I attended my first Marlins game of the season yesterday, sitting with two men - one a friend of a friend - who are on a years' long pilgrimage to every major league ballpark. They wisely chose the first base side, with a view of the city (through the large windows under the rarely retracted roof). I filled them in on the park's various attributes: the artwork (noting that the Roy Lichtenstein painting of The Manager was the only Loria manager safe from being fired); the Clevelander (quoting the one visiting player who said: "That's not a ballpark - it's a nightclub with a stadium around it."); the scoreboard in left field that Giancarlo Stanton damaged with a home run ball last year, and Red Grooms' whimsical home run sculpture that, unfortunately, we didn't see activated.
Ed gave the place high marks; Harry asked me, during one slow inning, if I were a player what my walk-up song would be. He caught me totally unprepared.
After the game - Rockies 4, Marlins 1 - Harry and Ed headed to the airport while I drove to Calle Ocho. I stopped at the Colon Market to buy two bottles of El Gaitero cider from Asturias, watched the men playing dominoes in Dominoes Park, checked the movie posters at the Tower Theater and wandered into Ball & Chain hoping to see the young jazz singer in the long slit skirt performing in the courtyard. In place of her was a Latin blues band.
I headed downtown for evensong at Trinity Cathedral. The Anglican Chorale sang, ending with a piece by Thomas Tallis. On the drive home I listened on the radio to "Cafe Brasil" and came up with my walk-up song: Aguas de Marco.
