Author: Jim Ellwanger

More dramatic than an episode of "Clubhouse"

In my last entry, I said something about drama in the baseball playoffs starting next week. Perhaps I should have mentioned possible drama in the games being played in this, the last week of the season.

I thought that Angels game last week was going to be my last baseball game of the season. But then my birthday happened, and I got two tickets to Tuesday night’s Dodger game. I gave one of the tickets to Jason. We drove to the game separately because I usually get off work hours before he does, and I wanted to arrive early to a Dodger game for once. So I’m on my way…

I ignored this sign (there used to be a Dodger Stadium entry gate straight down this street, but you can still get near the stadium this way)…

Remember where you parked at Dodger Stadium; it’s on a giant baseball…

Many people over the years have ignored the crucial “no beachballs” rule on this sign…

If this sign hasn’t been in the parking lot since 1962, it should have been…

“Think blue”? Whatever you say, Mr. Sign!

Before the game, pitcher Elmer Dessens was having his picture taken, in a bunch of different poses. For use on baseball cards, maybe?…

Somebody being interviewed before the game…

The score at the upper right is the one to keep an eye on. The Dodgers went into this game with a magic number of 4 to win the National League West, with the Giants nipping at their heels…

Why weren’t there more people at a pivotal game in the last week of the season? The Dodgers kept the right-field pavilion closed…

Jason noticed a (presumably coincidental) circle of people wearing white in the stands opposite us (in the middle of the below photograph)…

The Rockies get one early run, and then not much happens for quite a while, except for a smoggy moonrise in right field…

Milton Bradley was charged with a 2-run error in the eighth inning, causing the Rockies to lead 3-0. A fan threw a plastic bottle at him. Bradley didn’t like this, and approached the stands. To make a long story short, here’s Bradley walking off the field after being ejected, having ripped off his uniform shirt, which didn’t exactly endear him to the crowd…

Remember Elmer Dessens from before the game? He pitched the top of the 9th, keeping the score as it was at the end of the 8th, 4-0 (also, notice that a lot of people have already left)…

Bottom of the 9th, and Rockies pitcher Shawn Chacon walks four Dodgers in a row to make the score 4-1.

Tim Harikkala relieves him, and promptly gives up a double to Jayson Werth to make the score 4-3.

Then he gives up a single to Steve Finley. Two runs score. Dodgers celebrate…

I’m not sure if I believe it, but there’s the final score…

Hero Steve Finley being interviewed…

Another powerful argument for not leaving a baseball game early. The Giants also won, in less dramatic fashion, so the Dodgers’ magic number is now 3. I’m very, very happy this turned out to be my last game of the season. (I certainly won’t turn down Dodgers playoff tickets! That’s postseason.)

Original comments…

thatbob: If the Dodgers have a post season, I hope they incorporate the good luck tradition of the Rally Ejection. Milton Bradley can take off a different article of clothing in every 8th inning in which the Dodgers are behind.

I watch baseball-related TV so you don’t have to

I just watched my TiVo recording of the new CBS drama “Clubhouse,” which premiered last night. In this show, we are led to believe that there is a baseball team in New York called the New York Empires, the reigning world champions of a baseball league called the ABA, in which there is also a Boston team that wears red-and-black road uniforms. The Empires play in a stadium in Brooklyn, or perhaps Queens (somewhere along the route of the F train), that looks a lot like Dodger Stadium with the seat colors changed, some of the details missing (e.g., the right field scoreboard and the roofs over the bleachers), and apartment buildings in the background instead of palm trees. Also, the team equipment manager is Doc Brown from “Back to the Future.” And judging by the promos for the second episode, the Empires are going to be changing their uniforms within the first couple weeks of the season. (The truth: the Yankees complained about the pinstriped uniforms used in the pilot. There was talk the producers were going to digitally remove the pinstripes, but the pinstripes were there in the broadcast.)

