Lap Child Diaries: That 70's Vacation

My father's favorite baseball team is the NY Yankees. Up until recently, their AAA minor league affiliate team was the Columbus Clippers based in Columbus, Ohio. As of 2007, the Yankees are using the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre team, who are currently called the Railriders, as their Triple-A affiliate.

So when we were going through Scranton, my father checked their game schedule. We saw that they had a home game the night we'd be there!

We didn't buy tickets in advance online as we weren't sure if we'd all go as a family or if just my father would go.

About 30 minutes before the game started, my mother decided she would come with him, so I had to tag along as well. Apparently it's illegal to leave a 3 year old by herself in a strange hotel in the state of Pennsylvania.

So we pulled up to PNC Field and paid the $2 for parking. Despite it being a minor league baseball team, the parking lot was full.

We forgot to recognize that Scranton/Wilkes-Barre isn't exactly a hotbed of nightlife so the Railrider games are probably the biggest activities going on here. Unfortunately, all the tickets for regular seats were sold out.

But fortunately, we were able to pick up a few Lawn Seats for $9/person. So we entered PNC Field and walked around a bit before finding our seats on the grass in right center field.

Around center field, they had a kid's play area with a bunch of inflatable activities, like bouncy houses and slides. For $5 per kid (free for adults), we spent a good hour here together. I didn't make any lifelong friends with the local Scrantonians, but there were tons of other kids (ages 3-12).

After it started to get dark, my father decided he wanted us to enjoy the actual game. So around the 4th inning, we went to grab some seats on the homerun side of the outfield wall where there were other couples and families relaxing on the grass on a perfectly cool summer night.