Category: game report

Games we have attended, separately or together.

Cut off your Indian braids

Jason and I drove from L.A. to the greater Phoenix area after work on Friday (roughly a 6-hour drive) and went to two sporting events on Saturday. The first one is of more relevance to baseballrelated.com…

Yes, we got to see the Diamondbacks come back from a 5-1 deficit to win 6-5, largely because Tony Clark hit a home run from each side of the plate. Bank One Ballpark is nowhere near as depressing as Tropicana Field, perhaps because it has some actual windows to let sunlight in during day games, and because the home team has actually been fairly successful during their tenure in Major League Baseball. Also, there were over 20,000 people there, as opposed to under 10,000.

At least in the lower deck, there was an usher at the top of each aisle with a “Please Wait Here” sign — great. However, when I was returning to my seat after a bathroom break (the “bottomless glass of soda” at Alice Cooperstown led to way too much Dr Pepper for my poor bladder to handle), the usher for our aisle dropped his sign and motioned

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me forward the instant contact was made with the ball, as opposed to, you know, making sure I wouldn’t be interfering with anyone’s view of the actual play.

Many more pictures available on flickr.com. As for the other sporting event Jason and I saw — and the one we had a definite rooting interest in — the less said about it, the better…

…although I note that the Arizona Republic has a sports columnist named “Paola.”

Luck

At last night’s Cubs/Reds game, two rows in front of me, sitting with a couple of season ticket holders whom I recognize but don’t know, was a guy who had neglected to bring his shirt. He had, however, brought–and was displaying in their full glory–his late-seventies porn-star curls and moustache and his oddly incongruous gothic-lettered “Chi Town” tattoo, which was in the spot on the back where a tramp stamp would go on a gal.

His appearance alone, and his obvious joy in it, would have been worthy of note. But then he added to his allure by catching not one but two foul balls. Our section hardly ever gets foul balls hit anywhere near it, but last night Mr. Chi Town No-Shirt got one while strolling the aisle just to the left of us and a second that bounced right up to him in his seat. I had hopes that he would trade one of them to a drunk for a shirt, but it was not to be.

Devil or angel, please say you’ll be mine

(This “ticket” is a printout, courtesy of a season-ticket holder who didn’t want to see this classic battle of good vs. evil represented by the Angels and the Devil Rays, although I can’t imagine why someone would turn down the chance to see the Devil Rays!)

Let’s get this anecdote out of the way first: as I was walking through the concourse of Angel Stadium on my way to the concession stand, proudly wearing my Devil Rays cap and Rocco Baldelli T-shirt, an Angels fan pointed at me and yelled, “Holy crap! They do exist!” I said nothing; unfortunately, it wasn’t until much later that I realized my comeback should have been, “There are dozens of us! Dozens!” That has the advantage of being a reference to “Arrested Development.”

Yes, at my suggestion, Jason, Rachel, Chris, and I went to Angel Stadium because my beloved Devil Rays were in town.

We were early enough to see the tail end of batting practice…

And they were showing the White Sox-Mariners game live on the giant screen…

At Angel Stadium, you can sometimes spot cameramen in their natural mountain environment…

Exchanging lineup cards; Lou Piniella looked like he was in a good mood…

Angels starting pitcher Chris Bootcheck, which I believe is also the name of a Windows XP utility…

Carl Crawford at the plate…

Devil Rays starting pitcher Mark Hendrickson, who is 6’9″, but doesn’t look quite as intimidating as Randy Johnson from way up here in the “view” level…

Why, these “view” level seats are high enough up that we can see Arrowhead Pond, home of the Los Angeles Mighty Ducks of Anaheim…

On the scoreboard, Jose Molina has to be “J.Molina,” but Bengie Molina gets to be just plain “Molina”…

Say, here’s something stupid and distracting: cell phone text messages on the scoreboard…

While we’re at it, note that the Dodgers are “LAD” on the scoreboard here in Anaheim…

The Devil Rays somehow manage to light up Bootcheck, but as evening turns to night at Angel Stadium…

…the Angels have the bases loaded in the bottom of the 6th…

However, the Angels only put 3 runs across in the 6th, and so the Devil Rays are ahead 6-4 going into the bottom of the 9th with Danys Baez on the mound. After some anxious moments, Danys Baez has to call time because he’s broken his belt; he has to walk over to get a new one…

