Tagged: Red Sox

November 18, 2012

Last Game of 2012 (9/29/12)

Our baseball season came to a close at Camden Yards on September 29, 2012, where the surging Orioles faced off against the floundering Boston Red Sox.

We had four goals for this game: (1) have a ton of fun taking in our final game of the season, (2) catch at least one baseball to complete our first ever perfect season of getting at least one baseball at each game we attended, (3) try to get our hands on at least one more Fenway 100 commemorative baseball, and (4) have even more fun.

The past several seasons, the Orioles have had a lot of signs all over downtown Baltimore during a bulk of the season, and then in September they were nowhere to be seen. I was excited to see whether thing would be different in September 2012 with the Orioles just a game back in the A.L. East and in wild card position. And it was:

There were Orioles banners all over downtown Baltimore, as well as an Orioles van!

We arrived at Camden Yards with plenty of time to spare before the gates opened:

It was the final statue (Brooks Robinson) dedication night so there was a huge crowd when we arrived at the CF gate:

We met up with Alex Kopp and Avi Miller (and Avi’s sister and friend), and past time Felixing…

…and eating various special flavored oreos until the gates opened.

When the gates opened, we grabbed our Brooks Robinson statues, handed them off to Avi (who had given us free tickets in exchange for our statues), and headed over to foul territory down the LF line:

By the time the gates opened, a huge crowd was ready to head inside for the dedication of Brooks Robinson’s new statue. Earlier in the season we were at Camden Yards for the dedication of Frank Robinson’s statue. At that game, the line outside the ballpark was also huge, but BP was pretty much just like any other game. But that was early in the season before the Orioles acquired tens-of-thousands of new fans. BP at this game was packed.

We were in a prime spot to get a ball from one of the Red Sox pitchers…

…and we were hoping it would be one of those beautiful Fenway 100 commemoratives.

Eventually, an Orioles batter hit a ball down the line into the LF corner and this trainer guy…

…tossed it over to us.

Thanks, unidentified trainer guy!

That made Tim and me 27-for-27 and Kellan 25-for-25 on the season! Our first ever perfect season, which was pretty cool.

But we still had our sights set on snagging one of those Fenway 100 baseballs.

The only Red Sox reliever who was near us and I recognized was Andrew Bailey:

He was in the last set of Red Sox down the line and, as you can see, he was on the OF side as they warmed up. But then they did some pitching to each other. Bailey came in to approximately 60 feet and popped-a-squat to play catcher. After his partner finished pitching they switched spots and Bailey pitched from the warning track just in front of us. As he pitched, I could tell that he was using a Fenway 100 baseball!

As we watched Bailey with great interest, our ears were treated to a number of speakers telling tales of the great Brooks Robinson – who was no more than 100 yards from us at the time:

By the time Bailey finished pitching, the seats around us at had filled in with fans. But, luckily, I was the first and only person to call out, “Hey, Andrew!” When he turned around, I pointed to Tim and asked if he could toss his ball over.

On his first throw, I didn’t think the ball was going to make it into the stands so I reached out for it and Tim and I clanked our gloves together and the ball bounced back towards Bailey. He tossed it again and I stood back so Tim could make a high catch on it:

What a beauty:

Thanks, Andrew!

It was getting so crowded down the LF line that we decided to relocate to LCF by the bullpens. On or walk over there, this was our view of the Brooks Robinson statue ceremony:

Here is the best view we ever got of Brooks or his statue:

Shortly after setting up shop by the bullpens, Tim declared it was snack time. He was wearing his new white (and highly stainable) Felix Hernandez jersey that his grandparents gave him after the Ichiro trade. Snack time brought on the first of several stain-preventing outfit changes for Tim:

In that picture above to the left, he is stuffing his white jersey into a bag so he can enjoy some “pirates” (shown in the middle picture).

Not much was happening in the OF, either from a homerun or a Red Sox toss-up perspective. So we entertained ourselves by chatting, snacking, crowd watching, and taking pictures.

Here’s a picture of a temporary banner the Orioles hung behind home plate to thank their new fans – winning creates new fans:

Here’s a picture of the boys just clowning around in the seats:

Now check out this picture of the crowd:

It’s hard to believe that is Camden Yards! As I said, winning creates new fans. If you have a very keen eye (and know what he looks like), you might be able to spot a red-shirted Alex Kopp in that last picture.

After BP ended, we hung out by the bullpens until around game time. Alex came over and we chatted with him a bit. With the crazy BP crowd, he had not managed to catch a baseball. But he ended up getting one from Rick Adair at the bullpen before the game started.

Just before game time, we started to make our way over to the kids’ play area. By that point, they had cleared the statue area so they could clean up all of the seats, etc., used during the ceremony. This was our view of the final new statue as we passed by:

Pretty much at every game we spend some time in the kids’ play area and some time watching the game. At this game, we let the kids call the shots and it resulted in what might be a world, single-game record for amount of time spent in a kids’ play area.

We started with some air-T batting:

We did a little bouncing:

Tim took his cuts in the batting cage:

And then we landed at the pitching cage, where we would spent a huge amount of time at this game:

In Tim’s first turn in the pitching cage (three tosses per turn), Tim threw the fastest recorded pitch of his young life: 37 blazing miles per hour. He matched it once more during the night (and I didn’t get a picture of either of them), but most of this pitches clocked in between 33-36 miles per hour. Kellan, on the other hand, did not throw a single clockable pitch. But he was definitely a fan favorite in the pitching cage.

After the first pass through the kids’ play area, we decided to pull the old switcheroo – dessert before dinner. It was the bottom of the first inning with no score, and we headed to the statue area for our last ice cream helmets of the season.

It was packed out there. Every seat was filled with a brand-new Orioles fan or a dejected Red Sox fan, and all of the good standing room spots were full. The boys grab some non-prime seating spots along the wall where I could sort of see the action:

Adam Jones went down swinging…

…to the first inning.

We watched the scoreless top of the second inning from the same spot. And Kellan made certain that he didn’t waste even a drop of melted ice cream:

During the bottom of the second inning, the Orioles put a little rally together and the boys and I decided to head back behind home plate and then back to the kids play area. On our way through the cross aisle, an usher was kind enough to take our picture:

As we approached the cross-aisle behind third base, Manny Machado hit a ground ball single up the box and into CF. Chris Davis scored the first run of the night on the play.

We made it back to home plate just in time to watch Lew Ford…

…foul out to end the inning.

So, with the score 1-0 Orioles after two inning, we were off to the kids play area again. On our way, we stopped to get the boys’ picture with a muscle car:

(Tim loves pointing out muscle cars when we are in the car).

And then it was off to the pitching cage again:

(those lines are running from the muscle car toward the cage).

We stayed at the kids’ play area for a long, long time doing all sorts of playing. Like this…

…and this:

And some standing around waiting to play, like this:

When we finally left the play area, the game was heading into the bottom of the fourth inning and it was still 1-0 Orioles. We headed out to the flag court. It was packed out there:

I should mention that right before we headed to the flag court, or maybe even while we were en route to the flag court, Chris Davis launched his 30th homerun of the season deep into the seats in RCF (much more CF than RF). That made it 3-0 Orioles and the place was going crazy – partially because the Orioles were playing a “Gangnam Style” parody video on the big screen called “Camden Style.”

We were out in the flag court for the top of the fifth. Unforutnately, the lead off batter walked and then Jarrod Saltalamacchia hit a 2-run homerun into the seats in RCF just past the flag court.

That made the score 3-2 Birds.

The Orioles Bird was out in the flag court and, despite the Salty-Bomb, he was plenty happy about the O’s 1-run lead. He celebrated by eating Tim’s head…

…and a few minutes later, he came back to shake Tim’s hand while we were on our way back to the play area.

On our way back to the play area, I noticed this big picture of Memorial Stadium:

I’m not sure how long its been there. Maybe it’s always been there. But I have never really paid attention to it. I was never at a game at Memorial Stadium. But it is cool to see that the Orioles paid tribute to it on the design of the home plate area at Camden Yards – the two look very similar.

After our final many rounds of pitching in the cage…

…we headed off to the club level to meet up with Avi and have some dinner:

While we were in the Club Level, Avi was none-to-pleased to see Adam Jones and Chris Davis fail to communicate properly, leading to a dropped ball by Davis and a game-tying third run for the Red Sox. That was in the top of the sixth inning.

The score remained 3-3 until the bottom of the seventh inning, which Machado led off by belting a homerun into the LF seats. And just like that, the O’s were back on top 4-3.

In the eighth inning, we decided to head down to the field level. On our way through the Club Level on our way to the elevator, I snapped some pictures of the décor:

We headed here…

…for the rest of the game. This was my standing-room view from the cross-aisle behind second 32:

I should mention that the Yankees had already lost their game against the Blue Jays. With the Yankees loss, the O’s were just half a game back in the A.L. East. The team and the crowd badly wanted a share of first place.

The Orioles sent in their All-Star closer Jim Johnson to get the final three outs of the game. Meanwhile, we pondered the idea of going for a post-game umpire baseball. We moved more directly behind home plate in the cross-aisle.

It took six pitches, but Johnson mowed down Cody Ross on strikes. Eight pitches later, Johnson retired Mauro Gomez on a line drive to RF. It was no routine liner though. It was softly hit and former-Royal/Expo/National/Phillie/Met/Mariner Endy Chavez had to race in and make a nice diving catch to record the out.

When the whole crowd rose to its feet in anticipation of the final out of the game, the Red Sox sent Saltalamacchia to the plate, and I sent Tim down the stair case to get into position for an umpire ball. Kellan and I stayed at the top of the stairs where this was our view of the Tim and the game:

This was the TV viewing audience’s view of Tim and the game just prior to the final pitch of the night:

And so was this:

That guy right next to Tim is about to tap him on the shoulder and give him the open seat right along the umpires’ tunnel.

On the third pitch of the at-bat, Saltalamacchia flew out to LF to end the game. Tim was already in perfect position. The crowd was going crazy and no one was leaving. So Kellan and I had an easy time making our way down the stairs to the fourth row (two rows behind Tim).

