Steinbrenner Stadium in downtown Tampa is the spring training home of the New York Yankees. (The Tampa Bay Rays conduct spring training from Charlotte, about 40 miles south of Tampa, making it easier to go to a Yankees game just to catch the baseball fever.)

So the Braden family loaded up the car and headed for Steinbrenner Field, without tickets, but confident that they could buy them from a seller outside the stadium.

Well, they did find people hawking tickets, but what they wanted for tickets was pricey. A better name for the hawkers we encountered is "scalpers." It was a bit discouraging, and there might have even been some thoughts about giving up and going home. So the family disengaged from the ticket scalpers "to think about it."

But while we were doing so, two men dressed in dark blue slacks and dark blue shirts embroidered with New York Yankees insignia, and same for their ball caps, emerged from the direction of the stadium, walked past us, and confronted the ticket "sellers." The Braden family did not know what was happening, but apparently the Yankees officials were not happy with the ticket scalpers on their property, and must have threatened them in some manner. The next thing we knew was that we were waved back to the "scalpers," who proceeded to give us all free tickets. Wow, the Yankees officials must've put the fear of God in them.

Hey, free baseball tickets! Great! What a nice experience! Almost made me a Yankees fan.

Almost.