And then both the umpire and catcher Toby Hall get to watch him closely as he puts the new belt on…

The “broken belt” ploy works, and, holy crap, the Devil Rays win…

Happy Rays…

Happy Jim…

After the game, we wait in the parking lot for the traffic to clear. Rachel and Jason leaning on Jason’s car…

Chris and Jason…

Poor Angels, now tied with the A’s for the American League West lead…

They come from Anaheim, Azusa, and Cucamonga, too, for the sewing circle and book review

If it’s Saturday, it must be minor league baseball. Sorry, Golden Baseball League, but Jason and I drove to Rancho Cucamonga for a California League game: the Quakes versus the Lancaster Jethawks.

The Quakes’ ballpark is called The Epicenter, and it’s the home of the happy aisles…

No, seriously, here’s the view from my seat…

The Epicenter is new enough to have a fancy-schmancy scoreboard…

And another scoreboard with the team name in lights…

There’s a mall nearby — featuring JCPenney, Robinsons-May, and an Apple store — that Jason swears was not even under construction yet the last time he was here for a game…

Before the game, these folks threw junk to the crowd…

No, seriously, they hopped off the truck onto the dugout roofs and started dancing. Then there were some cheerleader types who also danced…

Later, Jason asked if I noticed that the cheerleaders seemed unusually voluptuous, albeit not with those exact words. Anyway, Tremor the mascot bothered the umpires for a while…

Then he was joined by the other mascot, Aftershock, and if I recall correctly, they did some dancing…

And then some Cub Scouts danced — no, I mean they tried to keep the flag off the ground during a solo saxophone performance of the National Anthem…

Jason alertly pointed out that you don’t often see minor-league players with their names on the backs of their uniforms. Since the Quakes are affiliated with the Angels, it’s entirely possible that they’re doing this solely to embarrass the Dodgers (“Ha ha, even our Class A team uniforms have names on the back”).

A conference on the mound about the mound…

Which led to the landscapers performing emergency mound surgery…

The final line…

And after the game it was time for fireworks…

Yes, everyone loves fireworks…

For Levi, we’ve saved the best two pictures for last. Waukegan isn’t the only place where there’s a statue of Jack Benny (although unlike in Waukegan, here in Rancho Cucamonga, the statue is not located in the public way; instead, it’s just inside the main stadium entrance gate)…

And, in fact, Rancho Cucamonga has done Waukegan one better. This is the street the stadium is located on…

So now that I’ve been to baseball games in both Anaheim and Cucamonga, Jason, does Azusa Pacific University have a baseball team?

Nothing’s gonna touch us in these golden (baseball league) years

I get a lot of e-mails offering to hook me up with various items and people, from Russian mail-order brides to university degrees. But on Friday, I got one that was a little different: it was from Fullerton Flyers general manager Ed Hart, thanking me for this baseballrelated.com post, personally inviting me to future games and offering to hook me up with tickets.

What he didn’t know is that Jason and I were already planning a trip to Saturday night’s game; Jason was attracted by a giveaway of bobbleheads in the image of Coal Train, the coyote mascot. Jason managed to get a couple of other people to join us — Errol, who he knows from a web site/message board he frequents, as well as Jason’s and my friend Rachel, who was more or less filling in for Levi, since she’s from a small town in southern Illinois (Clay City) and likes the Cardinals, although she has a full head of hair, eats meat, and doesn’t take her shoes off that often. Anyway, I spoke to Ed briefly on the phone, he asked me how to spell my last name, and there were tickets waiting for me at the will-call window, although there were a few moments of confusion when I thought the guy behind the window was asking me for my name, but he was actually asking me for the name of the person who left the tickets for me, which I should have remembered is the more important concept at minor-league will-call windows.

The Flyers were playing the Chico Outlaws again, although since the Outlaws were wearing gray shirts instead of black, it was like we were watching a completely different team. And this time, the Outlaws had a couple of big innings and won 8-2. After the game, Ed Hart was standing by the exit gate, so I introduced myself and we chatted a little bit; turns out he’d just been Googling for mentions of the Flyers and happened to run across baseballrelated.com.

