MLB Roadtrip 2007

The car that took me 12,442 miles

2007-09-20T20:06:00.000-07:00

30 ballparks, Boston to San Francisco, in one rental car. Ok, ok, so there was that quick flight up to Seattle and back, but the vast majority of the time was spent in one rental Ford Taurus.

While I’d originally thought that the car was perhaps a little bigger than I needed, the further the trip went along, the more I realized that having a car with plenty of room was quite nice to avoid feeling cramped, especially on the longer drives. Furthermore, the large trunk was a critical factor, as I left the majority of my luggage in the car throughout the trip, only bringing inside what I needed each night. And, as Adara was happy to demonstrate, the trunk really did have plenty of room:

Meanwhile, how far did I go? Well, it’s shown on the stats to the right, and in the title to this posting, so it’s not giving anything away by highlighting that I put 12,442 miles on the car in less than 2 months. For some perspective, that’s 4 times the distance from Boston to San Francisco had I simply driven directly. Not bad. The rental car return woman did a double take when she recorded the mileage, and asked me if it was correct. But, hey, she’s being paid an hourly wage, so when I confirmed that I had, indeed, almost doubled the car’s mileage, she just printed a receipt and wished me a good flight.

Game #31: Bonus baseball

2007-09-20T19:46:00.000-07:00

Of course, the trip didn’t really have to end after 30 games. Due to a change in scheduling, Emily wasn’t able to make it out to SF in time for Game #30, so… here’s Game #31.

Obviously, there’s not much more to say about the park itself. Though by going again, I was able to catch a start by the Giants’ young phenom Tim Lincecum. And while he wasn’t at the top of his game, he definitely pitched well, and was well in line for the win before the bullpen blew it again. Ah well, the danger in cheering for a last place team.

Meanwhile, the one park feature I did experience this time that I didn’t comment on in the last post was a close encounter with Lou Seal, the Giants mascot. Not as close as the time when Lou Seal’s dad sat on Emily’s lap on Father’s Day, but close enough for the following picture:

Game #30, Take II: The Ballpark By The Bay

2007-09-17T15:54:00.000-07:00

A few last words about AT&T Park, to help those who haven’t been there really get a sense for it.

Perhaps no other team had the natural surroundings at hand to build as beautiful a park as the one in San Francisco. But the trick was to use that natural beauty effectively. The ballpark in San Francisco does that spectacularly, blending an old-school brick and steel construction with water, islands, bridge, and city, all in a fantastic downtown setting. Some of the best views are from the upper deck seats along the first base line, from which point the span of the Bay Bridge stretches out almost as an extension of the park itself, before plunging into the side of Treasure Island, halfway across the bay to Oakland. From these seats, the graceful arc of balls making their way to McCovey cove can also be best appreciated, or the all-too-common asymmetric curve of would-be home runs being knocked down by the wind into the right fielder’s glove below. Meanwhile, any seat in the park gives a great view of the game below, and a minimum amount of foul territory makes sure that the stands are kept at a fantastically intimate proximity to the game itself. Finally, while the exposed bleacher seats can experience a fairly significant cross-wind, the frigid conditions of Candlestick Park have been mostly prevented.

For a new park, the focus is also kept well and truly upon the game itself. With the exception of a few kid-friendly amusements in the outfield, including a miniature whiffle ball version of the park as a whole, the intention is very clearly that fans be there to enjoy, and focus upon, the game.

For Game #30, what a game! With the Giants in last place and Barry Bonds having broken the all-time home run record, you might not expect much. However, with the hated LA Dodgers in town, and the Giants playing well for a change, the crowd was well and truly into the game. In a back-and-forth affair, the Giants found themselves ahead by a run heading into the ninth. Then, as happened all too often for the Giants, the bullpen was not able to hold on, giving up a game-tying home run in the top of the ninth. But, with an intensity generated from the SF-LA rivalry, and an enthusiasm born of the youthful eagerness of a September call-up, rookie Dan Ortmeier provided the ideal ending to my 30-park trek with a walk-off game-winning home run.

Back to the park itself; AT&T Park is one of the best pitcher’s parks in the bigs, a fact driven at least partly by the irregular plot of land available for development. While the distances down the lines are reasonably short, center field gets deep in a hurry, while the right-center field triangle affectionately known as Death Valley has seen the unfortunate end of many would-be-home runs. Furthermore, while the right field wall isn’t overly far away, it is quite high and supported by a stiff breeze coming in from the water. This has made for a rough outing for many left-handed power hitters, eagerly swinging for the water only to see their fly balls blown straight down and kept in play.

The archways on that right field wall further support the old-fashioned styling of the park. The hand-operated scoreboard is a great touch, as are the open areas outside the park from which eager ticket-less fans can get a peek of the game within. And, of course, along this wall is the Bonds home-run counter, tracking his trajectory to, and then past, the top home run hitters before him. This counter is further duplicated on the outside of the building, for anyone passing by the park.

Bullpens for both teams are placed directly on the field, with pitchers throwing in the direction of home plate. This has several effects, the nicest of which is the immediacy of the bullpen activity to the game itself. With bullpen activity so evident to the fans, this part of the game is brought front and center, and kept within the boundaries of the field, a great touch. From another perspective, this also allows the bullpen pitchers, catchers and coaches to sit in the dugout itself, with the rest of the team, a great touch at the end of tight games when the entire team is rallying together to will their team on. Finally, unlike at Wrigley Field, there is just enough space on the field to fully hold the bullpens, preventing the in-bound field of play from being directly affected by the bullpen pitchers mounds.

The scoreboard, meanwhile, is one element of the park that is most distinctly NOT old-fashioned. A brand new, and absolutely beautiful, high definition screen has been put into place on the large outfield display, exceeding even the screens in Atlanta and Toronto for quality, size, and information. With both lineups displayed at all times, a tremendous wealth of statistics and details, and a fantastically sharp view of replays and highlights, this is definitely the best screen in baseball.

No discussion of the park would be complete without a profile of McCovey Cove, the inlet of water past right field into which long fly balls can splash. Despite the cold water, most games find a number of hardy fans in kayaks paddling around, in hope of catching a ball.

And the kayaks are not the only boats around AT&T Park. Past center field is a fairly large marina, a great place to dock up boats in between beautifully scenic sailing trips around the San Francisco Bay. Tough life, really.

A relatively new feature of the park, and one that will likely be gone next year, is the collection of rubber chickens hanging from the right field wall. This display commemorates intentional walks issued to Giants pitchers, and was first established in 2004 as inspired by the frequency of IBBs issued to Bonds (120 in 2004, almost 3x the next highest mark of 45 by Willie McCovey).

“…where little cable cars, climb halfway to the stars…”

While commercially-driven, the shape of the top of the left-field wall is both unique and rather amusing. As shown in the picture below, the Chevron billboard painted onto the wall actually extends beyond the line that would generally represent the top of the wall. In order to accommodate this, the wall itself therefore extends higher at this point, meaning that balls hit off this portion of the wall stay in the park instead of becoming home runs. While I wouldn’t want to be sitting behind this (apparently they dropped a Dodgers fan into that seat), the novelty factor somewhat overcomes the commercialism.

In front of the stadium, standing as a classic meeting point, is a statue of one of the greatest players of all times, Willie Mays. Formally, the park’s address is actually 24 Willie Mays Plaza, a two-fold tribute based upon the Say Hey Kid's old uniform number.

In a tip of the cap to the large Latin contingent present on the team, the Giants occasionally take the field as the “Gigantes”, with uniforms to match. This evening was one such game.

While this is fairly extreme, it does make a good point. In many of the older stadiums, the seats face forward, regardless of their orientation to the field, thus producing sore necks if poorly positioned relative to home plate. These seats, in the arcade, offer no such problem.

From a food standpoint, there are a few definite highlights. The garlic fries, inspired by nearby Gilroy, garlic capital of the world, are the park’s signature food, and while they use pre-chopped garlic instead of fresh chopped garlic in order to speed up the preparation process, they’re still fantastic. Meanwhile, the mints provided as an automatic side really don’t help.

The local favorite, meanwhile, is the Cha Cha Bowl, from Orlando’s Caribbean BBQ in center field. Named after former Giant Orlando Cepeda, this is a tasty and (potentially) spicy combination of pork, rice, beans, and a pineapple and zucchini salsa. For a recipe, check out the Food Network here.

Beer selections are quite decent, with a variety of local microbrews available. But perhaps more amusing is the prevalence of both hot coffee from Tully’s and hot chocolate, both served around the park by thermos-equipped vendors as a way to fight off the chill of a cold summer’s evening.

Being back in the Bay Area was a nice touch, and I was joined by a group of good friends for the game. With discounted tickets from our former company helping get us into the park, it was a great end to a fantastic trip.

Game #30: I Left My Heart...

2007-09-12T01:20:00.000-07:00

This isn't a full entry, but I figured it was time to get something up here.

Game #30 means the end of the trip, which is definitely bittersweet, but the Giants made sure to make it memorable. A walk-off home run to beat the rival Dodgers and the sound of Tony Bennett serenading the crowd out of the park were just the right touches to bring this trip to a close. And yes, Pac Bell (oh, ok... AT&T) is still definitely the most beautiful park in baseball.

(crowd chanting) "Beat LA! Beat LA!"

(crowd chanting) "Barry! Barry!"

(Tony singing) "The morning fog will chill the air. I don't care."

Game #29: The Soon-to-Be-Fremont A's

2007-09-06T17:53:00.000-07:00

There was a classic moment from an old Simpsons episode where the Simpsons visit the San Francisco Bay Area. As the family escapes from Alcatraz at the end of the episode, Bart yells “We can make it to San Francisco!” only to be rejoined by Homer’s “What are we, made of money? We’re swimming to Oakland”

That’s kind of the difference between the two cities in a nutshell. San Francisco – wealthy, young, vibrant, cosmopolitan. Oakland – blue collar, rough, lively in some places, but somewhat depressed. That character is reflected somewhat in their teams, more so in their fans, and very much so in their ballparks. Meanwhile, these A’s are scheduled to move down the Bay to Fremont in the next couple of years, and it’ll be interesting to see how the team and its fan base changes as they embed themselves in the high-tech-dominated South Bay.

It’s a da*n good thing the A’s are moving, too, since the McAfee Coliseum is a classic example of a concrete multi-purpose monolith. It’s massive, to the extent that the upper deck is kept completely shut at most baseball games, and, as with the Metrodome in Minnesota, the signage feels distinctly temporary, letting the stadium flip-flop from A’s green and yellow to Raiders black and silver as needed. The perfectly round original stadium, with its round bowl of seats, also leads to a huge amount of foul territory, pushing fans away from the play and giving the infielders plenty of room to catch pop-flies that would be well into the stands in other parks.

There are tales that the park had a certain degree of character, years ago, when the outfield was open and looked out onto the hills east of the city. In those days, a breeze coming into the open end of the park made it a distinct pitcher’s park, and provided both views and air for the fans to enjoy. Then, in an attempt to lure the Oakland-then-LA-then-Oakland Raiders back into town, Raiders owner Al Davis championed the creation of a monolith structure in center field, featuring seats that are never full for baseball (and rarely full for football for that matter) and luxury boxes much too far from the infield to bear any baseball appeal. Furthermore, this structure blocked out the hills and the breeze, cut down on the park’s character, and turned this once-pitcher’s haven into a still-air home run yard. All for a cost even higher than that of building the entire PNC Park in Pittsburgh, itself a gorgeous ballpark. This structure has gained the scornful name of “Mt Davis” and the park as a whole the status of temporary home until the A’s can complete their new one.

The stadium further suffers by its location, surrounded by nothing more than parking lots and freeway. There’s nothing around and nowhere remotely nearby to head to. Fremont, for that matter won’t be much better without a concerted and active effort to promote local (i.e. walking distance) establishments, a fact that the park owners have apparently recognized. We’ll see how effective they are in following through.

I had actually been to McAfee Coliseum, formerly Network Associates Coliseum, formerly the Oakland Coliseum, many times before, but this turned out to be the first time in my memory that I’ve been there to cheer on the A’s. Every previous visit has been to see and to cheer on the other team, whether the Giants, the Red Sox, the Blue Jays (carrying a large Canadian flag), or even Seattle when Ichiro was a rookie.

I was joined at the game by Sam, and we were fortunate to randomly run into a friend of his on BART (the subway) and her cousin, who were bearing an extra field-level ticket they weren't planning to use. With the addition of one extra close-to-the-field ticket at under face value from a scalper, and given that their tickets had been free, the entire game cost a grand total of $25 for the four of us. Furthermore, we sat at their seats in row 36 for a couple of innings, and then with some creative ticket stub demonstration and careful timing, all four of us were able to sit down to row 10, in the vicinity of my ticket, improving our view nicely.

These seats, though, I think wouldn’t have been worth the money:

I will give the Oakland fans, scarce though they are, some credit. First for the group of fans who make it to each and every game, to sit well out in Left Field and drum their way through the entirety of each game. These fans even made it into a TV commercial a few years back for their well-recognized “Tejada!” chant. The most distinctive, and amusing, current chant features shortstop Marco Scutaro, during whose at bats a variant of the old Marco Polo game seems to spread across the stadium. “marco…” “SCUTARO”

This game was Travis Buck t-shirt day. In classic fashion, and unlike in Philadelphia where Cole Hamels bobblehead day coincided with his pitching start, this promotion coincided with the A’s announcing that Buck was shut down for the season with injuries. Fantastic.

The game itself was the third of the home-and-home series I saw, and unlike in the other two, each of which was swept by a single team, these two games were each, unfortunately, won by the road team, and both in convincing fashion. The storyline behind the game was the matchup between two pitchers having tremendous seasons: Tigers reigning rookie-of-the-year Justin Verlander, and A’s all-star-game-starter Dan Haren. While Verlander lived up to expectations, throwing in the high nineties and racking up 10 Ks in 6 2/3, Haren was not able to hold off the Tigers, who put up 5 runs against him in 6 innings.

The A’s day was epitomized by an incident in the 7th. After the A’s chased Verlander at 128 pitches by loading the bases with two outs, Jack Cust came to the plate with 3 Ks already on the books for the day, clearly not seeing the ball very well. Did the A’s pinch hit for him, in an American league park with no concerns about carefully managing their bench? Nope – they let him hit, and as might have been predicted, he struck out, yet again. Shocker.

Meanwhile, we were within spitting distance of this guy. Luckily, I only had a still camera, and no video camera, or I might have been worried about my safety.

The same book I’d referenced in an earlier post talked up the A’s as having the #1 hot dog in all of baseball. So, thus prepared, I gave one a go, only to be dreadfully disappointed. Not impressive at all, and no better than the $1 dogs I remember having in Oakland on dollar-dog/dollar-ticket Wednesdays a few years back.

I did, though, make it to Top Dog, an apparent Berkeley institution a few days later, on being shown around Berkeley by another friend, Scott. And this did not disappoint at all. The linguica, shown below, was tasty, spicy, and fantastic.

Finally, the drive up from Southern California offered the chance to enjoy some of the great California coastal scenery. While the setting sun meant that I missed out on the northernmost views, the lighting of the sunset on Big Sur made the scenery particularly beautiful. See more pictures in the photo album.

Game #28: Beach Ball

2007-09-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

Having lived in San Diego in the past, and having attended several games at the old Qualcomm Stadium, I was quite eager to see the 3-year old Petco Park, which had gotten some great reviews. Unfortunately, while I enjoyed the atmosphere, and there are some quite nice features, the ballpark as a whole is rather plain, and didn’t live up to the standard set by new parks in Seattle, Detroit, and Pittsburgh.

The most notable feature of the park is undoubtedly the Western Metal Supply Company building. This old brick building was left in its pre-existing site (with improvements applied for earthquake safety), and incorporated as part of the ballpark, and makes for a nice piece of history right in the new ballpark. There is seating, and party suites, built right into the building, which itself defines the edge of home-run territory, making any ball that reaches these fans a great souvenir.

The other great feature of the ballpark is a open lawn area in right field. Inside the park, but outside the main bowl, this area provides a great spot to lounge out on the grass, with clear sightlines into the park and a large video screen to ensure that details and replays are made fully available to fans. This was a great touch, and a nice way to keep the ballpark feeling like a neighborhood feature.

Finally, the location of the ballpark is excellent, and appears to have further energized the already-happening Gaslamp District in downtown San Diego.

However, once past those three points the rest of the ballpark is rather plain. The color scheme and general construction feel rather sterile and imposing, and were, as with Tampa Bay, rather reminiscent of a shopping mall, though in this case reminiscent of a Southern California-style outdoors mall.

Furthermore, the park does little to make use of the city’s most distinctive features: Beach & water. This is particularly disappointing given the change in team colors and logo on opening the new part to incoporate the ocean into the identity of the team.

