Take Me Out To The Ball Game...

For the first time in several years, I went to a baseball Spring Training game this week. It was a game between the Oakland A's and the San Francisco Giants.

One of my best friends is a big Giants fan, so I was rooting for them. They kept it within a few runs, but were not able to capitalize on some well hit balls and the A's caught a few breaks (hard hit balls that went right to their players for example).

During the game, a foul ball rolled to a stop near the 3rd base where the umpire picked it up. A new ball had already been thrown to the pitcher, so the ball was not needed for the game to go on. The fans in the stands were reaching out, hoping the umpire would toss them a souvenir, but he just grinned and stuck the ball in his pocket. At the end of the inning, he took the ball out and walked over to the stands to where a girl was sitting with her outstretched hand. He joked around with the girl and her parents (I'm guessing as I was not close enough to hear) and pointed at his cheek as if to say "give me a kiss and I'll give you the ball". The girl would have nothing to do with that offer but negotiated a hug instead and then handed her the ball. Then, he proceeded to use their camera to take their picture from the field. It was great to see the kids having a fun time at the ballpark and for the umpire to go out of his way to make the event memorable for them.

I took about 200 pictures at the ballpark and spent a lot of time playing with different settings (changing focal point, quick ISO changes, tracking the ball, shooting in burst mode to capture action) so you can expect to see some more baseball pictures from this outing showing up here in the future.

Do you like team sports or are you more of an individual accomplishment kind of person? Would you rather play a round of golf or watch it live or watch it on tv? Let me know what your favorite sport is here in the comments or shout it out on Twitter. Thanks for dropping by.