Two years ago I had such a good 4th of July with my college teammates, just sitting outside grilling meat and eating and drinking various things, that I decided it was my favorite holiday. The combination of summer heat, patriotism, friends and laziness just brewed in me an ataraxic cocktail. Yet, last years’ independence day was a big letdown. This past weekend, however, rejuvenated my faith in my favorite holiday.

Our weekend was spent in Traverse City, Michigan, which is way up North on the shores of Lake Michigan. The Traverse City Beach Bums were our Independence Day opponents, and I doubt we could have had a better place to play for the holiday.

Game 1 of the series was a win, thanks to Tyler Lavigne, who continued dominating teams like he has all season. Game 2 was mine, and it was lucky that my date fell on July 3rd. July 4th is usually spent with family, cooking out and doing various patriotic things, and so crowds aren’t usually as big on the actual holiday. July 3rd, however, is the day before the day, and since it fell on a gorgeous Saturday, the ballpark was packed.

Before the game, a really nice ceremony was held honoring our troops. The Blue Angels were in town for an air show, which we had watched on the beach that afternoon, and they were also at the game shaking hands with our veterans. I’m not all that sentimental, but with all of the speeches and veterans around, I felt pretty thankful to be on a baseball field, with 6,500 fans to watch us play. That was the biggest crowd ever in Traverse City, by far the biggest I had pitched in front of, and It was a neat experience. We even got a fly-over from a B-52 bomber. When the game started I got hit like a red-headed stepchild and didn’t make it through 4 innings, but it was a good day nonetheless. Some of our hitters really stepped up and mounted a strong comeback to try and bail me out. Though they couldn’t, the loss felt like a minor detail in light of the sacrifice of all our military personnel out there. Sports are crucially important to our culture, and I don’t believe what we do is at all frivolous, but fighting for one’s life is scary, and there were a lot of people watching us who had done just that. If it’s a job for the solider and a job for me, I’m pretty happy to be pitching baseballs rather than grenades.

Game 3 was a loss as well, and while it was a hell of a shame to leave town with a series loss, the weekend as a whole was interesting. Without baseball, I would probably never have visited Traverse City, which is a decent little town. I had never seen the great lakes before, and Lake Michigan was pretty amazing. Blue water that was only a foot or two deep for 1000 feet out. We got a chance to walk in it before heading to the ballpark on Sunday. And not to mention that it was the annual Cherry Festival, which brought thousands of people into the town for the weekend. With a ton of people around celebrating our country on a blue-skied holiday, the atmosphere was buzzing.

My stomach also honors the cherry.

Yeah, the ride home was long, and quiet (we were all pissed about dropping the series), but win or lose the trips are an experience. Independent of our losses, this one was pretty cool. As we rolled out of town we caught 5 different sets of fireworks from our bus, some I think that were in Grand Rapids, which kind of summed up the life we live. Being on the move all the time, we don’t get to soak in a lot of things like holidays and family moments, but we get a high volume of little cultural fragments. Sure, we didn’t get to watch the fireworks from a blanket with our loved ones, but we got to watch it from the bus, doing something we love with our summer family. I don’t remember the first time I watched fireworks, but I’ll remember the first time I watched them from a bus.