The bullpens are rather odd, and perhaps due to the Supply Company building, the opponents’ bullpen is right on the field while the home bullpen has its own separated area. Furthermore, a picnic area opens right onto the home bullpen without any wall, fence, or other barrier in between. Sure, it’s a half-level down, but there’s really nothing stopping overzealous fans from diving into the bullpen or leaning over and asking for autographs/souvenirs

In a terrible example of overzealous security policies, the Petco security staff made an effort, remarkably, to throw out a fan who threw back an opposing team’s home run ball, in classic Wrigley (and now almost universal) fashion. They escorted him, to resounding boos, under the stands, but after an inning or so, allowed him to return to his seat, apparently allowed to stay.

The San Diego Chicken was nowhere to be seen. While originally the Padres’ mascot, due to touring schedules and other factors, he’s apparently rarely at the ballpark, a fact far different from the Philly Phanatic, and one that has even prompted the Padres to introduce a more common, but less entertaining Friar mascot

The game was a strong reminder of the importance of not giving free baserunners to the other team. The night before had been a great performance for Greg Maddux and the Padres, giving up zero walks in nine innings on the way to their 3rd win in row over the 1st place Diamondbacks, actually edging Padres into 1st place by a few percentage points. The game I attended, on the other hand, was a stark contrast, as Padres pitcher Chris Young, still struggling to recover his first half form after some injuries and some time on the DL, had trouble finding the strike zone all night long. With Diamondback players getting free passes all night, Arizona was able to score a number of easy runs, and to walk away with the game.

There was one shining moment that both teams could appreciate, though. In the top of the second, Arizona rookie Mark Reynolds hit a ball within 2 feet of the park’s record, a moonshot that went well up into the left field stands.

The attendance was also disappointing, with only 29,000 fans at the ballpark. For a Thursday night game between the top two teams in division, with the Padres having just made it into 1st place, and with a relatively new ballpark, I was quite disappointed with the lack of enthusiasm shown by the Padres fans.

While I passed on the trademark food at the park, it was only because I’d already made a point of getting some earlier in the day: Rubio’ Fish Tacos. These Baja specialties are fantastic, and I made a beeline for the original Rubio’s location (still the best) upon first arriving in town. Highly recommended.

Game #27: The Pacific Northwest

2007-09-02T20:44:00.000-07:00

For a true planes, trains, and automobiles trip, I needed to drop in one flight to my roadtrip. So, in order to ensure I got a chance to end my trip in the SF Bay Area, I took a quick side-trip from Southern California up to Seattle and back to catch the Mariners game.

Safeco feels like an illustration of what a well done park can do for a city. Everywhere you looked in Seattle, there were signs and banners and references to the team, and throughout the town you could hear people talking about them. While not quite to the extent of the great East Coast franchises in Boston and New York, for a team with almost zero notable history (the M’s have never been to a world series, and instead proudly fly banners highlighting the years in which they made it as far as the ALCS) it was quite impressive

For the real experience, it’d be appropriate to visit each of the roofed ballparks twice – once with the roof open, once closed, as these two experiences typically provide two completely different impressions of a ballpark. And yet, Seattle seems to have done a good job making this not nearly as relevant a consideration. The massive roof structure sits far above the field, and is an impressive piece of engineering even in the open setting, literally shifted over to cover part of the parking lot when not in use for the field. However, when closed, the roof in Seattle apparently does far less to create an indoor stadium in the manner of Milwaukee, Arizona, and Houston, but rather functions somewhat as an umbrella, keeping the rain off the field and the fans while letting outside air continue to circulate through the stadium, thus maintaining an outdoor feel. The luxury of a balmy climate, in which rain, not heat or cold, is the only concern.

The park itself has got a close and intimate feel, with seats close to the action and a sense of immediacy. This is true throughout, including on the concourses, which provide plenty of standing room and a clear sight onto the field. The construction, heavy on green steel and a Pacific Northwest blue-green palette, does a great job of combining the size of the building with the intimacy of a small park. Meanwhile, the architects found a way to include seats in several places in home run territory where other parks might have given up. Where appropriate, this was a great way to make sure that balls hit out of the park would find their way into the hands of waiting fans, rather than disappearing into the no-souvenir-zone gullies recently seen in Anaheim, Minneapolis and Milwaukee.

The local train lines, of which there are many, seem to run almost directly under the right field wall, and trains apparently make a point of sounding their whistles as they pass by the park. These trains are loud and clear, and the thunder of their passing can be felt throughout the entire park.

The bullpens were another great and unique feature. While their position, behind the left field wall, partially hid them from view from the field, pretty much every other vantage point was available. Fans could walk right up beside the bullpens, and watch pitchers warm up from behind a screen a few feet away, or even peek into the bullpens through small portholes at the bullpens’ end. This made for very popular pre-game entertainment, including a large group of Japanese girls very disappointed that Mariners catcher Kenji Johjima was not helping Mariners’ pitcher Jeff Weaver warm up.

This group of Japanese girls were not alone; there were a LOT of Japanese fans around in general, drawn, perhaps, due to the presence of players such as Ichiro and Johjima, due to the exposure of the Mariners in Japan thanks to their Japanese ownership, and perhaps due simply to proximity. That led to a number of signs being posted in both Japanese and English, as per the following posting of the Code of Conduct:

This Japanese connection also ties into the classic Safeco trademark food: The Ichiroll sushi combo. While sushi is now available at a couple of other parks (Detroit for sure, San Francisco on the club level, apparently), it was the introduction of sushi in Seattle that first drew newspaper headlines.

There was one other demographic factor noted that day in a local paper: Apparently, Seattle has the highest percentage of female fans in Major League Baseball, a fact that caused the columnist’s friend to state, regarding Safeco field: “This is, like, the Pottery Barn of baseball stadiums”

The game itself was, as has seemed so often true lately, a home-team loss. The Mariners, after tearing up the league lately, including beating up on opponents twice already during my trip, had closed the gap with the division-leading Angels to the point where this series could have given them the division lead. However, these three days were a painful recalibration for the M’s, as they were swept, and soundly, by the Angels, who well and truly illustrated who the best team in the division is.

The game I attended started promisingly for the Mariners, as they put up five runs in the bottom of the first and chased the starting pitcher, all before the second out was recorded. But slowly and surely, the Angels chipped away at the lead, while the Angel bullpen did a masterful job, eventually securing a 10-6 victory and helping to send Seattle into a tailspin.

Elsewhere in Seattle…

Beer - The Pacific Northwest is known for its brewpubs, so I made a point of hitting up three of them. Of the ones I tried, Elysian was the best, for their own brews, the atmosphere, and for an impressive collection of guest beers including Rodenbach Grand Cru, Unibroue La Fin du Monde, Westmalle Tripple, and Delirium Tremens. Heck, the beer selection at the ballpark was also great, with a wide variety of microbrews available on tap.

Coffee – Seattle’s also known for its coffee, of course, and along with the original Starbucks, I spent a fair bit of the next afternoon touring a series of local coffee shops.

Pike Place Market – Perhaps the biggest tourist attraction in town is the Pike Place Market, itself best known for its flying fish. Or, well, for the large fish stand at which the employees famously throw fish to one another upon making a customer sale. This was fantastically entertaining, as was the market as a whole, though I do feel a bit sorry for the employees. The famous stand is mobbed with people, all day long, though few, if any, have any intention to actually buy any fish. Most people spend their time standing and waiting for someone else to buy one, generating as it does the grand theatre of large fish flying silvery and floppily through the air. Still, great fun.

Space Needle – Seattle’s greatest landmark is the (now fairly dated) Space Needle, which stands only about half as tall as the CN tower in Toronto. That said, the scenery in and around Seattle is fantastic, and makes a ride up to the Space Needle’s observation deck well worthwhile. Free tours at the top included pointing out the location of the houseboat from Sleepless in Seattle, and the location where Frasier’s condo would be, were the building that were there only 6-7 stories taller.

REI – Finally, the outdoorsy spirit that imbues Seattle finds its heart at the original REI store, itself a great piece of Northwest architecture.

Running a bit behind again

2007-09-02T00:53:00.000-07:00

Ok, ok - I'm a few entries behind again. They're on their way, and there are pictures in the photo album (at right) but for the snapshot summary:

Safeco in Seattle - Incredible. Beautiful park, fantastic environment
Petco in San Diego - Disappointing. Nice features, superior to Qualcomm Stadium, but overhyped.
McAfee in Oakland - Concrete and painful. But... not as bad as I'd remembered

Big Sur - Beautiful, especially at sunset
Clay Buchholz - Very impressive. Way to go, kid
Home team mojo - Kaput, completely

Game #26: Beat LA! Beat LA!

2007-08-29T01:06:00.001-07:00

While I’ve never explicitly stated it on this blog, I had set myself a rule to cheer for the home team at every park, as a way of more fully experiencing the atmosphere and environment of each location. But of course, that couldn’t be true everywhere, and LA was very much the exception. As a Giants fan, the concept of cheering for the Dodgers, or rather, of doing anything other than lustily booing them, was clearly a non-starter, so I decked myself out in Giants orange, braced myself, and headed into what very much felt like enemy territory.

The stadium itself was exactly that, a large, concrete, and fully symmetric stadium. It was most reminiscent of Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium, but without any of the latter’s charm or class. The outfield provided a nice view of hills, horribly scarred by a Dodger-oriented “Think Blue” sign in the style of the Hollywood sign, and there were palm trees placed immediately beyond the edge of the park. Beyond that, the only unique characteristic was the bright pastel color scheme on the seating, which evoked memories of decades-ago LA. While sight lines were decent throughout, the lack of character or aesthetic appeal provided a setting particularly appropriate for the Dodgers.

Meanwhile, there didn’t appear to be any filter placed on the sort of people let into the ballpark. This was evident since the park was lousy with people afflicted with that most tragic of conditions: Dodger fans. In Northern California, these unfortunate souls are kindly shown the way towards trained medical professionals who can give them help, either by throwing food at them to indicate a path towards the closest facility, by offering polite words of encouragement about hot vacation spots they might consider, or by explaining to them what possible thumb-related habits the Dodgers may have had as children. But here in LA, they were inexplicably allowed to wander freely through the stadium. Baffling.

At least their busy schedules weren’t overly inconvenienced by the game. Most fans arrived right on schedule just as the 3rd inning was finishing, and left with plenty of time to get a good night’s sleep by heading for the exits at the start of the 7th. Here’s a picture of the stands as they stood at first pitch:

Ok, ok… so that might not have been entirely true. Here’s a true view of the 1st pitch, mid-5th, and top-9th crowds. Judge for yourself:

There was a strong class system that had been created between stadium sections. The Dodgers provided no access to decks other than the one your ticket is for. This has been true at a couple of other stadiums (Shea, Comiskey), but was nowhere as explicit as it was here, in that each tier had a separate stadium entrance, and climbing up or down between levels was meant to be done before entering the stadium gates themselves. With a Loge ticket, I was able to see a bit of the View level before heading down, but there wasn’t any chance of my getting onto the Field level, even if just for batting practice.

Down at field level, there were also truly distinct boxes among general seating. These were even further differentiated than the bars previously witnessed at Shea and Yankee Stadium, and looked to be a way to create private enclosures right down at field level.

Ok, all jesting aside – there were two moderately positive points. First, having seen Jackie Robinson’s 42 retired at 25 other stadiums already (it’s been officially retired by the entire league), it was still rather fitting to see the original, for the team for which he played.

Also, this was Korean Community Night, complete with a few activities before the game showcasing the Korean Community. One of the acts was a Korean rock band, who performed a song shortly before the start of the game. Former Red Sox (yay) and current Dodger (boo) pitcher Derek Lowe clearly enjoyed the performance, as he was strumming the air guitar between each of his warm-up pitches, a fact that was fairly entertaining to see..

The game was disappointing. The fact that the Dodgers were playing the Nationals, one of the worst teams in the league, was a concern, though the Dodgers’ evening game in NY the night before meant that they were likely fatigued coming into the game. The Nats even managed to come from behind to take a 4-2 lead at one point. However, in 5 of the first 6 innings, the Nats put the Dodgers’ lead-off hitter on base, a fact that eventually came around to bite them.

The food options weren’t particularly impressive either. The famed Dodger Dog, touted throughout the park as grilled after a misguided decision to forego the grilling several years ago, may well have been grilled at one point, but by the time you could buy them, they’d been sitting in a pile, wrapped in foil, under a heat lamp, for quite a while. Not at all impressive. And the Beers of the World stand apparently qualified for that status due to the presence of 1) Corona, and 2) Heineken. Yikes.

I’d attempted to head off this by getting a hot dog at Pink’s, a famous Hollywood institution. My Brooklyn Pastrami & Swiss Cheese dog does in fact have a hot dog under there somewhere, but it, too, was disappointing.

Elsewhere in LA…

Having commented on billboards in the South, it’s only fair that I tip my cap to that most LA of billboards, witnessed on the drive on the way into town: The copy: “Look your best”, next to a smiling woman advertising… yep… breast enhancement. Meanwhile, I also spent about 10 minutes at one point trying to figure out what it was about a guy sitting a few rows in front of me that looked so LA until it suddenly dawned on me that he had an unnatural smoothness at the corner of his eyes where, from his age and appearance, you might have expected to see some wrinkles. The wonders of botox.

Meanwhile, I spent my day wandering through the human zoo that is Venice Beach, and the more civilized Santa Monica, followed by a quick drive through Hollywood. Good fun, and definitely unique.

Game #25: Disney baseball

2007-08-29T00:57:00.000-07:00

Game 25 found me in Orange County, watching the Anaheim California Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim California. Or something like that. Really, in an effort to expand their viewership and merchandise sales, the Angels have, much to the chagrin of locals, tried to change the team name to the LA Angels, only to find themselves stuck due to contractual constraints with the Anaheim name as well. Furthermore, to Spanish speakers, the very concept of the “The Angels Angels” name is absurd in and of itself. But hey, whatever makes them happy.

More immediate, when attending the game is the realization that this was until recently a Disney-owned team, just down the road from Disneyland. And they’ve done what they can to extend the Disney experience to the ballpark itself. Remodeled after the NFL’s Rams left town and converted back to a baseball-only facility, Anaheim Stadium is still that… a Stadium, but one with Disney touches everywhere you look.

The most obvious Disney feature is the rocks-and-water display in left field. While I’d fully expected this to be Styrofoam, these rocks did turn out to be firm and solid, though so clearly of a crafted and painted variety that they could have been lifted straight from the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad rollercoaster. While they add some visual distinctiveness to the stadium that was not there the last time I visited (pre-remodel), this rock formation was definitely disappointing after Coors Field’s splendidly authentic Rocky Mountain display.

While most parks have also incorporated non-stop crowd entertainment into their ballpark experience, Angel Stadium seemed to carry this even a step further, with ongoing activities even before the game started. This again, for anyone who’s been kept mildly entertained by non-stop goings on during a 2-hour Disneyland ride line, was very familiar.

The front entrance has received the full Disney treatment, flanked by two massive, size 649 ½ hats. Yes, the size was listed on the inside brim – classic Disney attention to detail.

Lastly, no Disney adventure would be complete without animals, and while there was no need for an appearance today, the Angels thrill their fans with their Rally Monkey, an oddly effective scoreboard-led means of encouraging the team to overcome late-game deficits. And, of course, a great way to sell additional $15 souvenirs.

It was certainly appropriate that my Disney ballpark experience would be accompanied by plenty of members of my extended family, who live in the area, including two young ones fully on board with the Disney-style entertainment.

Elsewhere in the stadium, Disney did hold onto a big of history by maintaining the “Big A” that had for years been the primary characteristic of the stadium. Now situated in the parking lot and adorned with advertisement, it very much carries the feel of yesteryear.

That’s one big happy meal. Really, actually, it’s part of the McDonald’s Sunday Kid’s Day celebrations.

The fans do show their allegiance to the team, showing up dressed in red to an extent matched only by the ubiquitous red of St Louis. Much of this enthusiasm appears to be a recent phenomenon, spurred forward in large part by the recent 2002 World Series championship. Mind you, as a Giants fan, I still refuse to accept that the 2002 World Series ever took place, despite the image of Dusty Baker rewarding Russ Ortiz with the game ball while the game was still going on being still seared painfully into my memory.

This game, as well, almost never took place, as I made what should have been a cardinal error. Blatantly tempting fate, I had announced the night before that I was fortunate to have made it all the way through the trip without any games being rained out, given that it never rains in California during the summer. So of course, what should the next morning bring but… yep… rain. Fortunately, even my terrible hubris in the face of fate wasn’t enough to overcome the fact that this was, in fact, Southern California.