I had told Tim already that the umpires’ name was Greg Gibson. When the four umps converged on the warning track just behind home plate, Tim must have already called out Gibson’s name because once they opened up the umpires’ gate, Gibson ducked into the tunnel and walked right over to Tim. They had a little conversation that probably lasted 10-20 seconds. And then Gibson pulled a beautiful Camden Yards commemorative baseball out of his pouch and set it into Tim’s glove before giving Tim a final smile and turning back toward the exit. Two steps later, Gibson handed another beautiful commemorative baseball to Kellan.

Double thanks, Mr. Gibson!

We quickly relocated to the first row to watch the stadium celebrate. The highlight of the celebration was when the Orioles Bird ran over and gave all three of us high fives through the protective netting. I thought that was pretty funny in light of the fact that we were all wearing Mariners jerseys. But, hey, we were celebrating right along with everyone else. It was a great atmosphere.

A few minutes later, an usher took a final, blurry photo of the three of us before we started to pack up to get out of there:

It’s been another great season with my boys, and a lot of fun having Kellan join in the fun with Tim and me.

On our way out of the ballpark, Tim posed for a picture with Brooks Robinson’s number 5 posted on the warehouse:

They had already locked up RF and CF gates into the flag court and CF bleachers:

But Eutaw Street was rocking:

On our way out, we tried to go over and get a better look at the new Brooks Robinson statue, but about 3,000 other people had the same idea and this is as close as we got:

And just like that, our in person MLB season was over…

…, goodbye, Camden Yards.

We can wait to come back for more in 2013.

2012 C&S Fan Stats

27/25 Games (Tim/Kellan)

18/17 Teams – Tim – Mariners, Rockies, Phillies, Mets, Marlins, Athletics, Orioles, Nationals, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Twins, Cubs, Cardinals, Royals, Red Sox, Rays, Pirates, Braves; Kellan – Mariners, Rockies, Marlins, Nationals, Athletics, Orioles, Mets, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Twins, Cubs, Cardinals, Royals, Red Sox, Rays, Pirates, Braves

44 Ice Cream Helmet(s) – Mariners 5, Phillies 9, Orioles 7, Mets 2, Twins 2, Cardinals 3, Royals 2, Rockies 3, Red Sox 2, Pirates 3, Nationals 2, Marlins 4

1 Ice Cream Glove! – Nationals

155 Baseballs – Mariners 22, Marlins 7, Mets 21, Nationals 8, Phillies 10, Umpires 11, Orioles 13, Athletics 2, Diamondbacks 4, Blue Jays 1, Twins 1, Cubs 7, Cardinals 1, Royals 6, Red Sox 8, Rays 12, Pirates 3, Rockies 4, Braves 6

27 Commemorative Baseball(s) – Marlins Park 2, Mets 50th Anniversary 2, Camden Yards 13, Dodger Stadium 4, Fenway Park 2, Shea Stadium ’08 2, Nationals Park ’08 2

12/12 Stadiums – Tim – Safeco Field, Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Camden Yards, Citi Field, Target Field, Busch Stadium, Kauffman Stadium, Coors Field, Fenway Park, PNC Park, Marlins Park; Kellan – Safeco Field, Nationals Park, Camden Yards, Citi Field, Target Field, Busch Stadium, Kauffman Stadium, Coors Field, Fenway Park, PNC Park, Citizens Bank Park, Marlins Park10/1 Mascots Photos – Tim – Mariners Moose (2), Sluggerrr, Teddy Roosevelt, Abe Lincoln, George Washington, Oriole Bird (4); Kellan – Fredbird

7/2 Player Photos – Tim – Ricky Bones, Willie Bloomquist, Jeremy Guthrie, Evan Scribner, Stephen Pryor, Shawn Kelley, Scott Cursi; Kellan – Willie Bloomquist, Stephen Pryor

2 Batting Gloves – Ronnie Deck

9 Autographs – Willie Bloomquist 2, Tim Byrdak, Brian Roberts, Munenori Kawasaki, Evan Scribner, Felix Hernandez, Shawn Kelley, Steven Pryor, Josh Kinney

April 26, 2011

MLB Pocket Schedules

Tim and I are now three weeks into our 2011 schedule and just had our first “off weekend” of the early season. Kellan is still waiting for his first game action of the season. Plenty of baseball left on the Cook & Son schedule for 2011. Seems like a good enough reason to share our baseball pocket schedule collection.

Each year, I try to grab a few pocket schedules at every ballpark we visit. We have a baseball card album full of them. Let’s take a look — and lets do it in the order Tim first saw each of these teams play a home game.

First, our Mariners pocket schedules:

Second, our Phillies pocket schedules:

Third, our Orioles pocket schedules:

Fourth, our Yankees pocket schedules:

Fifth, our Pirates pocket schedules:

Sixth, our Reds pocket schedule (featuring Ken Griffey, Jr.! #3):

Seventh, our Indians pocket schedules:

Eighth, our Mets pocket schedules:

Ninth, our Diamondbacks pocket schedule:

Tenth, our Nationals pocket schedules:

Eleventh, our Red Sox pocket schedules:

Twelfth, our Cubs pocket schedule:

Thirteenth, our Twins pocket schedules:

Fourteenth, our Brewers pocket schedule:

Fifteenth, our White Sox pocket schedules:

(This is one of my favorite schedules. The picture of Ramirez’s homerun celebration couples just perfectly with the fireworks. Good job, White Sox!)

Sixteenth, our Blue Jays pocket schedule:

Seventeenth, our Athletics pocket schedule:

Eigthteenth, our Dodgers pocket schedule:

Ninteenth, our Padres pocket schedule:

Twentieth, our Angels pocket schedule:

Twenty-first, our Giants pocket schedule:

Twenty-second, our Spring Training pocket schedules:

One more to come here…still need to photograph the 2011 Spring Training Schedule. By the way, these include all Cactus League games for all of the teams in the Cactus League.

Bonus, our Reading Phillies pocket schedules (MiLB):

There you go, that is it for our MLB pocket schedules collection. We plan to add plenty to this list in 2011. In fact, by the end of the season, I hope to be able to add new schedules for the 2011 Mariners (actually already added), Orioles, Nationals, Phillies, Pirates, Yankees, Mets, Tigers, Reds, Rangers, Astros, Marlins, Braves and Nationals.

June 10, 2010

The Orioles Visit Red Sox Park at Nation Yards (6-5-10)

June is going to be a busy month for me and Tim. Ten games at seven stadiums. And it all kicked off on June 5, 2010 at Camden Yards. The Orioles would be visiting the home team Red Sox, or so it would seem.

At our last game at Camden Yards, we met MLBlogger Avi Miller (who has a new website and is pictured under the yellow arrow)…

…and we met up with him (and a couple other Camden Yards regulars) at the CF gate. Before we found Avi, Tim got his picture with Cal Ripkin, Jr.’s No. 8, Babe Ruth, and Brooks Robinson’s No. 5. If you look back at this entry from last season, you’ll see that the O’s replaced/upgraded the number statues from last season — so maybe some good came of those hooligans stealing the Ripkin’s 8 last season.

We chatted with Avi and the guys before the gates opened and then Avi got us into the main section of the stadium with the other season ticket holders while the rest of the people had to stay in CF and RF for the first half hour.

Thanks, Avi!

Aside from just having a great time and making good memories, my main goal of the day was to get Tim’s picture with a Red Sox player. I was hoping for Adrian Beltre. So while everyone else ran to LF, we made our way around to the 3B dugout. On the way, this guy…

…flipped a stray baseball up to us.

Thanks, that guy!

The entire Red Sox team was stretching by the 3B dugout:

There are plenty of Red Sox that I don’t know, but without checking the roster I can make out Dustin Pedroia, Mike Lowell, Kevin Youkilus, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Adrian Beltre, Mike Cameron and Bill Hall.

After the O’s cleared off the field, the Red Sox scattered all over the place. Beltre and Youk played catch right next to Cameron and Hall:

I had forgotten that Cameron was on the BoSox. Talk about a good guy, people in Seattle can’t get enough of Mike Cameron. I didn’t envy him coming into Seattle as Griffey’s replacement in 2000, but the guy pulled it off with flying colors. Over his 4 or so years in SeaTown, he was generally loved by all and it was sad to see him go.

When he saw us in our M’s gear, it wasn’t hard to flag him down and get this picture:

He asked if we were from Seattle (I think I said “yes” despite the fact I lived in PA the entire time he played for the Mariners) and I thank him for all that he did for the team. He was very nice. We parted ways with a hand shake.

My next goal was to see if we could flag down Daisuke Matsuzaka with a courteous “Sumimasen” like we did with Takashi Saito a couple weeks before in Pittsburgh…

…interestingly, Daisuke was totally unphased and didn’t even bat an eye at our “Sumimasen, Daisuke-san”; however, Hideki Okajima kept looking over at us with a smile after we spoke to Daisuke. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure who he was at the time (I figured it out by zooming in on his glove and taking a picture of his name stitched on the side). Once I figured it out, Okajima was soon gone.

By the way, click on that last picture and check out Daisuke’s crazy camo-patterned glove.

Although Daisuke didn’t respond to us when we addressed him in Japanese, he soon came over and started signing autographs (lots and lots of autographs)…

…including this one for Tim.

After getting Daisuke’s autograph there were about 20,000 (all Red Sox fans) in the stadium already for BP, so we decided to do something we’ve never done before: we toured the Camden Club at the top of the Warehouse.

We never knew you could get up there until Zack Hample told us about it at our last game at Camden Yards…he’d never known about it himself until Matt Hersl (who we met at the gate with Avi) told him about it that same day. Here is the view from the 8th floor bathroom (note the reflection of my jersey in the window):

Here, Tim checks out the view from the lobby on the seventh floor:

The Camden Club is a bar and restaurant that seems to be primarily on the 8th floor but also is on part of the 7th floor.

Here is the view from the lobby on the 7th floor:

Here is some art hanging in the 7th floor lobby…

…that picture on the right is painted on old Orioles baseball cards.

