Can baseball really ruin a vacation at the beach?

ASHEBORO — Let’s answer that question right off the bat. I guess it all depends on who you ask. Ask me, and I will tell you certainly not. Ask some other people who experienced what my wife Kellie and I experienced two weeks ago at Myrtle Beach and you might get a different answer.

It’s been a few years since Kellie and I enjoyed time at the beach together. She absolutely loves the beach and if it were up to her, and we had the money, which we don’t, we would buy a place at Cherry Grove, North Myrtle Beach or Oak Island and spend the rest of our days sitting on the front porch, her sipping some type of frappe or mocha something or whatever and me drinking some fruity girlie drink.

She does have summer trips to the beach with her friends every year, and that just makes her want to spend more time picking up shells and reading her book on the beach. 

This particular adventure actually started last year when my son Chris, who lives in Loveland, Colorado, with his wife and five children — our precious grandchildren — called me to let me know our oldest grandson Brodee, a rising freshman at Thompson Valley High School, was going to be playing in a Triple Crown National Baseball Tournament in Myrtle Beach the week of July 16-20.

Of course, we planned to go. We hadn’t seen our grandchildren in more than a year and this would be an opportunity to see Brodee play baseball.

I had flown to Colorado a couple of times to watch him play in an all-star football game, but never baseball, so I was looking forward to watching a couple of games, give Kellie the opportunity to lay on the beach and all of us getting together to eat seafood, go swimming and give plenty of hugs.

Well, as it worked out, the girls couldn’t make the trip so Bruklynn (13), Baylee (12) and their mother didn’t come. That meant Chris, Brodee (14) and twins Kash and Kayne (8) would take the flight to Myrtle Beach.

Again, we’ll go to a few games and have plenty of time to do all the things that people do on vacation when they go to the beach.

We left for Myrtle Beach Wednesday afternoon and they flew in on Wednesday night with the tournament starting Thursday. There were three “pool” games and then a double-elimination tournament. They played at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. the first day, noon on the second day and the double-elimination portion of the event started Saturday. We went to all three “pool” games, which Brodee’s team won, giving us a couple of hours on the beach ONE day.

That’s right, a couple of hours on one day.

After Friday’s game, Chris and Brodee went deep-sea fishing, leaving the twins with us for the rest of the day and night. I must admit, that was fun. Although we didn’t go to the beach (watching two 8-year-olds on the beach is something I didn’t relish), we did go to the swimming pool for a long time, a long, long time made even longer when some of Brodee’s teammates came down and joined the twins hopping from the indoor pool to the Lazy River located outside. 

After swimming, the kids and I played UNO, while Kellie made a nice picnic for us and we went underneath the umbrellas between the hotel and the beach and that was relaxing. Until one of the boys started complaining about the ants near the picnic area.

Chris and Brodee weren’t going to be back until late Friday so after the picnic, we went back to our room at the Dayton House and the boys watched TV for about 10 minutes before they opened the couch that turned into a bed and laid down. 

Kellie seized the opportunity to read them a book and it took all of 10 minutes for both of them to be fast asleep. It was 7:30 p.m. They slept the entire night.

Brodee’s team played Saturday, which we went to, and they won. 

Well, they suffered their first loss on Sunday morning in an 8 a.m. game and I’m pretty sure just about every parent was upset with us because we had been the team’s “good-luck charm” — their words, not ours — for the first four games. We missed the one they lost and there had to be a direct correlation between the two.

They played two more do-or-die games later that day, which we went to and they won, and that meant as long as they were playing, Kellie and I had to be there. No problem. They had advanced to the tournament semifinals on Monday against the team they had lost to earlier.

One more loss and the beach awaited, shopping at Broadway at the Beach awaited, a meal at Paula Dean’s Restaurant awaited.

But those plans were thwarted when Brodee’s team won Monday’s first game, which advanced them to the national championship. (I know, how can you say national championship when there’s two dozen national championships around the country for ages 14 and under? But it certainly sounds cool, doesn’t it?)

So, we spent Monday, our last full day, at Grand Park as well with Brodee’s team losing to a team from Oklahoma 5-1 for the title in the second game that day. Nine games in five days took the place of beach days, beach evenings and shopping excursions.

Even on the final day we were at the beach, Kellie and I slipped away after the second game to go shopping at Broadway at the Beach and have lunch at Paula Dean’s. But before we even finished our lunch, the entire gang tracked us down and we ended up not shopping, like Kellie had hoped, but headed to Topgolf for a couple of hours.

Kellie should have enjoyed that more because she beat all of us in two different competitions at Topgolf.

So although there was very little beach time during the six-day stay, no shopping time and no seeing the attractions (aquariums, wax museums, dinner shows), I got a great tan for sitting outside at the games. 

Can baseball ruin a trip to the beach? No. But it sure can alter it.