For the second of three times on the trip, this game was part of a home-and-home series in which I saw the same two teams matched up at each of their home ballparks. And, as with Baltimore over Tampa Bay, the Angels managed to sweep both games against Toronto, with a never-really-in-doubt 3-1 victory built upon a solid Kelvim Escobar (ex-Jay) pitching performance. But hey, at least it gave me a chance to see O Canada again, eh?

Game #24: Wrigley in the Desert?

2007-08-26T23:43:00.001-07:00

So, for the first time in the trip, I was truly torn. After all, the map said I’d arrived in Arizona, but from everything I could tell about the crowd, the game sure felt like a Cubs home game. After all, the Cubs fans appeared to slightly outnumber the Diamondbacks fans, and were by any measure a far more vocal presence. I figured I’d go with my gut and cheer for Arizona, but was definitely confused.

This was further helped by the fact that I was sitting in the bleachers, a classic Wrigley move, ate an Italian Beef sandwich, a classic Chicago meal, and that the two people I sat next to, and wound up heading up to the in-stadium Friday’s bar with for a round of shots mid-game, were a die-hard Cubs fan and a (all condolences welcome) Devil Rays fan. Twice in a week for bleacher tickets for a Cubs “home” game, I suppose.

Mind you, this was a Cubs game in the desert. The temperature outside, at game time, was 114 degrees, shockingly hot, and not feasible for watching a game outside. That said, there was still something of a fair going on outside the front gates, and the bar immediately across from the park was absolutely hopping with people. I’m not entirely sure about the wisdom of the former, but water mist generators at the bar kept the temperature definitely alright for a quick drink before heading in. The bar was actually even stocking Old Style, undoubtedly to make the Cubs fans feel well at home.

As with any covered stadium, especially when closed, the roof is a dominant characteristic of the park. I’d been to this ballpark once before, with the roof and side panels open, and something is understandably lost by having the building closed up. However, given the heat outside, they’ve perhaps done the best with what they’ve got. The roof is a flat roof, opening in the center, rather than the fan in Milwaukee or the multi-paneled dome of Toronto, which apparently is helpful for opening part of the roof to help the natural grass get just enough sunlight and not too much heat. Kudos to the team for successfully growing and maintaining grass in the desert heat.

The signature park feature, meanwhile, is the swimming pool in right field, a cordoned off area, complete with private entrance and locker room, that can be rented by groups. During this game, it was rented by a group of (predominantly) Cubs fans, even sporting a “Cubs, hit it here!” sign, who spent their time alternately watching the game, lounging in the pool, eating, drinking, and otherwise being merry.

The displays at Chase Field were both good and complete, providing a full overview of out-of-town scores, both lineups, detailed stats, and still leaving room for highlights, replays and ads. However, much of this doesn’t really support the outfield seating, a common problem, but one that seemed even more of an issue here due to the odd way in which many of these signs were suspended.

The K counter in right field, tracking both the current game and the season as a whole, was a dead giveaway that Randy Johnson played some of his top years here.

Also amusing, and while not unique, certainly uncommon, was the dedicated scalping area placed immediately across the street from the park. Cordoned off by a set of metal barriers, this appeared to be a fully condoned spot, immediately adjacent to police performing traffic control, for resold tickets. Even still, I figured I’d skip taking a picture of this.

The Diamondbacks are clearly very proud of their World Series championship, prominently displaying the trophy in the entrance atrium and posting numerous banners relating to this championship, while the fans themselves were very eager to rub their championship in the Cubs’ faces.

The food offerings were ok. While I’d been recommended, and went with, Hungry Hill’s sandwiches, too many of the other options available were mainstream fast food providers, including McDonald’s, Blimpie, and Panda Express. While there’s not necessarily anything wrong with this, it’s not quite what you want out of ballpark food.

The field itself’s got a very odd home-run line, including an odd triangular spot in each corner outfield, and including a strangely traced home run line in straight center. Take a look at these two pictures for more detail.

Finally, the stadium itself is really quite large. Despite the Cubs being a big draw, and despite this being a battle of two first-place teams on a Friday night, the upper deck was still far from full.

The game itself went the Cubs’ way, though it was far closer than indicated by the final score. In essence, the game turned in the bottom of the 5th, when the Diamondbacks got a man to 3rd with no one out in a 2-1 game. The first batter struck out on a pitch that was clearly, by replay, out of the strike zone. The second batter hit a ball to third that produced a play at the plate that was again, clearly safe by replay, but called out by the home plate umpire. Not to invoke memories of the 1960 presidential election or NBA officiating, but it was enough to make you wonder whether the home plate umpire had been brought along from Chicago as well. Fortune against them, Arizona proceeded to give up another run in the next half inning, and to let the game get fully out of control in the ninth inning.

Meanwhile, has anyone noticed that my home team mojo has gone completely kaput? After starting 5-0, and then settling back to 10-4, the last 10 games, the home team’s gone 2-8. Ugh. As of this game, my record had reached an even 12-12.

Natural Wonder #2: The Grand Canyon

2007-08-26T21:59:00.000-07:00

… was, well, Grand.

Exploring it from the rim, done by wandering, driving, and shuttleing around between a variety of vantage points, was great fun. And, to be sure, these photographs do not come at all close to representing the size and grandeur of the thing.

But, what was particularly cool was a 30-minute helicopter tour I took, in which we overflew the canyon itself, heading from south rim to north rim, and dropping slightly into the Canyon itself. This was well worth the effort and money, and was a great way to get a closer look.

Game #23: Mile High Longball

2007-08-26T21:32:00.000-07:00

Coors Field has always been a house of horrors for pitchers, home and away, for three separate, but related reasons. At a mile above sea level, balls travel farther, turning what should be long fly balls into game-breaking home runs. To compensate for this, the designers of the park built quite a large outfield, leaving more room for outfielders to cover, and therefore increasing the likelihood of doubles and triples. Finally, the thin air reduces the degree to which balls break through the air between pitcher and hitter, making pitches easier to hit, and hit far.

On this night, all of those factors seemed to be well in play for the Rockies pitching, as the worst-in-the-league Pirates erupted for 6 home runs, and sent Rockies starter Josh Fogg packing after giving up 8 runs and 11 hits in only 3 innings of work. All told, the Pirates put 11 runs on the board while scoring runs in each of the first 6 innings. Meanwhile, it seemed the Rockies hitters decided to take the evening off, scraping out only two runs against the Pirates. Still, this apparently lopsided outcome was at least put into perspective, as across the country, the Texas Rangers were scoring a mind-boggling 30 runs against the Orioles.

Unlike at the Metrodome, this lopsided outcome still made for a decent experience, as Coors Field is a nice place to catch a game, and as I was joined by my friend Lisa, recently relocated to Colorado, in laughing off the Rockies’ ineptitude.

Coors is similar in many ways to The-Park-Formerly-Known-As-Pac-Bell and to PNC Park, and mirrors much of the same architecture and feel, with a great combination of classic brick, exposed steel, and old-style charm. That said, it remains a step behind those other two parks, perhaps due to having less to work with from a surrounding natural beauty standpoint. This may seem an odd thing to say, given the presence of the Rockies not far away, but the distance between downtown Denver and the mountains is sufficient to blunt the impact that the mountains could otherwise have on the ballpark. Coors Field is also just a bit too big, packing in far more seats than feels quite right to a park of this style. While at PNC and Pac Bell, the atmosphere remains intimate, and the banks of seats all feel quite close, at Coors the sense that the farthest seats really are a distance from the action is fairly strong.

The one great mountain tribute in the park is a display of rocks, trees, and water in the outfield, actually growing right out of the visiting team’s dugout. These rocks and trees bring a bit of the Colorado outdoors feel from the nearby mountains right into the park, and are a great reminder that this is Denver.

The other signature Denver tradition is to revel in their status of being the “mile-high” city. In the ballpark, this is represented by a purple row of seats located at the one-mile-above-sea-level point. These seats were apparently a hot commodity when the park first opened, but the fact that they are well up in the upper deck kept this row mostly clear during my game

I did have to take a pass on the trademark food here in Denver. I’m honestly not sure I could stomach these anywhere, but the prospect of sampling them at a ballpark seems even more incomprehensible. I’ve packaged up an order and shipped it to Sydney, though, so Mark, they’ll be waiting for you when you finally make landfall.

Meanwhile…

I had some time earlier in the day to head into the mountains west of Boulder to enjoy some of that scenery first-hand. While this wasn’t close to being a hard-core hike, it was a great chance to see just a bit of what Colorado’s known for.

Also, the weather in Colorado was as odd as it was in the Midwest, with heavy thunderstorms threatening the game but clearing up by first pitch. At one point as I was driving just south of Boulder, there were hail, blue skies, and 80 degree weather, all at once.

Game #22: Domeball

2007-08-26T10:29:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, you just get a stinker…

There have been some poor home team performances before, but a sequence in the top of the first of single, home run, single, home run, has a way of putting the game into a certain, not altogether enthusiastic, perspective. And while the crowd bore signs of being a good one under the right circumstances, and the final score was actually respectable, the combination of the way the game went, and the distinctly uninteresting surroundings of the Metrodome, had me really understanding why it is that they’re so uniquely focused upon their forthcoming new ballpark here in Minneapolis.

Seattle, on the other hand, look like world beaters right now. I’ve seen them play twice on this trip (vs. White Sox and Twins), and both times have been complete non-contests, right from the start. I’m just hoping they keep up this play when I’m in the Pacific Northwest.

The dome itself is really very much a multi-purpose stadium with little baseball charm, in a way even more disappointing than those in Brooklyn, Miami, and DC. All the Twins signs, even including retired numbers and player honors, were on temporary canvas signs literally velcroed to the stadium walls.

The air inside felt sterile and still, a point reinforced by the discernable pressure change when entering or exiting the stadium via air-sealed rotating doors. There were echoes everywhere, and the sound system was incomprehensible. Even the seats felt somehow more like football, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on why that was.

To top off the whole effect, when seen in the right light, the plastic carpet still bore the unmistakable sign of yardage markings from football games, as if to emphasize to the crowd that the baseball team was just trespassing on Viking territory.

The concourse was very crowded, and worse, feels completely cut off from the play on the field. Immediately after leaving the main inner bowl, there is a strong sense that the game is far, far away. This may well be in my mind the most crucial consideration for new ballpark design, since those parks with concourses that feel somehow still in touch with the game itself do a far better job of providing a complete experience.

For the heck of it, I decided to go catch an inning from deep center field. DEEP center field. Anyone looking to teach their kids about the speed of sound need only bring them here, to a point where you could almost see Ichiro tagging 1st base before hearing the sound of bat hit ball.

The Twins’ solution to this has been to move forward with a publicly-funded new ballpark, meant to bring the baseball-only style and feel to the Twin cities. This decision, and the public monies going to this project, have brought about the usual series of complaints from local groups, with a definite added emphasis after the bridge collapse tragedy. In a classic PR-driven campaign, lacking in true relevance or logical thought, the ballpark funding has been contrasted with a stated lack of funding for infrastructure maintenance. Aie... Meanwhile, I have my own objection to the new ballpark: It’s open air, with no roof at all. If cities such as Milwaukee, Seattle, and Toronto are finding the cold and rain in early and late season unfeasible for baseball, how can Minnesota possibly believe they’ll be able to get away without any protection from the elements. While the compromise solutions in Milwaukee, Arizona and Houston, in particular, may not be ideal, they’ve definitely done a good job of providing the necessary protection from the elements while staying true to the essence of the ballpark. Future road-trippers beware – an April or October visit to a future Twins game simply does not appear to be a great idea.

The fans, to be fair, were great, to the extent they could be. Many of them were very enthusiastic, and you could tell that they really did love their team. Under the right circumstances, I can imagine the energy of the building to be a great positive.

While I’m at it, I found this interesting. On the left is an image of Ichiro preparing to receive a pitch at this game. To the right is an image of Phillies slugger Ryan Howard preparing to receive a pitch at a previous Nats – Phillies game. Whatever works, I guess.

The Twins’ performance was even more disappointing given the gem that had been pitched the previous night, when Johan Santana racked up 17 strikeouts over 8 innings. They’ll probably only have another year and a half of this guy in Minnesota before he gets offered the moon to go be a centerpiece attraction at the new Yankee Stadium.

Elsewhere on the drive

I was pleased to see that Google Maps was smart enough to route me around the collapsed I-35W bridge, a bridge I would have otherwise crossed 4 times during my stay in Minneapolis.

I was puzzled by the fact that I passed multiple indoor waterparks between Milwaukee and Minnesota. While I can understand that there might be a cold-weather rationale there, driving through on a rainy day in the middle of summer had me very much scratching my head. Is it really so important to avoid the rain when you’re in a waterpark?

The local accent – While this was rather tempered in the local big city of Minneapolis, a short stop at a gas station elsewhere in Minnesota demonstrated the true, raw, local accent. And I will say, this may very well be the most amusing accent in the entire country.

Finally, in the end I didn’t make it to Dyersville, IA, home of the film set for the movie Field of Dreams. They’ve apparently preserved this baseball diamond, as from the movie, in the midst of farmland and corn for tourists to come, visit, take a few swings, and shag a few fly balls. A true “If you build it, he will come”. While I’d toyed with the idea of dropping by somewhere around this point in the trip, the torrential rain rather dampened my enthusiasm. Ah well – next time I suppose.

But it's a dry heat...

2007-08-25T09:43:00.000-07:00

Game #21: The Winner Is.... The Polish Sausage

2007-08-24T00:03:00.001-07:00

Into every vacation, a little rain must fall. Fortunately, after losing a couple of hours to rain delays the day before at Wrigley, the next couple of games were both held at roofed stadiums, this one at Milwaukee’s Miller Park, whose fan-like retractable roof was definitely the most notable feature of the ballpark. Collapsing to the baseline walls when open, the individual roof segments close to form an almost spider-like (from the outside) lattice inside the park. It’s an odd, but remarkably intriguing look, especially given the tremendous size of the mechanical structure. It’s completely different in look and feel from SkyDome in Toronto, and front what I hear, different again from Seattle’s Safeco Field. Perhaps they’re still trying to figure out what quite works, and given that there are stories that this one working quite as intended, this may not be the ideal solution either. But, it’s definitely worth taking a look at.

Beyond the roof, Miller Park is a really nice park, and, with the Brewers battling for 1st place in the NL Central, they’ve been filling it up game-after game. We were very fortunate, as having expected to have to settle for standing-room tickets (Milwaukee isn’t exactly a scalper’s paradise), there turned out to be some rather good tickets available at the box office that hadn’t been available online only a couple of hours before. Perhaps these were originally the team’s or the league’s, but either way, we weren’t complaining.

I was joined at the game, for the second time in a week, by Fabio, Irina, and Stefania, who, given the miserable weather outdoors, figured that an indoor ballgame would be a good way to spend their Sunday afternoon. It was good to see the lack of home-team run support by the White Sox hadn’t scared them away, and we were indeed treated to a much closer, and more tightly fought, match this time around.

There was some sort of mist and/or haze inside, perhaps due to the rain and all the humidity, but it didn’t interfere with our ability to appreciate the play. Also, and unfortunately, there’s a bit of a gap between the top of the HR fences and the crowd, which means that many home run balls may not actually make it into the hands of fans. That wasn’t a problem for our game, though, as most of the many home runs we saw went well out of the park.

This being Wisconsin, the pre-game entertainment was heavily tailgating-dominated. While we didn’t partake, the terrible weather did nothing to discourage many of the diehards, who were grilling, drinking, and playing away to their hearts’ desire in the vast expanses of parking lot outside.

I was impressed by the enthusiasm with which people participated in the national anthem, singing along in full voice, with the anthem placed almost immediately before the first pitch. I’ve often found it ironic that baseball, for which the pre-game anthem and “Play Ball!” call are so much a part of the common lore, often under-sells the anthem, while hockey games almost uniformly create a great and hair-raising experience.

The game itself featured plenty of fireworks, both figuratively and literally. With each Brewers home run, their mascot, Bob the Brewer, slides down a curved slide high above left field while fireworks are set off, even inside the closed dome. Fortunately for us, this game featured plenty of Brewers home runs, though unfortunately it featured plenty of Reds home runs as well. In the end, despite taking a quick 5-0 lead, the Brewers lost, remarkably for the 16th straight time in which starter Chris Capuano started a game (yikes!). And really, he didn’t pitch *that* badly, though he was definitely left in just a few batters too long.
See video of a Brewers home run celebration here.

Of course, the big highlight of any Brewers game is the famous sausage race. I’ve included video of this in the photo album as well. For our race, the Polish Sausage came first, leaving neither Fabio nor I in the money in our side betting, though Fabio still maintains that instant replay would have proven the Brat the true winner.
See video of the sausage race here.

