Monday Mug Shot

Toledo Mud Hens
Detroit Tigers AAA

This is a brand new mug! I got it last week at the game David and I attended. I had intended to stop at “The Swamp Shop,” the Mud Hens’ store at Fifth Third Field, and fix a terrible wrong - I didn’t have a Mud Hens mug in my collection!

Of course a brand new mug doesn’t have a specific memory attached to it, but it does symbolize so many great memories. I’ve been seeing the Mud Hens play live since 1999. I started going to Minor League Baseball games in ‘99 and the Mud Hens were the closest to home for me. They were even a little closer than the Lansing Lugnuts. I interned for WUPW in Toledo in 1996, so I knew the timing of the drive and basic directions well. In fact, when the Hens played at Ned Skeldon Stadium, I drove right by where I live now!

I’d been to games at that park many times. The sight lines were okay, but the park had a VERY minor league feel about it. When you were in the concessions area, it kinda felt like a community ice rink, you know, the part where there’s heat and you can drink hot chocolate to warm up before going back into the ice area?

I’d been there in the rain, the cold and the very hot muggy days. I’d been there with friends, with Mom and Tori and Rina ran the bases there. I‘d been there on a date too. That was with the first guy who took me to a Mud Hens game for a date. (I waited for better!) I have pictures from a rainy night in the last year of the Mud Hens there with Heather and Tracy. Dark skies and umbrellas!

Then came the new stadium. Fifth Third Field in downtown Toledo opened in 2002. I traditionally took Mom to a ball game for Mother’s Day and for Mothers Day 2003, she wanted to see the new park in Toledo. John and Scotty went with us for that game. It turned out to be the last baseball Mothers Day I had with her, so that is a very special memory.

My second date with David was to Fifth Third Field for a Mud Hens game against the Indianapolis Indians. That kinda adds a coolness factor to the fact that our planned reception is going to be at Fifth Third Field and the Mud Hens are playing the Indianapolis Indians! Add to that the fun of my now having family in Indy. Plans are to make sure they have Mud Hens hats to take home!

It’s funny how many special things become so “everyday” to us. The Mud Hens are just a couple minutes drive or even a bus ride from home and we go to see a few games a year. It’s no big deal to meet David at work and catch a game. But it’s never going to be just another team and just another place to see a game. I have so many wonderful memories as a baseball fan and personally about our small-city, AAA Minor League team, that it will always be an event when we go make some more.