Another Successful Opening Day
Apr 8th, 2009 by Scott Hebert
We have a tradition in our family of attending Opening Day at (now) Minute Maid Park. My wife and I started this tradition in high school and we continue it even with the kids in school. The kids love it because they get to leave school early and tell everyone they are heading off to the ballpark.
The ballpark is a three hour drive for us. My wife usually drives to the ballpark and I handle the late night / early morning drive back home. We grab a drink and snack at the half-way point, but don’t fill up. On Opening Day, hot dogs at the ballpark are the dinner of choice!
This year, our Astros played the Chicago Cubs. Apparently, Houston has a huge contigent of displaced Chicagians (?). For a group that has enjoyed very little success over the last 100 years, Cubs fans are a raucous bunch. You can take the Cubs fan out of Wrigley, but you can’t take Wrigley out of the Cubs fan. This trip was no exception and the Cubs fans surrounding us were in rare form. Who can blame them? They’ve got one of the best pitchers in the National League on the mound (Zambrano) and the first day of baseball is more exciting than holding hands with your best girl.
In the end, our team lost, but you would never have guessed it by the reaction from our kids!