Chuck called Trisha up one Tuesday AM before she had to go into the bank for work with some surprise news, "I got us a couple of tickets to the Braves/Cardinals game tonight. Maybe we'll see Mark McGuire hit a home run!In fact we have seats on the front row out in left field.Maybe we'll catch one!"
"Well, sounds fun to me (At least she pretended it did - the being with Chuck part was fun). I'll be home from the bank around 5:30 and I'll need at least 30 minutes to get more casual baseball game clothes on. Where are we going to eat?"
A little surprised Chuck replied, "The Turner Field food court of course.They have delicious meals of all kinds.Oh yeah, the last time we went to a game it was in the old stadium. You'll love this new place!"
It turned out to be a pretty hot day. In the city it reached 95 degrees and all of the asphalt and car exhaust made it feel hotter than that. Although the 7:35PM start helped out a little, it was still a warm day to be out for a few hours. Therefore, when Trisha got home from a day at the bank, she ditched her skirt and heels and put on a t-shirt, khaki shorts and a pair of white exercise sandals that really contrasted with her pretty tanned feet and legs.
Chuck arrived at Trisha's house about 6:00PM and she was ready to go. He opened the car door for her to get in and they were soon on their way to the ballpark. The conversation focused on Trisha's day at the bank and Chuck's day studying at the Ga. Tech library. They also talked a little about the heat. "Were your customers at the bank saying anything about the heat?"
"Yeah, and it was pretty warm in the bank too. The AC was not cooling, as it should.A couple of times I had kicked my shoes off standing in the filing corridor and my supervisor made me put them back on.”
"Our library was nice and cool I suppose. They have to do that so the books won't rot.I got a lot of research for my term paper completed, however.
Chuck and Trisha arrived at the stadium parking to find a large crowd.They were able to park in the parking lot created on the site of old Fulton County Stadium.
"Trisha, the last time we saw the Braves together, we had to sit here where we're parking. See the concrete wall. That's the wall from the old stadium. Neat huh?"
"Yeah Chuck, it's neat," Trisha replied with little enthusiasm since she was not as impressed as he was, but she wanted to make an effort to enjoy the things that Chuck enjoyed.
As they walked to the stadium, Chuck took Trisha's hand, but it was not just for romantic reasons. Chuck was in a hurry to get in the stadium to get dinner and find their seats. He was leading the way pretty quickly and Trisha was having trouble keeping up. At one point, she tripped and came out of one of her exercise sandals.
"Hey Chuck, hold up a second," Trisha exclaimed as she was being pulled away from where her shoe landed. She had to walk back a couple of steps and get back into her shoe.The rest of the way in, the held hands again and walked a little slower.
Soon they arrived at the food court and Chuck wanted a sausage dog and Trisha wanted a salad. He gave Trisha some money to pay for her food since they would have to stand in separate lines to get their meals. Trisha would have preferred to stop somewhere outside the stadium and eaten a nice meal in an air-conditioned restaurant and been a little late to the game, but again, she wanted to make Chuck happy.
After getting their food, they reconvened at one of the picnic area tables in the shade. Trisha tried to relax a little after the stressful walk into the stadium and wait in a long line for food. She crossed her left leg over her right and dangled her sandal on the edge of her toes, rhythmically popping the wooden sole against her foot.
Fifteen minutes later, they had both finished their meal so they headed to the Field Pavilion area of the outfield to find their seats.When they arrived they found they had a good view from the outfield. They were on the front row so they could look down and see plays against the left field wall with ease.The game eventually started and Trisha tried to relax some more despite the heat.They had a wall with railing in front of them but it was not too high so it was not distractive. Trisha lifted her legs onto the railing and crossed her legs on them."I like these seats.I can stretch up my legs and not have to worry about sitting behind someone. Good pick Chuck.” She hoped her legs would offer some good visual competition for Chuck’s attention, but the Braves and Cardinals seemed to be winning at least from her perception. In reality, Chuck was glancing over at her pretty tanned and painted toe-nail feet whenever he got a chance.
The game progressed and Trisha was getting in a better mood.Although she cared little for baseball, just being outside and seeing the crowd and watching Chuck enjoy the game and diligently keep the score of each pitch made her feel better.The game was not too interesting though with the Braves leading 2-1 in the top of the seventh. However the first Cardinal got a hit and McGuire was up to bat.He had struck out each previous time at bat so far.
"Hey Trisha, McGuire's up!"
"That's nice, I'll just keep relaxing - he'll probably just strike out again. Maddox has things under control."
McGuire swung and missed the first two swings and the audience started mocking him a little. This seemed to make him concentrate even more. Maddox made a mistake and hung up a curve ball.McGuire got a piece of the ball, which went high into the air toward left field. Suddenly, Chuck realized it was coming their way.He got his glove ready and as the ball came over the home run fence he leaned over a little knocking Trisha's left leg. He caught the ball but when he hit her leg, it caused one of her exercise sandals to bounce off and drop to field level into the area behind the home run fence.