Not too many pictures this time; I posted the “no frowns” portion of the sign at the gate last time, and here are more Golden Baseball League rules…

And here’s Coal Train with my other bobbleheads (Fernando Valenzuela, Kirk Gibson, and a hidden Tim Salmon)…

Incidentally, something that made Rachel laugh a lot: the Flyers’ catcher was Drew York, and I suggested that when he came to bat with the Flyers needing a hit, or a run, or whatever, that the crowd should sing “It’s up to you, Drew York, Drew York!”

Thanks again for the tickets, Ed!

Baseball turns to gold

Last Friday — I’m only just now posting this because I was waiting for my DSL to be active before uploading the photos — Jason and I went to see the Fullerton Flyers play the Chico Outlaws. This is the Golden Baseball League, a brand-new independent league with four teams in California, three teams in Arizona, and one team that doesn’t have a home. So we braved Fourth of July weekend traffic on our way to the campus of Cal State University Fullerton (yes, we’re in the car pool lane, but it was still slow going)…

We liked it right from the get-go, because while we were in the ticket line, we heard the people in line behind us discussing the fact that you could get 2-for-1 tickets if you showed a Vons or Pavilions club card. Jason did so, and so we got two tickets for $8. (The offer on the web site says you’re supposed to have a club card and a receipt, but they didn’t ask him for a receipt.) They also handed out free full-color programs including rosters and scorecards — nothing too elaborate, 12 pages, 5-1/2 by 8-1/2.

The name “Fullerton Flyers” is railroad-related, because Fullerton is a railroad town (they even have an event called Fullerton Railroad Days every year). And the theme extended to the front gate…

Incidentally, here’s a close-up of the poster at the gate. Notice what’s at the bottom of the list of prohibited items. I’m not sure how they enforce it…

And the concessions trailer has railroad heralds stuck to it, seemingly at random (neither the Rio Grande nor the Pennsylvania Railroad ever served Fullerton)…

And the mascot’s name is Coal Train, who is apparently a coyote wearing engineer’s overalls. I’m not sure what a coyote has to do with railroading, except that there were a few Road Runner cartoons in which Wile E. Coyote got run over by trains…

Because of the train and the coyote, they have two sound effects, the “train whistle” and the “coyote howl,” that are played incessantly over the P.A. system. In fact, “Charge” isn’t da-da-da-da-da-da, “Charge!”, it’s da-da-da-da-da-da, howl.

The Cal State Fullerton Titans baseball team has a weird set of retired numbers in right center. Oh, wait, those aren’t retired numbers, those are the years they won the national championship…

The Flyers pitch to the Outlaws…

The Flyers’ Garry Templeton II — son of Flyers manager Garry Templeton — attempts a bunt…

Jason bought the “medium” size of Kettle Korn, so named because the bag could feed a medium-sized European country…

The size of the Kettle Korn is probably why Coal Train was doing exercises with some kids on the field at one point…

It was Wacky Hat Night, but I didn’t manage to get any pictures of the truly wacky hats, just this patriotic attempt in front of us…

And this, which isn’t so much wacky as it is a souvenir of the Billy Goat Tavern…

Don’t you hate people who talk on their cell phones at baseball games?

The Flyers won 3-2 (I couldn’t get a good picture of the scoreboard through the netting to prove this), with the difference being a home run by Fullerton catcher Casey Clary; the attendance was announced as 758. The level of play was similar to Class A in the “official” minor leagues, I’d estimate. One plus of the Golden Baseball League: their “competition,” the California League, uses the designated hitter; the GBL doesn’t.

Back to the minors

For Memorial Day today, Jason and I made a trip up to Lancaster to see the Lancaster Jethawks play the High Desert Mavericks. Because Jason was unsuccessfully trying to round up more people to go, we got a late start and didn’t get there until the middle of the 4th inning. We didn’t miss any runs, however; the Jethawks scored their first two runs in the bottom of the 4th, two more in the 6th, and three more in the 7th. So it was 7-0 going into the top of the 9th, and the Mavericks managed to mount a rally, getting three runs with 2 outs, then having the bases loaded — but it was not to be, and the final score was 7-3.

