My middle daughter, who will be a senior in high school this year, had been looking for a job since she turned sixteen. The search, until recently, had not been successful—this despite the fact that she even knows the family that owns three Burger Kings in our area. They’d told her to apply. They told her they’d have a job for her. No such luck. She’d tried various shops at the local mall. She’d applied at restaurants. She’d applied at coffee shops. The results were always the same: nothing. She was becoming very discouraged.

During the school year, her attempts at locating a job lessened, but as summer arrived, she began beating the bushes harder and with more earnestness. But no matter what she tried, she was getting nowhere fast. She was becoming a poster child for the status of the American economy.

But finally, as May became June and spring became summer, success arrived. Not Burger King, not a boutique, and not a coffee shop. It was in a restaurant, and was essentially fast food—but in a unique environment. In Lancaster, California we have a single A minor league baseball team called the JetHawks. They are a farm club for the Houston Astros and, like any baseball stadium, they sell food: burgers, hotdogs, and the like. My daughter applied, and they hired her.

She gets to wear a team shirt and baseball cap. The shirt is about three sizes too big, but that’s all they had left. The hat fits fine, however. Her first day—well, evening—of work, she came home tired and she complained of being bored and a little disappointed. She had hoped that working in the kitchen meant that she’d be cooking food. Instead, she was mostly just microwaving stuff.

However, by her third day she had adapted to the new tasks and discovered that there was more to it than just standing next to a microwave. Now she sometimes cooks, sometimes runs about and delivers the product. Her enthusiasm for her tasks was a relief to me. By the end of her first week she was absolutely thrilled with her job. Her pleasure rose after she received her first paycheck—though she, like most new workers, found she wasn’t overjoyed of FICA and the other acronyms that took bits and pieces of her pay from her.

After working at the baseball stadium for a month, she discovered that as part of her pay she receives eight free tickets to the ball games each month. This made me happy.
A couple of weeks ago, I got to go out to the old ballgame. My wife has zero interest in baseball, but my oldest daughter, my middle daughter, her boyfriend and his parents, joined me there, using up six out of the eight tickets all at once. The leftovers she gave to her boyfriend’s brother, who plans on taking his girlfriend to a game at some later date. Next month, all the tickets will be for me to do with as I please. I look forward to seeing multiple games.

The JetHawks came in first place last year, and they are in first place again this year. JetHawks’ Stadium is notorious for the ease with which players can hit home runs. In fact, it is so unusual that it became the subject of an article in the Wall Street Journal last year.

Lancaster, California is the real “windy city.” Chicago has nothing on us. Our ever blowing breezes add a significant lift to baseballs after they leave the bat. Players who go on to the majors find themselves disappointed that their performance doesn’t match what they had gotten used to with the JetHawks.

The first five innings of the game it looked as if the Jet Hawks were going to have an easy time beating their opponents, the Modesto Nuts. As the JetHawks finished that inning they were ahead 7 to 1. But things began changing for the worst very quickly. By the time the JetHawks came back up to bat, they were still ahead—but the score had changed to 7 to 3.

The seventh and eighth innings were a route. I have rarely seen a team fall apart so quickly and so thoroughly. It was as if the players had switched uniforms. The JetHawks gave four runs in the seventh. In the eighth, they gave up five more. By the time the game ended, they not only had lost, but lost badly, 12 to 7. Talk about a reversal of fortune.

If I were superstitious, I would be leery about using the eight tickets my daughter has for me in August—or the eight more she’s giving me in September. This is starting to remind me of the Dodgers. In all my years of going to Dodger Stadium, I’ve seen them win a game only once. If that pattern holds with the JetHawks, they’ll be in last place in no time.

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