The Pride of Lowell

No, we didn't take Finley to see the Pride of Lowell, as depicted in The Fighter, but the next best thing that we know of in Lowell--minor league baseball! Our generous neighbors gave us their sweet seats to last night's Lowell Spinners vs Hudson Valley Renegades so the whole family piled in the car to take in the game. The park is really cool and our seats were SO close, we could almost reach the dugout and get onto the field. Since Finley had napped for so long, we made it to the game just as the first couple of pitches were being thrown so we quickly sat down and tuned in. Finley was looking all around and must have recognized "beeball" from our experiences of watching little league down the street, whenever he'd catch a glimpse of the ball he'd point it out and yell "BALLLL!"

In between inning, they did all sorts of fun stuff of the crowd: a frisbee catching dog, t-shirt slingshot, mascot relay races, etc. Sadly, Finley wasn't a huge fan of the giant mascots or the wild crowd cheers, but he handled it alright. He did like the cars racing around the outfield, the little girls sitting near us, clapping with the music in between batters, and the giant Hood Milk Bottle on the centerfield wall.

We sat watching the game for about 4 or 5 inning before walking around a bit.

There's a kid area which will be perfect for Finley in a few years (bouncy house, skeeball, t-ball, tokens, prizes, etc) and after taking him there to scope out the scene, we hopped in a food line. I assumed our cliche-picky-toddler would surely eat a hot dog and anything else would be a bonus. We ordered a hot dog (only $1.50!) for Finley, Dan got a sausage, and I got some chicken fingers and fries for all to share. We sat down and Finley seemed repulsed by the hot dog, seriously repulsed. Hm. We waited a few minutes and tried again, but got nowhere. Hm. He decided to try a french fry, which he hasn't liked in months, and loved it! He ate up a handful, asked for more, and ate my handful. But since hot dogs were a no go, I was worried he wouldn't be full, so I offered a chicken finger but that also seemed repulsive to his sensitive palate. Ug. While he did have chicken nuggets for lunch, I didn't think he was saying no out of boredom. He held onto that chicken finger for upwards of ten minutes and just when I thought there was no hope, he took a bite and devoured it. He asked for more and ate another half that I hadn't eaten (thankfully!). Phew, mission accomplished for a complete baseball game experience!

We stayed until about the 7th inning or so and decided to leave on a high note as Finley clapped with the crowd as the home team finally scored a run to make it 8-1 bad guys. Not a good night for the Spinners, but the Forseters had a blast and if our neighbors are so kind, it won't be our last (free!) visit to the LeLacheur Park. Play ball!