The pilot involved steroids, and the second episode involves corked bats. I’m not sure if they can come up with 22 episodes’ worth of baseball-related issues, so surely some of the later episodes in the season are going to deal primarily with the home life of the central character, batboy Pete Young, and his sister Betsy, who is clearly named after my aunt Betsy, who in the mid-1960s, was an impostor on “To Tell the Truth” for a Baltimore Orioles ball girl. But the Betsy on “Clubhouse” seems like she cares more about sneaking out of the house to meet her boyfriend than she does about baseball.

Oh, and among the producers are Aaron Spelling and Mel Gibson. In fact, the show was created by a writer for one of Aaron Spelling’s other shows, “Charmed,” so I’m hoping for a crossover episode, perhaps involving a demon attacking during a game between the Empires and the San Francisco Cable Car Dodgers, or whatever they’re going to decide the ABA’s San Francisco team is called.

In conclusion, there will probably be more drama in the baseball playoffs starting next week than there is in “Clubhouse,” but I’ll watch the second episode on Tuesday before deciding whether or not to take it out of my TiVo Season Pass list.

Original comments…

Dan: This was on in a bar I was in last night, but the sound was down and closed captioning off. Sounds like I missed just what I thought I missed.

What about Hustle? Anyone see that on ESPN? I keep meaning to set the TiVo, but wonder if its worth my time.

Jim: “Clubhouse” was being shown in a bar? Was it a lazy bar where they hadn’t changed the channel away from CBS after the football games, or was it a bar where a lot of Kirsten Storms fans hang out?

thatbob: Episodes later in the season might deal with Doc Brown’s comic attempts to rectify problems in time-space caused by bookies with access to his Delorean.

Dan: It more in a bar by default. No cable and the person who really cared (the football games were over) flipped around and left it on that because there was good reception.

We do it (baseb)all for you

Over on the Baseball Songs page, all of the songs that are available via the iTunes Music Store now have direct links to the iTMS. So now you have no excuse for not adding some baseball-related music to your collection…what, you can’t afford 99 cents?

Original comments…

Jon Solomon: How long did it take you to get your iTunes Affiliate Program application approved? I am eager to add similar links to the MPGR site.

Jim: I got the approval in less than 24 hours.

You can add links without being an affiliate, although then you don’t get the affiliate money when someone clicks on them…here’s the link to the iTunes Link Maker.

thatbob: So I guess this is your disclosure of commercial interest. Thanks. Were AAA, MLB, and Motel 6 paying you, too?

Jim: I already disclosed the monetary rewards, way back on September 6th when baseballrelated.com became an affiliate. I wish those entities had been paying us! Actually, we didn’t stay at Motel 6, so they would have to have been paying us not to stay there.

Jon Solomon: I got my approval. Very nice.

The sound of baseball

Thanks to Jon Solomon, everyone who wasn’t listening to WPRB Radio on August 27 can now enjoy a small portion of Levi and Jim talking baseball on Maura’s radio show. (Caution: This is a fairly large MP3 file, about 8 MB.) Sorry, no complete songs, because I don’t want to get in trouble with the RIAA, or the MPAA, or the CIA, or the AAA. There’s also a link to it on the Baseball Songs page.

I should point out that Jon actually sent me the audio file very quickly, so it’s all my fault that it took until now for it to be posted.

Original comments…

Jon Solomon: The following photograph is from the trip Maura and I took to the Phillies game on Friday night: http://keepingscoreathome.com/images/dallas.gif

nice. face.

Dan: As I told Maura when she showed me that picture, I hope you guys didn’t let him anywhere near your arm.

Also, little-known fact: Dallas Green and I share the same dentist (well, the same dentist he had when he was in NY 10 years ago, at least. I assume he doesn’t travel to see Dr. Kohn like I do).

Jason: Wow, it was just like listening to the good ol’ days of WNUR at 3 in the morning.

What? More baseball?

