I Went To A Reds Game And The Sky Was Red

A few different times when I was in my teens, my dad, my younger brother and I would go on a sports-themed road trip. This particular one 12 years ago took us from our home in suburban Detroit to baseball games in Cincinnati, Louisville, and finally St. Louis. I have good memories of this trip: watching on TV as Germany obliterated Brazil in the World Cup; seeing Matt Adams (I could tell it was Matt Adams) hit what I thought was a triple in Busch Stadium from way, way up in the Gateway Arch (turns out he was actually out at third); exchanging subtle low-fives with my brother as the Cardinals failed to win the game we went to the next day. Even the sheer nothingness that defined the drive through Southern Indiana and Illinois comforts me in retrospect. Most surreal of all these moments, though, was the sky on the night we saw the Reds play in Cincy. July 7, 2014, I went to the Reds game and the sky caught fire. As the Sun sank in right field, it lit up the low clouds with a riot of reds and oranges and the purple of an old bruise. Without looking it up, I couldn't have told you how the game went—my second-most prominent memory from my lone trip the Reds' ballpark was the fact that they had "Teenage FBI" by Guided By Voices on the pregame playlist, which rocked. But I'd never observed anything in person like that combination of mammatus clouds and blazing sunset before or since. You can see in the photos that the heavens looked like a scene out of an alien-invasion movie, and I recall the crowd being awestruck but also a little anxious, like maybe they should be feeling more urgency instead of continuing to watch a baseball game under a blood red sky. I also never forgot that the website Deadspin, a future employer of mine, linked the pictures, which made me feel like I'd attended a special occasion. (In case you were wondering about the whole "Red sky at night, sailor's delight" proverb, there was recorded precipitation in Cincinnati each of the following two days after this game.)

Read it at Defector ↗

← Front page