Natural Wonder #2: The Grand Canyon

… 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

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

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...

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

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

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

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…