You know you think too much about baseball when you decide that you should make a sand ballpark. By the way it would be me that thinks too much about baseball and came up with the idea that to make a sand ballpark while at the beach today. I was going to make it all on my own, but as soon as I mentioned my idea Dad got involved with his way better sand building skills and make the sand part of the ballpark while I came up with the ideas and collected the shells. Mik stayed on his own and built a sand mountain and when he got tired of Dad washed him off and he sat in my beach chair where he mischievously filled my sandals with sand and literally turned them into SANDals. I did not mind, though, as at least it kept him entertained and not complaining about wanting to leave while we finished the sand ballpark.
The end result of an hour or so of ballpark building with sand and shells can be seem above. Dad named our ballpark Curly W Stadium. Personally I just call it Sand Ballpark. By the way I am not sure if he was think Curly W for the Nats only or it also had to do with W being the initial of our last name. It is not perfect, but it turned out really cool if you ask me. Below are photos of some of the interesting features of our ballpark.
The above photo shows the curly shell I found to be the ballpark's flag. The flag was placed on top of the part behind home plate. Now that I think about maybe that is part of what Dad was thinking with the Curly W name. I am sure he will comment soon and clear it up about why he named it Curly W Stadium.
The shade for the upper sections of Sand Ballpark was created with large pieces of shells.
I came up with the idea of using some of the sand dollars we found to make the batter's eye background. Dad placed them standing up in the bleacher section in line with home plate.
The infield features small white shells at first, second, and third base, a larger white shell for the pitcher's mound, and a reddish brown shell as home plate.
I placed little shells all around the stadium to mark the first row of seating. The rest of the rows are finger line marks Dad made in the sand stands.
Out behind the outfield I placed my Dr. Pepper bottle. Several Major League ballparks have giant Coca Cola bottles, so it seemed like a cool idea to have a giant bottle scale size for our ballpark. Do not worry I did not litter, as I only put it there for the photo and then threw it away in the trashcan on the way back to the car. Crazy thinker that Dad is thought I was going to leave it when I was adding it to the ballpark at the end.
Lastly, the coolest feature and most important feature of our ballpark. The number 42 recognized as retired. For those that do not know 42 was Jackie Robinson's number and it is retired throughout Major League Baseball, so pretty much all of the stadiums clearly have a number 42 marker somewhere. Our 42 is etched onto one of the sand dollars we found. It is also the one piece of our ballpark I kept to take home as a reminder of the ballpark we created while visiting the 30 Major League Ballparks this summer.
