Author: Jim Ellwanger

Media attention

Maura has invited us to drop by the studios of WPRB Radio in Princeton, New Jersey, and join her on her radio show on Friday, August 27. Quite a coincidence that Princeton is between Boston and Philadelphia, and she’s going to have such a conveniently scheduled Friday afternoon time slot, isn’t it? Anyway, the itinerary has been updated.

Original comments…

Jon Solomon: I suggest a show of nothing but songs about baseball. Speaking of which, Levi I have a gift for you when I see ya…

Levi: Maura: Will Tim Zarazhan be there? ‘Cause I don’t know if I can do a show without Tim around.

Jason: I onced listened in on Maura’s show on WPBR through the courtesy of internet streamline broadcasting (or whatever you call it). I called in, and it took her 8 guesses before I told her who I was. I should probably keep in better touch.

maura: ooh, tim. shiver. i was hoping for an all-baseball-related show, actually. i thought that would be lots of fun. especially since i’ve had barbara manning’s cover of ‘joltin’ joe dimaggio’ in my head for a good portion of the weekend.

thatbob: Mr. Announcer and Nibbles, together again at last!

Your papers, please

In Boston, we’ll be taking the Green Line from our hotel to Fenway Park for the game. Therefore, this item is of particular interest: they are soon going to start random ID checks of transit passengers in Boston.

If this is still going on in August, as much as I’d love to protest against it, I think becoming a test case would ruin the rest of the trip. So I’ll grudgingly present my ID if necessary, although the real problem may be convincing the officer that the digital camera I’m carrying is for the purpose of taking pictures in and around Fenway Park, since some transit authorities are being a little touchy about photography of their property.

Original comments…

thatbob: Too bad the MBTA will be checking the *identity* of people riding their trains, instead of the *bomb-carrying status* of people riding their trains. I guess they just want to make sure that, in case of a bombing, all of the corpses can be identified?

Anyway, if I were you two, I wouldn’t set foot in an unfamiliar train. Very, very dangerous things, trains. Very dangerous.

Historically unsound.

Levi: Now, does Jim have high enough celebrity status among railfans that the ID check is going to hold us up because of the ensuing autographs, or is he just objecting on grounds of privacy, civil liberties, and silliness?

Jim: I’m certainly no Mike Schafer!

What’s that song by the Who about going mobile?

To follow up on the post from a few days ago, I now have a cell phone. As promised, it’s a pay-as-you-go plan with no free minutes, so the number will only be given out on a need-to-know basis. As also promised, it’s not Nextel, it’s Virgin Mobile, and I’m only slightly worried about the fact that everyone pictured on their web site and in their printed literature seems to be 10 years younger and 10 times more hip than me.

I promise never to be seen on camera at a baseball game talking into the phone, but I can’t promise I won’t be playing Tetris during a rain delay.

We’re not watching our own network

Several times during tonight’s hockey game on ESPN2, play-by-play announcer Gary Thorne promoted tomorrow night’s baseball coverage by saying, “Barry Bonds and the Giants travel to Wrigley Field to take on Sosa and the Cubs.”

Problem is, the ESPN2 “Bottom Line” ticker was repeating “Cubs OF Sammy Sosa (back) to be put on DL Wednesday.”

And then there was some actual breaking news on the Bottom Line: congratulations to Randy Johnson on the perfect game. Couldn’t have happened to a scarier-looking guy! I’m still going to refer to him as The Big Eunuch, but not when he’s within earshot.

Original comments…

Jason: I thought I was the only one in the Western United States watching this game.

Actually, I only watched the replay at midnight, but I still tuned in. Let’s hear it for a Tampa Bay-Calgary Stanley Cup Final!

A thought on ballpark food

On Tuesday at Tropicana Field, I had a grouper sandwich; on Wednesday at Dodger Stadium, I had a Dodger Dog (included with the “family pack” ticket package); on Sunday at Petco Park, I had fish tacos. I think on the trip I’m going to try some local specialty at most of the ballparks, because even though my digestive system is used to me putting a lot of items consisting of meat and meat by-products down the hatch, I’m not sure it can handle a hot dog a day for 10 days. I’m also not sure what Levi’s going to eat on the trip, other than Tim Horton’s doughnuts while we’re in Canada, if he’s still practicing vegetarianism.

Original comments…

Levi: “Practicing”? I think I’ve got this vegetarian thing down by now.