The view from the 8th floor lobby:

Here are some random pictures from inside the club:

Top left: 2131 sign and picture of Ripkin after breaking Lou Gehrig’s streak. I’m wondering if these are the actual numbers that were unveiled on the Warehouse wall that famous night?

Top right: the pattern on the floor throughout the Camden Club.

Bottom left: a cartoon drawing of the plans for Camden Yards (I think).

Bottom right: picture of olden times Baltimore players (hanging on 8th floor) and doors with BCB logo (on 7th floor).

Here is the view from the far end of the Camden Club, right next to the kitchen (8th floor):
When we passed on the elevator and someone got out, Tim just had to go check this out on the second floor (and the elevator operator kindly let us do it):

Next, it was time to earn some points in the MyGameBalls.com photo scavenger hunt:

I said, “Tim, look cool.” And this is what he came up with.

Next, it was time for some pregame bouncy house jumping followed by some hitting on the air tee…

…Tim hit a laser line drive straight through the “Grand Slam” hole at the middle top that got a couple of the parents waiting in line with their kids all fired up. Tim got a kick out of being cheered by strangers. He ran over and gave me a big jumping high five.

He was burning up (it was ridiculously hot and humid) so it was time to find some shade and eat some nachos:

Right before the game started, we headed to the 1B line to see if Tim could get his picture with a Oriole…

…in the bottom left you can see Tim getting rejected by Corey Patterson. He came over to sign a couple autographs. Tim was all set up on the wall. All Corey had to do was lean in after signing another kid’s autograph. But he said, “Sorry, I can only sign a few autographs” and ran off. Bummer. Our “Tim with an Oriole” quest remains unfulfilled.

It was game time.

We headed out to the RF flag court. Tim was on my shoulders munching on peanuts and littering my head and shoulders with peanut debris. A couple fans came over to tell me I was covered in shells, just in case I hadn’t noticed the monsoon of shells raining down from above.

I couldn’t get a good action shot of Pedroia or Youkilus in the first…

…but I did get Youk pulling into second for his first double of the night.

The BoSox (and the O’s) would go scoreless in the first, as well as the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth innings. I was a stellar pitchers dual between Jon Lester and Jeremy Guthrie for most of the game.

If you’ve read this blog before, you might have noticed the occassional comment from “Teemo” and my exchanges with him where I will sign as “Todd (PA)” and he will sign as “Todd (HI).” Todd lives in Hawaii with his wife, Grace, daughter, Jessica, and son, Timothy (or Teemo).

You got that? Todd (HI) has a son Tim (HI).

Anyway, I knew the Hawaiian Todd and Tim would be at this game — they were in the middle of a monster baseball roadtrip built around a wedding — but I had no clue what they looked like…so it was up to them to find us.

And they did. Here we are in the RF flag court:

Father Todds and Son Tims.

Let me tell you, if you get a chance to hang with these dudes for a couple innings, definitely do it. They’re pretty awesome.

They actually brought Tim a little gift bag with a U.H. Rainbows T-Shirt, U.H. Rainbows baseball (pictured at bottom), and some yummy Hawaiian goodies (I snuck a bite or two when Tim (PA) was looking the other way!).

We hung out with Todd (HI) and Tim (HI) from the bottom of the first until about the fifth inning…when we were all out of water and risked dehydration if we didn’t go for a refill.

Before our water ran out, Todd (HI) and I had a great chat while Tim (PA) and Tim (HI) played baseball like crazy…

…first they played catch with a ball that Tim and I like to bring to games and then (after and usher told us the O’s had been sued when someone played catch and got hit with a ball…so we had to stop) they played imaginary baseball (see bottom right with Tim (HI) pitching to Tim (PA)).

They had an absolute blast.

But as I said, we ran out of water and had to go for a re-fill. So we split up (they went and got some food and briefly visited their seats) and planned to meet up again later in the game.

We grabbed Tim an ice cream helmet…

…and grabbed some ice cream seats in the RF upper deck seats. They really are excellent seats up there. I always enjoy going up there.

Meanwhile, it was still a pitchers dual. In the top of the seventh YOUUUUUUUUUUK stepped to the plate and shortly thereafter stepped on the plate and returned to the dugout after his go-ahead homerun:

Guthrie escaped the inning without anymore damage.

Shortly after snapping this post-ICH picture…

…we headed back down to the RF flag court.

Check out this SRO crowd…

…it was at least four people deep across the flag court! Crazy business!

The O’s loaded the bases in the bottom of the 7th, but Corey Patterson couldn’t come through with the big hit — possibly karma for denying Tim’s picture request? I guess we’ll never know.

Soon, we met up with Todd (HI) and Tim (HI) again, and they were joined by younger sister Jessica. The Tims and Jessica had a blast and must have each burned at least 1,000 calories running all over the flag court. They played a lot of imaginary baseball, and I was quite happy with all of the pro-Griffey comments that Tim’s T-shirt drew from the mostly-Boston based crowd.

In the ninth, we headed into the infield to see if the kids could get baseballs from the umpire (Victor Carapazza). During the top of the ninth, the Todds stood in the cross aisle (they just don’t care what you do in Baltimore, its great) and the kids sat in the back row cheering like mad…

…they were the most indecisive cheerers ever. “GO RED SOX! WIN RED SOX! LOSE RED SOX! GO ORIOLES! GO ROBINS! (that’s what Tim (PA) calls the O’s) LOSE ROBINS! LOSE RED SOX! LOSE ROBINS! GO ROBINS!”

The Red Sox had added a run and led 2-0 after 8 innings.

Pedroia came to bat in the ninth and whiffed on this pitch…

…but then he connect for a foul ball that was heading right to me!!!! It was a looping pop up. I ran a couple feet to our right (toward RF). It was coming down fast and was going to land right at the back of the cross aisle. But 20 feet right above me, it clanked off of a advertisement that hang off of the second deck and bounced into the field level seats.

Ah!!! So close, but so far away.

Pedroia would eventually strike out. But YOOOOOOOOUUUUUUK would not. He hit another double (on this swing):

The damage was done. With Youk’s double, the Red Sox had scored 6 runs in the top of the ninth to take a commanding 8-0 lead.

All that was left was three outs for the O’s. For those outs, our view looked like this:

They must have been good seats because all the guys sitting in front of us were scouts:

The guy in the yellow shirt worked for the Marlins. I asked him what clubs the other two guys worked for and he responded, “other teams.” Ah, other teams. Just as I had suspected.

This was our view of the dugouts:

And this is what the kids (and part of Todd (HI)’s face) looked like:

Yes, the were still having a blast.

And why not when your view of a MLB ball game looks like this?

The O’s mounted a mini-come back…

….but they needed 8 runs and all they could muster were 2. The final score: 8-2 for the Red Sox.

Once the final out was recorded, the kids snugged up to the umpire tunnel in time to watch Carapazza go sailing by us without so much as a look. But then, after passing us, Carapazza turned around and pointed at Tim and called out, “For the little guy.” Then, he chucked a baseball at us with gusto. I had to back hand it with my bare glove hand so it wouldn’t smack Tim (PA) in the face.

Jessica and Tim (HI)? Denied by Carapazza.

No fun.

They had missed BP because they had a long drive in from Pittsburgh.

So, Tim (PA) decided to give his umpire ball to his new buddy Tim (HI) and the two Tims showed off their prizes for the camera:

We had an excellent time meeting and hanging out with our new Hawaiian friends. Once we met up with Todd (HI)’s wife, Grace, we got a picture of the six of us:

Apparently, Tim (PA) thought his head was out of the shot, so we contorted to get closer to the group.

On our way out of the stadium, I had to take our new friends to see a historical landmark…

…the marker for Ken Griffey, Jr’s mega-blast from July 12, 1993 — still the only ball to ever hit the Warehouse in the air.

Chalk this one up as another excellent night at the ballpark.

A big thank you to Todd (HI) and family for helping us record more excellent memories. We can’t wait to cross paths again. And a big, huge thank you for the wonderful and thoughtful Hawaiian goody bag.

2010 Fan Stats:

8 Games

10 Teams (Mariners, Orioles, Blue Jays and Red Sox; Phillies, Pirates, Braves, Mets, Brewers and Nationals)

8 Ice Cream Helmets (Orioles (3), Phillies, Pirates (2), Mets, & Nationals)

21 Baseballs (2 Mariners, 3 Brewers, 3 Nationals, 2 Blue Jays, 4 Umpires, 1 Phillies, 1 Mets, 4 Braves, Orioles 1)

5 Stadiums (Camden Yards, Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC
Park)

7 Player Photos (Ryan Rowland-Smith, Mike Cameron, Frank Catalanotto, Billy Wagner, Jeff Suppan, Tommy Hanson and Scott Olsen)

6 Autographs (Daisuke Matsuzaka, Frank Catalanotto (2), Billy Wagner (2), Jeff Suppan, Tommy Hanson and Scott Olsen)

4 Kids Run The Bases (Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park)

[We are currently on The Third Annual Great Cook Grandfather-Father-Son Baseball Roadtrip of 2010. We’ll be hitting 7 games in 7 days in 5 stadiums. I will be slooooow to post entries because we will be on the go constantly.]

August 17, 2009

Milestone Achieved (8-17-2009)

Today was a big day for Tim; a milestone day. Therefore, I have two entries for today. This one is the milestone entry. I’m still working on the entries for our games at the Metrodome, Miller Park and U.S. Cellular Field, but they will all be coming soon.

Before Tim was born, I hand made a hard back, leather bound book for him that I called the “Baseball Log.” I use the Baseball Log to track all of Tim’s baseball adventures. Therefore, coming into this season, I knew that there were only 11 teams that Tim had not yet seen play in person. I made it one of our goals for the season. Today, at age 3-and-a-half, Tim checked the final team, the Royals, off of the list.

Milestone Acheived.

On our 30 team quest, we attended 46 games and visited 17 major league stadiums. This entry gives a glimpse into Tim’s journey around the MLB circuit.

