As you've probably gathered, I'm a big fan of Miami, but until this past Saturday I had never been to a University of Miami baseball game.

"It's hard to imagine doing anything else on an evening like this," said my friend Toby, a long-time supporter of the team.

And it was. From the first base line we had a beautiful view down to the two spreading ficus trees shading the bleachers at the terminus of the third base line. If you moved your eye from the pitcher on the mound to those leafy twins you could imagine yourself watching a game played in a pasture - in a field of dreams.

A student with the made-for-baseball name of Yonder Alonso hit a home run to give Miami the lead. There was music between innings, but it wasn't blasted the way it is at Marlins games. At 9 o'clock Billy Joel sang, "It's 9 o'clock on a Saturday."

"That's what's so great about baseball," said Toby's daughter Jane, a student at U of M law school. "You can just break out in song and it's OK. Nobody looks at you funny."

There was also a between-innings quiz. "In what country is the Nobel Peace Prize given?" (Norway.)

After Miami won it in the bottom of the 10th, we walked to the parking garage, our way scented by the flowers of an orange jasmine hedge.