Sunday, March 27, 2011

Spring Training has Sprung

MSOE (Milwaukee School of Engineering) has its alumni event every year at one of the final Brewer's spring training games. And this year, the weekend they picked could not have been better. A lovely 72 degree sunny day. To contrast, those left in Milwaukee were shivering at a chilly 29 degrees at the start of game time.

Prior to the game, MSOE holds a tailgate where we nosh on burgers, brats, hot dogs, and typical tailgater fare. This year the boys played catch with their friend Brayden (who they only see once a year at this event!) prior to entering the park.


Once inside, Brandon immediately began to ask about Brayden's whereabouts, so Dave took the boys over to the lawn seating so they could watch part of the game from there. I was lucky enough to stay in the bleachers and actually watch the first few innings uninterrupted! This was truly a luxury. If you've ever attended a sporting event with our boys you know that they don't really care much about the actual game. The draw for them is solely and completely the food; ice cream, hot dogs, and any other treat they can wrestle out of us.

Dave also took the boys to the Brewer shop and each one picked out a representative sausage from the World Famous Brewer Sausage Race. Brandon chose the Polish, and our little copycat, Noah, chose the sausage Brandon picked last year, Hot Dog Man. Their excitement was obvious when they returned to the bleachers with their loot...but they became even more excited when the sausages appeared in the 6th inning to run the race. Would it be Polish that would win? Hot Dog Man? Not this year, Italian won by at least two lengths...which is pretty long when you consider we're talking gigantic running sausages.


Then, we noticed those sausages wandering by behind us in the concourse, so the boys hustled over and got autographs and a picture. Excitement at its best! No actual player autographs, but I'm sure the autograph given by "Brat" and "PS" (Polish Sausage) will be invaluable one day.


And so will the memories shared by our exhausted boys.

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