Division-by-Division

Division-by-division, we’ll start by reviewing the dates of Tim’s first game with each team:

A.L. West A.L. Central A.L. East

Mariners (9-12-06) Twins (8-14-07) Blue Jays (9-12-06)

Angles (8-17-08) Indians (7-19-08) Orioles (8-9-07)

Athletics (5-1-09) White Sox (8-27-08) Yankees (9-3-07)

Rangers (5-4-09) Tigers (5-31-09) Rays (4-12-09)

Royals (8-17-09) Red Sox (7-3-09)

N.L. West N.L. Central N.L. East

Rockies (9-12-07) Pirates (9-27-07) Phillies (6-30-07)

Giants (5-2-08) Cardinals (9-27-07) Mets (6-30-07)

Diamondbacks (9-12-08) Cubs (4-11-08) Marlins (9-9-07)

Padres (4-19-09) Reds (6-2-08) Nationals (8-19-08)

Dodgers (5-13-09) Brewers (8-16-09) Braves (5-8-09)

Astros (8-16-09)

As you can see, we closed out the A.L. West first, followed by the N.L. East. This makes a lot of sense since we are Mariners fans but we live an hour outside of Philadelphia. We then flip-flopped the leagues, and closed out the N.L. West followed by the A.L. East. Finally, on our current road trip, we closed out the N.L. Central on Monday, and the A.L. Central today.

Game Pictures

Let’s check out some pictures — all 46 of Tim’s games to date (plus one 5+ hour rain out with no game) in order:

Games Log

Let’s take a closer look at those games. In the following list of games, when a Team Name is in Bold/Italics it denotes the first game in which Tim saw that particular team play in person. When a Team Name is underlined it denotes that team won the game. I figured identifying the game winners is enough, so I didn’t include the scores. However, I am including some game notes — such as homeruns, batting results by our favorite players or all-stars, etc.

1. Blue Jays at Mariners (9-12-06) – Ichiro 1-5, HR (Beltre, Ibanez, Wells), 2 Balls

2. Mets at Phillies (6-30-07) – HR – Howard, Beltran (2)

3. Mariners at Orioles (8-9-07) – Ichiro 3-6; HR – Miguel Tejada, Jose Guillen

4. Twins at Mariners (8-14-07) – Ichiro 1-4

5. Twins at Mariners (8-15-07) – Ichiro 2-4, 2SB; HR – Ibanez, Torii Hunter

6. Mariners at Yankees (9-3-07) – Ichiro 3-5, HR; W – Felix; L – Clemens (final loss)

7. Marlins at Phillies (9-9-07) – Burrell 2-4, HR; Carlos Ruiz 3-4, HR; Rollins 2-5

8. Rockies at Phillies (9-12-07) – Dobbs-Utley 3-Play; HR – M. Holliday; Helton 3-4

9. Cardinals at Pirates (9-27-07) – Pujols 3-5, 2B; Rick Ankiel 3-4, HR, 3RBI

10. Mariners at Orioles (4-6-08) – Ichiro 1-4; Ibanez 3-4, HR

11. Cubs at Phillies (4-11-08) – Pat Burrell 2-4, HR; Alfonso Soriano 1-4, HR

12. Giants at Phillies (5-2-08) – Chase Utley 2-3; Pat Burrell – walk off HR

13. Reds at Phillies (6-2-08) – Chase Utley 3-4, HR, 2RBI; Jay Bruce 2-4, HR

14. Indians at Mariners (7-19-08) – Ichiro 2-4, HR, 2RBI with outfield assist

15. Cardinals at Reds (8-15-08) – Pujols 3-5; Ankiel HR; Chris Dickerson 1st HR

16. Angles at Indians (8-17-08) – F. Gutierrez 3-3, 2RBI; Texiera 2-4; Sizemore 2-5

17. Mets at Pirates (8-18-08) – Adam LaRoche 2-3, HR, 2RBI

18. Nationals at Phillies (8-19-08) – HR – Jayson Werth, Willie Harris; R. Belliard 4-4

19. White Sox at Orioles (8-27-08) – Griffey 0-1, 3BB; HR: Dye, Millar, Huff, Konerko

20. Phillies at Mets (9-7-08) – W – Moyer (243); L – Pedro Martinez; HR – G. Dobbs

21. Reds at Diamondbacks (9-12-08) – Webb – 20th Win, 8IP, 5H, O ER, 2K

22. Rays at Orioles (4-12-09) – HR – Longoria, C. Pena, J. Bartlett, B. Zobrist

23. Padres at Phillies (4-19-09) – Ibanez – 2-4, HR; HR – Rollins, Utley, A. Gonzalez

24. Nationals at Mets (4-25-09) – C. Beltran 3-5, SB; R. Zimmerman 2-5

25. Athletics at Mariners (5-1-09) – Ichiro 1-5; HR – Gutierrez, Branyan, Holliday

26. Athletics at Mariners (5-2-09) – Ichiro 2-5; HR – Branyan; Giambi 2-4, 2RBI

27. Athletics at Mariners (5-3-09) – Ichiro 2-7; HR – Johjima, M. Sweeney (200)

28. Rangers at Mariners (5-4-09) – Ichiro 1-5; HR – Gutierrez, Branyan, Young, Davis

29. Rangers at Mariners (5-5-09) – Ichiro 0-2, 2BB; HR – Saltalamacchia, Nelson Cruz

30. Braves at Phillies (5-8-09) – HR – Coste, Werth, Utley; W – Hamels

31. Dodgers at Phillies (5-13-09) – HR – Ibanez, Rollins, Casey Blake, James Loney

32. Phillies at Nationals (5-17-09) – Sergio Escalona – 1st Career Win; Rollins 2-4;

33. Tigers at Orioles (5-31-09) – Curtis Granderson HR; W – Edwin Jackson 8 IP, 2H

34a. Giants at Nationals (6-3-09) – Rainout – R. Johnson sch’d to pitch for 300th Win.

34. Mariners at Orioles (6-10-09) – Ichiro 1-3; Jose Lopez 2HR; W – F. Hernandez

35. Nationals at Orioles (6-28-09) – HR – Dunn (Eutaw St.); Willie Harris 3-4, HR

36. Mariners at Yankees (7-2-09) – Ichiro 2-4; HR – Branyan, Gutierrez; L – Sabbathia

37. Mariners at Red Sox (7-3-09) – Ichiro 1-5; HR – R. Cedeno, Drew, Kottaras (1st)

38. Mariners at Red Sox (7-4-09) – Ichiro 1-5; HR – Jason Varitek; S – Aardsma

39. Mariners at Red Sox (7-5-09) – Griffey 1-1; Ichiro 1-5; HR- Ortiz, Pedroia, Ellsbury

40. Cubs at Nationals (7-19-09) – HR – Alfonso Soriano, Adam Dunn, Jake Fox

41. Cardinals at Phillies (7-24-09) – W – Joel Piniero, M. Holliday 4-5; HR – J. Lugo

42. Marlins at Phillies (8-9-09) – Moyer – 2ER, but loss. Victorino ejected from CF.

43. Pirates at Cubs (8-14-09) – Cubs score 10 runs in 2nd inning. HR – Fukudome.

44. Indians at Twins (8-15-09) – HR – Sizemore, Mauer, Choo

45. Astros at Brewers (8-16-09) – HR – Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder.

46. Royals at White Sox (8-17-09) – HR – Yuni Betancourt, Jacobs, Pierzynski, Nix.

Ice Cream Helmets & Baseballs

Tim and I have collected a lot of memories as we’ve made the rounds of the MLB. But memories aren’t all we have collected. We’ve also amassed a few MLB baseballs and a bunch of ice cream helmets. Click here for a little article about our baseball collecting. Pictured below are our baseballs and ice cream helmets:

It has been a great trip around the MLB so far. Now, we’ll have to start working on the next milestone — maybe every MLB stadium.

Thanks for joining us for this ride this season. Don’t forget to check out all of our reports from The (Second Annual) Great Cook Father-Son-Grandson Road Trip of 2009, three of which are still to come in the next couple days:

Pirates at Cubs (8-14-09)
Indians at Twins (8-15-09) – coming soon.
Astros at Brewers (8-16-09) – coming soon.
Royals at White Sox (8-17-09) – coming soon.

July 11, 2009

Fenway Park – Part 3 of 3 (A Moment to Remember – 7/5/09)

For the second day in a row, we woke up and had breakfast and played some baseball in Copley Square. On this day, however, we just played catch and did some base running (on four drains in front of the Church in the square).

Soon, it was time to head to Fenway Park for our final game of the weekend roadtrip. We were hoping for a Mariners sweep. But it wasn’t in the cards.

I’m going to break with my usual protocol and skip to the fourth inning. I’ll go back and cover the game from the beginning, but I don’t want to bury the most important part of this unfortunate Mariners loss in the middle of the entry.

You might have noticed by now that I am a big Mariners fan. And, by definition, that means I am a huge Ken Griffey, Jr. fan. Ken Griffey, Jr. means everything to Mariners fans (at least to real Mariners fans). I was 13 when Griff broke into the Mariners back in 1989.

The Mariners were a fairly unimportant team until 1989. Well, they were important to me and about 10,000 other people in the state of Washington. But they were sort of a minor league Major League team to everyone else. They had zero winning seasons in their history. There were constant rumors and threats that the team would move — most notably to Tampa, Florida. The Kingdome — as beautiful and perfect as it was — was largely empty. (By the way, that wasn’t sarcasm, the Kingdome was, indeed, beautiful and perfect).

And then, in April 1989, things changed. KEN GRIFFEY, JR. ARRIVED! All of a sudden, one of the most celebrated young ball players in baseball was a Seattle Mariner. People started to pay some attention to our club. People started showing up at the Kingdome.

In 1991, we had a WINNING SEASON!

In 1995, we WON THE WEST! We made the PLAYOFFS!! We were two games from the World Series.

The Mariners were no longer going to move away! Instead, they built Safeco Field. It was a golden era in Mariners baseball.

Long story short: Ken Griffey, Jr. changed baseball in Seattle, he saved baseball in Seattle, he IS baseball in Seattle.

Therefore, when my son was born in 2006 and we started going to baseball games together, I had a goal: Take Tim to see Griffey.

