Macs and baseball

I haven't been writing much this week because I have been working late and I am tired when I get home and don't feel like sitting at a computer again.

But now I am back on a Mac! How can II not be energized?

I have been thinking recently about my first pro baseball game. Major League, I mean. I did go to an Alexandria Dukes game and see Washington Capital Dennis Maruk.

My uncle took me, a brother, our friend Carlos and I think Carlos' brother Dead Fish (not sure why we called him that) to Memorial Stadium to see the Baltimore Orioles play the Toronto Blue Jays. I was 9.

The Orioles won in the 12th inning on a Doug DeCinces homer. But that is not really too important. What happened in the 7th or 8th inning was one of the highlight of my life.

We were in the eighth row or something so we all brought our gloves, but of course no catchable fouls came our way.

As the game was winding down I made my way down to the ball girl. She was chatting with an older woman, so I just stood there waiting.

"It looks like someone is about to ask you to marry him," said the woman to the ball girl when the woman noticed me. No, but it was almost as important. "Can I have a ball?"

She told me she did not have one but if she got a foul, it was mine.

Sure enough, she got a foul ball and called me down to the fence between the stands and the field. She opened my glove -- my Richie Zisk model -- and pretended to look at it -- "that's a real nice glove," she said -- and she folded the ball in the glove's webbing.

How cool was/is that?

I still have that ball. I got a few autographs that night, and added others here and there. No one famous outside Baltimore, but it doesn't matter. I have a real game baseball.

I hope the ball girl knows how thankful I still am for her kindness.

This is not bitter at all. I must still be delirious from using a Mac again.