The former Lancaster Municipal Stadium, popularly known as “The Hangar,” has succumbed to the naming rights game, and it’s now Clear Channel Stadium. It’s obvious that Clear Channel needs to associate itself with something good and pure like minor league baseball more than minor league baseball needs to associate itself with Clear Channel.

Jim’s first major league game of 2005

Since I posted a couple of weeks ago, the Nationals had fallen a couple of games out of first place in the NL East, but the Dodgers were still atop the NL West.

There have been a few changes at Dodger Stadium since last season — other than three-fourths of the players on the field — and perhaps the most dramatic one is one I didn’t get a picture of: tickets are now being scanned at the gate instead of torn.

The blue seats up front are new…

This new LCD ribbon board goes all the way across the front of the loge (second) level, displaying all the latest in advertising, and probably some scores, if you can find them…

And there are smaller LCD displays next to the field for more advertising, replacing those old-fashioned “roller” displays…

And there was a new logo on the scoreboard…

The advertisement is for a special “Dodgers vs. Nationals inaugural game” T-shirt that was being sold for $30. Hey, they’ve got to pay for the new LCD displays somehow. What wasn’t new was the “ANA” designation for a team that everyone else is abbreviating “LAA”…

What I didn’t get a picture of, because there was nothing to see, is the fact that the Dodgers are saving 10 cents a letter by not putting players’ names on the backs of their uniforms. Also, I was distracted by the advertising on the new ribbon board. So I guess there was a game at some point, and here’s the final scoreboard…

Original comments…

thatbob: Look look look! As of today, 5/6/05, the White Sox have a .750 record! And the Yanks are tied with the Wuss Wusses for last place in their division! Incredible!

The waiting game

Last night’s Cubs game, an 11-9 loss to the Reds, is most clearly summed up with the following:

The Cubs, in the course of getting 15 hits, one walk, and two extra baserunners on errors, allowed the Reds’ staff to get by with only 118 pitches.

The Reds, meanwhile, forced the Cubs staff–seven pitchers in the game, including four different lefties from the bullpen–to throw 202 pitches.

Adam Dunn–a BRPA 2004 favorite–managed to eat up 33 pitches all by his lonesome, going 2-4 with two walks and a home run.

The Cubs have, in the 13 years since I moved here and became a fan, never even come close to addressing their most consistent problem: their impatience. Only Grace–and New Sammy for a few years–understood the value of getting into a hitter’s count.

Now, to be fair: when Eric Milton is pitching against you, the best method really might be to close your eyes and swing at whatever, since he gives up an astonishing number of homers (four last night). But when hacking is your approach for every plate appearance by every hitter, you should probably have a talk with your hitting coach and your general manager.

Meanwhile, in St. Louis, the Cardinals drew eight walks and won 5-3 over Milwaukee, running their record to an NL-best 13-5.

Original comments…

thatbob: And I thought Milwaukee was unbeatable!

The ping of the bat

If it’s March, it’s obviously time for baseball. So Jason and I went to our first game of the year today: our alma mater versus the Matadors of California State University Northridge. Despite all indications having been that the game started at 1:00 (e.g., that’s what was printed on the tickets), when Jason and I arrived at Matador Field at about 1:05, it was well into the fourth inning, with CSUN up by quite a few runs. And Northwestern had already put a handful of errors on the scoreboard.

Somehow, most of these people were aware that the actual start time of the game was well before 1:00…

CSUN batting…

Northwestern batting…

The dugouts at Matador Field aren’t actually dug out…

At one point, a formation of five old-timey airplanes flew over. I couldn’t get my camera out of the bag and ready as fast as I would have liked, so this is the only good shot I got…

Want a job where you can wear shorts and flip-flops? How about working the radar gun at college baseball games?

Northwestern tried to claw their way back by scoring five runs in the top of the 9th, including an inside-the-park home run (actually, it may have been a triple and an error — didn’t see the scoring). Congratulations to the batter…

But it was too little, too late, and the final score was 11-8. But as you may be able to see from the pictures, it was a beautiful day for baseball. And afterwards, because I was with Jason and not Levi, we had a late lunch/early dinner at a barbecue place.

Original comments…

Dan: Go Cats!