We have had incredibly bad luck in this respect. Prior to this weekend, we had gone to see him play more than 10 times, and Griff played in only three of those games. In those games, he has had gone hitless (but with a bunch of walks).

So we turn to this game. Shortly before game time, they announced the starting line-up. I was more saddened to learn that Mike Sweeney would be DH’ing and Griffey would have the day off.

I started thinking worst case scenario. This is very possibly our final Mariners game of the season. They don’t come back to the Northeast this season. In 30 years, would Tim have to tell his son, “Yeah, your grandpa took me to see the great Ken Griffey, Jr. when I was a boy. But I never saw him get a hit.” I hated the thought. But there was nothing I could do about it. The Mariners were facing a lefty, Jon Lester, and Mike Sweeney had to get his work in to stay sharp.

Then in the fourth inning (with no disrepect to Sweeney), something wonderful happened:

I was totally unprepared. (That notice was actually posted in the 5th or 6th inning).

Tim was sitting on my shoulders. We were at a food stand behind the grandstand behind the seats by the 1B dugout. I had just ordered a sausage with onions and peppers (for me), a hot dog (for Tim), a diet coke, and a bag of peanuts. There was no counter at the cash registered so I had to hold everything in one hand while finding my money and paying the cashier with the other hand (while still balancing Tim on my shoulders with no hands).

In the midst of all of this, I hear the following over the stadium P.A. system:

“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, JUNIOR!”

Instantly, my thought was, “The Red Sox don’t have a Junior! AHHHHH!!!”

I jammed my wallet and change into my pocket, gathered up everything as best as I could and ran toward the field as fast as I could.

This picture shows our starting point and our route to the field:

When we ran into the back of the grandstand, I believe we were in Section 13 or 14.

I yelled up to Tim, “I THINK GRIFF IS UP!”

Right as we got in view of the field, we saw Lester start his wind up and deliver a pitch to Griffey. What happened next was possibly the most beautiful thing I have ever seen at a major league stadium: Griff drilled the pitch off of the Green Monster!

According to my DVR, it looked something like this:

I think that to everyone else in the stadium, it was just a random lead off hit in the top of the fourth inning. But to me, it was possibly the greatest baseball moment ever. For the first time in over ten years, I witnessed Ken Griffey, Jr. — my boyhood hero and favorite baseball player of all-time — get a hit for my Seattle Mariners and I witnessed it with my son sitting on my shoulders sharing the moment with me. And the fact that he hit the ball off the Green Monster, the most famous outfield wall in baseball, made it even more exciting.

This simple hit is easily the highlight of my season so far, and I plan to think and talk about it with Tim for years and years to come. I hope Tim and I get another chance to see Griffey play — this season and next. But, if that is not possible, this hit will keep me satisfied.

(By way of background and to clarify, *I* have seen Griffey get tons of hits, hit numerous homeruns, multiple grand slams, makes dozens of circus catches (including the one when he broke his arm in half) — but I’d never shared any of those moments with Tim. That’s what made this hit so special).

By the time I could get to a spot where I could put our food down and get to my camera, Franklin Gutierrez had advanced Griff to second with a single. Here is Griff leading off of second:

Griff would have two more plate appearances on the day, both walks. He went 1-1 on the day. Amazingly, I got zero pictures of Griff at the plate during this game.

Okay, now lets back track to the beginning of the game.

We entered the stadium again through the CF gate on Lansdowne Street. It was a 1:35 start, but the teams still took BP. We arrived as the first group of Mariners were hitting, including Griffey and Ichiro.

We started out in the CF bleachers. Griffey was blasting bombs into the RF bleachers. I wanted to go over there, but there is no way I am going to try to catch a HR ball with Tim on my shoulders. Shortly after we arrived, Griff hit a ground rule double to straight away CF that bounced up into the stands and directly into my Dad’s glove.

My Dad has had great luck with Griffey this year. In addition to this BP ground rule double, on the first day of spring training, my Dad got Griff’s second BP homerun in his second tour of duty with the Mariners.

I decided to go up onto the Green Monster and see if Tim and I could get into the seating area. There is a staircase in the CF concourse that takes you up to the Green Monster. You can walk out to the edge of the seating area, but they won’t let you out into the seats without a Monster ticket. So Tim and I just stood around up there for a few minutes taking in the view before heading back down to the field level seats.

I had a thought in the back of my head that it would be neat to get a ball thrown up to us on the Green Monster. Tim and I stood in the closest spot to the seats that you can get to without a Monster ticket:

We stood in the spot under the red arrow where the guy in the red shirt is standing. I noticed Jason Vargas and Jason Phillips standing together below in LCF. (In the picture to the right, that is Jason Phillips after the two Jasons split up).

After a few minutes, someone hit a ball to Vargas. I yelled down from the Mondster, “Hey, Vargas!!!!” He heard me! He looked up! He turned around and he fired the ball to me. Unfortunately, it was too low and it clanked off a light and some bricks just below us — out of reach.

Jason Phillips stood and watched Vargas’s failed attempt. And just then, someone hit him a ball. “Hey, Jason!” Phillips looked back up at me. He turned around and he fired the ball to me. A perfect strike. It would have hit me directly in the chest. It was a very impressive throw, and much appreciated.

“Thanks, Jason!”

Here is a picture that illustrates the flight of the ball:

At the time Phillips threw the ball, he was even a little bit — maybe 10-15 feet — closer toward LF. He didn’t lob the ball up to me. He fired it on a line, just like the arrow in this picture. As I said, a very impressive throw.

Tim and I then went down to the CF bleachers and met up with my mom who was standing right where my Dad caught Griff’s ground rule double about 10 minutes earlier.

Felix Hernandez and Erik Bedard were standing below us. Felix runs all over the place trying to make high light reel catches during BP. At one point, he caught one near us. He looked up and made I contact with me (and Tim). There was a lady from Seattle shouting at him standing directly next to me to my left. Felix fired the ball up to us. He threw it to our right side so the shouting lady wouldn’t interfere. I could have caught it without moving at all — I just had to reach across my body and back hand it. However, as I started to go for the backhand, I realize there was a 8’ish year old boy wearning a Red Sox jersey and a glove standing next to me. If I didn’t catch the ball, he’d get it. I decided to let me have it since we already had the ball from Jason Phillips and we got Felix’s warm up ball the day before.

Soon thereafter, someone hit a ball into the OF corner by the end of the Red Sox bullpen. Here was the scene:

We were standing in the red circle. Erik Bedard was standing at the red “X”. There was a rope running along the warning track. (I think it was to keep people involved in the pre-game ceremonies off of the grass). The rope went down the warning track and around a big door in the outfield wall. The ball went in the corner behind the rope as shown above.

Bedard turned around and walked over and grabbed the ball. A whole bunch of people including a bunch of 10’ish year old kids, were standing by the bullpen directly above the ball. I figured Bedard would grab it and flip it up to them. While those people all yelled at Bedard for the ball, Erik picked it up and looked at them. He then walked as slowly as humanly possible back over to the yellow “X” in the picture above. Then he looked up and made eye contact with me (and Tim), and fired the ball to us. I had the feeling that Bedard had watched Felix throw us the ball when I let the kid catch it and he was trying to finish what Felix had started. The yelling lady was still next to me. Like Felix, Bedard threw the ball to my right so she wouldn’t get it.

Next, it was time to walk around. We checked out the RF corner and the Pesky Pole:

As RF corners go, this is one of the most interesting in baseball. Not very “corner-ish.” More like a RF curve.

We walked up through the old wooden grandstand seats:

We headed out to Yawkey Way and watched Tom Caron from NESN interview comedian Mike O’Malley:

Sean Casey was walking around the NESN set. I walked over to get a picture of him (or possibly with him), but he vanished into thin air.

It was getting close to game time, so we walked back into the stadium and went through the busy concourse behind home plate:

When we were down here, we got Tim a chocolate ice cream helmet and headed toward our seats in the grandstand behind home plate:

The seats were great. Here was our view:

The red arrow points to where Tim and I were standing when Griffey hit his single off of the Green Monster.

We watched te pre-game festivities such as the reading of the Fenway Park Code of Conduct…

…the carrying of the pink backpack to the Mariners bullpen by Christ Jakubauskas…

…the third ceremonial first pitch by Marky Mark Wahlberg (and his re-do third ceremonial first pitch due to his first third ceremonial first pitch sailing high over the catcher to the backstop):

Finally, it was game time. As always, future Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki led off for the Mariners:

I like this picture for two reasons — (i) the ball is captured right above the plate (but low, it was called a ball) and (ii) Dustin Pedroia is, for some reason, floating in the air at second base (click on the picture to see it larger, Pedroia is totally off of the ground).

I got some more Red Sox pictures:

I wanted to get a shot of Big Papi clapping his hands before stepping into the box but I missed it. He hit the next pitch into the RF bleachers, the second Red Sox home run in the first inning.

By the time Griff was up for a second time, we were touring around in the grandstand out beyond the Pesky Pole. He walked. Here he is leading off first base:

We went out to the concourse in the RF corner and took this picture showing the Red Sox World Series and other banners:

FYI, see the guy wearing the red shirt above the blue 1967 banner in the middle of the picture? He is standing in the walkway behind the grandstand seats where Tim and I spent a lot of time over the course of the weekend.

The red arrow in that last picture is pointing to this:

I’m guessing this guy is called the “Green Monster.” We saw the real one of this guy running around on the field before each game, but we never saw him in the crowd. This was the best we could do with respect to getting a mascot picture.

See the red arrow in that last picture? It is pointing to a staircase that leads to the “Players Club.” I’m not sure what the Players Club is all about. It looked like it was for special events or people with special tickets. But we headed in to check it out and no one seemed to mind. Here is what it looked like:

…more players club…

…and we found something cool in the Players Club:

(From Left: 2004 World Series Trophy, Todd & Tim, 2007 World Series Trophy)

We walked out of the players club just in time to see this…

Through the break in the grandstand and bleachers, that is Jacoby Ellsbury hitting a home run to bring the score to 4-3 Mariners.

