The Garrigan traveling caravan now has one major summer destination: Roy Gale Baseball Fields. The 6 basketball leagues for my four kids are all now over, so now baseball takes center stage--or should I say center field? Our youngest Braylon is playing his first season at Roy Gale this year. That makes four kids in four different leagues, which is over 110 GAMES if you're keeping score at home. And that doesn't counting any playoff games. The games will take place throughout the week, with at least 3 every Saturday in May, June and July. And this doesn't include practices which are about two per week for each team.

The nice thing about Roy Gale is all 110 games will be played at the same location. Unlike Football/Soccer season and Basketball season there will be no road trips from our Winnebago home to Kirkland to Genoa to Poplar Grove. (My personal favorite was when we would have three soccer games in Mount Morris on the same Saturday starting at 9 am, 11 am and 3 pm). And Roy Gale is about a 6 minute drive from my house and about a 3 minute drive from the WIFR studios (in case I want to catch an inning or two while on dinner break).

The biggest negative can be summed up in one word. Concessions! Concession rhymes with recession, which is what we find ourselves in after a summer at the ballpark! Do you realize if we spent 10 dollars a game on concessions for the six of us (and really how far does 10 dollars go for 2 adults and four kids?) That would come out to over 11 HUNDRED DOLLARS over the summer just getting concessions at Roy Gale (and don't get me wrong they're good concessions).

So for the thousands of you that will also be hearing the two magical words, "Play Ball!" near the corner of Meridian and US 20. Take a look around for the Garrigan clan (we will probably be there and certainly not hard to find!) and say hello.