I woke up on July 3 thinking it would be cool to go to a baseball game on the Fourth of July. Full disclosure: I’m not much of a fireworks fan. BUT…if they’re fireworks after a baseball game, I’m in. I wasn’t quite sure how I could go about convincing my family to drive to Modesto on Independence Day to watch a single-A baseball game, particularly when the temperature at home was a beautiful 72 degrees. And the temperature in Modesto was a somewhat less beautiful 97 degrees at game time. But whereas I can do without fireworks on the Fourth of July (unless at a baseball game, remember!), I thought it might be a nice way to entice the fam to check out a new ballpark.

Turns out they didn’t need that much enticing. I mean, with the kids I can still pretty much just say “We’re going to a baseball game and I am going to buy you a bunch of ballpark food” and they’ll go. Leigh was kinda into the trip too, seeing as we had no other plans (or maybe she was just being nice). So we piled in the Jeep around 4:30 that afternoon and started on the trek to check out the Nuts.

Driving inland in California is probably always going to be a weird journey for me. Is it like that for everyone? You leave the Bay Area and within about 20 minutes, assuming traffic isn’t insane, you’re all of a sudden on the moon. Mountain passes and desolate ranch land, then endless miles of farm fields and orange groves. By the time you’re close to Modesto (or most of the other inland cities), you’re wondering if the city even exists. I swear we were 10 minutes from the stadium and feeling like the only people on the planet.

But then we got right up to the ballpark and saw that everyone in town, I think, was at the game. One of the parking lots was already full, and the other was getting there fast. Turned out to be a nice game day crowd: 3,943 in a ballpark that holds 4,000. And plenty of red, white and blue!

First pitch was thrown by…someone. I didn’t quite catch the name. But I do know who CAUGHT the first pitch, because they made a pretty big deal of him. Hometown hero and Dallas Cowboys cornerback DaRon Bland (who had five interceptions in his rookie season, I discovered after going to his Wikipedia entry) received a nice round of applause and then took pics with the Nuts’ mascots.

Speaking of, there are three Nuts mascots: Shelly the Pistachio, Wally the Walnut, and Al the Almond. They represent the types of nuts grown in the Valley, although I’m not entirely sure if those are the ONLY nuts grown in the Valley (no Petey the Peanut?). They definitely had fun and the crowd dug them, to the point of even getting autographs.

One super fan I met, a 22-year-old named Jordan, was there with the largest baseball glove I’d ever seen, so I felt compelled to wander over and say hello. He had three baseballs with him, one of which he had nabbed with his monster mitt earlier that day. He was having a blast clapping and yelling encouragement at his favorite team. We chatted and cheered for a bit and I asked if I could take his photo. “Sure,” he said. “I like you! You’re a nice guy!” He pointed out the autographs he had collected on his Nuts’ jersey, including his own on his left shoulder. He was a nice guy too. I like him!

As for the game itself, I am pretty sure I saw in-person two baseball game occurrences for the first time in my life:

The first happened in the fifth inning, when the benches cleared. Something caused it. I don’t really know what it was, nor did anyone else in the stands. The Nuts were up 5-0 and cleanup hitter Gabriel Gonzalez, a 19-year-old undrafted Venezuelan kid hitting .350, had just swatted a bomb, so I’m guessing something got said by someone. As is typical, everyone hurried out to the middle of the infield and then stood around for a while, before heading back to their respective spots. But we all got real excited for a minute there.

The second was in the bottom of the seventh. After the Ports had cut the deficit to 5-3, The Nuts number-9 batter, second baseman Justin Lavey drilled a pitch down the left-field line. What seemed like a rather standard stand-up double took a VERY interesting right-hand turn off of the corner wall, bouncing 90-degrees directly into center field. And it bounced hard; hard enough that Lavey wasn’t content with a triple and made the decision to head for home. A nice relay made the play at the plate super close, but Lavey was ruled safe and the Nuts cheered his inside-the-park home run.

I’m going to guess that this combination of events in the same game (bench-clearing incident and inside-the-park-three-run-homer by 9-hole batter) have happened almost never in the history of organized baseball. Is it possible we witnessed something no one else ever has? Who knows. Let’s say yes.

The Nuts (Mariners low-A team) ended up beating the Stockton Ports (Oakland A’s affiliate) 8-3, and we settled in to watch the fireworks. The show was fun, but what made it even cooler was the fact that the entire Modesto team sprawled out along the first base line with their phones to watch the show. It was another of those small town minor league things that you just don’t get to see at the Major League level..

I also had a chance to see another former student in a professional game (second time this summer, or I guess my third after I saw Josh Kasevich both in Vancouver and again in Eugene). This time I was able to see the Ports’ center fielder Henry Bolte, who was on my sports magazine staff last year before being drafted in the second round by the A’s. Henry, who hits third for Stockton, was hit by a pitch and scored one of the Ports’ three runs in the sixth. He was in my class for a couple of years and I had a chance to watch him grow into a beast; he’s now 6’3″ and 200 lbs. and just LOOKS like a ballplayer; I’ll be rooting for him!