Bir-Dees of a Feather

One of my bucket list items was to attend a baseball game as Dee. I crossed that off the list in 2021 during the post-Covid resumption of play (crowd restrictions), but I wanted another chance to scratch the itch.

Plus, when I bought the dress I wore, I knew I wanted to wear it to a ballgame one day. Finally this past May I had my chance. I’ve had a twelve game share of a St. Louis Cardinals season ticket package (about two games a month from April to September) for about twenty years. We’ve had the same seats for about the last fifteen years, but as there is a lot of turnover of tickets these days, I wasn’t worried someone was going to know me. With my wife still in Australia, and my GG friend Michelle mostly available, she was willing to go with me.

Michelle is not the biggest fan of “sports ball”, regardless of the sport. Her daughters play volleyball, but watching sports are just not her thing. But she was a good sport and was willing to join me. She also had a Cardinal’s t-shirt to wear, and she makes whatever she wears look pretty good. With her, the camera doesn’t lie–she’s just freakin’ gorgeous.

If, like Michelle, you aren’t a “sports ball” fan (or not in the US, although I’ve met a Cardinals fan at the weekly Parkrun in Melbourne), you may not be aware the Cardinals predominant color is red. Usually at the home games there are 40,000 fans in various and sundry Cardinal t-shirts, jerseys, tank tops, etc., and I usually join the throngs when I normally go. But the red summer dress I have just screamed “wear me”–and has since I bought it. It’s the right color, and I like the look, matched with my red Keds. Even the ticket taker, a middle aged woman, told me when she scanned the ticket on my phone, “I like your dress.” Winner (it also suggests she read me, but I don’t care–I’ll take compliments whenever I can).

It was a nice day for early May, sunny and pleasant. Our seats are in the shade; shade is extremely important for me during warmer weather. Having strappy dresses helps, but the wig adds about ten degrees to everything, so I’m always worried about getting too warm (it also gives me a good reason/excuse to wear summer dresses because I am exposing lots of skin). It also marks the evolution in my dressing. First, I never thought I would ever go out–until I did, and I wondered why I waited so long. Then I thought I would never go out during summer (in part because of the heat, and in part because I didn’t want to bare a lot of my body). But I tried on some cute summer dresses, and got over the idea of showing lots of my guy body (I also upped my shaving game so my arms, legs, and back are more or less shaved all of the time), and now I can’t get enough of wearing cute summer clothes.

We watched the game for a while, and then retreated to the concession area for our shared treat, nachos (a standard order for Michelle and I). I had also agreed with Michelle we’d leave about two hours into the game, because she had made a commitment to meet people later that afternoon. The Cards weren’t exactly playing great at the time (they have improved somewhat since then), and as Michelle had been a good sport about joining me at the game, I was ok with leaving early.

On the way out, we found a spot for our normal round of picture taking. Michelle does a lot of Facebook/Instagram posts, and as I have a good camera on my phone, she likes a lot of the pictures I take (her Facebook page contains a number of pictures I have taken of her). She posed for some, and I posed for some, and we headed out to return to her house, change clothes, and meet her friends–which you will read about next week.

And the ballgame? After we left, a massive storm blew in. The game was rain delayed with ONE out remaining. There was over a three hour delay, and when the game resumed, the last Cardinals batter struck out in less than a minute, to end the game (in fairness to the Cardinal hitter, the last strike to end the game was a terrible call by the umpire, who has the reputation of not being a very good umpire). In short, our decision to leave early was the right one.