Aidan tells me he is not sleepy as I pick him up. Two minutes later he is asleep in my arms as we ride the Beijing subway eastward, towards home. The subway train isn't as packed as it was on the way to the game when people forced their way in and off the train and young girls took took pictures of Aidan with their cell phones. But it was still crowded and Aidan is getting heavy so I was grateful when a stocky older Chinese woman ushered me towards a seat as she chased out the existing seat occupant. I sat and looked at my son sleeping so peaceful and thought this would be perfect if we had actually saw the game. Then decided the game was secondary anyway.

 
Subway ride on way to the game

Scalpers greeted us when we got to the stadium in much the same way as in the US. "Piao, piao. ni yao piao ma?" (tickets, tickets, do you need tickets?).  The lines to get into the stadium were remarkable for two reasons. First they were really long. And second they were actual lines. The lines were long because of the airport gate style security and not enough of it. But it moved, albeit slowing. 20 minutes and we were inside. The lines were lines because of stadium personal keeping them lines and frankly because more than half the fans were foreigners and are line people.

Aidan talking to Yang outside the stadium and out view waiting to get in

Once inside we found ourselves in an open area behind the right field bleachers. There was a food line that was long and moving very slowly. Since our tickets were on the 3rd base line and we had to walk clear around the outfield to reach them, I decided to pick up food closer to out seats. This was my second food mistake of the day. (My first food mistake was not packing a lunch for us).

As it turned out there were no food concession stands near out seats, so we just sat. The stadium seats around 12,000 in mostly temporary metal stands with a small permanent looking seats behind home plate. We sat down and recorded music played the Chinese and then the American national anthems. Aidan told me he was hungry and I told him we would get some food after the first inning. The American ambassador to Beijing threw the first pitch and when it failed to reach the plate there was a scattering of playful boos from the Americans in the stands and it felt like home.

Then a strange thing happened. The Padres took the field and tossed the ball around. The pitcher had finished his warm up throws and he noticed something was missing. Umpires. There were no umpires anywhere to be seen.  The players stood around and then the umpires emerged from the locker room (American umpires, btw) and the managers exchanged lineup cards.  Top of first, three up and three down, all weak infield grounders. An older Beijing couple -- a stereotype looking lao Beijing couple -- got up from their seats and with a dismissive wave of the hand to the usher left the building. I suspect they had received free tickets (a fair amount were given away) and had made the executive decision that they had seen enough.

The other thing I noticed between innings was police. Lots of police in the stands, around the stands, and patrolling the grounds. Some military around too. There's been some unrest to the west and I suspect they were there because of the fear one of the foreigners may decide to join in and unfurl a banner in support. The other, other thing I notice is people drinking beer out of cans and some people carrying a case of beer into the stands. I wondered how they got that past security. I was to find out soon enough.

Bottom of first. Three up and three down. Weak grounders again. The highlight being a foul ball that landed nearby. Aidan and I get up and go for food, all the way back towards the entrance. We waited in one line for about ten minutes when someone announced they had no food left, so we moved to the other concession stand. I doubled checked and they were still serving food. 15 minutes in that line and they ran out of food. It was now 2pm. The line got quite a bit shorter with the absence of food and eventually Aidan and I go to the front of the line. Rumor was food would be arriving in 10 minutes. While we waited they continued to sell drinks. They had beer, coke, and sprite. I bought Aidan a sprite. When they ran out of beer the natives started getting restless. Two to three cases of beer would show up periodically and the natives would horde what they could get. Hence the case in the stands. An American woman behind me line asked if I was waiting for food and I said yea, my only choice is to wait or leave because I can't let Aidan go without lunch. The woman said the same was true for her, that she had a kid in the stands. It was now 2:30 and we had missed a homer in the top of the third. The woman with the kids in the stands bought 10 bears and two cokes and they returned to the game. We waited another 15 minutes before leaving the stadium and having lunch across the street at a quasi American restaurant. There were other families with kids from the game there. Aidan was happy because Tom and Jerry was on the TV.

After lunch we walked to the subway and headed home. From across the street we could here the sounds of the 7th in stretch. "Take me out to the ball game...Buy me some ..."