Planes, Trains, and "Alberta?!": A Casual MLB Fan's First Game Experience

In the decade or so since I started keeping an eye on professional baseball, America's pastime and I haven't exactly had a love-hate relationship, but what can be better described as the more apathetic like-"meh" relationship.

While I certainly don't dislike baseball, growing up as a hockey-phile north of the 49th Parallel has primed me to favor faster-paced, consistently-flowing sports over ones that take a slower, more methodical approach to completion.

So, at the very least, I've always found watching an actual, full-length game on television somewhat tedious—unless I'm enjoying it with a relatively-large contingent of friends and beer, or simulating my own outcomes through the medium of a Nintendo Gamecube controller.

But that isn't to say that there aren't aspects of baseball that I don't revel in.

Sure, I do like wearing baseball hats. For team support, fashion, and practicality.

That episode of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns brings in ringers for the Springfield Nuclear Plant softball team is still one of my favourites. (LORD PALMERSTON!)

And I did almost get my Grade Six class banned from playing baseball during recess, due to my careless tendency to hurl the bat behind me upon running to first, oftentimes nailing the catcher in the process (look, I hit a kid in the throat once, it was an accident).

Good times.

So while baseball may never hold the key to my heart as far as sports are concerned, there are elements of the culture that do still resonate with me. Perhaps it can have a key to my kidney or something.

Ranking above all of the merchandise and all of injuries I've inflicted, however, is actually getting to attend a baseball game.

Something about the atmosphere of being at the ballpark from the first time that I sat in the grandstands at Telus Field to watch the Edmonton Trappers (now the Round Rock Express of the Pacific Coast League) has always made me enjoy being at the stadium, watching the action unfurl right before my eyes.

Maybe it's the ninth-inning tension. Maybe it's the crowd around me throwing up arms as a home run sails over the wall. Maybe it's the hope that you'll take home an errant ball, even if you have to bulldoze through a dozen eight-year-olds and barehand that sucker just to do so.

Either way, like all sports, you appreciate it more when you're watching it live.

So when I was planning out my summer, and came to the conclusion that I wanted to visit New York for the second time—my first visit taking place in May 2007—I saw a window of opportunity and my mission suddenly became clear: not only was I going to attend a baseball game; I was going to attend my first Major League Baseball game.

Strike that one from from my to-do list.

Prior to 2007, I would've naturally assumed that my first tryst with Major League Baseball would take place in either one of two places—Safeco Field in Seattle or the Rogers Centre in Toronto (respectively, because the former is the closest MLB destination to Edmonton, and the latter being home to the only Canadian team.)

However, with New York suddenly becoming a distinct possibility as the location in which to lose my Major League virginity, who the hell was I to say "no"?

Sure enough, about a couple months ago, I purchased my tickets to watch the New York Mets throw down the gauntlet with the Los Angeles Dodgers at Citi Field on July 9, 2009.

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