Z is for Zephyrs

Now, it's no secret that I am not a sports person.  Stop laughing.  I'm not athletic and I don't have the interest or attention span to follow games.

However, I do occasionally enjoy going to a sporting event.  More for the experience really than the actual game.  Stadium foods and drinks (who doesn't love nachos?), time with family and friends, the roar of the crowd, and people watching (sports fans are hilarious).  These are the things I look forward to.

Whenever I think of attending a sporting event I think back to our time in New Orleans.  We were young, new to the city, and had little money.  Lucky for us we lived 10 minutes away from Zephyr Field, home to the New Orleans Zephyrs, their Triple-A baseball team.  They had (and may still have) Friday Night Fireworks that we could hear from our apartment.  In fact, our first Friday night there this totally freaked us out (gunshots!), until we found out what they were.  Then we were intrigued and had to find out more about them.  Thus began our love affair with the Zephyrs.  Tickets were inexpensive, especially if you sat on the lawn so we went as often as we could.  We always had a great time at the games.  We even took the kids we had for St. John's Summer Program there for a field trip once!

We were only in New Orleans for a short time, two Zephyrs seasons, but this is one of the highlights of our experience there.  One day I'd like to take the kids to New Orleans to visit and experience it all.  Of course, taking them to a Zephyrs game would be on our New Orleans bucket list.  It would be awesome to not only relive the fun of our past, but to share it with the kids and have it become a great memory for them also!

One final fun thing about the Zephyrs is that their mascot is Boudreaux, a giant nutria.  If you don't know what they are, nutria are a large, semiaquatic rat.  They look like the giant lovechild of a rat and a beaver.  They are actually quite a pest as they are a primary reason for wetland destruction.  But hey, they make a great giant mascot!

What about you?  Do you like sports or not?  Do you enjoy the game or the experience?  Do you have a "Zephyrs" from your past?  Some awesome memory that you would love to revisit?

One of our Zephyrs souvenirs!

All is well, with baseball, fireworks, and giant rats, in Drosche Land.