We met up with my folks and watched the game on a TV while we ate some food at the tables in the RF corner. From our table, you could see the Players Club above the food stands:

While we sat here, the Mariners brought in Miguel Batista. It was not Miguel’s day. He gave up a bunch of runs and the Mariners eventually lost the game 8-4.

Tim and I watched the last inning from our familiar RF corner by the Mariners bullpen. We were hoping Griff would get one more at bat, but it wasn’t in the cards. We settled for one more picture with the field before heading out:

This game, we switched things up and exited the stadium from the RF exit so I could get a picture of this:

When my Dad was a kid, there was no baseball team in the state of Washington. Ted Williams was his baseball hero. This is what the plaque below Ted says:

Ted Williams

Boston Red Sox

The greatest hitter who ever lived, an American patriot, and a pioneer in the development of the Jimmy Fund. Ted Williams will forever be one of the great heroes in the history of baseball, Boston and America. He amassed 521 home runs despite sacrificing five years in his prime to serve his country during World War II and the Korean War. He was a relentless champion of children, such as this child to whom he is offering his cap, in their battle against cancer, and helped make the Jimmy Fund at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute the world renowned center of research and care that it is today.

The memory of Ted Williams will forever be a point of pride for the Boston Red Sox, the people of Boston, New England, and the United States of America.

We took one more picture outside:

“Good bye, Fenway!”

With that, we started our walk back to the hotel…

…so we could start our drive back home.

For so many reasons, it was such an awesome weekend shared with Tim and my folks.

Season Fan Stats:

18 Games (plus one 5+ hour rain out with no game)
7 Stadiums (Safeco Field, Camden Yards, Citizens Bank Park, Citi Field, Nationals Park, Yankee Stadium, and Fenway Park)
13 Teams (Mariners, A’s, Rangers, Rays, Orioles, Tigers, Red Sox, Yankees, Phillies, Mets, Nationals, Braves and Padres, Dodgers — and sort of the Giants)
14 Ice Cream Helmets (Mariners (4), Phillies (3), Mets, Nationals (2), Red Sox (3) and Yankees)
17 Baseballs (12 Mariners, 2 Rangers, 1 Phillies, 1 Red Sox, 1 Umpire)
4 Divisions Closed Out (So far in Tim’s Life — AL West, AL East, NL West, NL East)
3 Autographs (King Felix Hernandez, Jason Phillips, Ryan Perry)
2 Player/G.M. Photographs (King Felix Hernandez, Jack Zduriencik, Ryan Perry)
5 Mascot Pictures (Mariners Moose (2), Orioles Bird (2), 3 Presidents (Nats), Screech (Nats) — Honorable Mention: The Green Monster statue bench)

July 9, 2009

Fourth of July at Fenway – Mariners Win!

So, we woke up to a lazy Saturday morning in Boston…

…it was Independence Day, better head over to Fenway.

Wait, first, we better hit some baseballs in Copley Square:

I’m not sure why, but some tourist actually took pictures of Tim hitting in Copley Square.

Soon, it was time to hit the road for our already familiar walk down Boylston Street to Ipswich Street and over to Lansdowne — ah, Fenway Park:

Tim and I entered the park through Gate C on Lansdowne and headed up the CF stairs to the Green Monster. I was sad to learn that they were already checking tickets, so we couldn’t get all the way out onto the Monster, but I took pictures for this panaramic:

My folks entered from Gate A on Yawkey Way and went into the field seats behind the Mariners dugout where someone snapped this shot:

Tim and I came over and met up with my folks and we spotted our buddy from the streets of Boston, Mariners GM Jack Zdureincik:

While we were standing here, there was almost nothing going on on the field. Felix Hernandez and Erik Bedard were playing catch down the LF line by the Green Monster. But the field was otherwise empty. Maybe some grounds crew people were watering the infield. Tim and I were just sitting in the front row drinking some cold water to cool off.

A couple minutes after taking that picture of Jack Z. above, Tim, my mom and I moved down the 3B line a bit and stood where the red arrow is pointing in the picture of Jack. Immediately, upon our arrive (literally within a few seconds), Erik Bedard and Jason Phillips walked by:

Bedard spotted Tim and I and chucked his and Felix’s warm up ball to us — Sweet!

“Thanks, Erik!”

Jason Phillips looks over at us and give us a big smile and a point, “You again!” We returned the favor with a smile and a point. If you haven’t read the last two entries, Phillips, Tim and I had shared a couple exchanges the previous day and two days earlier in New York.

In case you aren’t familiar with Mr. Phillips and want to look him up on Baseball-Reference.com, you’ll notice there are two Jason Phillips in major league history. This one is Jason Lloyd Phillips. He is now the Mariners bullpen catcher. But he previously played for the Mets, Dodgers, and Blue Jays. His best season was 2003 when he hit .298 with 120 hits, 11 HRs and 56 RBI for the Mets. Hopefully he’ll get another shot to make a big league club. If not, I’m happy to have him in the Mariners bullpen and organization.

Back to the game at hand. We noticed that Mariners ALL-STAR pitcher Felix Hernandez was signing autographs down the 3B line. I’m not a big autograph guy, but I figured what the heck, let’s give it a shot. I didn’t have a pen, but I thought it would be cool to have Felix sign the ball he’d just used to play catch with Bedard.

Much more than autographs, I prefer getting our picture with players. So when Felix grabbed his warm up ball back from me I asked him if we could get our picture with him. Felix signed the ball with a borrowed sharpie and responded, “Sure.”

I took the first one myself and then looked at it and it wasn’t very good. Felix just stood and watched me waiting for me to give him the “okay” on the picture. Very cool. A nice Bostonian said, “Let me take it.” So I handed her my camera and Felix posed for another picture with us — much better:

“Thanks, Felix.”

“Thanks, lady.”

Here we go:

When I gave King Felix the ball, I was wondering if he thought it was odd that I’d ask him to sign such a dirty ball. He didn’t give me the ball, so he didn’t know it was his warm up ball.

My dad buys a team ball at each stadium he visits. He got Felix to sign a Red Sox / Fenway Park Fourth of July Ball.

Here we are in the 3B side concourse showing off the Bedard-Hernandez ball:

Although you can’t see it, that wall has signs for all of the Red Sox World Series Championships. FYI, you can see in this picture that I brought my new Rawlings Trap-Eze infielders glove. I saw it at the Rawlings outlet and loved the white lacing. I have no actual need for an infielders glove (I play LF for a beer league softball team), but I had to get it. I love it.

Next, we checked out Yawkey Way:

This is the main street along the 3B side of the park. FYI, Fenway Park’s address is 4 Yawkey Way. This street and all of the people shown in the picture are actually *inside* the stadium.

That band was playing on Yawkey Way and they were rockin’ it hard. I really enjoyed them. To their right, you can see “Big League Brian” — the dude on stilts. He has a soft baseball that he throws back and forth with fans in the crowd. Tim wanted to go down to see him and the band, but when we finally made our way down there the band was packing up and BLB was nowhere to be found.

Next, my folks headed to our seats in the CF bleachers — section 37, row 21. Tim didn’t want to go out into the sun. So we hung out in the shady standing room area at the back of the grandstand behind third base.

And we took some pictuers.

Here is the Mariners bullpen crew walking to the bullpen — Chris Jakubauskas is sporting the pink backpack (Q: Is my A-Rod ball in there??? We’ll have to wait and see…):

Griff and his colleagues stood for the National Anthem:

Ichi and Griff in the on-deck circle:

Ichiro led off the game. Its no secret, but I’ll go on the record — this guy is decent, extremely decent:

He was followed shortly by The Kid:

In the bottom picture, you can see the ball going foul. He hit it directly above me and Tim.

By the way, I must note that the people at Fenway (pretty much everyone, fans, attendants, cops, everyone…) are so cool. Many of the standing room areas under the grandstand have painted lines on the ground that are clearly marked “STANDING ROOM.” In those areas, they have attendants that will come ask you to stand in the lines if you are milling about outside of the lines.

As Griffey was at bat, I was standing right behind the seats and 15 feets or so outside of the designated “STANDING ROOM.” Tim was on my shoulders and I was focused on taking shots of Griff. A bunch of other fans were standing all around me, also outside of the designated “STANDING ROOM.” I could hear an attendant approaching and telling people they needed to stand in the marketd areas. Then amazingly, he went to every single person in my area EXCEPT ME. He tapped each person on the shoulder and politely explained that they needed to stand in the painted “STANDING ROOM” areas. But he just let me stand in the middle of the aisle and take pictures of Junior. How cool is that? He understood that it was important to me to get some shots of my guy, and he just let me stay there and do my thing.

“Thanks, dude!”

After Griff’s at bat, Tim was ready for a chocolate ice cream helmet, and we were lucky enough to walk by a standing room counter space right as a guy left it — so I watched the game from here (leaning around the pole) as Tim ate his ice cream:

FYI, if you want oreos, M&M’s or other toppings on your ice cream helmet at Fenway, I believe you have to go to the ice cream place behind the RF bleachers. They had no toppings at the ice cream stand at the back of the grandstand.

Here is a shot of the grandstand seating down the 1B line:

In my post for the July 3rd game, I mentioned that Tim and enjoyed standing in the walkway behind the grandstand seats down the 1B line. The red arrow in the last picture shows where we stood for several innings during this game. Here is what it looks like up close:

Tim is sitting on the step in this picture. He is checking out some beads that a Red Sox fan gave him on our walk to this spot. The guy was all dressed and painted up in red, white and blue for the Fourth of July. He saw Tim on my shoulders and gave him a set of red and blue beads. For the rest of the weekend, Tim had me wear one set while he wore the other.

Here is our view of the field from where Tim was sitting (FYI, the view is much better from the standing position — I really liked it in this spot):

Tim loved it in the aisle way. He was all smiles, that is until he grabbed his glove and started playing catcher:

Note, Tim is not wearing his shoes. He felt right at home at Fenway. He was in his socks probably 50% of the time while we were at Fenway during the weekend.

