ID4.

my fourth of july was a little disappointing...like a fireworks show without a finale.

i don't really ever expect much from the fourth of july, cause to be honest, fireworks don't impress me too terribly much. until the finale happens, i tend to get rather bored with the monotony of it all - plus i really hate large crowds - and no matter where you go you are forced to overcome the hassle of 9 million other people parking in the same place, laying their blanket in the same place, watching the same thing and getting in each others way and on each others nerves like its their job.
so, my family goes to the royals game. i think we've done this every year but once for the last 5 years (granted, the royals dont have a home game every single fourth of july, but kauffman stadium runs the fireworks on tne closest day possible...and my family goes then.

ANYWAY. this year was a 4th of july home game for the royals so i headed out to the K to watch three things. i will discuss each now:

1) john buck. we all know my near obsession with john buck (however, i'd still consider it a passion, not quite an obsession), he went 1-4 with a single. average but boring performance (however, a first-pitch single up the middle brought a little glimmer of happiness to a rather boring baseball game otherwise. the mariners scored 4 runs in the 1st and then no one scored the rest of the game. Washburn was a baller on the mound for the M's and the royals only had 5 hits and only got a guy past 2nd base once. anyway. johnny did not provide the highlight tonight.
however, his song playing when he came to bat in the second inning was "big bad john". love it.

2) the hot dog race is something i am truly passionate about. there are three kinds of people in this world: there are those that root for ketchup, those that root for mustard, and those that root for relish. if you have not done so already, please distinguish what kind of person you are right now. if you picked ketchup, i think your'e boring. if you picked mustard, i think you're a sell out. if you picked relish - you and i can be friends. relish, my friends, is the classic under'dog'. and he is currently rockin ally and freaking the oop at the K. he won again last night (tallying up his 19th win of the season...2 more than mustard and 5 more than ketchup.) this was undeniably the highlight of the night for me.

3) the post-game fireworks. this is potentially one of the most disappointing things ever: the fireworks were damaged due to a pre-game shower and there was NO POST-GAME EXTRAVAGANZA. talk about a serious buzzkill. there were 29,000 fans all super anxious to see what i think are the greatest fireworks in kc, but alas, there were none. the only thing that might make everything okay was that they tried three times to get htem started and each time they played the same intro recording:

"alright royals fans, now lets cap off an already great fourth with a post-game fireworks extravaganza! ready? count it down with me...5...4...3...2...1..."

but then nothing happened. music came on and the fountains looked beautiful (in fact, i took a photo on my phone), but there were no fireworks. then about 5 minutes later..."alright royals fans..." and again, nothing. we sat for about 15 minutes waiting with everyone else in the stadium. eventually the guy informed us that they couldn't get them to fire. BUT. our ticket is good for one free royals game of our choosing the rest of this year. jackpot. even thought the K fireworks are incredible - i've seen them a bunch of times and i already expressed my thoughts on big showy fireworks in general (even though K fireworks are NOT monotonous). anyway. i get to go to another game whenever i want...too bad i have to pay 9 bucks for parking. (robbery.)

-ap.