Once in a lifetime evening

Dear Pops,

As we go through our lives we have moments that stay with you forever. Tonight, I had one of those moments with Andrew.

Tonight Andrew and me went to see the Florida Marlins play. This is our first father/son baseball game so I was already expecting it to be special. However, with a rain out Monday night the night turned into a double header so it was made a little bit more special. Now, originally I was going to have us leave around 5th inning of the second game... However, some one intervened and changed the night forever.

Here is what happened...

We arrived at the stadium about 7pm, the first game was in the 5th inning. We made our way to the seats in section 127 (lower level, if you did not know). This is an excellent spot for catching home run balls so Andrew and myself were excited we might get one. Once we got to our seats it was obvious no one was going to the game. The entire section was basically empty. The first few rows had people in it and then people were scattered. We were in the 22nd row so we found our seats and sat there. The feeling of emptiness reminded me a lot when you used to take us to baseball games.

We watched the rest of the first game and the Marlins win. We then grabbed a couple hot dogs and drinks between games (Thanks Todd!) while we waited the 25 minutes for the second game to start. Everything is going good Andrew is getting into it and I started scoping the lower rows to see where we can move up for a better shot at a ball. Around the 3rd inning I figured we would move when it ended.

However... Fate had something else in store.

As we are sitting there cheering on the Marlins someone walks over. They asked me I want their tickets, they said they are leaving and they are mine if I want them... He goes on to say they are Batter's Box tickets(I had no clue what this meant). I said sure and he gave me the tickets... As we are getting up to leave I look at the tickets to see where to go, the section reads 46... Yeah, try to find that section on the diagram of the stadium. It will be hard since it does not exist for the most part... I figure find section 146 and go down a level. We get there and I can't find anything that says Section 46 or Batter's Box. So, I ask an attendant where to go. Well.... from that point forward we have a personal escort as we are taken through the underneath of the stadium, and to a small restaurant where our tickets are checked for a 3rd time. Someone then leads us through the restaurant and when we appear.... We are staring at the back of the home plate umpire no more then 20 feet in front of us!!! We then get escorted directly to our seats...

At this point Andrew and me are just amazed, we are sitting on the field behind home plate... You know the netting behind home plate to stop foul balls? Well, we could literally grab and hold on to that net. We were maybe 15 feet from the Marlins dugout... To top it off I recognized the person sitting between us and the dugout.... It was none other then David Samson the Marlins team president! He was there with a couple other higher level members of the Marlins.

At this point we are have such a good time... But, it gets better!

Andrew really wanted a baseball and was getting upset because we were basically to close to get a foul ball. Well, one of the people with David Samson solved that issue. He went over to the bat boy and got a baseball just for Andrew and gave it to him. Andrew never asked him and sat patiently hoping we would get one. The guy took it upon himself to get one and give it to Andrew.

You are probably saying this can not get any better right? Well... The game lasted 13 innings! So we sat there for 4 hours cheering on the Marlins alongside the team president until almost 2am... Andrew cheered right along the whole time having a blast.

I didn't say anything to David Samson during the game because he is there to watch the game and not have people come up to him... But, once the game ended he came over and started talking to Andrew and me about how impressed he was Andrew stayed up and how this day would go down in our lives as one we will never forget and the memories will be worth a lifetime.

And he is right... I do not think Andrew or myself with ever forget this evening.

Oh yeah.... I forgot... We couldn't leave right away because we had to wait for the players to leave the dugout and go to the locker room... Which is right across from the restaurant we had to go through to get to our seats.... And yes we were escorted all the way back out!

Very tired.... But happy... talk to you later!