Minor League Ball is the Best – Even if it rains

Recently I created a survey for people to take to see how much they knew about me. I know kinda lame but it was a good waste of time anyway. One of the questions I guess was a little tricky. It was “What sport do you like watching most on Television”. The Television part is what makes it tricky. I like watching football most on television. But most people answered baseball. This was a good guess. While I find football more fun to watch on TV, baseball is by far the sport I like best and I love going to baseball games. Personally I feel like the funnest games to go to are minor league games. While the pro games have a higher level of play they seem a little more sterile. All you really get is the game. The minor league games put more emphasis on the fun rather than the sport and this makes the games a lot more fun.

I have been able to see many different teams in many different stadiums across the country. The Saint Paul Saints, the Mud Dogs in Lincoln, the ICubs in Des Moines, the Dayton Dragons, and most recently the Arkansas Naturals. Who I thought were named after the lead character form The Natural a baseball movie from the eights but are actually named after the state’s nick name of The Natural State. The Naturals play in a stadium that is quite literally in the middle of farm land. It is 10 minutes or so out site of Fayetteville. The stadium itself is quite nice and modern. It is the only minor league stadium I have been to with executive boxes. My guess this money came from Tyson, Daisy, and Wal-Mart. However I think that most people would be surprised to about the number of large companies that exist in Northwest Arkansas.

Of course the Natural’s lost to some Oklahoma team but the game was fun. Between innings we were treated to a bunch of ridiculous entertainment. Including a guy that dressed up like Michael Jackson and using some long poles attached four Michael Jackson mannequins so that when he moves they make identical moves. Every couple of innings he would come out and do a different MJ song and dance routine, it was hilarious. Other entertainment included a tricycle race, kids dressing up like Sponge Bob, and other creative contests. I got to chow down on the usual ball park food of hot dogs and beer. However there was also the addition of great garlic fries that had the side affect of some killer breath that lasted a couple of days.

The game was ok. Not a ton of action. The other team pretty much just walked all over the Naturals. There was high hope in the 7th when a rally start to take shape but it was quickly squashed. The weather wasn’t the greatest either. Initially just windy and cool we ended up sitting several innings in a misty rain. I thought it funny because it was certainly not the worst weather but certainly not the best and while most of the client resources that went to the games stayed for most of the game I was the only consultant that stayed as long. The rest of my team left after maybe only 5 innings. Oh well it was their loss because most the excitement was in those later innings. Plus the rain didn’t of set the fun of the game. I will certain try to get there again before I am off this project.