Tag: jason kaifesh

Evan Longoria is quite a good hitter

Not much to say about last night’s Angels-Rays game, which I attended with hanger-on Jason.

Actually, I do have one tale to recount: in the third inning, the boy sitting next to us, who was maybe 3 or 4 years old, started telling his father he wanted to leave. Dad tried to bargain with him, saying that if they went home, he’d have to go to bed.

“Play and then go to bed?”

“No, straight to bed.”

The boy thought this over for a while, and then decided he did want to go to bed, and then get up the next morning and go to church. “That’s not until Sunday,” pointed out Dad.

There was some more hushed negotiation, to which I wasn’t paying close attention because the Rays were in the process of scoring two runs, and then they actually did end up leaving. Oh, well, it saved the kid from learning the sad truth, that the Angels sometimes do lose to the Joe Maddon-led Rays at home.

I’ll see this afternoon if that happens again. I’m leaving work early to go to the game, which has a somewhat-unusual 4:05 P.M. start time. That would be perfectly suited for a national Wednesday Night Baseball broadcast at 7:00 Eastern, but — I’m sure everyone is going to be surprised by this — ESPN is showing the Yankees vs. whatever patsy has been ordered by Bud Selig to take a dive. I believe it will be a team of 8-year-old Chinese gymnasts dressed as the Detroit Tigers.

The Angels made me sick!

Levi was in town on business, and so were the Angels, which meant it was time for the first official Baseball-Related Program Activities event since the 2004 road trip. The hangers-on were Jason, and Levi’s co-worker Carrie.

When Edison International dropped their sponsorship of the stadium in Anaheim, their logos on the end of the seats were covered over — but you can’t stop people from scratching paint off, I guess.

Jim Leyland showed up himself to exchange lineup cards, but Mike Scoscia sent a lackey…

It had been announced earlier in the day that Anaheim would be hosting the 2010 All-Star Game…

My new camera is noticeably faster to actually take the picture once you press the shutter button than my old one was — making it easier to get shots like this…

Early mound meeting, since Angels pitcher Joe Saunders had given up three runs in the first inning…

They kept having to reset this video display in order to fix this problem…

The Amtrak noise meter, because nothing is as noisy as a train…

The rally monkey was invoked a little

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late, and so the Angels lost 6-2…

The final line (not quite final at this point, but I was anticipating)…

And finally, a picture to replace the one that’s been at the top of this blog since 2004, which I was sick of looking at…

No, the Angels didn’t literally make me sick. There was a stomach bug involved. For you fans of Jim Ellwanger illnesses that coincide with baseball games, I also had a stomach bug right around the time I traveled to Chicago and attended Opening Day 1997 at Wrigley Field — I spent an entire day lying on the floor of the dorm room of Levi’s future wife.

Report from the minor leagues

Jason and I went to see the Lake Elsinore Storm play the Stockton Ports yesterday. That’s about a 90-minute drive from Los Angeles.

The folks from the 2004 trip who were in Davenport will note that the Swing of the Quad Cities isn’t the only team that has problems with rabbits getting onto the field…

The Storm claims their “eyes” are the best-selling logo in minor league baseball. They’re definitely one of the most creepy…

The Storm’s mascot, Thunder, is suspiciously similar to the Phillie Phanatic, although he’s supposed to be a dog and not an alien, or whatever the Phanatic is…

Final score…

Baseball in Long Beach

First of all, here’s a link to a baseball piece from Sunday’s Los Angeles Times magazine: the writer and his son go to a Dodgers game with Arnold Hano, author of “A Day in the Bleachers.” Among other things, he doesn’t like the visual and audible cues to get the fans to make noise.

On Sunday, Jason and I went to the second-to-last game of the Golden Baseball League’s short season, this one the Long Beach Armada versus the San Diego Surf Dawgs.

The Armada play at city-owned Blair Field, which has an analog clock on top of the scoreboard…

And there’s a ship in the outfield — unfortunately, it’s just a cutout…

Even though the mascot should be a Spanish conquistador or maybe a pirate, the mascot is actually a bird named Arby I. Here he is “helping” with a between-innings water balloon toss for kids…

And here he is sitting two rows in front of us…

Meanwhile, Rik Currier was on the mound for the Armada, pitching what would be a complete game one-hit shutout…

In some places, they have metal rails for the “K” cards to fit into, but Long Beach is a Velcro kind of town…

The final line…

Yes, “Armada” does look a lot like “Ramada,” especially at the lower left. A missed marketing opportunity!

