"It's His Dream, Not Mine"

The Red Sox have had a pretty great season.  The "winning-est" team in baseball.  We had such a great time watching them play against the Yankees in July at Fenway Park.  It didn't hurt that they won.  Reed has apps for MLB on his phone and on his iPad so that he can always be checking scores.  Although he loves everything about baseball, the stats seem to pull him in the most.  I think he's watched Moneyball about 100 times.  As in. . . he watches it EVERY night as he is drifting off to sleep.  So he's probably seen the beginning about 400 times since it was released on January 10, 2012.  Yeah.  He's a nut.

We were psyched that the Red Sox won the ALCS last week.  We watched all the games and yelled at the TV, thinking that would help their performance.  So glad they won.  We already knew that the Cardinals were in the World Series and Ed mentioned that he would love to take Reed to a game.  He started looking at tickets and to get to Fenway for Games 1 and 2 would have required a home equity loan.  Holy smoke.  $1700 for a standing-room-only ticket?  No way!  We aren't THAT crazy.  Then he got thinking about going to St. Louis.  He and his business partner, Kyle, kept teasing each other about going to the game.

I realized that things were getting more serious, so I had a talk with Parker about the game.  We have gone to a lot of different ball parks and watched a lot of great baseball as a family.  I told him that Dad was thinking about surprising Reed by taking him to a World Series game.  I asked him if he wanted to go or how he would feel if just Dad and Reed went.  Parker didn't miss a beat.  He answered, "He should just take Reed.  It's his dream to see the Red Sox play in the World Series, not mine.  I'll stay home and get ready for my hunting trip next week."  I reported the conversation to Ed.  That was about 4:00.  Things escalated when Kyle called Ed at about 9:30 to ask if he had bought tickets yet.  Ed realized that Kyle really wanted to go and the gig was up.  DiAnna (who just happens to be Civil Science's resident travel agent) was called and set loose on getting plane tickets for four to St. Louis.  Ed started researching and buying the game tickets and I. . . I fell asleep.

When I woke up at 11:30pm the plane tickets and game tickets were bought and Ed was hunting for hotels with no luck.  Everything within 50 miles of St. Louis was booked. . . until we got smart and started looking for Saturday night AND  Sunday night.  Then we found a few openings.  Ed was actually on the phone booking a room when it disappeared but at the same time I was able to score two rooms at a Red Roof Inn.  That was at about 1:15am.  Then we started looking for rental cars and thanks to our Costco membership we got a pretty good deal.  Finally at 1:45am we slept.

Reed had the math test from hell on Friday for third period, so we didn't dare tell him about the trip because we were afraid he would lose focus.  At 11:45 I went to the school to pick him up.  He didn't want to leave and miss his Wrestling Conditioning class but I told him that Dad had asked me to check him out.  I kept the topic on other things on the ride home so that he wouldn't ask anymore questions.

When we arrived at home, Ed was waiting for us and he handed Reed an envelope.  Reed opened it and stared at the first page.  Then he stared at the second page.  They were both boarding passes- one to Minneapolis and then one to Chicago.  Then he turned to the third page and his mouth dropped open.  After about 10 seconds he said, "What game is this for?"
Ed replied, "Game 3."
"That's tomorrow." Reed responded with a questioning voice.
"You are leaving in about two hours.  You are packed but you need to take a shower!"  I said.

At that, Reed danced through the house.  As soon as he got to his room we could hear him yelling, "I'm going to the World Series!!!!!!!"  He was ready to go in about 10 minutes which is when he looked at me and asked where Parker was.  I told him that Parker wasn't going.  He had decided that it was more important for Reed to go.  Reed was a little upset about that, but the excitement soon won out. Just a couple of minutes later they were off on the big adventure!