I came back to Ann Arbor for the 4th of July whereupon I discovered that neither Ann Arbor or the neighboring town of Ypsilanti does fireworks. (This was actually my first 4th in AA, as I’ve previously always gone out of town.) Thus, to satiate the fireworks craving, my roommate Maggie and I headed down to Toledo to catch some minor league baseball, complete with post-game fireworks. (Nate said he’d come with us, and then bailed because he had “too much work.” But he still had time to spend his afternoon watching a Lifetime movie. Nathan Crockett is lame and I want the Internet to know it.)
Being a holiday weekend, tickets were hard to come by, so Maggie and I had to settle for two seats in the same section, but different rows. Knowing that we would probably be wandering a little looking for adjacent seating we might be able to snare elsewhere, I did an amazing thing.
I did not keep score.
This was the first baseball game I’ve been to since 2004 in which I didn’t record every pitch. I felt like I was doing something wrong when the line-up was called and I didn’t record it. (I did crack eventually and wrote the line-up and the box score on a random receipt from my purse.) It was remarkably freeing to be able to get up and walk around and get food and meet the Mudonna the Mudhen.
Plus, remarkably, a very nice usher asked if we had standing room only seats. When Maggie (wrongly) said yes, we did, he offered us seats right behind homeplate. In the middle of our first inning in our new seats, he offered to bump us up to six rows behind homeplate. As off as I felt, if I had been keeping score, that never would have happened.
The game itself was an exciting one… the Mudhens were never ahead, but down two in the 9th, they managed to score a run. With a runner on second, Mike Hessman, who had been the hero in the 5th inning with a three run homer (his 28th of the season!), came up to the plate. But in true “Casey at the Bat” style, there was no joy in Mudhensville — the Mighty Hessman did strike out.
The box score is below and the full set of pictures are here.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
| Columbus Clippers | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 11 | 0 |
| Toledo Mudhens | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 10 | 0 |
Colossus of Rhode 
shucks. i was in ann arbor for the 4th. i should have emailed you, but i stupidly assumed you wouldn’t be in town. my cousin got married at some golf course. the whole trip was monopolized by family time, though, so i probably wouldn’t have had much time to hang out. your seats behind home plate seem quite awesome.
lame nate!
Oh no (to jamcrae)! Next time… uh, whenever that might be. This seems to be the summer for people to be randomly coming to Ann Arbor. (Jrandall was here earlier.)