Do You Remember Your First Ballpark Visit?

It is a wonderful thing having a son. I enjoy taking my son to places and events that I like, with the hope that he'll experience things that will excite him, too. He spent his first day at the beach when he was six months old. He was not quite two when he saw his first major art exhibit, where he cracked everyone up by looking at a nude by Matisse and yelling, "mommy!" And this past week he saw his first professional baseball game as a five-year old.

People were surprised that I waited so long to take him to a baseball game. Perhaps I waited until he was five because that was the age I was when I went to see a game for the first time and I still have a lot of memories about that day.

My dad worked two jobs and the last thing he would ever dream of doing was to take me to a game. My oldest brother took me. He was and is a Dodgers fan and we saw a game when they played the Mets.

I remember being terrified as we cross the Verrezano-Narrows Bridge (I'm still not fond of bridges to this day). I remember my brother asking me what kind of seats we should get. He went through and named all of the different levels, but I had no idea what mezzanine or lodge or any of the other words he used were. Then he said box seats and I immediately said I wanted those because I thought it meant we were going to sit on a box.

We got upper box seats and I remember being scared about falling out of my seat for the first couple of innings. When we got to our seats, my brother asked me if I thought we could get any foul balls. I told him I thought Willie Davis might be able to hit one that high. In hindsight that was a pretty good answer for a five-year old, knowing one of the stars on the opposing team. Willie Davis hit .305 that year.

Now, I was a baseball fan and I knew several of the Mets and at least one Dodger, but let's be honest - I was five. I really wasn't ready to sit in a seat for the two-to-three hours that the game was going to take and my brother was aware of the situation. He kept me entertained by buying something from a vendor virtually every inning.