Our last day of games in Florida, and it’s also the last day of three straight doubleheader days. We are a little tired of driving all up and down and around Florida, but the Palm Beach/Jupiter and Miami areas are both quite nice. We again came back to Roger Dean Stadium to see the Palm Beach Cardinals in action. The Palm Beach game was at 10:30am, which could mean only one thing—Education Day! More kids, more cheering, more sno cones and souvenirs were bought and sold.

Today was also my birthday, and I got to throw out the first pitch during the first game. Robbie, the Palm Beach Cardinals mascot, stood behind the plate waiting for my pitch. I hurled a perfect fastball right down the center of the plate. Robbie thought I was just going to lob the ball across the plate and was caught completely by surprise my aggressive first pitch. He barely had time to react to get his glove up, and the ball pegged him square in the chest. It looked like for a a split second he was going to fall backwards but he managed to recover well. Even the announcer took notice—and told the crowd to sign me right away. Here is the video—it looked a lot funnier from the pitcher’s mound. Afterwards I apologized to Robbie, but due to the mascot code, Robbie is not permitted to talk so I have no idea if he fully forgave me or not. In case you were wondering what kind of music a mascot listens to, I discovered that Robbie’s favorite song is “Fly Like an Eagle” by Steve Miller Band and NOT “I Believe I Can Fly” by R. Kelly. Interesting choice of favorite song—why would a cardinal want to fly like an eagle?

Later that night we arrived in Miami to see the Florida Marlins take on the New York Mets. We have seen three National League games so far on the trip and at every game the Mets are playing. I’m tired of seeing the Mets. Dolphin Stadium (formerly Joe Robbie Stadium) is about 20 years old, and was built to house the Miami Dolphins. The stadium is huge and is pretty bare bones in terms of baseball. Nobody sits on the 2nd tiered level, which makes the stadium look even emptier than it actually is. The total paid attendance tonight was a little more than 18,000. As for the game, the Mets erupted in the 3rd inning for six runs and by the end of the game they had crushed the Marlins, 11-3.

Tomorrow we drive from Miami, Florida to Columbus, GA. It’s going to be the longest one day drive of the trip to date. Somewhere along the way we will travel our 5,000th mile.