On May 17th, David and I had a date night downtown. It is rare that we travel downtown, but since my husband didn't grow up frequenting downtown, we try to take trips into the "city." For someone who didn't go downtown a lot, he sure can navigate his way downtown.
Many of you may know about the "Great Flood of 2011." A bunch of you actually texted/called/emailed/Facebooked to check on our house. The news made it sound like every part of Memphis was underwater. And that was far from true. Yes, there were people who were flooded, but no one was ever forced to evacuate. Thankfully. Anyway, this date night out fell during the "Great Flood," so my hubby had to be extra good at navigating downtown to account for closings of roads.
Anyway...we traveled downtown for an evening of baseball! Now, if you know me, you know I love THIS place:
Yep! That's Dudy Noble! :) Well it's not every day that my team travels to Memphis to play at Autozone Park downtown. So even though the ticket office was confused and printed us tickets to a game for the Memphis Redbirds vs the Fresno Grizzlies, we were there to watch MSU take on the Memphis tigers.
I love baseball. I love the smell of the baseball field. I love hanging out with my hubby, watching our alma mata!
This is one of the VERY few players that was playing when I was a diamond girl and is still playing now. Yay for Cody Freeman!
Luckily, we pulled out a W! And enjoyed a fantastic night at the baseball field.
The very best part of being in Memphis and being at this game was getting to see my good friend Mary Beth! Mary Beth and I were Diamond Girls together and boy do we sure have some wonderful memories from traveling with the team! I. Miss. This. Girl. I'm not telling you anything that she wouldn't when I say that we are definitely an odd set of friends. We share a love for baseball. And since we were both freshmen and didn't know many other people that were Diamond Girls when we became part of the team, we frequently were paired to work together. No complaints from us. We didn't want to sit on the field and talk about what we were wearing to our next date party. We wanted to watch the game. (by no means am I saying that we were the only diamond girls that wanted to watch the game!) Anyway, we became great friends. These are just a few photos from our Diamond Girl days. (You know that song "Glory Days?" I feel like we should insert it here!)
I had a friend was a big baseball player back in high school
He could throw that speedball by you
Make you look like a fool boy
Saw him the other night at this roadside bar
I was walking in, he was walking out
We went back inside sat down had a few drinks
but all he kept talking about was
Glory days well they'll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye
Glory days, glory days
Back to the photos!
BBQ Pig Cookoff:
Dudy Gras Parade:
First Pitch Banquet:
Getting "warm" next to the Left Field Lizards Grill:
At GTR about to get on our chartered flight to Kentucky:
I'm sorry MB...While this is not of the two of us, I found this picture and HAD to put it in here! Do you remember this? Do you know what Ryan Powers was making fun of us for? Bahaha! This was also from the same night that they wore tennis shoes and D had to get them in! Ah...fun memory!
At games in Kentucky...where Polk got tossed in all three games, and MB and I went out to center field on their make shift platform/left field lounge attempt to interrogate the Kentucky fan with a video camera. We thought he was stealing our pitches for Cohen (Cohen was the Kentucky coach at the time). It turned out, he was the father of the Kentucky pitcher. HAHA!
Cohen talked the concession stand at Kentucky into selling GINORMOUS hot dogs! When they asked him how to find buns that were big enough to hold the hot dogs, he responded with telling them to make wristbands that said FIO - Figure It Out.
Getting ready before our final game as Diamond Girls
Top of the 9th, last game of our Diamond Girl "career" and the last game of Coach Polk's career at MSU.
Out of order, but this is from our trip to LSU. We stopped in McComb for Crawfish:
At the end of our last game, we headed out to Left Field for some quality time with all of the Left Fielders, players, coaches, and diamond girls. It was and always will be at the top of my favorite memories at Dudy Noble. The game was over, our time as official baseball team members was over, and looking back, we all knew it was a special time. Tons of players were in town from all over to celebrate Polk's last game. We sat out there past when the sun went down and none of us wanted to leave. We knew MSU Baseball was about to drastically change, both for us, but for the alumni as a whole. It was such a fun celebration of my time as a diamond girl. I wouldn't have ended it another way...
This is Snoot. Snoot fed us frequently in Left Field on game days. Snoot offers advice. Snoot is hilarious. My baseball experience would have been drastically different without Snoot!
Mrs. Anna was also responsible for feeding us a bunch! We loved going to visit her in Left Field!
Why all the recap of MB and our time as a Diamond Girl? Well, since MB was finishing physical therapy school, she met us at the game. She called me right before we were walking out the door and said...please, please, please, wear your white jersey. After much grumbling, dragging my feet, and my husband rolling his eyes, I grabbed the old jersey and dusted it off! One more time for old times sake! And so that's how MB and I both showed up at a Memphis/MSU game in Memphis, TN, three years after we finished being Diamond Girls in our Diamond Girl jerseys!
And I wouldn't have had it any other way!
Now our team is headed to a super regional today. Get so excited! We're hoping for a repeat of 2007 and a college world series appearance. While MB didn't go, I couldn't not give you a picture of the Diamond Girls in Omaha! Hoping we return soon! (even if I can't go!)
Here's to OUR Glory Days and an Omaha birth for 2011!
No comments:
Post a Comment