#1 (my first ballgame) Your first game was Wrigley Field in 1971. We came up over the 4th of July weekend from Bloomington, Indiana, where we were spending the summer at IU. It was my last summer for course work there. The game was a complete sellout, with over 40,000 fans. There were fewer seats then and I think it was the largest crowd to date in the ballpark. You had just learned to walk and did not stay in your seat. We got lots of requests from standing room only's for your seat, but we never gave it away. We also came up to Chicago in the summer of 1969 over the 4th. It was our first visit to the city. Almost without a doubt you were conceived during that trip in a Howard Johnson's in Hammond, Indiana. We could not afford to stay in the city. The next summer we were again in the city for the 4th, having come up from Bloomington. We were driving up Lakeshore Drive and your Mom was nursing you. We noticed a school bus along side the car with the name of some retirement center on the side. It was filled with retired men and they were all taking a peek. The bus stayed steady beside us until we came to the Belmont exit, then they turned off because that is how one goes to Wrigley Field from there. I remember we then continued to the end of the Drive and wondered if we should go on up to see Evanston and Northwestern University. (I had been accepted there for graduate school but chose IU instead.) We decided we had seen enough, so Evanston could wait until some later time. Well....it arrived! (towanda notes: Daddy works in Evanston now)
#2 (my early baseball memories) Yes
#10 (the family baseball pantheon) Stan Musial also
#11 (my grandmother's threat) She meant it! (towanda notes: I was afraid of that!)
#17(metal bats being an abomination) Absolutely
And finally: According to your mother real baseball is played north and east of Saint Louis, in the daylight, on grass, and the PITCHER BATS.
So there you go!
