What a day for me!

Two impossible dreams -- kind of -- were fulfilled and I got to do something for my son that pleased me enormously ... and I think he liked a lot.

We went to Louisville KY today and toured the Louisville Slugger baseball bat manufacturing company. But that wasn't my DREAM. I got to hold and have my picture taken with a bat that Mickey Mantle used in a game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Holy mother of ashwood! Mickey was by leaps and bounds my favorite baseball player and professional athlete of all time. Always will be.

Then we went on the tour. No photos of any kind allowed. Stay inside the yellow lines. No touchin' nothin'. My son's all time favorite player is David Wright of the Mets. By all accounts he is an excellent young man and role model. The factory was making bats for four MLB players today. Yes, one of them was David Wright! But no pictures. Damnation. There were maybe 40+ people in the tour. Part way through it I spoke to the tour guide about my son's love of the game and of David Wright. By the end of the tour, he knew how my son had started a baseball team in NYC at a school named for a professional player, but which did not have a baseball team. Cutting to the chase, after the tour he went into the plant and brought out a David Wright custom bat bound for the Mets and some future game. I got to take pictures of it and have my picture taken with it for my son. Way way cool! In my hands (albeit gloved as required holding Mickey's bat) today I had my favorite player's game used bat and one destined for the hands of my son's favorite player. Past impossible!

But I said THREE things. The last isn't as impressive I'm sure, yet arguably there might be a case made for it.

Mike and I drove to Churchill Downs, the home of the Kentucky Derby about four miles south of the center of Louisville. I wanted to get a picture of the fabled twin spires that have crowned the home of the Derby for something like 130 years. I had hopes of making it through the closed track -- there's no racing there at this time of year -- to near the track and perhaps have some kind of angle to capture a bit of the spires. Mike was convinced we wouldn't even be able to get into the building, let alone out the other side and in a position to take pictures of them.

So I see three police officers/track security people on the other side of some closed doors. The doors are unlocked. I walk through them and up to the officers. I explain our situation, apologizing for the intrusion.

The short version is that one of them, a woman that Mike thought was pretty (a comment he almost never makes), offered to take us through the building to a spot that might have a view of the spires. I totally was hoping for access to the railing around the track to look up and see and photograph them. But she leads us to an elevator ... which confuses me and kind of dashes my hopes of getting a decent shot of them. I'm thinking I didn't explain myself very clearly, but dare not say anything because she was being so nice ... even if unhelpful.

So we get out of the elevator and take a couple a twists and turns and pop out a metal door onto a deck and the FREAKIN' SPIRES are RIGHT THERE! She laughed at my reaction -- open mouthed and then whatever I said next. (Holy something, I think.) The first spire was maybe 30 feet away. Maybe not even that far.

What a day for old Tom!