Game 7: Cincinnati Reds

On the warm Saturday afternoon of June 9th we made our way to "Great American Ball Park", home of the Cincinnati Reds.  We arrived early to in an effort to get the "Reds grill set" giveaway, and it paid off.  In each small rectangular box came a spatula, tongs and a brush.  And they were high quality too.  After entering the park we immediately made our way to the Right Field bleachers to try our luck at nabbing a few home run bombs during batting practice.   Few things get your heart racing like a ball screaming off the end of a bat heading right toward you.  The three of us split up to increase our odds of getting one of these mementos but we came up empty handed.  Several of them came right at me and one even hit my glove, but with the mad scramble of fighting off everyone else going for the ball it was difficult to actually make the grab.  All three of us enjoyed the pregame festivities and want to try our luck at least one more time.

                         

Once the game started the atmosphere cranked up several notches.  The Reds were hosting the Detroit Tigers, who we had just seen two days prior, and many Tigers' fans came to root on their team, being only 4-5 hours away.  The place became electric well before the first pitch was tossed.  At times I wondered which ballpark I was roaming because the Tigers' fans made plenty of ruckus to rival the home team's cheers.

This fun day also happened to be Jake's birthday.  His girlfriend, Katie, had messaged me a couple days prior letting me know that she arranged for the scoreboard to show a birthday message and a gift bag to be brought to him.  Ryan and I did our best to have him looking at the scoreboard at the end of the third inning and we were successful!  Our little rendezvous to get a gift bag from the Reds' Cheer squad at the end of the fifth inning was also successful, although it took Jake a good convincing to stick around the Right Field bleachers for that long period of time.

All in all the game was great, even though the Reds fell to the Tigers 3-2.  The folks of Cincinnati were very kind and fascinated with our trip across the country.  On a final note: we were told by many people, both in Cincinnati and from people who have visited Cincinnati, to visit a famous chili restaurant called Skyline.  We attempted to visit it on the way to Pittsburgh that evening but they were closed!  At 10 pm on a Saturday night!  So, we looked one up in Cleveland and decided we will have to wait until our way back.