Take me out to the ball game

If I were going to start a Tumblr called "Attending Major League Baseball Games With Beautiful Women," I'd have a decent amount of content to get started with. But, since I think it's a rule that all Tumblrs must somehow incorporate Nicolas Cage, I'll just post the evidence here instead.

Back in March, my friend Liz and I took a road trip to Arizona to check out spring training. March is definitely the best time of year to spend time outdoors in the Phoenix area, when the temperature is only in the 80s instead of the 110s.

We saw three games in two days, including Angels/Mariners at Diablo Stadium (ironic name for the home of the Angels), Giants/White Sox at Scottsdale Stadium (the Giants are Liz's favorite National League team), and Diamondbacks/Rockies at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick (no pictures here from that facility, which the two teams share, and that's a shame because it's gorgeous, as nice as an actual Major League stadium, just with fewer seats).

More recently, I took my first-ever trip to Seattle, where I saw a bunch of friends I hadn't seen in a while, but Jen was the only one who wanted to go to a game. Before my trip two weeks ago, it had been over six years since Jen and I had seen each other. My favorite team, the Tigers, were playing the Mariners. As we walked to our seats, an elderly usher commented on our conflicting team allegiances, and then actually pulled two baseball cards from his pocket and gave them to us--one of a Seattle player, one of a Detroit player, both from 1998. I love old ballpark employees, because they all seem to really love their jobs. I saw the great Miguel Cabrera hit a home run, but alas, the Mariners were victorious in the end.

From Seattle I flew to New York, and went to Yankees games on back-to-back nights (making three games in four nights; I've had two big baseball binges this year and it was so great). I went to the first game with my friend Bryan; he's a handsome enough guy, but there's no room for him in this post. The next night, my friend Erin joined me. She was one of my favorite people when I lived in NYC, and luckily she hasn't moved away yet like so many of my other favorites. We waited out an hour-plus rain delay, and I got to see Derek Jeter play in person for likely the last time ever. If I was a fan of Jeter and the Yanks, that might make me sad. I would be more broken up if I knew that I'd never again get to see the weird Cracker Jack vendor from our section.

A couple things are evident here: one, the regular iPhone camera takes much clearer pictures than the front-facing camera on my Android; two, I have extremely attractive friends (they're also great people and delightful to talk to, but that's harder to convey in a selfie); and three, combining one awesome thing (baseball) with another awesome thing (gorgeous gals) results in a doubly awesome thing. I had two pretty stellar vacations.

You may all begin making your "getting to first base" quips...now. Take me out to the ball game, indeed.