From the aisle, we watched the Mariners bullpen stand in a line:

(From left: Coach John Wetteland, Mark Lowe, Sean Kelley, David Aardsma (bald), Roy Corcoran (hat behind Aardsma), Sean White (looking down), Chris Jakubauskas, Not-Sure-Probably-Jason-Phillips, Not-Sure-Probably-Miguel-Batista — through the crack, pink backpack).

I’m not sure why the Mariners bullpen does this, but (as you’ll see) they do it a lot. They are standing in a line facing away from the scoreboard and toward the doorway from the bullpen to the field. I meant to try to ask someone in the bullpen what it was all about, but I forgot. My mom’s theory is that they are seeing off a bullpen-mate who is entering the game. I’m not sure. I don’t think a reliever came in at this point. Anyone have any ideas?

Finally, we had avoided the sun long enough, we decided to join my parents in our seats in CF. Here was our view:

[NOTE: While uploading that picture, Franklin Gutierrez hit a 3-run bomb against the Rangers to put the Mariners up 3-1 in the bottom of the 8th. Can we finally beat the Rangers? Yes! Go Mariners!]

Before sitting down, Tim showed my folks his shoulder-top power stroke:

My mom and the Fenway faithful taught Tim how to do his first “wave”:

The Mariners changed pitchers and the outfielders converged to do some stretching:

Soon, I decided to go down behind the Mariners bullpen, just in case Griffey, Ichi or Branyan decided to hit a HR there. Tim stayed with my folks for a bit, but then he requested to come down to me — by this point, the boy was bare footed (so I made him stay on my shoulders):

Can you spot us in that picture? We’re standing next to a police officer at the back upper corner of the bullpen. Notice anything else in that picture? Yep, the guys were back at it again:

I know there is some meaning to this, but what is it?

We watched Miguel Batista play catch with Ichiro between innings:

All of a sudden, Tim tells me, “Take a picture of those guys!”

Todd: “Who?”

Tim: “Those guys” (pointing, but I couldn’t see it because he was behind my head)

Todd: “Who? I can’t see where you’re pointing.”

Tim: “THOSE GUYS!”

Todd: “Buddy, I can’t see where you’re pointing. Who do you want me to take a picture of?”

Unknown Voice: “He’s pointing at me.”

Todd: “Oh, okay.”

Here are “those guys”:

“Those guys” didn’t care at all that Tim and I stood right here in the middle of the aisle for the last three innings of the game. Very cool. Thanks, those guys.

The police office asked Tim, “Hey, little guy, are you a Red Sox fan?”

I told him that we were Red Sox fans to the extent that we can’t stand the Yankees (sorry, Yankees fans). The officer responded, “That’s fine by me. We can accept that.” He was a nice guy.

Soon we saw this guy stretching out and warming up:

David Aardsma = Mariners Win.

The Happy Totals to prove it:

If you couldn’t tell, our seats were under the “great” in the “make something great” sign.

How awesome, three games into our weekend road trip, the Mariners are 3-0.

The bullpen guys marched back to the dugout to greet the rest of their teammates — Jakubauskas totes the pink backpack…hmmm…and my A-Rod ball?):

Then I watched a couple guys fix the Mariners bullpen mound. This closet is at the CF end of the Red Sox bullpen:

The bullpen fixer guys, like everyone else, were really nice too. One of them congratulated Tim on his team winning the game.

Before leaving Fenway, we got a family picture:

Tim shows off his Felix Hernandez ball.

It was the Fourth of July, so that night, we headed to the park along the river and watched some fireworks:

After fireworks, we returned to our hotel and who did we run into by the elevators? Mariners reliever and keeper of the pink backpack, Chris Jakubauskas. As he walked by, I called out, “Hey, Chris!?” He spun around, “Hey, man.”

He walked over and chatted with me and my folks for a couple minutes – probably about 3 minutes or so. Here is paraphrased excerpt of part of our conversation:

Todd: “So you got an A-Rod ball in your pink backpack?”

Chris: “Huh, what? Oh, yeah. Where’d that come from?”

Todd: “Its mine.”

Chris: “I was going through the backpack because I have to make sure we have certain things in there and I pull out this A-Rod ball. I’m like, ‘What the h— is this A-Rod ball?’ I took it around to everyone, ‘Did you put this A-Rod ball in there?’ No one knew about it.”

Todd: “I gave it to Jason Phillips the other night in New York”

Chris: “I’m gonna have to ask Phillips about that one.”

Todd: “I’ve had it sitting around for a couple years and couldn’t stand it, so I thought it would be happier in the pink backpack.”

Tim (to Chris): Do you want to come see my room?”

Chris: “What, little guy?”

Tim: “Do you want to come see my room?”

I told Tim that Chris has his own room and was on his way somewhere so he couldn’t come see our room. Before parting ways, I asked Chris if he’d watched the fireworks from his room in the hotel. He explained that David Aardsma (a former Red Sox player) got them out onto the Green Monster to watch the fireworks. Hmmm…its nice to be a major league ball player and to have connections!

It was very cool chatting with Jakubauskas. He was extremely nice and was glad to chat with some Mariners fans in the elevator bank. Many props to Jak. He’s got some fans in the Cook household.

After chatting with Jak, we called it a night and looked forward to our final game of the weekend the next day…

Season Fan Stats:

17 Games (plus one 5+ hour rain out with no game)
7 Stadiums (Safeco Field, Camden Yards, Citizens Bank Park, Citi Field, Nationals Park, Yankee Stadium, and Fenway Park)
13 Teams (Mariners, A’s, Rangers, Rays, Orioles, Tigers, Red Sox, Yankees, Phillies, Mets, Nationals, Braves and Padres, Dodgers — and sort of the Giants)
13 Ice Cream Helmets (Mariners (4), Phillies (3), Mets, Nationals (2), Red Sox (2) and Yankees)
15 Baseballs (10 Mariners, 2 Rangers, 1 Phillies, 1 Red Sox, 1 Umpire)
4 Divisions Closed Out (So far in Tim’s Life — AL West, AL East, NL West, NL East)
3 Autographs (King Felix Hernandez, Jason Phillips, Ryan Perry)
2 Player/G.M. Photographs (King Felix Hernandez, Jack Zduriencik, Ryan Perry)
5 Mascot Pictures (Mariners Moose (2), Orioles Bird (2), 3 Presidents (Nats), Screech (Nats))

July 8, 2009

Meeting Fenway (7/3/09)

The morning after watching the Mariners beat the Yankees in the Bronx, we woke up and ever so slowly drove to Boston. It was time for Tim to meet Fenway Park…

…and for the Mariners to battle the Boston Red Sox — the final team Tim needed to see to close out the A.L. East. As we walked down Lansdowne Street toward Gate C, the air was full of BBQ smoke and humidity:

As we entered the gate behind the CF bleachers, we were met with a maze of support beams, concession stands, and signs:

(Remember, you can click on any of these pictures to see a bigger view).

We entered the bleachers and found ourselves behind the Mariners bullpen:

Here was our view:

Batting practice was finished by the time we arrived. The catchers were stretching by the bullpens and the starting pitchers — Felix Hernandez (8-3) and Tim Wakefield (10-3) were about to arrive at the bullpens to warm up.

Hey, who is that standing in RF in front of the Mariners bullpen? Why its bullpen catchers extraordinaire Jason Phillips, “Hey, Jason!”

“Thanks, Jason!”

That is ball number 4 from Jason Phillips on the season, number 3 from Jason Phillips on the weekend, and Fenway is the third stadium with a ball from Jason Phillips this season.

You’re the man, Mr. Phillips!

My parents were excited to be back to Fenway for the first time since 2003, and for their first time ever to see the Mariners at Fenway.

We watched King Felix warm up:

When Felix was sufficiently warmed up he handed off his warmup ball to Mariners pitching coach Rick Adair, and Adair passed it on to this gentleman:

My pa’s first ball ever at Fenway.

I decided to go down to the first row in section 1:

In this picture, I had just gotten Jason Phillips’s attention. He walked over to the fence to chat with me. If you saw my entry from the night before, you may recall that I’d thrown an A-Rod Mariners photo ball to Phillips the night before at Yankee Stadium. I asked Phillips what he had done with my A-Rod ball.

Phillips: “I put it in the pink backpack!”

Todd: “Sweet! Thanks, man!”

We exchanged a celebratory high-five. He explained, however, that he couldn’t guarantee what would happen to it because he isn’t in charge of the pink backpack. So it might not last in there. That’s a-okay with me. I’m just happy it got in there at all. Either way, it is an honor if (i) the Mariners bullpen travels around with my A-Rod ball in the pink backpack or (ii) discards the A-Rod ball in a manner they deem appropriate.

Fenway is full of interesting views, and here are two of them I captured after chatting with Phillips:

If you enlarge that picture, you can see my dad waving to me through the fencing.

Next, it was time to tour around Fenway and get to know the park:

I wanted to capture this beautiful piece of history from every angle. And here is the first from our walking tour:

And here is another:

Check out these tiny aisles — that’s what is called *old school*:

We checked out the Mariners dugout — its always nice to see our boys up close:

You see first base coach Lee Tinsley standing next to Brandon Morrow in that picture to the left? A few seconds before this picture, he walked in front of where we were standing. I said, “Hi, Lee” and I flashed him my glove as if he had a ball — clearly, he did not. He nodded at us and walked into the tunnel to the M’s clubhouse. A few seconds later, he came back and stood right where he is standing in this picture. Tim and I were just standing around and taking in the scene and taking some pictures of the Mariners running in the outfield. Tinsley stood there for about 2 minutes and then, all of a sudden, he turned around and threw us a ball. He must have grabbed it when he went into the tunnel inside the dugout.

“Thanks, Lee!”

Here is what our view looked like at the dugout:

Next, we went out to the LF seats to watch the Mariners position players run and stretch. When we got there, it was time for the National Anthem:

I was excited — Griffey was playing!

While in this spot in the first row, Tim and I found ourselves sitting by a young boy named Tyler. I’d say he was about 8-9 years old. Tyler’s uncle has seats in the second row. He’s a nice guy, and a good Red Sox fan so I listened to him when he said Tim and I should just stay in the first row seats until some one came for them. If you say so, Tyler!

