Back in July 2004, I wrote about going to a baseball game with fireworks, and a marriage proposal unexpectedly breaking out on the field. I guess this must be somewhat of a tradition, because it happened again this last Canada Day, where, once again, I took fireworks pictures. Only there was a different spin this time, and I got photos of the proposal too. I thought the whole thing was too tacky to write up, but the pictures have been playing on my mind every time I go past them in the July-pix folder. And the story is not entirely without interest; so make up your own mind.
On fireworks nights, what they do is cordon off the foul territory outside the first- and third-base lines, and let the crowd in the stands go sit there so they’re out from under the grandstand roof and can see the show. The home team came out and hung out on the field in front of the dugout, too.
This evening, they had a fly-ball catching contest and some other entertainment, then this attractive young blonde woman and a member of the ball-park staff came and stood on the pitcher’s mound, she carrying a slip of paper, obviously waiting for the song on the PA to end so they could do the next part of the show. Suddenly, one of the players was trotting out to the mound, then he was kneeling, and, well, you can guess the rest. This is the picture that kept grabbing at me.
Which was after the proposal. I was of two minds about the whole thing, and Lauren, when I told her about it (she’d left early with the baby) was acid: “Talk about putting a woman in an impossible position.” Yeah, OK, tacky. And yet, somehow, the fact that the suitor was a player, there on the stage where he performs, seemed to make it a little more appropriate. And when she said Yes, his teammates burst out in a lusty cheer, no irony in it that I could spot. The moment was suddenly very old-fashioned.
Still, the sidekick (below in shorts), there to capture it with the microphone for the PA system, did seem a little over the edge.