While we’re waiting for Levi to regale us with tales of cute, furry kittens insinuating his dreams, here are some pictures from the two baseball games I went to over the past few days. Jason had some Dodgers vouchers to use up before the end of the season, so he, Cathryn, and I went to the Dodgers-Padres game last Thursday…

The colored seats at Dodger Stadium, a picture taken because who knows when they’re going to decide to put in new chairs?…

This is the right-field pavilion, which I guess we could have bought all the seats in, but didn’t think of it before the beginning of the season the way some people did…

Jason had a big bowl of nachos and a big drink…

The final line (the Dodgers didn’t do much)…

Slightly less blurry, the final score…

An artistic shot of the Los Angeles skyline on the way out…

Sunset Boulevard: not just a movie starring Gloria Swanson, it’s also a Dodger Stadium parking lot exit…

Three days later, Jason and I went to Angel Stadium of Anaheim, or whatever it’s really called now, to see the Angels play the Rangers.

Jason wanted to say hi to the mummified body of Gene Autry…

Then he had another big bowl of nachos (I assume that’s sour cream on top and not icing)…

And a soda in a magical color-changing plastic cup (red, or at least pink, when full; clear when empty)…

During the game, a train stopped at the Anaheim station, across the parking lot. Unfortunately, the Amtrak schedule is not well-suited for taking train trips to Angels games…

Not only can you see trains from the stadium, you can also see the Matterhorn at Disneyland, which I’ve pointed out with the red arrow in this picture…

Yes, the Angels have some retired numbers…

They also have some fake rocks and real water…

The end of the rows of seats have an Angels logo on a raised baseball-diamond shape. They’re covering what’s actually molded into the seats: an Edison International logo on a baseball diamond…

Now that they’re not owned by Disney anymore, the Angels are free to get some other family entertainment spots as their sponsors…

And other family-oriented sponsors…

They still make some of the ushers go out on the field for the seventh-inning stretch, but now they have to take off their straw hats for “God Bless America”…

And put their hats back on for “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” (which, at this game, was sung by the same woman who had just done “God Bless America,” I guess because they figured as long as she was on the field with a microphone, she might as well)…

Meanwhile, during most of this, Rangers rookie pitcher Chris Young was on the mound being tall…

Which means it was time to break out, yes, the Rally Monkey!…

Didn’t work, and what is probably my last game of the season ends just as my first game of the season did, with a win by the visiting Texas Rangers…

Original comments…

Jon Solomon: Chris Young is a friend of mine from when he played basketball (and baseball) at Princeton. I got to go to Fenway as a member of “the media” a few weeks ago to cover his first MLB win. They let me go on the field, in the locker room and everything. What were the Red Sox thinking? I’ve got an interview with Chris from after the game up on princetonbasketball.com. If you want a password to listen, just let me know.

Jason: I suggested stopping by the Hooters of Anaheim after the game. However, Jim declined, since he was TiVo-ing the Bucs-Seahawks game and didn’t want to know the score.

But when I got home, I did drink a quart of Jack Daniels.

Jim: Hmm, what a coincidence. But in my case, I needed it to help me forget the Bucs-Seahawks game.

I wish I’d thought of this

Back in March, a man named Michael Mahan, who has more money than me, bought the entire right-field pavilion (bleachers) at Dodger Stadium for two of the three games against the Giants the last weekend of the season. With that big a group buy, the tickets cost only $3.50 each (face value $6.00). He sold some to a broker, donated some to Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and has been selling the rest through his web site for $15.00 each.

Everyone who buys a ticket, though — and the big brothers and big sisters themselves — has to sign an 8-page contract that if they catch a Barry Bonds home run ball, they have to give it to him, and then he’ll sell the ball and later split the money with him.

The Dodgers found out about all this, and they’re a little annoyed, but there’s not much they can do; in California, selling tickets above face value is only illegal on stadium property. They also threatened to let people into the pavilion for free during the games if there is a significant number of empty seats, but Mahan says he’s distributed almost all of the tickets, so that shouldn’t be an issue.

This was all on the front page of today’s L.A. Times, but reading that article requires registration, whereas baseballrelated.com doesn’t. I think the reason this made the front page today is because Bonds has gotten near 700 home runs a little faster than Mahan predicted back in March.

I’m going to the Dodgers game tonight, but sitting in the “reserved” (third) level, behind home plate, so no Barry Bonds home run balls for me. Well, since they’re playing the Padres, a Bonds home run ball would be highly unlikely no matter where I’m sitting.