The brat, meanwhile, was the hands-down winner in our evaluation of the classic Milwaukee trademark foods, i.e. the range of sausages available. It outdid both the Italian and the Polish (pictured), while we figured the hot dog clearly wouldn’t be able to compete. The new entrant, the chorizo, didn’t make it into our taste test – I’m only willing to give up my body so far for this trip.

Last but not least, Bob Uecker, longtime Hall-of-Fame radio announcer for the Brewers and star of Mr Belvedere and (co-star of) Major League, is still going strong, and, we realized at the end, was sitting pretty much right behind us. No autographs, but we did get a good look at him.

Game #20: Getting Wet at the Friendly Confines

2007-08-20T22:14:00.001-07:00

Ah, Wrigley. The majors’ second oldest stadium, and a monument to true-retro, with all the good and bad which that entails.

This was my third ever ballgame at Wrigley, but my first to sit in the bleachers, generally considered the quintessential Wrigley experience. And, within the context of this trip, how could I do anything else? Unfortunately, a bleacher seat comes with two significant drawbacks. First, you’re not allowed access to any of the rest of the ballpark. Second, the seats are general admission / first-come-first-served. As a result, the moving from seat to seat that I’ve sometimes been doing at these games wasn’t feasible, and there was definitely no chance to make the full circuit of the yard. That said, the bleachers do make for a fun and rowdy atmosphere, so it was well worth it.

Mind you, this was a Saturday afternoon game against the Cubs’ traditional rival Cardinals, with the Cubs in first place in the division in mid-August and the Cards only 3 games behind. As such, this was a very hot ticket, and my bleacher seat wound up running me about 3-4x the cost of any other games so far. But, hey, it’s worth it, and a simple necessity of supply and demand.

Unfortunately, the game was wet. Really wet. There was a one-hour rain delay before the game started, and then another of equal length with 2 outs in the 8th. It also rained off-and-on throughout much of the game itself, but once they had started play, they apparently didn’t want to stop until the rain really got quite hard. This was interesting, as it’s been a long time since I’ve experienced a baseball rain delay, having seen most of my baseball in San Francisco, though I seem to attract rain for cricket games. But they’ll call play for rain at cricket far more readily than they did at Wrigley. The rain didn’t seem to dampen the spirits of the fans in the bleachers though. While the bleachers are a general admission area, which meant that people were forced to stay at their seats throughout the first rain delay for fear of losing them to other more weather-hardy fans, and while many people weren’t wearing much rain protection at all, the crowd was still boisterous and in high spirits, fueled on by beers aplenty and the hope of baseball ahead.

Part of the enthusiasm of the crowd may also have been aided by pre-game lubrication in the surrounding Wrigleyville area, which really is one of the best ballpark neighborhoods around. I was joined by my friend Mondira (though Debarshi was away due to work and couldn’t join us), and we met up with another friend of hers for lunch at a local brewpub. But despite being on the ‘el’ a full 3 hours before game, we found ourselves surrounded by people clearly also on their way to the game. It made for a great atmosphere.

In terms of the park itself, what can be said that hasn’t already been said? In many ways, this is an experience similar to going to a game many decades years ago, with the old-fashioned construction, the view-obstructing pillars, the classic feel and atmosphere, the ivy-covered walls, and the hand-operated scoreboard. Of course, I have to imagine that the crowd’s a bit rowdier than it was decades ago, but it’s a collegial, Chicago rowdiness, without the hard edge of Boston or New York. It’s a great experience, and one that all baseball fans should try. All that said, to be fair, I will say that it does fall a bit short of those aforementioned east-coast parks, perhaps because the demand for excellence isn’t quite there. Fans in Chicago are so used to losing that they aren’t as fussed when their team doesn’t do well, and aren’t as intensely riveted upon the game. In that way, it kind of becomes like a fun day (or night) out, whereas Fenway, for comparison, is absolutely a live-or-die event.

Wrigley still maintains a more old-fashioned approach compared to Fenway in some ways. There were no ads anywhere to be seen, with the sole exception of two small electronic scoreboards attached to the facing of the upper deck, which are used to display ads between innings. There’s no jumbotron, no billboard advertising, no oversized soda or beer bottles or basketball-sized oranges. And between innings, there’s no crowd-entertainment other than the organist, tooling away in much the same way he did during the rain delays.

There was also LOTS of red in the stands; St Louis isn’t that far away, and this is the two teams’ biggest rivalry. With the Cardinals as reigning World Series Champions, and making their way up the standings thanks to faltering play by the Cubs and Brewers, there were plenty of very enthusiastic Cards fans present making their presence well known.

The first pitch was thrown out by Kevin Dillon of the HBO show Entourage. There were definitely plenty of Johnny Drama fans within the bleacher crowd, and he was well forgiven for being high and outside on the throw.

The game itself was great fun, and a lesson in the importance of timely hits. The Cards hit three home runs off of Cub pitching, but all of them with no one on base. The Cubs, meanwhile, only had one good inning, and really one key hit. But that hit was a Daryle Ward grand slam that’d give the Cubs 4 of their 5 runs, and one which put a fantastic charge into the crowd. The atmosphere and enthusiasm were great, and really a fantastic factor in enjoying the full Wrigley experience.

The second rain delay, coming as it did with two outs in the 8th, and two strikes against Cardinal batter Chris Duncan, was tough to take, as it felt as if the Cubs had almost sealed the deal. But the rain really started coming down hard at that point, chasing even the bleacher fans out of their seats. This timing thinned out the crowd significantly, but those who stayed were treated to a one-pitch strikeout by new Cubs reliever Pignatiello, followed by a 1-2-3 9th, to send everyone (in blue) home happy.

Game #19: South of the Border, Down Canada Way

2007-08-19T21:17:00.000-07:00

No, that wasn’t a typo, though I don’t think it’s quite the way Frank’d sing it. I crossed from the US to Canada between Detroit and Windsor. Seriously – if you don’t believe me, go look it up.

I’d been to a game at SkyDome, now the Rogers Centre, before, but not since long, long ago. In the years since my last visit, about 20 new ballparks have been built, I’ve seen a LOT more baseball at many more parks, and the Blue Jays have dropped from drawing many millions of fans and winning World Series championships to playing third fiddle to the Yankees and Red Sox in their division. And while Skydome was once considered the epitome of modern ballpark design, it’s now looked upon as a concrete behemoth. But, you know, the building itself hasn’t changed, and many of the things that did indeed make it a good place to see a game are still true today.

First off, it really is massive. I know I’ve described several ballparks as being big, but this is just jaw-dropping. From the outside, it feels like a truly massive structure, and once inside, the five decks of seats and boxes rise seemingly forever. As a result, I’m sure a seat back in the top deck really doesn’t provide the sort of intimate view of baseball that we’ve come to know and love. But from our seats on the field level, around 20 rows back and not far past the 3rd base bag, the action was close and exciting.

The highlight of the park is definitely the CN Tower rising high above. With the roof open, as it was tonight, this makes for a fantastic backdrop to the game, and for a great sight as the light changes over the course of the evening.

Also great, of course, was being present for the Canadian National Anthem. Good fun. Though I was quite surprised that people didn’t sing along; a fact that didn’t seem right given the full voice with which fans tend to greet the anthem at hockey games.

The crowd, as well, was really quite decent. With almost 28,000 people in the building, there was still room enough for each person to bring another friend. In the perspective of a smaller yard, though, 28,000 people is a good-size crowd, and it was a crowd that came ready to cheer, to participate, and to enjoy themselves.

I was joined in the game by my dad, who I was thrilled to have fly on into town for the game. While he was only able to get away for the evening, the short flight from Ottawa still left time to come in and out for the game, and for a few beers and some food before (at Gretzky’s restaurant) and afterwards. As he’s been following this trip closely throughout, it was both fitting and enjoyable to have him come along. Mind you, with the Senators-Leafs hockey rivalry the way it is, he wasn’t able to bring himself fully to wearing only blue at a Toronto sporting event, but the Jays are a team for which Canadian red is always a fair substitute.

The game itself was good fun, though the home team fell just short of winning. The more baseball I see, the more I’m reminded of the importance of defense, and its underrated influence on game outcomes. The Jays lost this game, in essence, on a terrible sequence in the 7th when, down 2-1, first baseman Lyle Overbay committed an error, letting a ground ball that should have been an out, or even potentially a double play, roll into right field, and then failed to field the throw back in from the right fielder, a second error graciously applied to right fielder Alex Rios instead of to Overbay. A run scored on that play, and a second on the next at bat, very much the difference in what wound up as a one-run game.

Meanwhile, the Angels first run, and the one that gave them the lead in the game was a monster home run from Gary Matthews that hit the top of the restaurant, famously installed in the SkyDome outfield. As far as it went, it still highlighted just how mammoth the 5th deck home run hit by Jose Canseco a number of years ago must have been.

Elsewhere in Toronto:

While the Niagara side trip consumed almost an entire day, I still had a nice opportunity for a breather in Toronto, and a good chance to get to know the city a bit better. This included…

Second City: I spent one evening attending the Second City comedy club show in Toronto. This club, an offshoot of the famous one in Chicago, boasts an almost-as-famous alumni list, and lived up to their billing with a hilarious revue culminating with a song entitled “Jesus is on your Facebook”, including such lyrics as “Jesus has requested you as a friend” and “Jesus has changed his status from ‘Crucified’ to ‘Risen again’”. Anyone familiar with this popular social networking site would definitely have gotten a kick out of this.

Being stuck in traffic: Having been in NY, Chicago, and Houston on this trip already, and having spent my share of time driving in Southern California, I can safely say that Toronto traffic may well be the worst around. It was astounding to me how horrible the traffic was, arriving in the city, heading out and back from Niagara, leaving in the end, and generally being anywhere on or off the city’s freeways. The complete lack of geographical constraints to keep the city compact seems to have spread out everything outside the city centre, and very much made a mess of things.

Soccer exposure: The sports talk radio channels were announcing English Premiership scores as they happened, a fact that would be unheard of in the US. I wonder, was this always the case, or has the MLS possibly had an impact?

Hockey: I could also definitely tell I was in Canada given that in mid-August, with training camps still several weeks away, the front page of the Toronto Sun, the city’s #2 or #3 newspaper, was a full-page spread announcing that “The Leafs Are Back!”, due simply to a few players renting out some neighborhood ice time for a bit of rust removal.

And last, but absolutely not anywhere close to least, the Hockey Hall of Fame: See the next post for this…

The Hockey Hall of Fame

2007-08-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

This was something I’d been very much looking forward to, and which I had a blast seeing. The ticket taker had advised me to budget 1 to 1½ hours, but I was there almost 3, checking out memorabilia aplenty, some great displays of famous players, and all sorts of other great stuff. As opposed to the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, in which I recognized a number of names, and had associations with a smaller set of players, at the Hockey Hall of Fame, pretty much each honored player had some strong set of memories and mental images, generating all sorts of great reminiscing as I wandered through the exhibits.

Among the pictured highlights:

The classic HHOF shot

Bobby Orr’s bronzed skates, from the famous 1970 cup-winning goal (Note: The Orr display was further punctuated by a thickly Boston-accented father, leading his sons by the two-stall-wide display, commenting to them “That’s disgusting, he played 30 games for Chicago, but just for that they’ve also got a Blackhawks jersey in there?! Terrible”)

Bourque and Neely, HOF plaques side-by-side

Doug Wilson’s jersey as first ever Sharks captain

Natural Wonder #1: Niagara Falls

2007-08-19T21:00:00.000-07:00

Having not been since I was about 5 years old, I decided to take a day out of the Toronto portion of my itinerary to go see Niagara Falls. It was definitely impressive, and great to go see, but I’ve found myself at a bit of a loss regarding what to say about it, other than, well, look:

While there, I couldn’t pass up a trip on the Maid of the Mist, which is the boat that you can see in some of these pictures that heads right on up near the bottom of the falls. I figured it was a better bet than anything including a barrel.

Game #18: And the Prize for Best Integration of Team Name into Ballpark Design Goes To...

2007-08-19T20:51:00.001-07:00

While the old Tiger Stadium was apparently a great venue, with classic features and styling, when it came time to retire it and replace it with Comerica Park, they really did a fantastic job. The new home of the Tigers has a great feel and style, and above all, they’ve gone far further than any other team in the majors at integrating their team name into the design of the park. Surrounding the park are dozens of tigers such as the one at right, each of which was significantly larger than I’d realized from seeing pictures, and at each of the entrances are quite spectacular displays of tigers guarding the team’s lair. The most impressive, at the main park entrance, is below:

Once inside, the stadium continues to impress. Sight lines are great throughout, and there are a multitude of standing-room-dedicated areas that were thronged with people on the night I went, despite it being only a Monday night. These standing room areas, when combined with the cheapest ticket price point of $5, and the availability of on-street parking, can make this one of the most economical experiences in the majors, despite the quality of both the environment and the team.

In right field, in what is perhaps a nod to Kansas City’s great fountains, is a fountain display, which, while commercialized and not as pure as the one at Kauffman Field, was a nice touch nonetheless.

The field of play itself is huge, with a big expansive outfield that creates plenty of opportunities for doubles and triples, in a style similar to Coors field. This is true despite their having pulled the fences in a few years after opening the park, due to the dearth of home runs being hit.

The crowd was engaged and vocal, with fans not shy to express their emotions. They booed passionately when long reliever Jason Grilli came in, and booed him again an inning later when his performance proved to deserve their wrath. But on the flip side, there was definitely impressive crowd support when deserved. Even somewhat into the mid-west, this remains an east coast city in some ways.

Scattered around the concourse are a series of displays like the one below, each commemorating a decade in Tiger baseball with memorabilia, stories of players, and tales of the team during those seasons. These were quite nice to have around, and a definite upgrade over the insert-team-name-here paid admission museum approach. Note the motor city nod in the construction of each display.

While on the topic of history, in recognition of several legendary Tigers, they’ve built 5 statues in left field. Here’s Ty Cobb's.

Also in left field was this guy. He’s not the mascot, he’s just a very, um, dedicated fan.

I was also getting close to Canada, as I could tell from Labatts Blue on the taps and plenty of Canadian t-shirts and hats, including even a few Argos shirts, believe it or not.

Meanwhile, the evening proved to be a beautiful night, 77 degrees and clear, with a slight breeze. The heat wave that was running through the country had definitely passed, but it was also been nice to work my way further north.

For the second straight game, saw a record. This time, Placido Polanco played in his 144th strait game without an error, tying a record for second basemen. That said, I was frustrated throughout the game at how many of the A’s hits went through the gap between the second basemen and shortstop. Coincidence? The shortstop’s fault? Or a reflection of a lack of range by both guys? It’s tough to say. But I’ve never liked errors as a primary measure of fielding performance, since they fail to capture the positives, and only reflect the avoidance of obviously negative situations.

The game itself was rather disappointing for the home team, as the Tigers really didn’t play like a first place team, and, as manager Jim Leyland pointed out on the radio after the game, really didn’t put forth the sort of effort needed to get into the playoffs. Managing to muster only 4 hits and 2 runs (all in the 1st) off of A’s starter Chad Gaudin, it was, all-in-all, a flaccid performance.

From a food standpoint, despite warning to the contrary, I felt I needed to give a nod to Detroit pizza king and Red Wings & Tigers owner Mike Ilitch by trying his Little Caesar’s pizza. They were selling full-size pies at the park, or, as I tried, selling individual slices. Unfortunately, this was a mistake. The pizza was really quite unimpressive, and definitely didn’t hit the spot.

That had already been partly made up for by a quick pre-game beer at Cheli’s Chilli Bar, which was a great place with a fantastic location. With several floors and a roof deck immediately across the street from Comerica Park, Detroit Red Wing Chris Chelios definitely did well for himself.

Game #17: On the South Side

2007-08-19T20:44:00.001-07:00

Well, I saw a record tied in Chicago. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the big one that was dominating the news recently, but it was impressive nonetheless. Bobby Jenks, the White Sox closer, matched the major league record by retiring 3 batters in order to reach a string of 41 consecutive batters retired. While that’s spread over the course of a large number of appearances, it is an equivalent number of outs to over 1 ½ perfect games. Pretty impressive no matter how you cut it. Unfortunately, neither I, nor the people I was at the game with, were aware that he was close to this record, and they certainly didn’t announce it while he was pitching. As such, the jubilation of the crowd as he recorded each out in the 9th inning of a 6-0 loss was quite perplexing. But it made for great theater nonetheless.