Here was our view as the M’s got ready for the game to start:

Here is a picture of us taken by one of Tyler’s seat-mates:

We sat in these seats for the first half of an inning — until Griff batted — and we chatted with Tyler the whole time, and a little with his family. We talked about two lopsided trades between the Mariners and Red Sox back in the 1990s — Jamie Moyer for Daren Bragg (advantage Mariners) and Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe for Heathcliff Slocumb (advantage Red Sox). At the end of the day, I think we’re the biggest winners — because Moyer became our all-time winningest pitcher in franchise history.

Anyway, back to the game, here was Tim’s view:

And here are some non-Mariners worth taking pictures of:

Here is some classic Ichiro leading off the game:

We got a great close-up look at my all-time favorite player — Mr. Ken Griffey, Jr.:

After Griffey’s at bat, we headed on for more of our walking tour of Fenway Park. Here is the concourse behind the seats in the LF corner:

Out in the concourse, we spotted a sign pointing to the staircase to the Green Monster seats. The gal checking tickets at the top of the Monster said I couldn’t get out there for a picture, but I could come back after the game. A lady who had tickets out there said she’d take a picture for me. Then she suggested that Tim and I should be in it. So she guilted the ticket checker into letting us go out about 10 feet onto the Monster for this picture:

Next, we walked the perimeter of the field level in the aisle that runs all the way from the Green Monster to the RF corner passed the Pesky Pole. Here is a panaramic view from behind home plate on the 3B side:

…and another from the 1B side:

Just to the right of this picture, there is a very cool looking ramp that leads to the rest of walkway around the 1B side of the grandstand and into RF:

It is truly amazing how small this park is compared to today’s standards. There is a concourse below the infield grandstand, but this little walkway is it as far as navigating behind the field level seats. On the other side of the aisle opposite the back of the seats there is just a 4 foot wall that overlooks the street outside of the park.

Along the wall is a step where people sit or stand to watch the game. It makes the aisle pretty small. But Tim and I loved it and, as you’ll see in our next entry, we spent a lot of time in this walkway over the course of the weekend.

On with the tour, the RF corner behind the Pesky Pole:

The grandstand seats are separated from the bleacher seats by an aisle that runs from the concourse out to the bullpen. Here is an interesting picture where you can see the back row of the grandstand (Section 1), the side row of the last section of the bleachers (Section 43), the break between the grandstand and bleachers, the concourse under the bleachers and a portion of the field:

With that picture, our ball park tour was finished for the day. It was time to grab some pizza and meet up with my folks to watch the rest of the game from the very back row of Section 42 of the bleachers:

We actually really enjoyed sitting in the back row. There is literally nothing behind you but a 1-2 foot thick concrete wall. We were able to stand up as much as we want without interfering with anyone’s view, and we sat next to a very nice group of recent grads from U.C.-Davis who were on a post-graduation tour of the United States in an R.V. Here was our view:

After pizza, we stood in the world’s longest ice cream line and picked up a $5.00 Red Sox ice cream helmet with crushed oreos topping:

After eating his ice cream, Tim spent some quality time in the bleachers with his grandparents:

Tim and I spent some time during the late innings standing in the exit ailses behind the Mariners bullpen where we had a good view of Jason Phillips, Chris Jakubauskas and the bullpen warrior helmets. I also noticed a little break in the side wall of the bullpen and took the bottom right picture through it:

I’m not sure who it was, but someone blew Felix Hernandez’s win. The game went into extra innings. Jakubauskas ended up coming in and pitching two strong innings for the win. Mark Lowe got the save despite a continuous stream of heckling while he warmed up and a career first homerun by George Kottaras in the bottom of the 11th that landed within 10 feet of me and Tim.

As Mariners announcer Rick Rizzs would say, here are the Happy Totals:

One note, when Ronny Cedeno came to the plate earlier in the game, the stadium announcer said, “Now batting, Randy…I mean, Ronny Cedeno.” Cedeno answered with a bomb to CF. As this picture shows, it was Randy’s…I mean, Ronny’s 4th bomb of the season.

After the game, I wanted to get a picture with the red seat in the RF bleachers. But first, we had to wait for the stands to clear out. While waiting, someone from the Red Sox bullpen walked over and handed us a ball.

“Thanks, unknown Red Sox bullpen dude.”

Here is the picture with the red seat:

According to Lauren, whose job is to be paid to watch all Red Sox home games while standing in the tunnel into the RF bleachers in Section 42, the red seat marks the spot where Ted Williams hit the longest homerun ever to land *inside* Fenway Park (i.e., maybe some longer home run has landed out on Lansdowne Street). She said it was 502 feet.

With that picture in hand, we hit the streets for a leisurely walk back to our hotel. Along our way, we ran into a familar face:

In case you don’t recognize him, that is Mariners General Manager Jack Zduriencik (zur-en-chick). Jack doesn’t shy away from the public. He too was walking back to the team’s hotel from Fenway along with thousands of others. It just so happened that my mom had booked us at the same hotel as the team, so we were walking to the same place. Jack came up to my folks and asked, “You folks from Seattle?” My mom yelled, “Jack!!!” And she complimented the fine job he is doing with the team.

Jack and his colleague — whose named I never heard, but he is apparently in charge of scouting for the Mariners — walked with us for a couple blocks. Tim was on my shoulders so he was at a perfect height to talk to Jack. They had the following conversation:

Jack: “Do you play baseball?”

Tim: “Yes!”

Jack: “What do you play?”

Tim: “Baseball!”

Jack said something to the effect that he’d come scout Tim some day. I like that plan.

With that, we called it a day.

Season Fan Stats:

16 Games (plus one 5+ hour rain out with no game)
7 Stadiums (Safeco Field, Camden Yards, Citizens Bank Park, Citi Field, Nationals Park, Yankee Stadium, and Fenway Park)
13 Teams (Mariners, A’s, Rangers, Rays, Orioles, Tigers, Red Sox, Yankees, Phillies, Mets, Nationals, Braves and Padres, Dodgers — and sort of the Giants)
12 Ice Cream Helmets (Mariners (4), Phillies (3), Mets, Nationals (2), Red Sox and Yankees)
14 Baseballs (9 Mariners, 2 Rangers, 1 Phillies, 1 Red Sox, 1 Umpire)
4 Divisions Closed Out (So far in Tim’s Life — AL West, AL East, NL West, NL East)
2 Autographs (Ryan Perry, Jason Phillips)
1 Player Photograph (Ryan Perry)
5 Mascot Pictures (Mariners Moose (2), Orioles Bird (2), 3 Presidents (Nats), Screech (Nats))

April 18, 2009

Weekend = Baseball

Stats Last Updated: May 7, 2009

Well, its the weekend. So, its time for some baseball. I’m not talking week-day watch-the-mariners-religiously-on-tv baseball, i’m talking live-in-person baseball. Unfortunately, once again, its not the Mariners on tap for me and the boy this weekend. Instead, its the Padres vs. Phils at Citizens Bank Park on Sunday. We have standing room tickets and plan to explore the entire park, and eat some ice cream in Phils helmets. It should be good.

Preparing for our second game of the season (and second stadium of the season), I thought i’d do a little tallying of Tim’s baseball stats thus far. Here we go:

Games By Stadium (this season):

Safeco Field – 9 (5)
Citizens Bank Park -8 (1)
Camden Yards – 4 (1)
PNC Park – 2
Great American Ball Park – 1
Shea Stadium – 1
Progressive Field – 1
Chase Field – 1
(Old) Yankee Stadium – 1
Citi Field – 1 (1)

We currently have tickets for games at Fenway Park (2), Citizens Bank (1), Camden Yards (1), HHH Metrodome (1), Wrigley Field (1), U.S. Cellular Field (1), Miller Park (1), and Nationals Park (1). Tomorrow, I will buy tickets to 2 more games at Citizens Bank Park. I have airplane tickets to Seattle, where I will buy tickets to 5 games at Safeco Field, and we will be back in Seattle for 2-3 games during the final week of the season. So, Safeco Field will be moving to No. 1 on this list shortly, where it belongs. (And, in defense of the current rankings, I note that we live 65 miles from Citizens Bank Park and roughly 2,800 miles from Safeco Field).

Games by Team (this season):

Seattle Mariners – 12 (5)
Philadelphia Phillies – 9 (1)
Baltimore Orioles – 4 (1)
New York Mets – 4 (1)
Oakland Athletics – 3 (3)
Cincinnati Reds – 3
Texas Rangers – 2 (2)
Minnesota Twins – 2
Cleveland Indians – 2
Pittsburgh Pirates – 2
St. Louis Cardinals – 2
Chicago Cubs – 1
Chicago White Sox – 1
Anaheim Angels of Anaheim – 1
Tampa Bay Rays – 1 (1)
Toronto Blue Jays – 1
San Francisco Giants – 1
Arizona Diamondbacks – 1
Florida Marlins – 1
Colorado Rockies – 1
Washington Nationals – 2 (1)
New York Yankees – 1
San Diego Padres – 1 (1)

Tim has also seen the Brewers, Giants, Rockies and Blue Jays in Spring Training games, but I don’t count them.

We currently have tickets to see the Phils and Padres tomorrow, the Mariners (3), Red Sox (2), Yankees (1), Mets (1), Nationals (2), Pirates (1), Cubs (1), Astros (1), Orioles (1), Tigers (1), Brewers (1), Royals (1), White Sox (1), Twins (1), and Indians (1). Tomorrow, I will buy tickets to see the Phils play the Dodgers (1) and Braves (1). And, as mentioned, in May we will see 5 games in Seattle between the Mariners and Athletics (3) and Rangers (2). So, like Safeco Field, the Mariners will be moving to No. 1 on this list shortly, where they belong.

I will update this entry as we check off new teams and new stadiums. Stay tuned.

PS – While writing this blog, the Indians scored 14 runs against the Yankees in the second inning. HAHAHA…Excellent!

PPS – Here is a shot of the first pitch of Tim’s first MLB game. It is Gil Meche delivering a strike to Frank Catalanotto (Blue Jays) on September 12, 2006: