Take Me Out to the Ballpark

I got to go with Cara's 4th grade class on a field trip to the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington where the MLB Texas Rangers play. We've been fortunate enough to attend our fair share of games at the Ballpark but this was a visit providing quite an inside look for the kids.

Our tour guide, Darwin, admitted to us after the tour that he'd only been working there for 5 weeks but you would never had known it. He was full of baseball trivia and information. He worked very well with the kids and answered any questions thrown at him like a pro.

This is the press box. It had three levels of desks and computer ports for the media. The kids got to see where all the announcing and reporting of the games happens.
This is the locker room. Tourguide Darwin is on the left. The kids thought it was cool that the major league players relaxed in there by playing video games and cards. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised...
The team is away for a few games so their lockers were not very full. Michael Young's cubby is the corner there with the orange boxes of shoes.

The kids loved being in the dugout. Darwin explained to them all about the bull pen telephones and showed them where the manager, Ron Washington, sits.

They didn't get to go on the field, (it was being aerated anyway...) but they stood at the edge of the dugout looking out and tried to imagine what it would feel like with the stadium full of cheering fans.
They also got to go to the Legends of the Game Museum at the Ballpark. The whole upper level is a discovery kids zone. Cara was trying to find the "sweet spot" on a bat by tapping on it with a wooden hammer in the above photo.
Cara, the catcher, and her friend, Johnny, posing in a fun cut-out scene. In the lower two levels of the museum are many, many displays with some really cool baseball memorabilia. "Legends of the Game features the largest collection of baseball-related artifacts outside of Cooperstown! With over 100 items from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the story of baseball's greatest legends is told through their jerseys, bats, gloves, words of wisdom, and more. Imagine coming face to face with items that were once in the hands of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Roberto Clemente, Hank Aaron, Ty Cobb, and many others."

This is one of Babe Ruth's actual jerseys, bats, & shoes. Very cool. Tourguide Darwin told the kids about Babe playing baseball with a lettuce leaf under his ball cap.

After the museum, the kids had lunch on Home Run Porch and got to ask any other questions they could come up with. It was a great day for a field trip and was lots of fun!