Tonight we are enjoying a fantastic spring thunderstorm.  It started raining as I was driving home from work, which meant no gardening this evening.  Benzo and I made a quick dinner of scrambled eggs, toast and applesauce and settled in to watch last night’s 2 hour episode of 24 on Hulu.  We didn’t get home in time to watch it live last night because we were at

OPENING DAY!!!!!

Yesterday marked the beginning of major league baseball in the United States.  Benzo is a huge baseball fan, particularly of our hometown team the Royals.  I think of myself as a medium-level fan.  I really enjoy going to the games and I follow our team on a high level.  I don’t necessarily know all the minute details of every single player, but I definitely know more than the average person.

Opening Day is true mark of Spring’s arrival.  Yesterday the weather was simply glorious.  Sunny and warm.  The stadium was packed to the gills with people all decked out in various shades of blue.

The service men and women brought out this huge flag for the national anthem.  I thought the stars were a nice touch too. 

No baseball game would be complete without SNACKS!  Luckily we are allowed to take certain foods into the stadium.  We brought a huge bag of

Peanuts!!!  Of all the food you could eat at the ballpark, I think peanuts are the best thing you could choose.  Here’s why:

• Peanuts are a whole food
• Peanuts come from a plant
• Peanuts are full of protein and also have some fiber, folate and calcium
• Peanuts do not contain refined sugar
• Peanuts in the shell take longer to eat so you eat less of them

At the end of the game the area by my feet looked like this:

Benzo and I pounded that bag of peanuts.  At the rate we were going I was sure we’d eat the whole bag.  Baseball is a long game!  But we ended up only eating about half the bag.  I’m sure the funnel cake in the 6th inning had something to do with that.

The Royals played great for 6 innings besides a missed infield pop fly in the first inning.  Our best pitcher was having a great game.  But everything started going down hill in the 7th inning when relief was brought in.  Same old story as last year!  The relievers (yes multiple) gave up 6 runs that inning and we ended up losing 8-4.  Sometimes it’s tough to be a Royals fan. 😦

Anyone else out there like baseball?  What are your favorite ballpark snacks?