Just prior to lunch, the wife reminded me that we had a weird event to attend today; our first return to baseball in person since before the pandemic hit.

With the shutdown starting during preseason in 2020, and then the staggered pauses, and short return of the season without fans, there was no baseball for us last year. This year they wanted to keep the crowds way down, so they offered ticket holders a stay of fees, and opportunities to pick and choose games. We chose to still not go. The wife had been vaccinated, but I hadn't yet, and there wasn't a glimmer of the kids getting vaccinated, so we decided to stay safe rather than entertained for a few hours every now and again.

With the prevalence of vaccines, and following new state guidelines, our team decided that starting in June, they would open the gates and it's business as usual. As ticket holders, after that date, all of our tickets would be valid, and we'd be charged for them accordingly. Of course, seat swapping and everything else returned to normal, too.

We've decided to take advantage of all of the time off we've accrued, plus the flexabilities offered by working from home, to take all of the day games that our seat partners didn't want. We'll weigh the ability to go to night games, either together (somehow with a sitter?) or split with friends, or address selling or giving away games. We've decided to not do any swapping around to bring the kids, until those guidelines change or they can be vaccinated.

With all of that, at 10AM she reminds me that we have a call at noon, and a game starting at the same time. I rearranged my afternoon, and asked for proxies in the meetings I couldn't postpone. We took our call, and then left for a late and long lunch at the stadium.

They lost, of course. The team is horrible this year, with all of the excuses. I don't hold anyone to blame for it, but that is what it is. We got there just in time to see them pull ahead with a two-run homer (yay!), and then watched as they eeked out a loss, with a glimmer of hope as they came within a run or two of catching up, only to hand out an avalanche of points in the ninth inning.

Still, a fantastic time! A bad day watching baseball is usually better than a good day at work.

Everyone's healthy.