What? More college baseball?

The usual Los Angeles-based Northwestern alumni suspects and I headed to Malibu to see our beloved Wildcats play the Pepperdine Waves in the final game of a 3-game series. The ‘Cats had lost the first two, but perhaps today would be different.

Why not Eddy D. Field Field?

Sorry, even if your pet really likes baseball, it can’t come in…

The Pacific Ocean is in this picture, although it’s doing a good job of blending in with the sky…

Pepperdine has quite the baseball tradition…

There was a range of Northwestern fans in the stands, from little to not quite as little…

Northwestern starting pitcher Julio Siberio held the Waves to 2 runs in 6 innings…

Northwestern outfielder Antonio Mule takes a cut…

In the top of the 9th, the Waves stood in front of their dugout and tried to put some mojo on the Northwestern hitters. It didn’t work; the ‘Cats tied the game at 2.

However, in the bottom of the 9th, Pepperdine DH Justin Tellam hit a walk-off home run and got mobbed by the rest of the team for his effort. Pepperdine 4, Northwestern 2…

Well, at least someone enjoyed his Fritos…

The scoreboard at the end of the game. It had begun to act up in the top of the 9th, just as Northwestern was threatening — but you’ll notice that Pepperdine got the short end of the stick.

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(Their scoring line was 100 001 002.)

One more note: although the start time of the game was supposed to be noon, when we arrived at 11:55, the second inning had just gotten under way. The same thing happened when Jason and I went to see Northwestern play Cal State Northridge last year. This is either some bizarre NCAA policy, or everyone’s so sick of Northwestern showing up in California and demanding to play baseball, they just want to get the games over with as soon as possible.

Baseball…in February?!

Time to paint the chalk lines and water the infield dirt…

Time to exchange those lineup cards…

Even if you have to park in two or three handicapped spots, get out to the stadium, because it’s time for baseball!

Having been to baseball games in Anaheim and (Rancho) Cucamonga, only Azusa remained to complete the Jack Benny Baseball Trilogy, and Jason and I remedied that situation tonight. The Azusa Pacific University Cougars were at home against the Whittier College Poets. As one might expect at a school with a cross in its logo, the game started with a prayer, which was followed by Whitney Houston performing the national anthem at Super Bowl XXV, through the magic of recorded sound.

Here’s an unidentified Poet, perhaps the late Allen Ginsberg, batting against Azusa Pacific…

And here’s Cougar first baseman Stephen Vogt batting against Whittier…

This is not exactly big-time college athletics. APU isn’t even an NCAA school; they’re affiliated with the NAIA. There was no admission charged, but then, there weren’t exactly many stadium amenities. I didn’t take a picture of the scoreboard because we couldn’t see it from where we were; it’s in the far right-field corner, and the main bleachers are on the first-base side of home plate, with the home “clubhouse” and rooftop press box farther down towards first, thus blocking the view of the scoreboard. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that we lost track of what inning it was, not only because the P.A. announcer wasn’t consistently announcing it at the end of each half-inning,

but also because they didn’t do a seventh-inning stretch, perhaps because neither peanuts nor Cracker Jack were available. One could have walked half a block to Jack in the Box and brought food back to the stadium, but Jason and I held off on dinner until after the game, when we drove to Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles in Pasadena, and you’ll never guess what we ate.

Azusa Pacific won 8-2 to improve their record to 3-1. It was 5-1 at the end of the first inning, but things settled down somewhat for the rest of the game.

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.”

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…

Take off your rainbow shades

Jason and I are taking a weekend trip to Phoenix in September (actually, we’ll be staying in a motel in Tempe), and it’s going to include attendance at a Diamondbacks game…

I bought a pair of tickets on stubhub.com. Can you believe a season-ticket holder would want to see the D-Backs play the Rockies so little that they’d be selling these tickets for half-price? (Half the single-game price, that is; there’s a big season ticket discount that’s already reflected in the price printed on this ticket.)

After the baseball game, Jason and I will be heading for the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe to see the ASU Sun Devils play our beloved Northwestern Wildcats in a game that starts at 7:00, but that’s more of a topic of discussion for Football-Related Program Activities.

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?