We got up early, drove to Memorial Park and took a slow stroll around the lake while watching this.
Apparently it’s a thing to make the basket hit the water. Several didn’t try. Some tried but pulled up. Maybe 10 did it, and each time there was applause from the spectators. Some dipped once, then lifted and sailed off. Others dragged for quite a ways.
The weather, in every way, could not have been better. We’ll probably make an annual tradition of this.
Let’s review. We had tickets to a Sky Sox vs. Iowa Cubs game earlier in the season. It was cancelled due to rain. I traded our rain checks for tickets to a double-header against Iowa the next night. Both games were cancelled due to field conditions. We now had rain checks for two games. We finally saw one on July 28. I finally cashed the other ticket in for a game during the final weekend of the season.
The Memphis Redbirds, AAA team of the St. Louis Cardinals, were in town. Aledmys Diaz, who played short for Memphis, was a hot-shot rookie for the big league team last season but has been in the minors most of this. He made some great plays on defense, but did nothing with the bat.
Our seats were down close to the field, just up the third-base line.
Memphis hit two home runs in the first and scored again in the third to go up 3-0. The Sky Sox kept chipping away and ended up winning 4-3 in a rather dull game. The highlight came in the third. Valera, the Memphis 2nd baseman, was on third with no outs. Martini flew out to right on a lazy fly ball. As the right fielder lobbed the ball into the infield, Valera suddenly took off for home and was thrown out easily.
A woman in the next section — she must be a Cardinal fan — had a short string of cowbells hooked over the seat in front of her. Every so often, when Memphis was at bat, she would grab them and shake them for a few seconds.
A woman in the row in front of us had a young son, a foul mouth, and a New York accent. She was a Mets fan who knew baseball, but she spent 90% of her time taking selfies.
There was a short, but fairly decent fireworks show after the game.
Of course we had to check out the Colorado State Fair in Pueblo.
We parked in a dirt lot right across from the fair grounds. We were taking our sweet time putting on sun screen and gathering our stuff when we noticed a man in a golf cart waiting to give us a ride to the gate. We piled aboard, and he took off around the outside of the park. Little did we know that this would be the highlight of the day.
At the ticket booth, we found out that Thursday was “Everyone’s a Kid Day.” This meant that we got in for $7 each. It also meant that there was nothing going on this day. The gate had just opened, and we were among the first people in the park.
A guy walked up to us with a camera and insisted on taking photos of us that we could purchase on our way out. Right.
We headed to the cattle barn because no state fair is complete without a stroll along the aisles looking at the back end of cows. Except there were only six cows in the entire barn.
The pig and sheep barn was next. This one was completely empty except for one old woman sitting in a lawn chair reading a book.
I had already decided that we’d come on the wrong day and that this fair, at its best, doesn’t compare to those in the Midwest.
The next barn had birds and rabbits. There were about 20 chickens, all on sale. We didn’t buy any. There were also a variety of birds on display as an exhibit, not part of the competition.
There were, however, quite a few rabbits.
So we’d been at the fair for half an hour. We’d already seen all there was to see in all the animal barns. I checked out the schedule and noticed that the Sea Lion Splash Show was at 1:00. We found the place — two swimming pools with a stage in between.
The show lasted about 10 minutes and included some amazing tricks, like sea lions picking plastic bottles out of the water and putting them in the trash. They only successfully completed about half the tricks. Here’s one jumping out of the water for a “nice try” at hitting the ball.
We bought lunch on the nearly empty midway. What crowd there was consisted mostly of people in wheelchairs bused in from several institutions.
My wife had a chicken kabob. I had corn on the cob and a corn dog.
Not far away, a sorry blue grass band serenaded us with “Do Lord.”
The most interesting part of the fair was the Colorado Agricultural Pavilion which featured animals and crops grown in the state.
There were two or three buildings with 4-H prize winners. Every item I saw had a ribbon of some sort, and the lowest finish I found was 8th place. We were the only people in a couple of these buildings.
I noticed one cake that read” “But the gift of God is eternal life,” and “Do you know Jesus?” I was hoping the opposite side said, “The wages of sin is death,” because that would have been a great cake. But no such luck.
The crowd was not growing.
We poked our heads in three or four other buildings — none of which entertained us for long. There was a pretty cool model railroad display in one.
Also, apparently competitive troll-house building is a thing.
One barn was full of booths, selling everything from phone cases, to nuts, to mattresses (who goes to a state fair and comes home with a mattress?), to art. I’ve never in my life been accosted so aggressively so many times in one day. It didn’t matter that we walked down the exact center of the aisle and studiously avoiding making eye contact or pausing. At almost every booth, someone would come out and hand us something or attempt to engage us in conversation. One guy from the phone-cover booth stepped in front of me and asked me what type of phone I have. I said, “I’m good.” As I walked away, he called after me — voice dripping with as much sarcasm as he could muster, “Sir, I didn’t question whether or not you were good.” We escaped as quickly as we could.
A stroll through the horse barns, past a Clydesdale named Roger, along an outdoor arena with cowboys taking horses through lazy paces while 11 people looked on, and we were done.
We’d been there all of three hours, seen everything there was to see, and had nowhere to go but home. We stopped at McDonald’s in Pueblo and for ice cream in the Springs, and that was our day.
On other days, there are rodeos and big named performers like ZZ Top and Skillet. But on this day, the fair was underwhelming.
The solar eclipse path of totality crossed north of Colorado. In the Springs, it maxed out at 89%. Everyone at work wandered out on the patio every so often to see the progress. Someone brought plates with screens for us to look through, and a telescope. A few people also had eclipse glasses.
Shortly after the moon began its passage across the sun, I tried taking a photo with my phone though one of the plates. The results were less than spectacular.
Later I tried taking a photo through the scope, and this worked better.
As time passed, the light became stranger and the shadows lost their definition.
This was as good as it got in the Springs.
It was cool, but I wish I had made the effort to get to where it was total. The next one is in seven years. It crosses central Arkansas, and it’s on my birthday!
I’m no poet. But once, for reasons I can’t recall, I was inspired to write a poem about the 1987 MLB All-Star Game.
The game went into the 13th inning with no score. The National League finally crossed the plate twice in the top of the inning. In the bottom half, the American League hopes rested on the backs of three players that, at the time, I’d never heard of — Kevin Seitzer (Royals), Pat Tabler (Indians), and Matt Nokes (Tigers). When the game finally ended with a 2-0 National League win, I sat down and wrote this:
It was the last of the thirteenth
They were down by just two
It’s up to Seitzer and Tabler and Nokes
They were the last hope
For the American Crew
They were Seitzer and Tabler and Nokes
And up in the stands
Many voices cried, “Who
Are Seitzer and Tabler and Nokes?”
But there in the spotlight
Among the chosen, the few
Were Seitzer and Tabler and Nokes
In came Fernandez
The crowd gasped as he threw
To Seitzer and Tabler and Nokes
Sid threw four balls to Kevin
Things began to look blue
But not for Seitzer and Tabler and Nokes
But Pat’s efforts were puny
His results were few
Seitzer walked, Tabler choked, now it’s Nokes
With Winfield on deck
Matt knew what to do
Come on Seitzer and Tabler and Nokes!
I’d like to say they were heroes
But when they were through
They were just Seitzer and Tabler and Nokes
Whatever afflicted these three
Caught up with Dave, too
He choked like Seitzer and Tabler and Nokes
Why they were out there
I haven’t a clue
Goodbye Seitzer and Tabler and Nokes
And there you have it — my only attempt at poetry. You’re welcome.
Other players mentioned are Sid Fernandez (Mets) and Dave Winfield (Yankees).
