July 28, 2007

Mr. Celery, Revisited

Last year, my two year old nephew could talk of nothing but Mr. Celery, the mascot of his favorite sports team, the Wilmington Blue Rocks. This year said nephew, another year older and another year wiser, has abandoned his constant chatter of celerycelerycelerycelerywoohoo!, to more sophisticated dialog including phrases like “Daddy we go Blue Rocks?”, “No! Blue Rocks not home! Blue Rocks Away!”, and my personal favorite, “Daddy look! Mr. Celery is a kite! Go Blue Rocks!” When I heard there was a home game this Saturday night, naturally I couldn’t wait to get tickets. Shortly after we were seated, my brother-in-law received a phone call from his good friend the food and beverage manager of the stadium. Moments later we were seated in a skybox and the waitress was taking our orders. While we were waiting for our hot dogs and beer, there was a knock at the door. We opened it, and in walked two Hooters Girls carrying a large bucket of tennis balls. “Would you like to buy launcher balls for a dollar?” they asked. We asked them to explain. We were informed that at the end of the game, multiple hula-hoops would be placed on the field. We would then be instructed to throw our launcher balls as hard as we could, and if one of our balls landed in a hoop we would win a nifty prize. “Is this for any benefit other than the Blue Rocks?” I inquired. “Yeah, it’s for the Children’s Hospital.” Hooter number one replied. “Which one?” my sister asked. “The children’s one.” Hooter two confirmed. I reasoned that although the odds of any one of us actually getting a ball to the field from the sky box were remote at best, we could at least revel in the joy of hitting total strangers on the back of the head, and we each purchased a couple of balls. We enjoyed next few hours watching the Blue Rocks show the Indians just what a Blue Rock is made of (Woo Hoo!), and at last it was time for the hula-hoops. After laughing as my niece and nephews launched their balls as far as their little arms could muster (about 2 and ½ feet) I sent my first ball soaring over the railing. And promptly smacked a woman in the first row. As she rubbed the back of her head and looked around to spot her assailant, I sent my second ball flying. And promptly smacked the same womans son in the back of the head. Unlike his mother, the son was unconcerned where the ball came from. He simply picked it up and tossed it on toward the field. Where it promptly landed in a hula-hoop. And won me a nifty prize.