Who we gonna root for? Round Rock Express!

Day: 360
High Temp: 101F

Saturday night Tom and I joined our friends, the Mannings, for our first ever Minor League Baseball experience. We traveled just outside Austin to the Dell Diamond to see the Round Rock Express take on the Fresno Grizzlies. When we arrived at the Manning abode, little Fin (adorable five-year old superhero enthusiast) yelled, "who we gonna root for?" To which us grown-ups replied, "Round Rock Express!" We did this many times over the course of the night, much to Fin's delight.

I am not a fan of the Houston Astros, the club for which the Express serves as AAA affiliate. That said, it is amazing how willing to overlook this fact I was in order to join in the spirit and root-root-root for the home team.  It was a great night, and a great game, with the Express beating the Grizzlies 4-1. I could literally write pages about how much fun we had, but here are the highlights:

-The stadium!  The Dell Diamond is a gorgeous place to take in a game, and it's so intimate. Intimacy work well for art and sports, so it would seem.  I am now a huge enthusiast of AAA ball for this reason alone.

-The beer! A 24 ounce Shiner was only 6.50.  Nice!

-The nachos!  Allowing for the standard ball park queso, there was a serve yourself tub of pickled jalapenos which put these nachos into a new class of yummy.

-The pitching! The Express pen was able to keep the Grizzlies to 1 run, and really, for both sides it was a tight game.

-Spike!  Spike the Express mascot, is hound dog dressed up like an old school train engineer.  Fin and his mom Courtney took a trip to the Express merchandise store around the 6th inning and brought back a miniature stuffed Spike. Fin and I spent the next two innings creating a super hero story that included Spike as the central good guy, but also featured his side-kick Needles, and his arch-nemesis Steelman!

-Kiss Cam! Yep, we were on it and that was funny.

-The Eyes of Texas?  Yeah, so between innings... maybe 3 and 4... they played the UT fight song. I actually noticed that more people seemed to be wearing burnt orange than the Express' Navy and Red earlier in the game, but this was hilarious.  With fingers in longhorn formation, thousands in the stands sang along to show their... longhorn pride I guess.

-An actual train!  Giving the team it's name, the train runs really close to the field and we heard its whistle at two different points during the game. When this happens, they play the opening lines of "Folsom Prison Blues" over the stadium PA.

When Tom and I were first planning our move to Austin, I actually thought quite a bit about Austin's lack of professional sports.  I spent the first 28 years of my life in St Louis and Chicago, two seriously baseball-loving cities.  I wondered what I would do so far from a major league team. What I have now learned is that Minor League baseball is a great substitute for the Majors. I will no longer look down upon all those many small towns that are home to, and genuinely love, minor league teams.