Unfortunately, that was about all the home team had to cheer for, as White Sox really didn’t put up much of a fight in a complete game shutout by Jeff Weaver of the Seattle Mariners, a pitcher who still carries the dreaded Dodger taint about him in my eyes. But in many ways, he simply coasted through the Sox lineup. This looked every bit like a playoff-bound team (Seattle, for now at least) against a last-place team (the White Sox). While the youngest member of our group (more later) was probably unfazed by this performance at her first ever baseball game, it was probably a disappointing first introduction to the second first-ever baseball game person in our group.

The White Sox did come quite close to putting runs on the board. With one on in the bottom of the 1st, slugger Jim Thome hit a ball off the top of the wall that 36,629 umpires immediately declared a home run. Unfortunately, the 4 on the field didn’t agree.

The game was also very short, with the Mariners needing only 2:13 to dust off the home team. This bested my previous shortest game of the trip, which rang in at 2:22. Interestingly enough, both games were ones in which I had people come to the ballgame with me. Hmm... We’ll see if that trend continues.

US Cellular was one of the last stadiums built before the Camden Yards / Jacobs Field renaissance in ballpark design. As such, it’s received a fair bit of flak for not being particularly appealing. Perhaps it’s because we were able to grab seats on the lower deck, thereby avoiding the poorly reputed upper deck seats and their significant distance from the playing field, but between the reasonable proximity of the game and the baseball-dedicated construction of the stadium, and a cooperative bit of shade, we greatly enjoyed our vantage point. The overall effect was therefore far improved from the impression I’d been given, and quite a decent ballgame experience. While the park was again a little short on unique character, it did provide well with good sight-lines, all the amenities needed for a modern ballpark, and a positive crowd atmosphere.

Mind you, our tickets weren’t actually meant to get us a field-level vantage, but were 18 rows up into the upper deck, in a stadium in which they don’t allow movement between decks. That said, we had ourselves a magic go-anywhere-you-want pass. Her picture’s to the right. It was, really, quite impressive to see the ushers wave us on through with her in hand.

Chicago being Chicago, I was also able to make an enjoyable evening after the afternoon game. After a tour around the Navy Pier, I put my best tourist face on and went for a deep-dish pizza at Pizzeria Due, Uno’s cross-street brother. I finished off the night by stopping off first at what might well have been (myself included) the whitest blues bar in all of Chicago, and then a rather more authentic place, which was great fun, and had plenty of character. And, for that matter, which was free, it being “college night”, much to my great amusement, and the skepticism of the ticket taker at the door.

Off to Detroit…

Game #16: The Great American Ballpark Experience

2007-08-15T22:18:00.000-07:00

My story from Cincinnati surrounds the trademark food. Skyline Chili consists of a hearty, meaty bean-less chili, poured over a bed of spaghetti, with about a pound of grated cheese on top. With some onions and oyster crackers, you’ve got yourself a “4-way” chili that will indeed put you down for the count. And in my case, it certainly did. While I only finished between a third and a half of my portion, this mammoth plate of food had my stomach doing somersaults for the next few innings, and combined with the afternoon sun to encouraging more than a little bit of lethargy once I was finally starting to do a little better. This was probably a sign that the ballpark food and road-weariness was all catching up with me a little bit, which made the early start time, the chance to take a bit of a break later that day, and the injection of new big-city energy with Chicago just around the corner, all well needed.

The park itself, ostentatiously named the Great American Ballpark, was decent, but apart from a vaguely steam-boat-like construct in right field, was unfortunately rather short on unique character. It was vaguely reminiscent of the Jake, once again, and a perfectly decent place to watch a game, though my attention may have been a bit more riveted on trying to digest my chili.

Meanwhile, two thumbs down to the park designers for the Great American Ballpark logo, which carries no connection whatsoever to the Reds logo, script, or any other aspect of their marque, nor with anything else that I could figure out. A definite lesson here in the need to control your creatives.

The game itself seemed to follow the mid-west trend of the last couple of parks, as for quite a while, the offense again appeared to have gone AWOL. However, the oddly-late 4 PM start time seems to have been just what was needed, as once the day’s shadows started to grow long, some offense was finally to be found, with the home team Reds eventually beating up on the Padres by a score of 8-3. And while the park’s got a reputation of being a bit of a band-box, with home runs usually flying out at a remarkable rate, only Brian Giles had the right formula today, knocking two out, including one in the ninth that prevented Bobby Livingston, the Reds’ rookie starter, from getting his first complete game. Ah well…

Visible from the walkway on the outside of the park, but unfortunately not through the center-field gap, is the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, apparently something of a dry-run for the architect after which it was named, prior to his designing the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s quite good looking, and definitely reminiscent of the latter.

Finally, Reds fans have not at all forsaken favorite son Pete Rose, despite his ostracism from the baseball establishment. Having watched much of my baseball prior to this trip in San Francisco, and being fully in support of Barry Bonds’ recent achievements, it was interesting to see this support still very much in place, in a manner definitely reminiscent of what’s happening in the City by the Bay.

In other notes…

I had a pre-game maß of helles at the Hofbrauhaus. Yep, just like in Munich, but transplanted to, of all places, Kentucky. In fairness, there appears to be a sizeable German population in Cincinnati, so there is a rationale, but still, it seemed decidedly out of place. The beer wasn’t quite as good as at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, which in turn isn’t as good as many of the other Bavarian beers, but it was a nice way to warm up for the game all the same.

I saw a billboard for the “Creation Museum” on the way into town. It was all I could do not to pull over to check it out, just for amusement factor.

Generally speaking, a fair bit of downtown Cincinnati appeared fairly bleak, as if industry was having a hard time keeping going. However, doing a bit more driving around, especially including the areas of Covington and Newport just across the river into Kentucky, revealed that there definitely are some interesting areas, and some degree of positive social activity. I actually parked on the KY side and walked across the river, paying the remarkably reasonable sum of $3. I had to ask her several times whether that was an hourly rate or a half-hourly rate before finally realizing that it was all-in. Ah, Kentucky. Mind you, I would prove to make up for that and more in Chicago and Toronto.

Additional pictures

2007-08-11T21:39:00.000-07:00

Since there are only so many pictures that reasonably make sense in these blog entries, I've taken to adding extras, uncaptioned, to the following site. If the blog's not been enough, feel free to go take a look.

http://picasaweb.google.com/mlbtrip

Game #15: Halfway at the Arch

2007-08-10T22:28:00.000-07:00

In a nice bit of symbolism, my tour hits the halfway point with today’s game as I reach St Louis and pass under its signature landmark, the Gateway Arch representing the way to the West. The fact that I’m actually traveling east, from KC to St Louis to Cincinnati, during my generally westward ballpark tour, is just a technicality that we’ll chose to put aside for now.

It was hot again today, with a high in triple digits, and the gametime temperature still in the low 90s at 7 PM. This made for a hot and sticky ballpark at the start. Furthermore, while you can do all sorts of great things online to see where your seat will be and what your view will look like, the one thing you still can’t know in advance is whether the person in the seat next to you will… er… let’s just say whether they’ll overflow into your seat more than most people will. I did a bit of bouncing around in my section before finally finding a seat that was far more comfortable on such a hot evening.

Cardinals manager Tony Larussa has been batting his pitcher in the #8 spot, with second baseman Adam Kennedy hitting ninth. This is a pretty bold move, and a definite blow to the ego of any position player finding himself batting behind a pitcher. Theoretically, Larussa’s trying to get another batter on base for the heart of his lineup, but Kennedy’s .217 batting average may be more of an issue. Coincidentally, Kennedy made the final out today, though after a strong and well-fought at-bat against Dodgers closer Takashi Saito.

That at bat came at the end of another tremendous pitchers’ duel, in which Dodgers ace Brad Penny (7 IP) and Cardinals ace-by-default-due-to-injuries Adam Wainwright (9 IP) each kept the other team off the board through 8 innings. But, a James Loney 2-run home run in the top of the 9th gave the Dodgers all the offense they’d need. One day after Rick Ankiel was the news of the day by making it back to the majors as an outfielder 7 years after completely losing his mental capacity to be a major league pitcher, Ankiel was able to advance a bottom-of-the-ninth rally with a base hit, but not to provide the necessary heroics for the second day in a row.

It’s a shame, really. This was a game I *really* wanted the home team to win. But several attempts to get a “Beat LA!” cheer going in the crowd just didn’t seem to have the desired effect.

The new Busch stadium is quite nice, in a classic (and starting to become just a wee bit repetitive) new-retro, brick-and-steel way. It was also quite expensive, but very full, with a sellout and over 44,000 fans in attendance on this Friday night. The World Champs thing has apparently done them quite well. The crowd was also very knowledgeable, in the sort of way that happens when your team has been doing well of late. You could feel that the crowd understood the dynamics of the game, and recognized the mounting 9th inning come-back in a way that only really happens when you’ve seen that sort of thing several times before. Unfortunately, in this case it fell short, but the essence was still there. They also, wonder of wonders, sang along to “Take me out to the ballgame” in the 7th inning stretch with more gusto than any park to date. Wrigley, you’re on notice…

The scoreboards were a shame, especially for a 2-year old stadium. While they displayed both teams’ full lineups at all times, an excellent decision, there was a true scarcity of other information available. Furthermore, a large clear screen was being used for very detailed views of out-of-town scores, which was nice, but was space that could have been well used during play to display more relevant information, saving the out-of-town scores for between innings. The same was true for screens between decks that were dedicated, remarkably, to identifying groups and allowing people to send in text messages, even during play.

Before the game, they had several hundred young girls as young as 5 who were part of various area gymnastics groups get to practice and tumble out on the field. This was very cute, but I’m not completely convinced Dodgers pitcher Brad Penny was thrilled. Now if only they were able to keep the girls in his way a little longer…

Having gotten in to St Louis the night before, I was able to spend some time exploring the city. In particular, I went on the must-be-done tour of the city’s great marketing… er… brewing company. After all, while “life’s too short to drink bad beer”, there are two words that undeniably come to mind in the phrase: “_________ _____, St Louis, Missouri”

I was also able to sample a signature food of the city itself in Ted Drewes Frozen Custard on Historic Route 66. It was decent, but fell short of both Tosci’s in Cambridge, MA (my nostalgic favorite) and Vivoli in Florence, Italy (objectively the best I’ve had).

And, of course, the Gateway Arch itself, the city’s key landmark. This was really just down the street from the park, allowing me to get a chance to see it up close and personal, and to get a few cheesy photos. Enjoy…

Game #14: In the Heartland

2007-08-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

Kauffman stadium in Kansas City is not a new park. It’s built of concrete, is in a stadium-dedicated area outside of the center of town, has been around for a while, and for a while, had artificial turf. Finally, the team that plays in this Stadium would really be overmatched by some AAA teams, and it therefore draws crowds to match.

Those were the basis for my expectations going in, and everything there turned out to be true. Furthermore, it was an afternoon game on a really, really hot day.

BUT, between its baseball-only design, a great and classic crowned scoreboard display in the outfield, the presence of some really attractive fountains, and an impressively plugged-in crowd, this turned out to be actually quite a pleasant place to watch a game, and I was very pleasantly surprised.

There is still no 360-degree walk-around, which is disappointing. However, plans are in place to develop the stadium further, while preserving the basic structure. This’ll add a full 360-degree range to the park by adding new seats and concessions in the outfield, upgrading the scoreboard, improving the view-level concourses, and developing the stadium entrances further. It will be a shame if they lose much of the grass currently in the outfield, but they’ve firmly stated that the fountains will be unaffected by the development, and it will definitely be good to get the full circle completed.

They were giving away free water, which was a nice touch, and strongly needed. The game time temperature was announced at 91-dgrees, but it felt very much hotter than that, especially in the sun. While I have no idea what this means, the post-game radio show announced the “heat index” as 105-degrees (40 C). If that’s anything like a wind-chill factor, than that definitely presents an accurate view of the feel of the park today.

The lower bowl was mostly full under the shade, but more sparsely filled in the sunny seats closer to the field. My seat was great, at 5 rows off the field, but I joined several people around me mid-way through the game in shifting backwards to covered seats. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen people cheating *backwards* so often.

The crowd was good, and quite impressive. And while it was smaller than that in Baltimore for another Thursday afternoon game, it was somehow more engaged and enthusiastic. I was impressed with the size and the excitement, especially given the large number of Twins fans present

I met a father/son duo from Philly who were doing 6 cities worth of the identical itinerary as me in reverse. They’d been to Cincinnati and St Louis already, and were able to provide some nice tips for my upcoming starts

The game itself was a true pitchers duel, with both starters getting into the 7th, and only one run being scored throughout. That run, as well, was little-ball through and through, with a double, bunt, and sac fly getting the runner in. And despite the lack of offense, it was a tense and exciting affair, proof that a game can be enjoyable without a lot of runs.

Meanwhile, I made a point of visiting two institutions in town that were very highly recommended.

First was the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, which was an excellent and fascinating stop. This museum presented not just the history of these parallel leagues, that featured talent often described as every bit as good as that in the majors, but also the story of this segregated world, and how it reflected America at the time. At its height, teams such as the Kansas City Monarchs and Homestead Grays were received as stars while touring, while simultaneously being shunned hotel space or food by the very same establishments that were glorifying their achievements.

This was co-located with the American Jazz Museum, which I would have *loved* to spend more time in, but was unfortunately forced to do just a quick run-through. Something to come back for, someday, perhaps.

The other must-do stop in town was Arthur Bryant’s barbecue, a place that absolutely lived up to its billing. Classic Kansas City Barbeque, in my case with ribs and “burnt ends”, made for a fantastic pre-game meal. The line to order stretched out the door and down the block, but I didn’t see a single person complaining.

With the afternoon start, I worked in the drive to St Louis that afternoon, giving me two straight nights in St Louis. The opportunity to take a day without any driving at all will be great, as the 4000 miles I’ve covered in the last 9 days definitely have me ready for a break. Missouri, or at least the Kansas City-to-St Louis corridor, was somehow just a little bit less flat-and-rural than Kansas was, though the crops made the shift to almost exclusively corn. It’s not grain, but it’s definitely amber waves as far as the eye can see.

Driving through the great plains

2007-08-08T23:28:00.001-07:00

As with driving through the South late last week, today’s drive through the Great Plains (namely Oklahoma and Kansas) was pretty cool, and distinctly different from what’s come before.

Most notable is the sky, which is somehow bigger, grander, vaster, you name it, compared to normal. It really does feel huge, and creates a personal feeling of being small underneath it.

The impression of the sky is probably created by the landscape, which is, in turn, remarkably flat and empty. Ok, so it’s not really flat, as the plains undulate in small, rolling hills. And yet, the horizon is perfectly flat, and the overall impression created is of a land that goes on forever.

It’s all oddly beautiful, with the vast expanse of sky and stretch of grass. This became especially true as the day started to fade and the sun’s light began to color the landscape and the sky a fantastic range of colors.

Meanwhile, as the day turned into night, a lightning storm of the sort I’ve never seen before began to build on the left horizon. With lightning flashes coming fast and furious, and an ominous set of clouds forming, it really did feel like America’s heartland. I felt myself in a race to reach my hotel before the storm hit, and, with flash flood warnings coming left and right late this evening, it’s probably become the right move. Despite that, we’ll hope for sunny weather tomorrow for an afternoon game in KC.

Signature food in DC

2007-08-08T23:25:00.000-07:00

Oops. I left out any mention of a signature food in DC. Not because any of RFK’s offerings were particularly appealing, but because I had some time before the game to avail myself of the product of the nearby Chesapeake. Great stuff:
Sure there’s only a half-dozen there, but as an amateur, it took me about an hour and a half to get the meat out of them. Still, absolutely worth it!

Game #13: Baseball in Big D

2007-08-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this *is* Texas. Which means that really, football is king. But, for the second night in a row, I was able to watch a ballgame in a really fantastic ballpark. I’d been to see the Texas Rangers at the Ballpark in Arlington once before, but found myself even more impressed this time.

To start with, it’s BIG. Yes, it’s still a new baseball-only park, but, as is appropriate to Texas in general and Big D in particular, this is a large park. And many of the features reinforce that. There are great massive archways around the outside of the stadium, the gates are huge, and the concourses are massive. But it all works – my seat was a good one, but even wandering around the park, the sightlines looked good throughout.

Of course, appropriate to Dallas, the park’s in the middle of nowhere. Arlington’s a middle-ground between Dallas and Ft Worth, and appears to be the constructed-entertainment center of town. Therefore, the amusement parks, ballpark, and forthcoming new football stadium (Will God still be able to watch through a hole in the roof, Jerry?) are all out there. That’s definitely a downside, compared to the great appeal of downtown parks, but hey, it’s fitting to the area.

