It’s a week or two before the Jewish New Year, with lots to do in preparation for this auspicious time of year. Still, it’s a good a time as any for  my husband and I to spend quality time with our grandchildren. Since every summer we have a tradition to take our two young grandsons (now ages 5 1/2 and 8 1/2) to watch a ballgame, we found time to do that last night.

Admittedly we were a bit delayed with the ritual due to our older son’s wedding a few weeks ago. But, we did end up finding a good time on our calendar. And so, my husband – whose favorite childhood pastime was baseball- and I  headed off last night with our baseball fan grandsons to Dodger Stadium.

Last night Los Angeles Dodgers play against the San Francisco Giants. Even though both teams are from our home state, we naturally rooted for the Dodgers.

One of my grandsons wore his fun  Jackie Robinson shirt with “Brooklyn” scrawled across the front. And our younger grandson said, “I go for the Dodgers.” I could tell by their cheers of “Let’s go Dodgers!” throughout the game that they really did want the Dodgers to win.

Win or lose, what could be bad about a night out (past their bedtimes) to the ballpark? What’s more fun than home made hot dogs taken along in a plastic bag, buying super expensive drinks at the park, and sitting with baseball caps cheering and watching the Dodgers play  the Giants?

And what could be more exciting and hearwarming for us than taking our grandsons out for a night, watching them enjoy themselves, and just having the quality time with them?

In this day and age, when life seems sometimes doom and gloom, we couldn’t have asked for a more fun night.

It started off with my husband coming home early from work so we could get an early start out for the 7:10 game. No such luck. We left at 6:15 later than planned with two eager guys in the backseat, holding onto their mitts in the hopes of catching a fly ball

Pretty soon we hit traffic before reaching the freeway. But our spirits were high and so were the boys’ spirits  as they talked about all their favorite and not-so-favorite sports teams. We kept our eyes on the eventual road signs pointing to Dodger Stadium.

Eventually we arrived, parked and walked quickly to the ticket booth. The game had already started, but the boys  were already glued to the screens visible from the ticket booths. While my husband negotiated seats with the salesperson, the boys were focused on one thing only: The Game.

As I said, life is good at the ballpark. Here they are waiting in line.

We got our tickets and found our seats which turned out to be really great ones. And even though the game crawled — hey baseball is a slow game — the kids seemed to have a grand time. And even though their team was losing –with Giants leading 1-0 for most of the time, my grandsons had that glimmer in their eyes, of focus and attention.

And an exciting game it was – with the Giants in the lead till the 9th inning.

And me? I listened with half an ear to the baseball chatter between the guys and kept myself busy taking pictures.

In the 8th inning, there was some talk about switching pitchers for the Giants because they wanted to make sure they would stay in the lead. But alas, it wasn’t to be. Even though they did change to a rested pitcher, the Dodgers scored two runs and won the game.

By this time, we were already on our way home listening to the game on AM 570 in our car because true to our tradition of going to the ballpark, we left at the bottom of the 8th inning.

As the final plays were occurring, we were heading towards our street, and soon turned into our driveway. Before dropping the boys off, we sat in the car and listened to the final plays until the win. Yay!

It’s a win! 2-1! At last the Dodgers won the game! Go Dodgers!

 And now it’s time to get home and go to sleep…good night!