Oh boy…where to begin with this one.

Let’s start with the simple but important details. Railriders against Red Wings. First of all, I was in attendance for one reason with one goal. To put it lightly, my grandmother passed away the day before this (Friday the 10th). She was super close, so I wanted to see a game within 48 hours to hopefully snag a game home run in memory of her. Would have gone Friday, but of course it had to rain, meaning that Saturday would be a doubleheader. And that just screams “YES!”

Because of stuff, I got to the stadium right as the first game was ending. Based on the score alone, I kinda wish I was there for the full thing:

Woah…ok.

I pride myself in having a 4 year long consecutive game streak of snagging at least one ball at every game I’ve attended. I count doubleheaders as 2 games, and luckily as the bullpen was exiting, I managed to save that streak and get on the board for the first game.

That felt great. And honestly, that was it for a while. The entirety of pregame went by, nothing. Naturally, I took that as a sign to take my operation to the outfield.

Going into the top of the 1st, a home run was launched to left field behind the bullpens. Here’s that ball:

Usually, people aren’t allowed back there to grab home runs. However, somehow 2 college kids were granted access to down there with no connections to anyone. Excuse my language, but that kind of pissed me off for a bit. I got over it though, and I’m glad I did.

After that, I headed back to right field and positioned myself between where the grassy berm ends and the walkway to the bar starts.

Fast forward to the bottom of the 6th. I’ll be truthful, I kind of lost hope for snagging a homer. Everything has to go right to get one, and usually I don’t get more than one opportunity for one. That’s not to say I wouldn’t, all I remember is this:

Jose Rojas CRUSHED a deep fly ball in my direction. I read it perfectly and was right under it, genuinely thought I was going to catch it on the fly. However, the wind was blowing straight out, and it kept carrying going just over my head. Luckily…

I was able to beat the race and grab that ball. And as you can tell by the celebration, I was pretty happy about it. I’m also super happy that the broadcast caught me giving a point to the sky for my grandma.

I could snag literally any home run after this one, and NONE of them will be nearly as meaningful as this one. For how special my grandma was to me, snagging a home run for her was all I wanted to accomplish in this game. I honestly broke down in tears afterwards, and I’m still shedding some as I’m writing this.

That was basically it. Doubleheaders mean that each game is only 7 innings, and since the Railriders were leading 5-3, there wouldn’t need to be a bottom half to the 7th if they kept the lead. That they did, and despite only snagging 2 balls for the entire day, I’d say I was more than satisfied.

STATS FOR THESE GAMES

2 BALLS TOTAL:

– Game 1: toss up post game from Red Wings bullpen

– Game 2: Jose Rojas game home run, bottom of the 6th to right field

LIFETIME TOTAL: 261