Meanwhile, they’ve somehow perfected the art of putting the park in the suburbs, but still not making the parking convenient. My parking spot, in the general lot, was still a bit of a hike, especially in the 100-degree Dallas heat. But, since I’d shown up quite early, so as to visit the Legends of the Game Sports Museum in the park, I was actually given a ride by the employee shuttle bus, which happened to be driving by. They all gave me a hard time about my Red Sox shirt (hey, it was blue-and-red), though not for my Giants hat, but it was a well-appreciated touch.

The Legends of the Game Museum was a nice visit, and moderate amount of the memorabilia there is actually borrowed from Cooperstown. Having missed the Baseball Hall of Fame on this trip, it was nice to spend some time here, and they’ve done a very good job with the place. A couple of interesting items worth pointing out here: A jersey from the Say Hey Kid, and the famous crown trophy given to the Babe.

The park’s quite reminiscent of Jacob’s field, in that it is new, nicely featured, baseball-only, and well-outfitted, but not the full-blown new-retro of Pac Bell, PNC, or Coors. The two most distinctive attributes, within the bowl, are probably the ornate white-steel-and-glass building front in center, and the old-fashioned pillared double-decker grandstand in right field. Both are definitely nice touches, and add character to the building.

Despite the size of the interior, the Ballpark also includes a feature I’d love to see at more parks: An open-air space outside the building that’s actually included in the ticketed area. There’s a certain discomfort with walking out of the building mid-way through the game, as I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d not be allowed in, but this outdoor area, bounded by two fences and a lake, is actually part of the park. Good stuff.

The luxury suites, in a great touch, are not numbered, but are instead each named after a hall-of-fame baseball player.

Unfortunately, while you can bring a horse to water… Did I say this was a football town? Well, it was borne out in the approach of the fans to the game. This was not a Boston/NY/Chicago crowd.
• Example #1: At a key junction in the top of the 7th, with the Rangers up by 4, the A’s loaded the bases with no one out. The new Ranger reliever was able to induce a pop-up, throw a strikeout, and get a weak grounder to 1st, to get out of it with no damage. A wildly enthusiastic crowd? Fans standing and cheering at 2-strike counts? Nah…. At the time, there were several fans busy trying to start the wave in my section, around whom I had to shift and peer in order to see the drama below.
• Example #2: While I’m still waiting for a truly moving 7th inning stretch (the Yankees do it well, but not on an everyday basis – Wrigley, I’m counting on you), this was a low point. Mostly because there were quite a few people… yep… not even standing. Hmmm…
But, hey. This is a last-place team, and Cowboys training camp is well underway, so perhaps I’m asking too much? The fans who were left at the end of the 9th did give it a good cheer as the game came to a close, though.

Still, definitely an enjoyable place to watch a game, and a good experience. I’d hesitate before buying a day-game ticket in August, but I’d certainly come back if in town.

Off to Kansas City tomorrow and to the heart of the Mid-West.

Game #12: Deep in the Heart of Texas

2007-08-08T08:10:00.000-07:00

A quick caveat – I’ve been to both of the two Texas ballparks before, and am a big fan of Houston’s Minute Maid Park. Yes, it’s also designed by HOK, and yes, it shares many design features with numerous new parks. But they’ve definitely done it right, and you definitely feel like you are “Deep in the Heart of Texas”

The roof, which was closed on this visit, works quite well. While in Seattle the stadium roof is for rain, and in Minnesota it’s for snow, the roof in Houston, much like that in Arizona, is used to close out the heat of the summer and air condition the interior. It’s not as hot as it is in Phoenix, but with the Houston humidity, the closed roof and windows and air conditioned ballpark were definitely appreciated. Plus, they’ve been able to maintain natural grass and dirt, due to the fully retractable nature of the roof, so it really does work nicely.

I sat in the Crawford boxes out in left field, a characteristic element of the park. This left field home run porch is remarkably close to home plate, providing a very temping target for right-handed hitters, and a great vantage point for fans, and partly makes up for the deep expanse of center field stretching to Tal’s Hill and the in-play flagpole. And no, given the misunderstanding on a previous blog post about George W DC, I’ll specify that this is not Bush’s Crawford ranch, but rather the street beside the ballpark that this Crawford is named after.

Another distinctive feature of the park is the integration of the historic Houston Union Station as a grand entranceway into the park. I’d missed this on my first visit, but made a point of working my way around the park to enter via this gate. It’s got a great old-fashioned train station feel.

I looked and looked, but there was no sign of an Enron “E” anywhere in sight. That said, this is oil country, so oil stocks were listed in a ticker in right field, the price of crude is displayed prominently, and the total number of Astro home runs hit at the park are listed in a faux gas pump in left field. Gotta love it.

Also an indication of being in Texas: To loud applause, a group of new Marine recruits were sworn in on the field before the first pitch.

The beer selection is poor, but that was ok. I spent my pre-game warm-up at the Flying Saucer , a bar I’d found on my last trip to Houston in the heart of downtown and a short walk to the park that features a truly phenomenal collection of draft and bottled beers.

As usual for a Cubs road game, there were a LOT of Cubs fans in attendance. It’s got to be fairly frustrating, really, for home fans of any park when the Cubs, Sox, or Yanks come to town. But the Astros fans got the last laugh. For me, another day, another extra-inning game. This time, it was a 2-out, man-on-3rd base hit in the bottom of the 10th that sent everyone home happy. Great fun.

756

2007-08-07T21:27:00.000-07:00

I guess this picture isn’t relevant anymore…

Congrats Barry. Thanks for the memories.

Game #11: Say Hello To My Little Friend

2007-08-07T21:02:00.000-07:00

Little-ball ruled in the 12th inning at Miami’s Dolphin Stadium on Saturday night. In a truly amusing sequence of events, with 2 outs in the bottom of the 12th, the Astros decided to intentionally walk slugger Miguel Cabrera, who’d burned them once already with a home run to tie the game in the bottom of the 7th. He advanced to 2nd on a wild pitch that caught the catcher in the throat and stunned him. He then advanced to 3rd on another wild pitch, and all the way to home when that wild pitch was judged to have been knocked into the dugout by the catcher. 27 times this year, Cabrera came around to score before the next batter finished his at-bat. This 28th time was definitely the most unique. Is that little-ball? I’m not actually sure. But you get the point.

In some ways, this may have just been payback for a tour around the bases by the Astro’s Carlos Lee earlier in the game. After hitting a catchable ball that instead got past the center fielder for a double, Lee advanced to 3rd on an errant throw from the center fielder to second base, and then to home when the second baseman’s attempt to make up for the first error by throwing the ball to 3rd wound up going through the 3rd baseman’s legs. That’s twice on this tour now that I’ve seen a player hit the equivalent of an inside-the-park home run thanks to fielding errors.

Meanwhile…

Dolphin Stadium is exactly what it sounds like – a football stadium that happens to host baseball games. It reminded me quite a lot of Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, as a classic massive multi-purpose stadium of the pre-Camden/Jacobs field era. That said, the field dimensions and left field grandstand both look far less odd in person than they did on TV. And, unlike Candlestick Park, there are no baseball-configuration seats facing the wrong way. Still, the park was really nothing worth writing home about.

I was quite struck, meanwhile, by how different South Florida is from Central Florida in culture and environment. Having never been to South Florida before, I’d not fully appreciated the extent of the Latin influence, clearly evident at the ballpark as between-inning announcements and entertainment were run at first in both English and Spanish, until at some points late in the game, they gave up on English altogether and just started doing everything in Spanish.

A few random points of note:

It was seriously hot, despite the evening start, and the Marlins apparently draw quite poorly for day games, unsurprisingly. With the wide-open stadium bowl, and the heat and humidity of South Florida, I’ve got to imagine the beach is a far more appealing draw on a hot August day.

In a further nod to the football-inspired environment, the Marlins have cheerleaders. Not simply attractive women helping to rev the crowd up as is seen in other parks, but full-blown pom-pom waving, routine-dancing cheerleaders. While this wasn’t difficult on the eyes, it was more than a little jarring.

There was an ad running occasionally through the big screen whose key message was to ask if you’d had your microchip installed yet. Yikes. Welcome to Florida in the 21st Century.

There were no scalpers anywhere in sight for the first time on the trip, which was a shame, since I was carrying a second ticket that I was therefore unable to offload. Unfortunately, the reason I had the second ticket was because Charlie found himself otherwise engaged, though for very good reason. And, the timing worked out well, as it gave me a chance to help Andres celebrate his 22 hour anniversary. Plus, if he needs a guarantor 31 years from now, I’ll be able to step in.

Unlike at Sharks games, the Marlins were still playing “The Hey Song”. Quite nostalgic, really.

I don’t know if it’s the Latin influence, the heat, or the influence of all the Miami-style exposed skin, but I’ve never seen so much tongue on display on the scoreboard kiss-cam. A bit disturbing, really.

It being a Saturday night, they followed the game with a fireworks show, and then a complimentary concert by Oscar D’Leon, apparently a reasonably well known Latin recording artist. While I didn’t stick around for much of this, it was definitely an apparent drawing card, and the fans dancing salsa in their seats during the concert were clearly having a great time.

Finally, while on the stat trend, I’d really like to see stadiums post teams’ performance with runners in scoring position (RISP). It was great to sit near a person keeping score in Cleveland who was making a point of tracking RISP (they were 1-for-9). This is very revealing, despite Billy Beane’s arguments to the contrary, and often a clear indication of why teams are performing well or poorly. While we’re at it, clutch hitting’s mirror, clutch pitching, was on display in the form of Marlins pitcher Armando Benitez, who threw a masterful 1-2-3 inning, appropriate to a tie game in early August between two non-playoff teams. For Armando, the bigger the stage gets, and the tougher the situation, the more I’m comfortable placing a sizeable bet on Benitez screwing it all up.

Game #10: Beyond Thunderdome

2007-08-06T23:13:00.000-07:00

Ah…. Central Florida. Home of sun-seeking and retired New Yorkers and New Englanders. More on that later. And home of heat, humidity, mosquitos, and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Before Tampa Bay had a team, this was the holy grail of team-relocation destinations, with the Giants, White Sox, and Mariners all threatening to head there. Now that the D-Rays are actually there, and drawing tiny crowds game after game, the man behind the curtain’s been revealed. Perhaps it’s the city, perhaps it’s the park, or perhaps it’s because the team has been truly putrid for its entire existence. However you slice it, this was probably my least-anticipated park on the tour, though as with RFK, it was not as bad as I’d feared.

My first impression of Tropicana field was to see the most astonishing two words I’ve ever seen at a sporting facility. I still have trouble repeating this. Take a look to the right:

While forewarned, I was definitely struck by how much the concourses felt like a shopping mall, and completely distanced from the park itself. Amazingly enough, that was even more true than in the old Hartford Civic Center – you know, the one that actually IS in a mall.

The other great pre-game feature was to provide the evening’s weather forecast – I LOVED this. The irony of running a big screen weather forecast in a domed stadium was beautiful.

The crowd was predictably tiny. Still, this meant I was able to buy a fairly cheap ticket at $17, and easily upgrade to a $55 seat, as seen below. The ushers seemed to realize the folly of trying to keep people in their sections, and really didn’t seem to care about anything.

In a lot of ways, the Devil Rays experience was a lot like heading to Florida for a spring training game. You get to get right up to the field, see teams consisting of some major leaguers and a bunch of minor leaguers, and it doesn’t put you back that much money. All-in-all, not bad.

To be fair, I was far more impressed with Tropicana Field than I’d expected to be. Inside the park bowl itself, it really does look almost more like a true ballpark with a dome around it, rather than a domed stadium with baseball being played inside, if that makes any sense. The seats are all arranged for baseball, the atmosphere’s kind of right, and the dome starts to fade into additional-feature status. And, with some of the torrential Florida rain I experienced on my drive down today, I can definitely understand the need for a serious roof.

Here’s a picture of the stuff they’re playing on. Being a permanent dome, the prospect of real grass appears to be unfeasible, but they’ve been able to work with a fake plastic grass that seems far more fitting than the green carpet found in Toronto and Minnesota. Not bad, really.

I was very impressed with outfielders’ ability to keep track of the ball in the roof. Every time the ball went up in the air, I’d completely lose it against the white backdrop. Too crazy. Also fantastic about the roof is the fact that it can be in play, so much so that there are foul-line poles built right into the catwalks. Great stuff.

I did get a bit of whiplash watching these two teams play. For the second time in 2 weeks, I was privy to the intense drama of an Orioles-Devil Rays matchup. Err… yeah. In retrospect, I wonder what impact the dull teams this had on my impression of Camden Yards last week. Let’s just say I’m looking forward to that Cubs-Cards match-up far more than these two bottom-feeder games. The O’s won, thanks to the Rays’ inability to put more than a single run on the board.

The fans seemed truly peeved at former Ray Aubrey Huff, booing him every time he came to the plate. While I can understand and appreciate booing players who leave teams on bad terms, or follow free agent money elsewhere without showing respect to their old team, Huff was traded away. This, I don’t understand. Regardless, the treatment seemed to spur him on, as he had a great game and a great series. Not a great ploy, D-Ray fans.

Finally, in the spirit of Bostonians retiring to South Florida, the top historic D-Ray star appears to have been Wade Boggs, who played out the string down here, with a concourse display, a retired number, and a yellow seat in the outfield commemorating where his 3000th hit, a home run, left the yard. And, in order to make the New Yorkers feel at home, the following mural gives the impression of having just come off a NY subway. Very Florida.

Ok… off to South Florida next.

Game #9: Evening in Hotlanta

2007-08-05T22:22:00.000-07:00

The drive to Atlanta was perhaps one of the toughest of the trip. It’s 10-11 hours from DC to Atlanta, and I left in the morning, and needed to get to Atlanta in time for a 7:30 first pitch. In the end, it wasn’t that bad at all, but, as I’d previously mentioned, the irony is that the game wound up going 5+ hours and 14 innings. Figures.

That drive also exemplified part of the point of doing this as a road trip. It’s been remarkable how quickly I’ve gone from one area of the country to another, as just like that my surroundings have gone from distinctly East Coast to thoroughly Mid-West, to American South. Toss in Northern, Central, and Southern Florida, which are also very distinct from one another, and you really get a feel of moving around the country. While I’d anticipated this to a certain extent, I was still struck by the suddenness with which the environment seemed to change.

A couple of things about the drive down were particularly amusing:

* The Phillip Morris headquarters in North Carolina, including the cigarette shaped post in the picture to the right.

* Highway billboards suddenly promoting values such as Right to Life and Abstinence.

* Lots and lots of religious-oriented highway billboards with messages as eerie as “Welcome to Georgia, mortality rate 100%. Are you ready?”

* This was classic: An “inmates working” sign on the side of the freeway, followed by orange-jumpered inmates cleaning the side of the road

And yes, while Georgia can probably be considered the most civilized state in the South, and Atlanta its metropolitan center, there were definitely fans at the game with accents (and approaches to yelling at the opposing team) that would have done Cletus of the Simpsons proud.
Ok… on to Turner Field, aka, The Ted. Generally, this was definitely quite a nice park, with a good feel, size, and atmosphere. It’s relatively big, but despite the flak the Braves get for not filling it, including for some playoff games, even this Thursday evening game against the Astros had plenty of people in the park. Furthermore, with the track record the Braves have had recently, you can forgive the fans for being a bit blasé about turning out in droves for mid-day weekday playoff games.

This was also the home of Hank Aaron, a fact that was reinforced throughout the park. With Barry having just tied the record, this particularly stood out, including mentions of 755 everywhere, and a big panel on the back of the scoreboard saying “715”

In an interesting approach, the Braves also had a set of seats allocated as “all-you-can-eat” seats, with the price of food included in the ticket. This was a novel idea – we’ll see if it spreads.

The torch from the 1996 Olympic games is, meanwhile, bravely guarding the corner of a parking lot. This is quite a shame, really, as it would have been great to see the flame incorporated into the park somehow. While this is likely the original location from the Olympic Stadium, prior to its remodeling into the current baseball-only park, it’s still a bit disappointing.

The classic Braves signature, the Tomahawk chop turned out to be not nearly so annoying when at the stadium and cheering for the Braves as it is when watching on TV and rooting for the other team. And the fans definitely get into it.

The Braves scoreboard deserves a nod. The screen was great, but more to the point, the elements shown on the scoreboard were especially good. Baseball is a statistic-driven sport, and the more stats provided to the fans, the better. Unique to the Ted were details listed in the same format used when scoring by hand, and shown both on an inning-by-inning and player-by-player basis over the course of the game. Good stuff. That said, the left-on-base (LOB) line score item shown in some parks wasn’t included here – a notable oversight.