And surely there will be enough to eat. Ballpark pizza is one of the worst foods in the world, but in St. Louis, for example, they’ve got a stand that sells veggie burgers and another that sells reasonably good burritos.

maura: i guess that seals the identity of the person who’s going to try the schmitter at citizens bank park, then….

Jon Solomon: There are GREAT veggie dogs to be had in Toronto at SkyDome. They’ve got a whole vegetarian stand down on the first level, in fact.

Steve: My long list of reasons why baseball should be contracted just got longer. Veggie dogs? inside domes? in Canada?!? Great American pastime indeed. There’s plenty of things vegetarians can eat at the ballpark–french fries, nachos, pretzels, peanuts, pizza, sunflower seeds, beer, big league chew, ice cream (if you aren’t vegan) lemon freeze (if you are vegan) free diced onions at wrigley….

Jim: A cheese steak on a Kaiser roll with fried salami, fried onions, tomato, and secret sauce?! There is nothing about that I don’t like, except that if it’s $5.25 at the actual McNally’s, I shudder to think how much they’re charging at Citizens Bank Park.

Levi: Let’s all give a moment of appreciation to Jim Bouton for inventing Big League Chew. That’s almost as great an achievement as writing Ball Four.

thatbob: My only quibble: I wish it had been called Big League Chaw. (God, it sucks to be me. I really can’t enjoy *anything*.)

thatbob: Re: veggie dogs inside domes in Canada. You know what Yogi Berra would say to that: “Only in America.”

Jason: You could always eat before the game…if you’re a COMMUNIST!

sarah: jon’s post brought back some very scary and sad memories of the near-deserted vegetarian food stand at the expos game we went to in montreal. the echo of fans banging empty seats followed me into the dark back alleys of the food court. the whole adventure took me close to an hour, since i believe they had to actually form the tofu into veggie-dog shapes by hand. plus, a mishap involving a foul ball spilled our whole dinner onto my shirt anyway.

good times. good times.

Don’t go to the supermarket hungry

This box of delight was on sale at Ralphs today. (Marked at $3.79, rang up at $2.50.) The official Hostess site doesn’t seem to acknowledge its existence, so I had to take my own picture. I think it should be the Official Snack Cake of this trip.

You know, if it turns out that real baseballs have a vanilla cream center these days, it might explain a lot of things.

Original comments…

Jason: There’s a Hostess thrift store not too far away in Burbank. (Well, it’s probably too far away for the Chicago folks.) I should see if I can find some Baseballs there. Last time I went, I brought home a box of Chocodiles.

Levi: Wow, Hug. I hadn’t thought about Chocodiles in years.

Jim, this is like when Maggie found a stash of John Kruk folders at a dollar store: Your duty is to buy all the boxes of these that you can, then pack them in your luggage.

Steve: Levi, in case you haven’t noticed the girth of your fellow midwesterners, its not like these are hard to find.

I vote that Jim packs nothing but Hostess in his luggage and if he wants a change of clothes must go to the local thrift store for an outfit featuring the logo of home team in the town you are currently visiting. And thanks for mentioning John Kruk.

Jim: Official TSA policy: “Avoid packing food and drink items in checked baggage.” Sorry.

thatbob: Nonsense, Jim. You can (1) “avoid” packing the Hostess Baseballs in your checked luggage all day – all weekend, even! – and then, at the last minute, pack them anyway. (This is what I would do). Or you can (2) pack the maximum limit of carry-on with Hostess Baseballs, and not check any luggage. (This is what you should do.)

No excuses! No regrets!

Jason: Or, you could ship a case or 2 to Levi, and then pick them up from him and carry them in your rental car.

Steve: I think we are distilling this down to its essential meaning…

Jim is not allowed to pack any luggage for this trip unless it is filled with hostess baseballs and his diet for the entire trip must consist entirely of hostess baseballs. Now that would be a cool documentary!!

Levi: And _I’ve_ distilled Steve’s post to its essence: Steve loves to see people barf out car windows.

A waffle at the beach is a sandy Eggo

First of all, yes, there was the obligatory letter to the sports editor in Saturday’s L.A. Times complaining about people at Dodger Stadium doing the wave during Alex Cora’s marathon at-bat.

