Batter up!

For those of you taking the time to read this, you are witnessing something that has never, in all of history, happened before: I'm going to write about baseball.

Rich took some time off work, so today was Day One of our Minor League Road Trip 2013. (if any information from here on out is incorrect, just roll with it)

Here, in the Pacific Northwest, our minor league is the NWL, the Northwest League of Professional Baseball. We have eight minor league teams in the NWL. They are: Everett, Spokane, Tri-Cities and Vancouver, BC in the North division and Boise, Eugene, Hillsboro, and Salem in the South division. Minor league teams, for those who didn't already know, are essentially the training ground on the road to playing in the major leagues. Each minor league team is affiliated with a major league team. For example, the Everett Aquasox are the minor league team for our Seattle Mariners.

On this trip, we will tour and catch three minor league games. Today, we were in Hillsboro, OR in their stunning, brand-new, state-of-the-art stadium watching the Hillsboro Hops (affiliated with the Arizona Diamondbacks) play the Tri-City Dust Devils (affiliated with the Colorado Rockies). Our seats were about six rows from the field by third base and you couldn't have asked for a better evening to be at a ball game. It was warm with a light breeze, the sunlight lit up the field in a very inviting manner, the beer was cold, the crowd (about 2800+ on a Thursday night) was friendly and very supportive of their relatively new ball team.

As I understand it, all the players on the Hillsboro Hops are Diamondbacks' employees. They are playing their hearts out, hoping to move up the minor league ladder and into the majors, or the "Big Show", in baseball lingo. After tonight, we have two more cities and two more games and plenty of time on the road to sing badly and enjoy each other's company.

By the way, Hillsboro won 3-2.