The game itself, as I said, went 14 innings. The Braves should have won, as they were up 9-5, but gave up a grand slam in the 8th in a situation were, arguably, all three baserunners should have been out. The Braves then came back from being down 2 runs in the 12th with a home run off Astros closer Brad Lidge. In the end, it was a battle of attrition, as both teams started running out of players and pitchers. The Astros go-ahead run, tragically enough, was batted in by reserve starting pitcher Jason Jennings, scheduled to have a day off, and nursing a season batting average of .057. Dah…

Let me also include a quick shout out to kegeratornation.com. I had a good chat with Braves fan Mike from Columbus as the night went on and the Braves continued to squander chance after chance. He, and his friends, keep this blog going, talking about all matter of sports stories, with an emphasis on Ohio sports.

Oh yeah – one final thing. There’s far too much red in this league right now. The Astros had a great thing going with the yellow and orange, and while it was painfully seventies, a modern upgrade could, perhaps, have taken them down the road of UT burnt orange. Instead, the yet-again-red meant two nights in a row of red-clad fans cheering against red-clad fans. Ah well…

Game #8: I pledge allegiance, to the frat.. No, wait, that's to the flag... No, wait, apparently it's to the Nats

2007-08-05T21:28:00.000-07:00

Ah… RFK Stadium. Key word, “stadium”. Because it really is. Also, while it was the 2nd true stadium on the trip, after Shea, and while Shea has the same large-concrete-structure feel to it, Shea at least carries the impression of being a baseball park due to years of seeing the Mets play there. RFK, meanwhile, is a football stadium temporarily housing the Nationals, and feels it. That said, RFK did exceed my admittedly-low expectations.

RFK’s also the most recently added stadium in baseball. And, while I’ve gotten great tips from The Ultimate Baseball Road-Trip, by Josh Pahigian and Kevin O’Connell, their 3-year-old book included tips on seating, food, neighborhood bars and things to see in Montreal, but not at RFK.

In part as a result of this lack of guidance, my purchased seat was absolutely horrendous. Buying a Terrace seat at the back of the field level, I’d not anticipated the overhang of the upper deck. This completely cut off the view of any ball hit into the air, and created a constrained claustrophobic feel. I lasted there all of a half-inning, easy because the ushers throughout the park (except, ironically in my section), were very flexible about people moving around. And yes, that picture is real – that’s not a letterbox image

My second seat, on the outfield 3rd base line was far better, and in fact, provided quite a good vantage point on the game. And as the game went along, I warmed to the park. The single most notable, and rewarding, feature of RFK is this…. It shakes. The footsteps of a lone small boy walking down the aisle beside your section can be enough to create a bit of a tremor, and when the place got going, it really came alive with energy. This really illustrated to me how incredible this place must have been for football, since if 28 thousand generally mild-mannered DC baseball fans were able to create the sort of seismic activity that I experiences, the impact of 50 thousand plus rabid football fanatics would have been phenomenal. That would have been an experience

Meanwhile, the Nats move to new digs starting next year. Once I’ve caught up on the games, I’ll touch upon new park openings in one of these entries.

The Nationals, like all teams, do occasional bobblehead days, and do a mid-game faux race around the field. But, this being DC, the bobblehead day a few days after my visit was for… yep…. Thomas Jefferson, and the race featured Tom, George, Abe, and Teddy. Too funny.

Along the right field wall was the DC “Hall of Stars”. One comment only: With all the illustrious history of the Caps, how can Rod Langway be the only hockey player represented??

The Nats turned on the offense during the first couple of innings, getting to Red starter Bronson Arroyo early for 7 runs in the first two innings, and then held on through the rest of the game. For one night, at least, my home team mojo was back in force.

Finally, for the American Idol fan(s) out there, the 7th inning stretch rendition of “God Bless America” was sung by this guy, who apparently almost won a recent season of American Idol. He was sitting in the row right behind me, and was interviewed early in the game, much to my confusion, and was then mobbed for autographs when he returned at the end of the 7th.

755

2007-08-04T21:25:00.001-07:00

I guess they didn't make Petco "Barry-proof" after all.

Op/Ed

2007-08-03T20:56:00.000-07:00

Ok… so I’ve got to comment on this. Bud Selig, baseball commissioner, whose job, as I can best understand it, appears to be to look like a toad at major baseball events, recently referred to his duty of following Barry around from stadium to stadium in his chase of 755 as a “Herculean effort”.

Are you kidding me? The guy’s JOB is to be there for the photo opp. He gets paid about $14 million a year for it. And being driven by limo and private jet from luxury box to luxury box in order to watch baseball is a “Herculean effort”???

Still, it did get me thinking. If that’s Herculean, I wonder quite what my trip would be? Any thoughts out there?

Game #7: Not a Pit After All

2007-08-03T20:00:00.000-07:00

PNC Park was rated the best park in the majors a few years ago in an unscientific ranking system devised by two ESPN columnists, just edging out the Park By The Bay in San Francisco. And indeed, both the park itself, and the city of Pittsburgh, were a huge hit for me, presenting a fantastic environment for baseball in a very cozy and intimate setting. It really is a shame the team stinks.

The park was highly reminiscent of AT&T Park in SF, perhaps not surprising given the fact that the same architect firm was used for both. The exposed brick and steel have become common elements, but in general layout and feel, there were definite similarities. Also, the potential for balls heading to right field to go into the water, in this case the Allegheny River, is a nice touch. The great thing about PNC is the city skyline beyond the right field wall, with the presence of numerous beautiful bridges in the near background. Those bridges mirror another great aspect of Pittsburgh, in that they all reflect the yellow color palette so integral to Pittsburgh. Yellow steel is used throughout in the bridges, yellow brick is common throughout the city and the ballpark, and the use of yellow and black for all three of the city’s sports teams provides a common thread of a type I’ve always wished more cities would adopt. Instantly recognizable as Pittsburgh, this prevalence of yellow is really a great touch.

I was given heard two random city facts, neither validated, but both interesting enough to include here: 1) Pittsburgh has more bridges than any world city after Venice (!), perhaps because of the easy availability of steel? 2) Pittsburgh is the second oldest city in the USA from a demographic standpoint, a sign of its stagnant economic situation.

Unlike the last few parks I’ve been at, and even though PNC is a new park, there are few distractions. The focus of the building is very definitely upon the baseball, and while a small replica park is in place in right field, you can tell that the intention is for the fans to be focusing upon the game.

There were great food options throughout, including the repeatedly recommended Primanti Brothers sandwich (yes, those fries are inside the sandwich), for which I actually visited the original site for lunch, and including a second signature food typical of the region, pierogis. This Eastern European delicacy is essentially a potato, cheese, and onion ravioli. Both the sandwich and the pierogis were tasty, and highly representative of the area, though both were fairly subtle in flavor. Beer selections were good as well, with a wide variety of local microbrews available on tap.

Tickets were plentiful and inexpensive, likely a reflection both upon the cost of living of the city itself and the misfortunes of the team.

The game was unfortunate, and having built such a great building in which to play baseball, it is indeed too bad that the Pirates do such a bad job inside of it. The game was against the Cardinals, a team that hasn’t been playing particularly well this year in their attempt to follow up their World Series championship. However, the Pirates really never threatened to win the game at all. While the score was close throughout, and ended at 6-4, there was something of a sense in the air that it really wasn’t going to happen.

If you were to point at one representative moment from the game, though, it would have to be the putrid play of the Pittsburgh catcher, Ronny Paulino. With two outs and a man on 1st in a tie game, Paulino was lackadaisical on a high foul pop-up, dropping it for an error. The very next pitch was doubled to center, though the outfielder got the ball into the infield in time for a play at the plate. But Paulino then proceeded to mishandle the throw to the plate, letting the go-ahead run score, and really being the beginning of the end. Radio hosts and callers were irate after the game, screaming for blood, and demanding that he be sent immediately to AAA, AA, A, or perhaps Cuba. But, this being the Pirates, he’s sure to be a fixture for years to come.

[Editor’s note: Paulino did hit a grand slam the next day, and then another HR the day after that, perhaps getting some vindication. Meanwhile, the Braves demonstrated the sort of decisiveness for which the Pirate fans were clamoring the next day, in which they demoted a poorly performing starting pitcher only 30 minutes after their game was over.]

Finally, I failed to mention this on the blog entry covering my drive to Pittsburgh, but there’s a small spur of West Virginia that comes on up and sticks itself between Canton, OH and Pittsburgh. With all apologies to Al, just that little hyper-rural stretch of local highways (I was not on the interstate at this time) did rather reinforce the WV stereotype quite a lot. My favorite example, and one that I’d really like to hope was a joke, was the sign, crudely painted on a piece of discard wood beside a very run down store that said “Got Far Wood”. Read it again if you didn’t quite catch that, and don’t be afraid to adopt a fake accent.

Late Games and Road Trips

2007-08-02T22:54:00.001-07:00

Because, you see, I should have good and well predicted that on a day in which I drove for 11 hours from DC to Atlanta, before tomorrow's drive for 7 hours from Atlanta to Tampa, tonight's Braves game was obviously destined to run until well past midnight over 5+ hours and 14 innings. Aie...

Blog entries for Pittsburgh, DC, and Atlanta are on their way. My home-team mojo appears to be on the fritz, as I went 1-2 through that stretch. PNC Park's incredible, RFK wasn't as bad as I expected, and Turner Field was good fun. More later...

Another Interlude and Arrival in Pittsburgh

2007-07-30T20:45:00.000-07:00

Having missed out on the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, but finding myself with some time between waking in Cleveland and arriving in Pittsburgh, I decided to take another detour into another sport, and visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH.

This was a neat experience, and interesting to see, especially with the hall preparing itself for this weekend’s induction ceremonies. The parking lot had been taken over for temporary tents, while everywhere were banners, signs, and merchandise regarding the new inductees of the class of 2007. Especially of interest (for me, at least) was the Redskin-related memorabilia, including the bust of once-and-again coach Joe Gibbs, at right. That said, there was an element to which I wasn’t as steeped in the tradition and the lore of the sport, and thus had less of a connection with many of the players than others might have. That last concern is something I expect to have no problem with at all when I arrive in Toronto and get a chance to see the Hockey Hall of Fame.

I’ve now arrived in Pittsburgh in advance of tomorrow night’s game against St Louis, hoping to once again get my home-team-mojo going. Upon arriving, my very gracious hosts (Thanks Tom & Patter, and Beage as well) gave me a great overview of the city, including dinner at a fantastic location, offering tremendous views over the city below. I’m digging Pittsburgh – while it may be struggling from an economic standpoint, it’s definitely got a beautiful location and skyline. The park’s supposed to be fantastic as well, and I’m eagerly looking forward to seeing that for myself tomorrow night.

Observation: "A Table for One, Please"

2007-07-30T20:38:00.000-07:00

Attending a baseball game is an inherently social activity, as the interaction between fan and game is generally nicely enhanced with some good quality fan-to-fan interaction. Not that a game can’t be a great experience on your own, but that I, for one, tend to hope for opportunities to get to know other fans around me. Given that 4 of my first 6 games have been alone, I’ve definitely been looking out for some good-quality conversation. And whether it’s been just a couple of exchanges, engaging in an in-depth conversation, or making a new friendship that carries on after leaving the park, I’ve fortunately been doing pretty well so far.

The roadtrip itself is a great icebreaker, as it turns out. While selling people on the concept in the UK produced a mixed, if generally positive impression, raising the concept to other fans at a baseball game has brought uniform enthusiasm, and a hearty collection of “I’ve always wanted to do that” responses. To call out a few examples in particular:

I met a very cool person at the Yankee game, despite her insistence on cheering for the Yankees as a day-to-day activity rather than just as a ballpark-touring temporary allegiance. We discovered soon into our conversation that we shared a fair bit in the way of common background and career direction, and that our common deep interest in sports made for a great backdrop for ongoing conversation. This really helped enhance the Yankee Stadium experience. And, credit where credit’s due, my schedule re-jigging to hit up Cleveland earlier in the trip was inspired by this dedicated Yankee fan. Hats off.

The Phillies game worked out well from several fronts. On my right were the three people who’d received 4 tickets to the game (free), sold one of them to a pair of Mets fans outside the stadium (at face value), who then sold it to me (for a premium). From a financial point of view, I suppose I had the short straw, but I still realized economic profit vis-à-vis my willingness to pay, so all was good. My being the 4th seat of the group almost made for a natural introduction and for easygoing conversation throughout the game. I also had a very good time talking to the couple on my other side, who were splitting innings with their daughter and her boyfriend between these seats and standing-room only. The daughter’s softball scholarship to university was an obvious indication of a thorough knowledge of the sport, and all 4 were great to spend time with.

My experience at the Orioles games was a bit more limited in interaction. Though to be fair, even just a brief description of my tour to a man visiting the game with his two teenage kids in the row behind me was enough to get him to offer me a beer at last call – “out of respect for the worthiness of my trip”. Good stuff.

We’ll see how things continue moving on, though with the reputation for hospitality and friendliness prevalent in the South and in the Mid-west, I’m guessing there’ll be plenty of good quality conversations ahead.

Game #6: Cleveland Rocks

2007-07-29T20:45:00.000-07:00

Ok, so maybe not so much.

In fairness, when I arrived last night, I was very impressed with the city. With a downtown area far more populated with large buildings than I’d anticipated, and with a free outdoor blues festival underway just a short walk from my hotel, I was definitely digging it. But, after spending one additional day here, with an afternoon game and a bit of a wander both after the game and at night, I can safely say I’m done. Not a bad city, mind you, but just one from which I'm ready to move on.

Jacobs Field (aka “The Jake”) is another of the original new-era baseball-only parks, and was a natural segue after Camden Yards as a result. For anyone exceptionally perceptive, you’ll have noticed that Cleveland was intended to fit later in the tour. As it happens, with 4 days between games, and with my tentative plan of heading to Cooperstown subdued by realization that this was the Hall of Fame’s induction weekend, and that access & lodging would be difficult to come by, I figured I’d slip in a quick side trip from Pittsburgh to Cleveland in order to create more buffer later in the schedule. Hopefully this’ll help if I run into rain-outs further down the path.

Jacobs, though, both didn’t carry the weight of expectations of Camden, and was still built as a modern park – just as a nicely architected, baseball-only park. And for this reason, it was definitely a pleasant experience, and a nice place to see a game. The one disappointment was that I’d decided to get upper deck tickets again, but close to the front of the upper deck and immediately behind home plate. However, I quickly realized that the upper deck at the Jake is certainly higher than most, due to three (!) levels of luxury boxes, providing a resultant disappointing vantage point. It’s a bit worrisome, though – while I’ve not really looked over the plans for the two new parks in NY, it’s certainly believable that they might emphasize increased number of luxury boxes at the expense of the view of those in the upper deck. Given the great quality of the front-ward upper-deck tickets at Yankee Stadium, that’d be a real shame.

The feature of the Jake I particularly appreciated was the inclusion of a shrine to their top old players in the form of a small monument park in right field. This concept, inspired by Yankee Stadium and also included in Baltimore and Philadelphia, was particularly well done here, including the following small plaque to former Indian and current Giant Omar Vizquel.

Two other notable elements: First, the restaurant in right field was particularly impressive in terms of providing fantastic views and a luxurious-seeming feel to diners. Second, while activities for kids are common at new parks, Jacobs Field, for the first time, also featured a full-fledged playground for young kids, complete with kid-sized benches and tables surrounding the outside. Pretty impressive.

On to the game. Unfortunately, it appears my home-team charm effect may have worn off. I’d bought my ticket projecting this to be an ace-vs-ace matchup of CC Sabathia and Johan Santana, only to miss Santana by one night. However, Sabathia was brilliant, reaching the 2-outs-in-the-8th point in the game with a 1-0 shutout still intact. From then it all began to unravel. First, a deep fly ball to right flew over (poor-fielding) RF Trot Nixon’s head, scoring the tying run. Then, a routine grounder to the second baseman was first boggled (error #1), and then thrown away (error #2), getting the batter to 2nd and the man on 2nd home. Classic little-league stuff, compounding problems with further problems. Remember “Major League”, with Charlie Sheen as Wild Thing and Bob Uecker as the sarcastic commentator? There’s a reason they chose the Indians as their team, and despite the team playing far better since the Jake was built, they clearly still know how to mail one in.

That said, there was a point in the game that very much felt like a classic game changing moments, providing the typical rush of adrenaline and excitement through the stadium crowd. In the 6th inning, in a 1-0 ball game, with a man on 3rd and nobody out, Sabathia was able to get out of the jam by striking out the side. Wow. That got the crowd pumped and into the game, and in a split second, helped further highlight why it is that this game is so fun. Unfortunately, it wound up not being enough, leaving the home crowd to head home disappointed for the first time on my trip.

Off to Pittsburgh tomorrow, with the Pirates and PNC park coming up on Tuesday night.

