No, my child chose his own personal Mecca -- Dodger Stadium.
He's been obsessed with the Dodgers since the day I met him. He's seen them a couple times during the Freeways series, but only at Angel Stadium. We've gotten tickets twice to games at Dodger Stadium, but once he got in trouble, and once he got sick. So he's been pining to see a game there for as long as I can remember. (And though we've been to Angel Stadium loads of times, he says that doesn't count.)
He knows I'm a big believer in learning by doing whenever we can (instead of researching on the Internet). So choosing Dodger Stadium was even more genius, because the little rat knew I'd take him there. He figured he'd finally see the Dodgers in Dodgertown, all in the name of education.
What he didn't count on was the fact that baseball season hasn't started yet. So yes, I agreed to take him to the Cesar Chavez Ravine, but broke it to him gently that his Dodgers were at spring training in Phoenix. But I could take him on a stadium tour if he still wanted to go.
And boy, did he! The only thing that made it better was when the Black Eyed Peas, his favorite band, came on the radio singing his favorite song, just as we drove into the parking lot.
The tour was pretty cool. We started on the top deck, and learned all sorts of cool facts about the stadium -- like how the seat colors were supposed to represent the beach (the yellow seats are dry sand, the orange-y seats are wet sand, and the blue seats are the ocean).
Then it was down a few floors to the Vin Scully press box. Mark raced around photographing the newspaper names on the desks. I watched in awe as the guide unveiled the organ used for every round of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." I turned to share my joy with Mark, only to see him disappear behind the desks at the other end of the press box. He picked that moment to play hide and seek.
After a stern reminder that we were here for him, we carried on. We got to go through the restaurant and see the championship bats. We saw tons of memorabilia, the championship trophies, too, and even some Olympic medals. It was all pretty cool.
Next stop was the best -- into the players clubhouse! We snaked through the halls, past the umpires lounge, and out onto the field. They wouldn't let us on the grass, but we were allowed into the dugout and onto the dirt.
Mark made a beeline for the dugout -- he wanted to drink from the same water fountain the pros drink from.
He sat on the bench for a bit, then remarked he didn't feel quite comfortable there.
"Why not?" I asked.
"You know," he said, eyeing the floor. "Because they spit all over the floor."
"They do," I agreed. But they aren't here now."
We took some other cool photo ops. Here's Mark trying to sneak into the player's locker room.
And calling up to the head office for a relief pitcher.
Sliding (not so gracefully) into the dirt. He vowed he would never wash the sacred dirt from his clothes.
And of course, even the coolest things in the world get boring after a while.
All in all, we spent a good couple hours in the ballpark. It was so interesting, I almost emerged a Dodger fan as well. (Mark had to remind me of my allegiance. Go Angels!!)
Mark didn't have quite as much fun putting together his poster board for class, but he finished it yesterday and was proud of it. I'm still not convinced Dodger Stadium is a California landmark, but hey, if it makes my son interested in learning, I'm all for it.
But not as much as I'm for the Angels. ;-)
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