First pro baseball game, actually. Buster went to a college game when he was about 3 months old, and to an 1860s re-creation game when he was 1. This was his minor-league debut, though, the River City Rascals vs. the Windy City Thunderbolts in an independent Frontier League game in beautiful O'Fallon, Mo.
Carrying on a family tradition started by his daddy, Buster poses with the home team's mascot, Ruffy the Rascal. It may have been Ruffy, it may have been the music on the loudspeakers, it may even have been the Rascals' exciting, come-from-behind victory, scoring the winning run on a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth. Whatever the reason, by the late innings ...
Buster was already checking the schedule to see when we could go again.
At home that night Buster put on his Velcro baseball glove and played catch with mom. They had this conversation:
Good catch, Buster!
No, I'm Baseball Player.
Good catch, Baseball Player.
And then a few minutes later, the game of catch over, when Buster walked into the kitchen:
Hi, Baseball Player.
I'm Buster.
It's a fast-moving world we live in.
