trooping of the colors, followed by the National Anthem. Since it was Memorial Day weekend (for those of you not in the US, this is a national holiday the last Monday in May, the unofficial start of summer, and is to commemorate the folks who have served our country in the military throughout its history), Veterans from the American Legion paraded onto the field with the flags.

Here is the first “fun” between innings: the shopping cart toss! Two folks from the stands get to try to lob balls into a gargantuan shopping cart; the one with the most balls in wins a $75 shopping gift certificate. This time, they tied so both got the gift:

Then there is the favorite “Lobster Toss.” In this game, two folks man opposite sides of an old-fashioned lobster trap (but with top open) while groundscrew toss stuffed-animal lobsters in their direction. The goal is to catch as many lobsters as they can; if they catch a minimum amount, they get a seafood feast at a local restaurant:

There’s a chance to win a car (the light colored SUV on the right), but it’s really hard to win on this one…you have to get 3 out of 3 shots through the small opening in the board down near first base… haven’t even heard of anyone doing that one:

Then there is Slugger, who is a ham despite the fact that he is a fuzzy aquatic mammal. And good with the kids:

After I think it is the 5th inning, they play the Village People’s YMCA song, and everyone gets up, stretches and does the Y-M-C-A wave thing with Slugger (note he even has his own Village People tool belt, for those of us old enough and living in the US who can remember this group!):

During another inning break, one lucky kid (of the small size) gets his or her name picked from out of a hat to “race” Slugger around the bases and see who wins. The kid always runs the regular way, from home to first, then secon, then third, then home base. Slugger always gets confused and runs the “wrong” way, and they pass each other (with a high five) between first and second base.

Someone is always out on the field to help the sometimes-confused kids run the right direction. And Slugger always trips and falls on the way to home base which, of course, ensures that the kid wins to major cheers from the crowd:

Just before the game, we dashed down to the Portland mall, and bought Joshua his heart’s desire: Black Converse high tops, plaid shorts, and an Inspi(Red) t-shirt. Here are his adored high-tops, which he had to wear to the game:

And out on Hadlock’s Field’s version of Fenway’s Green Monster (that’s the very high wall over left field at Fenway Park in Boston, for those out of the US, which makes it almost impossible to hit a home run out of left field!), a new sign: the Eastern League Championship for 2006!

Last but not least, you always want to see the lighthouse. To do that one of two things needs to happen: if the Sea Dogs win, it rises up from behind center field with the light on. Or, if a Sea Dog hits a home run, it not only rises up from behind the wall, but sparklers (like on the Fourth of July but lots bigger) shoot out sideways like beacons of light. As you might guess, it was a good game because the Sea Dogs won and the lighthouse came up:

And I promise, I will return to both quilting and the koi quilt!!!!! But I just wanted to share a bit of Americana, Maine-style. I’m so totally NOT a sports fan, but this is just good fun!

And last but definitely not least, the day I wrote this post was my dear hubby’s 60th (??? Egads how did THAT happen?) birthday. Here’s the birthday boy opening his birthday gift:

and holding the smallest, cutest member of the family — Pigwidgeon:

This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 5:18 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.