Today I went to one of 2004’s new ballparks, Petco Park, with Cathryn and Jennifer (and Jason, who took this picture)…

It is a very nice place, albeit colder than Qualcomm Stadium, thanks to the breezes coming off San Diego Bay, and the fact that we were under the overhang. In fact, we were in the very top row of the upper deck section to the left of the “first base tower” in the picture below…

In the top row, there’s some bizarreness involving the steel supports holding up the overhang, so although we had seats 7 through 10, there was about a 6-inch gap between seat 7 and seat 8, although it wasn’t like there was a giant metal post in the way or anything like that. (There was also a gap of about 18 inches between seat 6 and seat 3. Seats 4 and 5 were missing.) Anyway, this is the view of the diamond from way up there…

And this is the view of downtown San Diego. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get a picture of a plane landing (they come in just beyond the skyscrapers, eventually disappearing behind them)…

The lawn looked like a nice place to hang out…

So did the seats in front of the Western Metal Supply building…

And if you’ve got to pick one Padres player to hang out with, it’s got to be David Wells…

The final line…

In conclusion, Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, where we’ll be on August 27th, has a lot to live up to. I already think it’s going to lose points for not being right downtown. But it may gain points for being warmer than Petco Park…next time, I’m going to wear long pants and at least bring a sweatshirt. Or try to get seats at least a few rows farther down, which will be in the sun.

Original comments…

maura: how about that ben sheets!!

Levi: On paper, the building they left in left field struck me as really dopey, almost as bad as the flagpole and hill at Bush/Cheney Field in Houston–though not nearly as bad as the stupid train at the same park.

But now that I’ve seen the new San Diego park on TV, I’ve changed my mind. The building’s kinda cool.

Jim: What? Trains are not stupid. The fact that Houston has better train service at their baseball stadium than they do at their actual train station (a 3-day-a-week Amtrak train to L.A. and Orlando) is kind of stupid, but me ranting about inequities in government transportation funding is off-topic for this blog.

Levi: Actually, the train in Houston is remarkably similar to Amtrak rides I’ve taken. You sit on it for a long time and it doesn’t go anywhere. Then it goes, but only a short way, at which point it stops and changes direction. Then you sit again for a long time.

But at least the train doesn’t turn into a bus.

sandor: Trains going forwards and backwards and forwards again? Sounds like my trip on the L yesterday. Halfway between Irving Park and the Addison, the brown line train I was on stopped, then started going in reverse. In 10 years of riding L trains, I’ve never experienced such a thing happening. I didn’t even realize they had a reverse gear. It was quite shocking.

Sorry, off-topic. But I thought worth sharing.

thatbob: “Thank you for not requesting autographs”?!? WTF?!?

thatbob: Now obviously those seats at Western Metal Supply Co. are supposed to be reminiscent of Wrigleyville rooftops, or that book depository (or whatever) in Baltimore. What I can’t figure out is if the seats are actually part of the park, ie. ticketed revenue, or just an authorized use by a lucky neighbor. What’s going on there?

Levi: Silly Bob. There’s no way that a modern park would ever let any chance at a dollar slip by. Those aren’t only seats: they’re expensive luxury box thingies, and they bring in buckets of the ready for the Padres.

Jim: “Thank you for not requesting autographs”: It was Photo Day, and you’re just supposed to take pictures of the players, not ask them for autographs.

The ground floor of the Western Metal Supply building is the main Padres store, and then there’s standing room in front of it; each other individual level is, I believe, a single “party suite,” available on a per-game basis for your corporate get-together or other function. There’s no actual suite on the roof, just some tables with umbrellas to go along with the ballpark seating, but it, too, seems to be a special group seating area.

Jason: What Jim forgot to mention – and I am shocked that he did – was the fact that he took a trolley train to the game. Must have been the sugar high from too many Hostess Baseballs to affect his memory.

Jim: I thought me taking a trolley was a “that goes without saying” kind of thing. Yes, parking near Petco Park is expensive, so the trolley was the best option.

thatbob: I’m a *big* fan of selling the crappiest seats in the house to the stupidest people with the most money! I heartily approve! God Bless You, Petco Park!

More actual road trip-related content

Maura will be joining us for the game in Cleveland as well as the previously planned Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The itinerary has been updated. Hope she likes the Pennsylvania and Ohio Turnpikes!

Original comments…

Levi: Mo’ Mo! Mo’ Mo!

That’s gotta be a good thing.