"Oh no, my shoe!," Trisha exclaimed as she pulled her legs back inside the wall and stood to lean over the wall to locate her shoe.She was able to see it on the ground about 8 feet below them not far from the home run wall.
Chuck temporarily curtailed his excitement about catching a Mark McGuire home run and also looked over the fence to see where the shoe landed.They would later embarrassedly learn that Chuck's great catch while knocking Trisha's shoe off onto the field was not only televised live on the TBS Superstation, but it was also the Catch of the Day on ESPN's Baseball Tonight broadcast.
"What do we do now, Chuck?"
"I'll go talk to an usher and see what they say."
"Okay, I'll go with you."
Chuck and Trisha walked up to the main walkway to find an usher.Those seated in view of the aisle saw, as well as heard (slap..pause..slap..etc..), that Trisha was missing a shoe but had no idea it happened during the McGuire home run. They walked over a little ways and eventually found an usher.
"Excuse me miss, my friend here accidentally dropped a shoe over the front wall and it fell behind the home run fence. What can you do to get it out for us?"
"Show me where it landed."
Chuck and Trisha went back down the aisle (slap..pause..slap..etc..) and took the usher to look over the wall to see her shoe laying between it and the fence.
The usher replied, "We can't go there during the game because of safety reasons, but I'll get someone from the maintenance crew to go down there when the game is over to retrieve it. You can meet us over there at the information desk."
Trisha and Chuck took their seats again and tried to get back into the game.This time, Trisha did not sit her legs on top of the wall. By the 9th inning she was getting anxious to leave and get her other shoe back. She needed to use the restroom and was not thrilled with the prospect of going in there missing a shoe.
With 2 outs left in the bottom of the 9th, it appeared the Cardinals might hold their 3-2 lead and allow the maintenance worker to retrieve Trisha's shoe. However out of the blue, Andres Galaraga smacked a game-tying home run.They were not able to score again, however.Trisha was disappointed that the game did not end. The game began to drag on. Neither team could score.By the 11th inning, Trisha could not wait any longer. She headed up the steps, again with one shoe and with trepidation, walked into the ladies room. Hopping on her one sandal, she found the nearest stall, took care of business and hopped out. All along getting strange looks frm the other women in the restroom.
In the 14th inning, the Braves finally won the game and Trisha excitedly led the way to the information desk to get her shoe back.She and Chuck waited a few minutes and soon the area was vacant. They began to worry that the extra innings and the late game ending (it was well past midnight) everyone cleared out it seemed. They walked around and finally snagged a different usher.
"Excuse me...(told the story again)...Maintenance was supposed to retrieve the shoe for her and bring it to the Information Desk."
"I'm sorry, but the game ended so late that the maintenance crew left as soon as the game was over to come back in the morning to clean up.You'll have to call in the morning and talk to them then,"
Trisha was quite mad, now. She said, "Lets go, Chuck!" and they started to walk out.
But then Trisha had an idea and stopped in the middle of the concession area and suggested to Chuck, “You’re over 6 feet tall, you used to slam dunk a 10 foot basketball goal. Maybe you could jump down onto the field, get my shoe and scale the wall again.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea…”
“I’m not leaving here without it. I’ve been promised that a maintenance worker would find my shoe before and it didn’t work.” She had unintentionally revealed that she had lost a shoe more times than he knew about, but at the time, she didn’t care.
“Well, OK. I’ll try it.”
Trisha and Chuck returned to their seats and the stadium was about empty. Chuck jumped over the wall and located the shoe then tossed it up to Trisha, who missed catching it and ended up knocking it into the seats.Chuck then jumped up to scale the wall.Trisha grabbed his wrists and helped him pull himself up.
“Thanks a lot Chuck! Let’s get my other shoe and go home!”
Chuck and Trisha continued to date into the summer.However she got an interesting email from Tim towards the end of July.
To: cobbtrish@uga.edu
From ocalatim@uga.edu
Date: 07/28/2000
Dear Trisha,
Greetings from sunny Florida - where we set our clocks by the daily thundershowers. Hope you are having a nice summer. Mine is going great!We have had a wonderful youth group this summer with a lot of kids from the community getting involved.We helped build a home for Habitat for Humanity and went on a mission trip to the Bahamas for a week.
I am looking forward to school starting again in a few weeks.It will be my last semester so I am looking forward to a light class load and spending some time sending our resumes and stuff like that,
Maybe we can get together and go out for dinner or something when we both get back to Athens. I’ve missed you and thought about you often. Sorry for not writing sooner - I guess I’m not much of a letter writer.
Write if you’d like to. I’d love to hear about your summer.
Sincerely,
Tim
P.S. - Did you enjoy the Braves game? I saw you on TV.
Trisha was again reminded that she might eventually have to make a decision concerning Chuck and Tim, and of course there was Jay to consider as well.The interesting summer just kept getting more complicated for “poor” Trisha.
NOTE: This story can also be found at Dangling.Com
