I love baseball, but I doubt that I will watch one minute of the current World Series.

Just a week ago, I was like a lot of other Southland baseball fans, hoping for a Series between the Dodgers and the Angels, something that has never happened before. Both teams made it to their respective League Championship Series, but the Phillies knocked the Dodgers out and the Yankees outlasted the Angels. I don't particularly like the Yankees or the Phillies, and I don't watch much sports anyway, so I'll pass.

I only made it to one ballgame this year, which is sort of disappointing. I did get to see the game in a stadium I've never visited before -- Seattle's Safeco Field -- so I can check that off my list in my quest to see games in every major league city. I took my son Virgile, his fiancee Sterling and Virgile's French half-brother Joe to see the Mariners play the Yankees in August. I spent a lot of time trying out my new camera, and I actually managed to get one amazing photo with Ichiro Suzuki at bat.

[caption id="attachment_44" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Maddie&#39;s first ballgame"]<img class="size-medium wp-image-44" title="maddie mariners" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/maddie-mariners-300x225.jpg" alt="Maddie's first ballgame" width="300" height="225" />[/caption]

The shot I got shows the ball just after making contact with his bat.

Of course, there are better pictures, including one I didn't take from a different game. That's the one I'll show you here.

I'm not sure why it is that everything about that baby and everything about my daughter makes me so deliriously happy these days. I am so filled with love for both of them every time I see what a wonderful job Pauline is doing as little Maddie's mother, and I am eager to live long enough to see Maddie grow to adulthood and possibly to have children of her own.

I certainly want to see how Pauline and Ryan do with their other children.

It's really something -- two of my girls <em>and</em> baseball.

Things don't get much better than that.