Brief Interlude for England Cricket

2007-07-28T23:13:00.001-07:00

Meanwhile, it's not all about baseball. In between 30 games and tracking Barry's efforts to hit #756, I've also been able to spare a bit of time for... yep... England cricket. Which made for a very disappointing last Monday at Lord's when they were foiled in their efforts to beat India when play was called for light and rain with England ahead by 92 runs and needing only one wicket to win. Of course, I have it on good authority that certain individuals were exerting unfair influence on the weather, but of course I'd never want to point fingers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go9HxuusDvU

This week's second test, in the meantime, isn't going at all well, with the tourists already ahead by 56 runs in the first innings at stumps on the second day with 7 wickets to spare.

P.S. If you're reading this blog for the baseball and none of this makes the slightest bit of sense, don't worry. I'll be at the Tribe game tomorrow.

Game #5: Camden Yards: The Original New Old Park

2007-07-28T23:03:00.000-07:00

When Camden Yards was built in 1992, it redefined the landscape for new ballpark development. While in the years prior, the pinnacle of stadium design was epitomized by massive, concrete, multi-sport complexes, Camden went a different way, bringing back architectural elements common to the classic ballparks of the past, combined with modern approaches to niceties such as concessions and concourses. The Camden experience, in turn, inspired a new generation of new ballparks that have given me good reason to drive across the continent.

All of that said. 1992 has become more than a little while ago. Or, more specifically, the combination of a vast reputation and countless imitators seems to have taken its toll. While the park was nice, it felt rather overrated. While I give Camden all fair dues and rights for ushering in the new era in ballpark design, the opportunity other cities have had to learn from the model and improve upon it has produced other parks, such as the one I visited the previous night in Philadelphia, that have surpassed Camden. If I’d been to Camden for the first time before having seen many of the new parks around the country, perhaps it would have been different, but between the weight of expectations and the growth elsewhere, it was a bit of a let down.

This included the highly-touted Eutaw Street promenade between the large warehouse in right field and the stands themselves. I had expected this street-extension, inside the park’s gates and populated by concessions and businesses, to be more like the Yawkey Way outside Fenway, in being and truly feeling apart from the ballpark. However, in reality, it simply felt like an uncovered continuation of the general concourse.

That said, one neat element of Eutaw street that I’ve not seen elsewhere was the installation of brass plaques into the floor where players have hit home runs. These commemorative plaques make for an interesting study in where home run balls go, and also make for a fun exercise in seeking out your favorite teams or players. To make up for any anger I may have caused by my compliments to Yankee Stadium and to make sure that I don’t have to sleep on the couch when I return home, here’s a picture of a Red Sox commemorative plaque.

One point on which Camden did not disappoint was the food. The highly-regarded Boog’s BBQ was excellent, and made for the first time on the trip that I really felt like it was something I’d be happy to seek out and pay for outside of the ballpark. Also amusing was the availability of Old Bay seasoning as an alternative to ketchup for french fries – this is definitely the Chesapeake region. Meanwhile, beers were again plentiful and varied, with a wide range of local microbrews on tap.

The crowd was pretty small, which is perhaps expected for a mid-day, mid-week battle between the bottom two teams in the AL East. And of the crowd that was there, much of it was part of a kids day promotion that had dozens of groups of dozens of young kid day campers massed around the stadium, each group identifiable by their uniquely colored t-shirts. Unfortunately, that made for less people around, though I was able to strike up a bit of a conversation, when the music wasn’t too loud, with a man behind me who was there with his two high-school-aged kids.

And yes, they played Tampa Bay, so of course the Orioles won.

Parking was a nightmare, even though I arrived more than 2 hours early. The combination of mid-week and day-game in downtown Baltimore seemed to mean that all the usual ballpark-servicing lots were busy handling downtown-working businessmen. After more than 40 minutes of driving in circles between full lots, I finally found a remarkably expensive lot with a few spaces to spare.

I’m definitely starting to head further south. The game time temperature was 92 degrees, and my seat was basking in the sun for 3+ hours of the 3 ½ hour game. It’ll just keep getting hotter – After a detour back north to see Cleveland and Pittsburgh and a game in DC, it’ll be Hotlanta next week, and Florida after that.

Meanwhile, the afternoon game, while making for a hot day, did give me a chance to wander the Baltimore waterfront afterwards, which while fairly artificial in construction, and populated primarily with chain restaurants of all kinds, does possess a tremendous natural beauty. Kudos to downtown ballparks!

That said, despite the nice waterfront area, the Baltimore I remember visiting 12 years ago still exists – I fondly remember park benches in sketchy areas inscribed with the following fantastic saying, in the city with the lowest literacy rate in the nation.

After the game, it was off to DC to crash at a friend’s place, and rest up for a bit. Next stop, Cleveland!

Game #4: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

2007-07-27T20:53:00.000-07:00

As I learned upon showing up to Citizens Bank Ballpark in Philadelphia, the Phillies had decided to celebrate July 25th with a “Christmas in July” theme. And in keeping with this theme, the game itself featured many of those characteristics commonly associated with that most wonderful time of the year. Just to name a few

• Presents: This game was Cole Hamels Bobblehead night. Woo hoo. And especially impressive, it was Cole Hamels night on a night when Cole Hamels was the starting pitcher. Imagine the effort required to coordinate that. [Side note: These bobbleheads are now selling for >$24 on eBay]

• Spending More Money Than You Intend To: Of course, the natural result of bobblehead night is… yep… a complete sellout. Which had me resorting for the first time on the trip to buying a scalped ticket on the street in front of the ballpark. Ah well... it was still cheaper than Fenway or Yankee Stadium.

• Grown Men Dressed in Odd-Looking Oversized Suits: Ok, so this time it’s the Phillie Phanatic, best known of all MLB mascots, rather than Santa, but he’s still just as entertaining for all involved.

• Spirit of Giving: In a true spirit of giving, the Phillies, not content with letting Hamels get the win on his own Bobblehead night, decided to try to give away the game in the top of the 9th. Two of the most gifted around at handing back sure-thing wins paired up to make sure it happened, as Antonio Alfonseca (he of the six fingers and six toes) and Jose Mesa (best known for handing the Marlins the World Series in 97) turned a 2-run lead into a 1-run deficit in a heartbeat. Heck, this spirit of giving continued into extra innings, when manager Charlie Manuel (whose nickname appears to be “idiot”) took the bat out the hands of his second best hitter by asking him to bunt with two-on and none-out out later in the game. Let’s just say there’s a good reason this team has lost 10 thousand games.

• A Little Christmas Magic: Inspired by rally caps, Rocky music, and (to my left) a large pink finger, and down to their last out in the 9th, Jimmy Rollins hit a ball to deep center that two outfielders should have had a chance at. But, in a true comedy of errors, first the two outfielders got in each others’ way, dropping the ball, letting Rollins get on base, then the throw to the cutoff man was mishandled, letting Rollins break from 3rd, then the throw to the plate was offline, letting Rollins score on what was, for all intent, an error-induced inside-the-park home run. Not something you see everyday.

• Midnight Mass: Finally, on the stroke of midnight, and in the bottom of the 14th inning, Ryan Howard, twinkle in his eye and all, sent everyone home happy with a soaring home run, letting everyone get their bounce on. See Howard round the bases here

Oh yeah… the park.

Citizen’s Bank Park, despite the generic name, is one of the newer among the new-generation old-style stadiums, and one for which they’ve really done a great job. Among parks I’ve been to in the past, it’s most reminiscent of Coors Field, with common modern/traditional elements such as exposed brick and steel, odd-shaped field dimensions, wide open concourses, and great sightlines. It was also the first park on the trip to really cater to the non-hardcore baseball fan, as the off-the-field distractions were plentiful, including, among others, a Build-a-Phanatic workshop run by the Build-a-Bear chain, caricature artists, kids games aplenty, and pitching nets to allow fans to find out their fastballs stack up against MLB pitchers.

The food and beer selections were excellent, with a huge variety of food stalls of all sorts, including an exceptionally crowded BBQ stand, a chicken rotisserie, and three different varieties of Philly cheesesteak. Ok, ok, so I admit to having tried two of them, but in my defense, I was at the ballpark for 6 hours, and I didn’t finish the second. Beer stands were scattered all over the park, with what seemed to be a different collection of microbrews and imported beers on tap at each one.

The one drawback to the Citizens Bank Park experience is the location. Placed in the middle of a sports complex in Southern Philly, it’s possible to stand in one place and be surrounded by the Eagles’ Lincoln Financial Field, the Flyers’ and 76ers’ Wachovia Center, and the minor league Phantoms’ old Spectrum all at once. While this did provide for plenty of parking, and induced a fair bit of tailgating from local fans, the complete lack local activity, and the missed opportunity to explore central Philly were both disappointments.

Finally, I was quite struck at the frequency with which scores from the Phillies’ minor league affiliates were posted on the scoreboard. As the Phillies’ primary AAA affiliate is the Ottawa Lynx, this definitely caught my eye each time it came up.

Game #3: Planes and Trains, If No Automobiles

2007-07-27T15:33:00.001-07:00

I’d been warned in advance that to attend a game at the Mets’ Shea Stadium after a game at Yankee Stadium wouldn’t be a great idea. But… that’s just the way the schedule worked out. And while the game was still good fun, and the atmosphere decent, this one-time home of Red Sox misery did little to compare itself with its cross-town neighbor.

The most remarkable characteristic of the park is its placement in close proximity to LaGuardia airport. Or rather, it’s the impact of this placement that’s notable. While the presence of the planes overhead is a well-known characteristic of the yard, and they can be heard when watching a game on TV, the deafening thunder of jets barely overhead and the view of these planes taking off and landing just above must be seen and heard to be fully understood.

The other interesting characteristic, and one that’d I’d noticed but not fully appreciated at Yankee Stadium, is that much of the seating is bound into artificial box-like sections of ~20 seats or so. These aren’t true boxes, but are simply metal bars, suitable for leaning against and for creating a slight sense of separation, around standard stadium seating. While this might not be the case throughout the park, it is something of an oddity.

I sat in the Loge box, in right field HR territory just inside the line. And perhaps it’s the higher corporate-element present in the Loge section (this is equivalent to the Club section of seats just above field level in other parks), but it definitely felt as if some of the visceral New York-ness of the crowd was significantly diminished from at the Yankee game. I’d been hoping for almost the reverse, as Mets fans will insist that theirs is the more baseball-purist experience, rather than it just being a place “to hang out and be seen”, but I didn’t find that to be borne out in practice. Next time, perhaps the upper deck would do better. Though I suppose next time’ll likely be at the brand new Citi Field.

When it came to the game, it was good to be back in an NL park watching the Senior Circuit once again. And while the game was almost astonishingly fast, clocking in at less than 2 ½ hours, the lack of a DH did little to take the pop out of the Mets’ lineup, as the hitting star of the game was none other than starting pitcher John Maine. Adding a 2-run homer (and 2 successful sacrifices) to his 7-innings of 2-run, 7-strikeout ball, Maine was definitely the hero of the night.

Unfortunately, both food and beer offerings were highly uninspired. The standard ballpark fare regarding food was available, but little of individual note. I’d read a recommendation for Mama’s Italian Sandwiches on the field level, but was denied entry to the field-level concourse with my loge ticket mid-way through the game. Poor form indeed. Beer selections varied all the way from Budweiser to Bud Light. Er… yeah…

Already falling behind

2007-07-25T23:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm already 2 games behind (on the blog, that is, not the travel) with Camden Yards coming up early tomorrow. But I'll have a break after that to catch up. So, just to prove that I'm still making progress, here's some help from a third party:

http://www.printroom.com/ViewGalleryPhoto.asp?userid=ppfanfoto&gallery_id=776167&tcount=58&scount=54

Game #2: Start Spreading The News…

2007-07-22T08:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, let’s start with a few basic caveats.
Caveat #1: While I’m a part-time Red Sox supporter, I’m really by heart a Giants fan. I can tell this is the case because I (*gasp*) do not immediately despise all things Yankee, while anything in Dodger blue does in fact get my hackles up.
Caveat #2: Yankee stadium was the first new-to-me stadium on this tour.

That in place, I can safely say this… Yankee Stadium was very, very cool.

There’s something about the place that immediately conveys the depth of history it’s seen, the countless championships, and the button-down professionalism of the team. It’s at once truly classy, with the white arches in the outfield, the classic script of the team name, and the precision of the pinstripes, and yet also very blue collar, as evidenced by the crowd, once past the field-level corporate seats. And what a crowd that was. Even for a Sunday afternoon game against the lowly Devil Rays, carrying plenty of potential to settle into a slow and lazy mid-summer affair, the crowd was as enthusiastic as you might expect to see for a mid-Autumn playoff series. Yelling, singing, chanting, and very clearly knowledgeable about the proceedings below, the crowd was a huge part of the atmosphere of the stadium. My personal favorite was the “Hip hip” … “JORGE” chant being spontaneously led by various crowd members at each appearance of the Yankee catcher.

The game itself was a laugher, but a laugher of the sort that this lineup seems built to roll out on a regular basis. Until the Rays spoiled it with an extra run in the 9th, the 21-3 score-that-could-have-been would have been far more appropriate to the NFL’s Giants or Jets than to a baseball game. And all that offense, including 6 Yankee home runs, made for a very high-spirited and enthusiastic crowd, and (recall the caveats here) definitely helped make for a great experience.

My seat was great, and I was very lucky to get it when I did. Having hemmed and hawed for several days, I finally gave in and bought a ticket via Ticketmaster late last night. Those who didn’t bother to do so, walking up to the box office immediately in front of me, found themselves facing a cheapest-ticket price of $280. Yikes. I may need to selectively buy a few more tickets in advance. My seats were in the “Tier Box”, almost immediately behind home plate, at the front of the upper deck. This section angled up from the field at a vertigo-inducing pace, which meant that for those of us near the front, we had a great overview of the park as a whole, combined with a nice intimate proximity to the batter’s box. The ‘pop’ of ball into glove was therefore highly immediate, and very satisfying.

Lastly, I didn’t partake in much of the food, but did have a hot dog – not just any hot dog, but a Nathan’s hot dog, as per the annual Coney Island 4th of July contest. I just had one, mind you, not the 66 that Joey Chestnut ate to unseat Takeru Kobayashi and claim this year’s championship.

The road trip begins

2007-07-22T08:25:00.000-07:00

So… until yesterday, this hadn’t yet become a true road-trip. But, having pulled out of Boston and hit the highway for the first time, the road portion of this trip is now on for real. Meanwhile, there was definitely something nice about starting in Boston, as the route along the Mass Pike out of town was tremendously familiar. Remember the scene at the end of Good Will Hunting when Matt Damon's character (what was his name again?) hits the road on the way out of town? That highway scenery in MA & CT was my regular companion towards the end of my college days.

Game #1: Sox win! Sox win!

2007-07-20T21:46:00.000-07:00

.... and we're off.

Game #1 started with style. After falling behind 3-1 early on, and getting the crowd restless on the heels of their 3-game losing streak, the (Red) Sox turned it on, producing both a triple and a home run with the bases loaded late in the game. The crowd went home happy, and the tour began with a flourish.

Meanwhile, for Mark's benefit, here's my promised picture of the signature Fenway food. Sure, it's actually sold outside the park, but the classic Fenway Italian sausage with peppers and onions is a traditional park of the Fenway experience.

Great fun. Off to NY tomorrow!

Mother Nature

2007-07-19T21:56:00.000-07:00

It's T-minus one day before this 30-ballpark tour really kicks off, and I'm already getting worried about the weather.

One of the problems with trying to plan out a two-month journey around 30 team schedules and a whole lot of driving is that it doesn't leave much room for rain-delay-induced buffer. And, while the Red Sox and White Sox did in the end get a game in tonight, this picture on the right gives a bit of a sense as to the weather situation in Boston today.

The forecast says the rain'll be done by 1 PM tomorrow (Friday the 20th). I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Ottawa - Getting ready to leave

2007-07-17T14:20:00.001-07:00

Since I'm in Ottawa for a few days before starting my trip, I figured I'd post a picture proving I wasn't in London anymore. This is what I came up with:

hmmm.... let's try that again:

That's better

The grand plan

2007-07-14T20:22:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my grand attempt to blog my way through my great MLB ballpark tour of summer 2007. I'll get more background posted in this space shortly, but suffice it to say for now that after hearing enough people tell me that I ought to keep a blog during this trip, I've decided to give it a go.

Ideally, I'll be posting here regularly as I work my way across the country (or rather, countries), hitting up each of the 30 major league baseball ballparks along the way. For now, at least, here's a snapshot of the grand plan. This may get tweaked along the way, and is unfortunately not that rain-out proof, but it's a start.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=116237578905642459429.00000113341e13b571ee4&ll=36.774039,-99.796715&spn=32.945795,57.304687&z=4&om=1