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On Sunday, June 13th, Samantha's Little League team attended to the Detroit Tigers game versus the Pittsburgh Pirates. Sam's coach Ian was gracious enough to purchase tickets for each of the players on the team (except one who was unable to attend), and we bought enough for the rest of the family to join them. In all there were 52 tickets bought for our group, and not one person who used them had a bad time! The majority of the team met up at the Karl Richter Campus (where the games are played) around 10:30am to caravan down, while some of the others drove down on their own. We drove to the parking garage for the Compuware Building, where Ian works, to park and then walked to the ballpark from there. After finding our seats in section 113, the majority of the kids headed down to the wall along the first base line (where our seats were) to seek out autographs from some of the Pirates players. Tyler, Sam, and Drew all managed a signature from D.J. Carrasco, a relief pitcher who actually pitched in today's game. He was really great with the kids, even pretending to sign both sides of Drew's mohawk! Drew started to walk away, but the player called him back so he could actually sign his glove. Nice touch. After the autographs from the Pirates we walked around the outfield concourse to the third baseline to attempt to get some autographs from the Tigers players who were warming up. The crowd was a lot larger here than on the Pittsburgh side, so I opted to stay at the top of the section while the kids and some of the other parents made their way to the players. They came back with one autograph, from relief pitcher Fu-Te Ni. At least that is who Tyler thought it was... we couldn't really tell from his signature. It had #38 on it, but that is Jeremy Bonderman's number - I imagine he wouldn't be confused with a Korean player. Who knows who's name ended up on their shirts, hats, and gloves... Our next stop on our way around the concourse was at the Ferris wheel. Sunday is Kid's Day at Comerica Park, and that means the Ferris wheel and carousel are free for those 14 and under. We waited in line for a while before the kids finally got on, just after the game got started. We met up with our friends Jeff & Becky and their boys Thomas and Andrew here, and I snuck them into the line with our group so that they could avoid the wait. We also saw DJ, one of the kids that I coached in football a couple years ago (and the kids have played against in basketball and baseball). In another odd twist, Tara sent me a message on my phone saying that some of my extended family from Deckerville was also at they game. Apparently they ran into Tara on the concourse with Jayden, and were sitting just a couple of sections from us. What a small world! After the ride on the Ferris wheel we made our way back to our seats to catch the game. What was a fairly boring game for the first seven innings or so turned into an exciting one after Miguel Cabrera hit a 3-run homer to put the Tigers into the lead in the eighth inning. We ate hot-dogs and frozen lemonade during the game for lunch, in addition to the chips, crackers, and ring pops that Tara brought in as snacks. After Jose Valverde closed out the game in the ninth, we made our way back to the parking garage before hitting the expressway home. We stopped one last time in Auburn Hills for dinner, this time at the Longhorn Steakhouse. Although the kids didn't really eat much, I enjoyed my steak (it still doesn't compare to Outback, in my humble opinion). Everybody complained about the food being salty, which I noticed a little on my fries but not the steak. Ironically enough, we even ended up running into family here as well. My uncle Richard and aunt Linda were there with their friend Mona, enjoying dinner. See what I mean about a small world? After we finished eating, we made our way home to call it a long day.
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