Petco Park – Little League Day

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It’s fitting that the first ballpark we visited as a family was Petco Park in San Diego.  It’s our hometown and Petco Park is one of the most beautiful ballparks I’ve ever seen.  It was San Diego County Little League Day which meant lots of kiddos.  My wife Amy signed our son up for the Compadres Kids and he ran the bases of a “real” big league field.

Encinitas Little League & The Hooks

My son Gage’s first ever Little League team was The Hooks.  This team is named after the minor league team in Corpus Christi Texas.  This season we went 8-0!  Or, 0-8 depending on how you decide to keep score.  At this age we really don’t track such details as outs and runs.  Although only a few families from our team were able to make the trip down to the ballpark, the stadium was filled to the brim with little leaguers all dressed up in there baseball outfits and gloves at the ready for stray balls.

Lemon Ice – The Craze Begins

There is no doubt I love sweets.  A lot.  Baseball provides a wonderful excuse to eat with loads of good excuses.  So, when the ballpark vendor with frozen lemonade came around it was a very easy sell.  My son and I got two spoons so we could share and I think he thought it was an eating contest.  Within two minutes we had demolished the frozen lemonade.  The thought did cross my mind to get a second one but sanity prevailed.  We decided instead to get a churro (obviously) which my son still calls “cherrios”.  Too damn cute.  That didn’t last too long either.

Compadres Kids – Waiting in A Tunnel

Thank goodness we found the Compadres kids!  This is a free club that the kids can join and it gets them and the accompanying parents access to the field post game.  Notice the many pictures I took from the field.  The best part is that the kids can run the bases!  How cool is that.  Despite the full level 5 melt-down that occurred as we were walking off the field and the long wait in the tunnel for the game to finish, this experience was WELL worth it!  Note:  The meltdown was triggered when Gage saw a “treasure” and wanted to stop in the middle of the stampede and pick it up.  It was some sorta’ shinny wrapper (very cool I’m sure).  I of course didn’t want the kid to get crushed so kept dragging him along.  Go Padres!  Well, not today, we got CRUSHED.