All that once was good, and it could be again…

View of MerchantsAuto.com Stadium. home of the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, from hotel room of the Hilton Garden Inn, downtown Manchester.

We just returned from a weekend in which we were almost completely immersed in baseball.  We went to three Fisher Cats’ games…Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and stayed at the hotel which faces the ballpark, the view of which you see here.  Even if there existed a diet pill that could wean me off of something like this, no way would I ever want it!

The trip coincided with the first matchups of the season between the Red Sox and the hated Y*****s, and of course, much attention was paid to that, as well.

The weekend didn’t go as well for the Fisher Cats as we would have liked…they lost the Friday and Sunday games, won on Saturday.

The Friday game went to extra innings, as did the Sox/Skankees game.  Mike got tired and we started back to the room while the Fisher Cats game was still going on, we stopped at the Sam Adams Bar & Grill in the ballpark for a beer first.  They turned off the beer at the regular ballpark concessions, and I wanted another one.  There, we could watch both games, as well, as the Sam Adams bar has a bunch of HDTVs there.

With both games still going on, we left the bar and headed for the room, where some guy in the hotel elevator said that the Fisher Cats’ pitcher walked in a run.  In the room, we could see the game from the window, and the Fisher Cats lost.  There was to be a fireworks show after the game, which we saw quite well from the room, as well.

Then I turned on the news, and the sports guy said that the Sox game went to extra innings.  Immediately turned that on, and was happy to get to watch them beat the Evil Empire.

Saturday was an afternoon Fisher Cats game, Sox/Skanks were Fox Y***** Game of the Week @ 4PM.  Fishers won, and we went to the Patio bar at the hotel, to grab an early dinner and watch that game on their TV.  The weather was so freakin’ gorgeous, we’re talking 80′s here.  But not humid…I could live with this all year ’round!  They have such a nice patio bar/restaurant at that hotel, we really enjoy hanging out there.

We did eventually go back up to our room, and watched the rest of the Sox/Skanks game there.  The TVs at this place awesome, HDTVs with every digital channel under the sun.  It’s amazing as to how nice this place is, when you look at the room rates.  Definitely a lot of luxury for not as much as you’d expect!

After the Sox kicked some Y***** ass in the end, I went downstairs to check email on the public computer at the hotel.  When I returned to the room, I was looking for something to watch on TV, was flipping around, and guess what movie I found on some cable channel…

Field of Dreams.  Of all of the baseball movies in the world, it just so happened that the one I love the best came on TV right when I was looking for something to watch.  We didn’t catch it from the beginning, but we saw most of it.  And, as usual when I’m watching this movie (which we have on DVD at home), I spent a good deal of it bawling like a baby.  I swear, I could watch this for the 500th time, and it will always have the same effect on me.

But how fitting that this was on when it was, and I was flipping around and saw that it was on?

The part that tears me up the most is this, from James Earl Jones as Terrence Mann.  It’s the scene near the end when Ray (Kevin Costner) is facing his yuppie brother in law (Timothy Busfield) about selling the farm:

Ray, people will come Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won’t mind if you look around, you’ll say. It’s only $20 per person. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh… people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

That pretty much sums up what baseball is all about for me.  And getting to watch it with a view of a real-life ballpark out the window was just priceless.

Finally, another gorgeous day on Sunday for the Fisher Cats game, and then we had to head home.  But not before dinner at the Wild Rover Pub, though!

It was a most perfect trip!