I’m that rare combination of girl who is a huge nerd but is also a big sports fan. I’m pretty much in 7th heaven right now with the Olympics being on.
My favorite non-Olympic sports to watch are football and baseball. I’ve never been to a professional football game (it’s on the bucket list) but I’ve been to tons of professional baseball games. It’s one of my very favorite things to do.
I happen to have a family member who has amazing season tickets for the Dodgers. So I’ve gone to a few Dodger games in my day even though I’m not actually a Dodger fan. No, I have the sad misfortune of being a Padres fan (one of these days we’ll get there!) But that’s beside the point. If I don’t care about either team I root for the Home Team. It’s just good manners.
So when cousin Chaney discovered that Friday, August 3rd was Star Trek night at Dodger Stadium, we got the invite to attend. Not gonna lie, I was pretty frakking stoked. They were playing game 1 in a series against the Cubs.
I debated whether or not I should dress up in one of my three Starfleet uniforms. I have a number of Star Trek t-shirts and I was thisclose to wearing one of them but my Mama Jedi is constantly telling me to be big and brave and bold so I opted for the uniform.
Thankfully no one in my group was completely mortified by this. In fact, they were even more gung ho than I was. I was worried I would embarrass them but they all thought it was pretty cool.
Sold.
It turned out that I was the only one in attendance who was big and brave and bold. I didn’t see one other person dressed up. Chaney saw one Star Trek t-shirt but that was it. In fact, most people who stopped to ask me why I was dressed that way had no idea it was even Star Trek night.
Sigh.
Oh well, I’m used to being the only weirdo in the room. Or in this case, the packed stadium.
In honor of Star Trek night the Dodgers were giving away Spock jersey t-shirts. They were actually pretty awesome and I totally wanted one but it turns out they were only giving them away at one entrance and they ran out pretty quickly. Sad robot 🙁
The second we sat down I looked up and the eyes immediately zeroed in on a figure standing on the field. I yelped and said “holy shit, it’s William Shatner!” much to the surprise of my companions.
I went down to try and catch his attention to see if he’d come over for a picture since I was the ONLY PERSON in the entire stadium in costume.
I’m 99% sure he saw me. He was looking right at me and when I waved he looked away and avoided looking in my direction for the rest of the time he was on the field. That was kind of depressing but I have to admit that it’s only been in the last couple of years that I’ve even started to like William Shatner. To be clear, I have always loved James T. Kirk, just not always the person who portrayed him. It seemed like he’d warmed up to his Star Trek fans in the last couple of years though. Especially in his documentary The Captains (which is fantastic by the way). Apparently he has to be in the mood. Oh well. I was still ridiculously excited to see him. I was literally less than 20 feet away from him at one point. Star Trek actors are really the only people I get star struck by and that was a doozy.
Shatner did all of the announcements and the roll call and even threw out the first pitch.
I filmed it for you…
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lW9MS3NthI]
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You’re welcome.
I’m not going to go into the whole game or anything (Dodgers won) but one cool thing happened that I’ve never experienced before. Having a foul ball fly right at my face and having someone in my group nab it. It was the first foul ball of the game off the bat of David DeJesus from a pitch by Chad Billingsley. It bounced off the chairs in front of me, landed on the ground to the right of us, then rolled back in front of us before it was scooped up by Christian who had propelled himself over a row of seats to get to it. It happened very fast and frankly, I was relieved to have my face intact, but it was one of the coolest 2.5 seconds I’ve ever experienced at a ball park.
Every once in a while I would catch a player turn around and look right at me (I wasn’t hard to find, I was bright red in a sea of white and blue). At one point that player was Matt Kemp. I was pretty excited to see Matt Treanor. I could really care less about him but he got Misty May to marry him and she’s awesome so he must be doing something right.
The evening ended with Friday night fireworks set to the theme songs of the various Star Trek shows. They started off with a little film that was pretty much just a love letter to The Next Generation.
Then the music started and the fireworks began.
They did the theme songs in bizarro order. First Star Trek, then DS9, then Voyager, and ending with The Next Generation. Enterprise got the shaft. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen fireworks and I really truly seriously LOVE fireworks and these were set to music from my very favorite franchise ever. It took a long time for me to wipe the goofy grin off my face.
I filmed the Star Trek and TNG parts of the fireworks. You can see them here:
Star Trek: The Original Series…
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-DnKN7DKOw]
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Star Trek: The Next Generation (and the grand finale)…
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArjSpHIZdAg]
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All in all, a pretty awesome way to spend the evening.
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