NW Arkansas Naturals Fan Fest

The Northwest Arkansas Naturals held their first ever “Fan Fest” a few weeks ago, and I had been looking forward to it for weeks.  As has been the case in many places of the country, we’ve had unseasonably warm temperatures over the past several weeks.  It was expected to keep up that weekend, and a nice warm day at the ballpark, even in March was enough to get my baseball fever thermometer percolating.    The Fan Fest activities included a bouncy house for the kids, tours of the facility, including the luxury boxes, press box, dugout and clubhouse, free hot dogs and discounts on merchandise.    Please, allow me to show you some nice pictures.  Click here.

Yeah, I have to send you to Crinkly Wrappers for an overview of a Minor League Fan Fest, because my day at the park went down the crapper about the minute we arrived.

To begin, the temperature dropped considerably that Saturday, and the wind picked up.  Cool temperatures and wind are not a good combination on an open air, shaded concourse like at the Naturals beautiful park.    It’s great in July.  It sucks in March.  So the 6 year old and the 2 year old were not comfortable from the get go, and even though she didn’t complain, I’m sure the lovely wife was not thrilled with the weather either. 

Undeterred, I thought  I would let the kids get in the bouncy house and let them jump around and warm up.  Unfortunately, already in the bouncy house ahead of them was a wild pack of older animal-children that were completely out of control.  The 2 year old watched them thrash around and wanted no part of joining them, and although the 6 year old made a game effort to get in there, it was not a lot of fun for him and he got out pretty quickly.

So we decided to take the tour.  This was what I was most looking forward to anyway.  We saw David Glass’s luxury suite that was being remodeled and had no furniture or carpet and was basically an empty room overlooking the ballpark.  I didn’t really see a point in taking a picture, and the children immediately started getting bored.

Then we went to the press box.  I have to say, this was pretty inspiring to me.  Is there any chance they would let a blogger come and write about the game from the press box?  How awesome would that be?  I’m going to look into it and see if I can get up there for a game sometime this year. 

I guess the kids didn’t share my enthusiasm for this part of the tour, because they went from bored to downright miserable.    The 2 year old wanted to grab anything that was remotely in her reach, and the 6 year old decided this was a good time to start scaling Mt. Daddy.    That's why I don't have pictures.  As aggravated as I was getting, they weren’t  being bad, they were just being kids.  Kids with ants in their pants.  Kids who couldn’t possibly be interested in luxury suites or press boxes.    As much as I wanted to see the locker room and the dugout, I didn’t want to deal with what I knew would  soon escalate into whining and complaining.     So our tour ended abruptly and we headed home.   Maybe next year.