Actual content related to the road trip

While I was in Tampa, I got to hear my mother complain, “I can’t believe you’re going to (insert city here), but you’re only spending one night there, and all you’ll be doing is going to a baseball game!”

In between the kvetching, she did bring up another point: a cell phone might come in handy on the trip. But you, Levi, don’t have one, do you? And I’m the only person in L.A. who doesn’t have one. I may get one of those prepaid, pay-as-you-go deals.

Original comments…

Luke: What, do you have tickets behind the plate?

Levi: Now–apologies to the Holderbys–while I’m sure that many people have said, “I can’t believe you’re going to Detroit,” I have trouble believing that anyone has ever said, “I can’t believe you’re going to Detroit, but you’re only spending one night, and all you’ll be doing is going to a baseball game.”

Jim: No, I would absolutely not call someone from a baseball game to tell them to watch me on TV. And I definitely wouldn’t get Nextel service, solely because their walkie-talkie feature is much more annoying for those nearby than a regular cell phone is (and I know this for a fact because of someone near me using the walkie-talkie feature at the Padres game I went to last year).

You’re right, although my mother’s family lived in the Detroit suburbs for some years, she was most concerned about Montreal, and to a lesser extent Boston and Toronto.

maura: ohh, i loathe those walkie-talkie phones. when i took the bus to and from work in philadelphia, they were like the plague.

i was debating leaving my phone at home for our trip, but then i realized that i needed a backup plan in case of train problems. alas.

Not the Trolley Dodgers anymore

A question that could have far-reaching implications for the road trip, where we’ll be seeing games on consecutive nights in cities that are several hundred miles apart: would I have a good time seeing games on consecutive nights in cities that are several thousand miles apart?

The link between the Devil Rays and the Dodgers? Why, former Devil Ray Wilson Alvarez, of course. He’s the white blob on the left side of this picture, getting ready to pitch to Sammy Sosa…

You know when an at-bat is going on a long time when the scoreboard operator has enough time to type in something like this…

Cora fouled 14 times in a row, and each one was accompanied by some Little Leaguers in our section trying to start The Wave, which would peter out a couple of sections over because nobody else really cared. And then Cora hit a home run.

The answer is, yes, I had a good time, although I was pretty tired by the end of the game shortly after 10:00 Pacific time, since I had been up since 6:00 A.M. Eastern time. I’m not expecting any jet lag on the road trip. Fortunately, I didn’t have to be behind the wheel to get out of the Dodger Stadium parking lots…

In the L.A. Times on Thursday morning, the headline spotlighted Alvarez (pulled after 101 pitches), but the picture is of Cora being congratulated after the at-bat that went on forever…

Original comments…

Levi: That’s a remarkably pointless headline.

Biggest surprise for me in that game? Learning that Wilson Alvarez is in the league again, and that, despite losing some weight, he’s still a very big man.

Tom Ellwanger: And at the Ranger/Devil Ray game on the afternoon of May 13, in order of perceived excitement:

1. The Rangers pitcher picked two Devil Rays players off first base, including Maura’s favorite player. Per the surprisingly diplomatic Lou Piniella, no right-handed pitcher can have that good a pickoff move without balking, in this case with his knee, “but the umpires didn’t see it.”

2. The Rangers blew both resulting run-downs in different ways, something which nobody in the stands–all 2,600 of us–had seen since Little League. In one case, the picked off runner made second and got credit for a stolen base, producing the same result as a balk call (assuming Lou was correct).

3. The Devil Rays won the game. The starting pitcher got the win, the new-from-Durham setup man got his 95 mph fastballs close enough to the plate that people swung at them, and the closer got the save (save number 4 out of 11 total victories).

4. Raymond came down the aisle and stopped to kiss Jim’s new stepmother. No photographer was around to memorialize this poignant image.

5. Jim’s new stepmother wishes that Jim’s father had used the ready-made excuse to pound this obnoxious mascot into the real-clay infield, but he (Jim’s father) was too stunned by the entire spectacle to react that quickly.

Baseball fever! We have it in Tampa. Oh, Rocco Baldelli bobblehead doll night is next Tuesday, but I’m going to the Lightning/Flyer game.

Levi: At least with Rocco Baldelli bobblehead day, the Rays are sure they won’t be faced with the ignominy of having to cancel the day because the player’s in the minors again, like they were forced to do with Jason Tyner bobblehead day.