Original comments…

Jim: It wasn’t in the L.A. Times article, so I forgot to bring up Charlie Sheen buying the entire left-field bleachers for a game at Anaheim in 1996. (“Anybody can catch a foul ball,” he supposedly said. “I want to catch a fair ball.”) The Angels apparently didn’t even make him fill up the section, because by all accounts, it was just Sheen and a couple of friends sitting out there. No one was in danger of hitting any milestone home runs in that game, though, and Sheen went home empty-handed.

Levi: You know, I was just retelling that story to Luke on Monday, but I had Sheen at Comiskey Park. My mistake, I assume, since Jim is known to be mistake-free.

Dan: Jim knows(tm).

Related to the trip, but not baseball-related

I’ve managed to answer the question, “Can there possibly be anything at a restaurant more surprisingly highly priced than the $7.00 beers at the Red Star Tavern in Pittsburgh?” And that answer is yes.

I was with a group at a mid-priced Mexican restaurant last night, and during the cocktails-and-chips portion of the evening, someone made the executive decision to order guacamole as a supplement to the salsa. The guacamole order was a bowl of the usual size one gets at a Mexican restaurant; it was fresh and tasty, but since this is California, it’s very easy to find fresh and tasty guacamole.

The cost of the bowl of guacamole turned out to be $8.25.

It turned out to be listed on the menu with a price of “as quoted,” as if it’s, you know, lobster fresh off a plane from Maine. They didn’t quote the price to us when we ordered it, only when it showed up on the bill.

(I like the fact that the menu lists what year they started serving every dish, because it’s fascinating to see when “new” Mexican foods were introduced — quesadillas 1969, fajitas 1984, vegetarian enchiladas 1992. But especially when that information is on the web site version of the menu, too, it’s not $8.25 worth of guacamole fascinating!)

Original comments…

Levi: The “as quoted” reminds me of the restaurant–was it one of the places where we looked at a menu in Pittsburgh, Jim?–in the midwest that boasted “The freshest fish in the nation!”

I suppose if it were some bottom-feeding river fish, then maybe.

thatbob: Perhaps they meant The Iroquois Nation. Are you certain you weren’t on tribal land?

Even more pictures

I’ve added three photos, taken with my Aunt Nancy with her camera, to the Philadelphia pictures post. Funny how I’m in all three of them (and she’s not in any of them, so there’s no evidence of her actually having been at the game with us).

Also, it turns out (from looking closely at one of them) that one of the vital statistics was wrong; I had forgotten that Citizens Bank Park serves Coca-Cola for washing down your Schmitter, so they join St. Louis, Toronto, Montreal, and Boston on the list of stadiums that dispense Coke.

Alternate universe version of the trip, number three

As promised a while back, here are the scores from Itinerary Number Four.

Monday, August 30: Astros 11, Reds 3

Tuesday, August 31: Mariners 7, Blue Jays 5

Wednesday, September 1: Cubs 2, Expos 1 (11 innings)

Thursday, September 2: Red Sox 4, Angels 3

Friday, September 3: Orioles 3, Yankees 1

Saturday, September 4: Phillies 7, Mets 0

Sunday, September 5: Frederick Keys 3, Wilmington Blue Rocks 2

Monday, September 6: Orioles 4, Twins 1

Tuesday, September 7: Pirates 2, Brewers 0

Wednesday, September 8: Royals at Tigers…rained out!

Aside from the Orioles-Yankees game that prompted Kevin Brown to punch the wall, I don’t think there’s anything too special here. And a rainout would have been a horrible way to end the trip. Knowing what I know now, I’m glad Levi chose Itinerary #3. Thanks, Levi!

Original comments…

Levi: You’re welcome.

And not only was it a rainout, it was one of those that probably won’t even be made up later, since it’s the Tigers and Royals. Sad.

Levi: Oh, and by my quick estimation, we’d only have gone 4-5, if we rooted for the teams I imagine we would have rooted for.

Jim: On the other hand, we could have spent a full couple of days with my aunt and uncle, instead of just seeing them during one game (since they’re close enough to Wilmington, and maybe even Baltimore).