After a tough Mariners loss in our first game of the season at Safeco Field, we were back for more the next day on August 14, 2012.  Counting this game, we had two more Mariners games on our schedule for the season.  The Mariners had a 2-2 record in our previous four 2012 Mariners games.  A Mariners win at this game would ensure that we would not suffer a losing *in-person* Mariners season in 2012.

We wanted the win bad.  So we brought out our secret weapon:

This would be Colleen’s first Mariners game (or any baseball game for that matter) of the season.  The M’s would certainty want to win the game for this special occasion, right?

Well, let’s see.

We parked in the old Kingdome lot again.  This time, Kellan and I sped ahead as the rest of our crew walked lazily toward the “The Pen” entrance at Safeco Field.

Kellan and I hurried and grabbed a spot at the SRO counter behind the Mariners bullpen:

I had to stuff my giveaway Mariners shirt into my backpack so I set Kellan down on the counter.  As I was tussling with the backpack, Mariners supervisor-type-gal walked by and told me Kellan couldn’t sit on the counter.  I’m pretty sure she told me that last season too.  Oh, well, she gave Tim a baseball last season, too, so she’s okay in my book.

We’ve had amazing luck collecting a few baseballs at games this season.  It’s been a blast.  And entering this game we were sitting on a milestone.  Our next baseball would be our 100th of the season.  As a kid trying non-stop to catch a baseball at BP at the Kingdome with very, very, veeeerrry little luck, it is utterly amazing to me that we were about to hit 100 baseballs for the second season in a row.

But you know what?  It is a different time these days, and it is lots of fun.

Anyway, while at the SRO counter (in the spot pictured above), I noticed there were 3-4 Mariners in LF in front of the visitors’ bullpen.  It was hard to see them because they were behind the bullpen bench and its little canopy.

Kellan and I headed over there and stood in the little nook below the stairs up to the field level concourse.  It looked like this:

Shortly after we arrived, someone hit a ball right down the LF line.  Shawn Kelley ran over to field it and throw it back to the bucket.  But he walked back to his group of teammates before throwing it.  And, in doing so, he walked through that little break between the bullpen canopy and hand-operated scoreboard on the LF wall.  I called out his name and he promptly tossed us the baseball.

Big thanks, Shawn!

Soon, the rest of the stadium opened up.  Kellan and I headed out to the seats in RF.  I was thinking it would be cool if Kellan and I could catch a HR on the fly like we did last season.  No dice.

But right as Colleen and Tim showed up, Tom Wilhelmsen tossed us this baseball:

Thanks, Bartender!

It was way too sunny and warm out in RF.  Aye, aye, aye…it is so massively hot in Pennsylvania during the summer.  We’re a cold weather family and the last thing we want when we go to Seattle is hot weather.  But we just happened to visit during the hottest week of the summer.  It was in the 90s several days.  Anyway, we had to head for the shady seats in foul territory down the 3B line.

But, first, Tim had to stop by and get his picture with a bunch of military troops who were assembling in section 106:

As we relocated, the Mariners cleared the field.  When we reached foul territory, Kellan spent some quiet time watching the Rays pitchers playing catch:

Tim and I joined in the action with Kellan:

See that guy in the grass right in front of Kellan?  That is Rays bullpen catcher Scott Cursi.  Twenty-four hours earlier, Cursi had walked up to Kellan out of the blue and handed him a baseball.

Well, after finishing playing catch at this game, Cursi walked over to us and handed baseballs to both Tim and Kellan:

There really wasn’t anyone else over there but us.  He came over specifically to hand baseballs to both of the boys.  It was pretty awesome.

He engaged in a little baby’ish small talk with Kellan (FYI, Kellan is a big kid now!  He’s no baby!).

Then Cursi said to me in a questioning tone, “You were here yesterday?”  How weird is that?  He recognized us from the day before and he still walked over and gave both boys baseballs?  That is pretty darn cool.

Big huge thanks, Scott Cursi!

But he wasn’t done yet.  He then went on to warn us to be very careful over there in foul territory so we don’t get hit by any baseballs.  Tim responded by telling Cursi how one of the A’s hit him with a baseball last season.  Cursi reiterated that we had to be very careful!

I thanked him a bunch.

And then he posed for a picture with Tim:

That’s pretty sweet.

Thanks, again, Scott!

Tim developed a new obsession during this series that I am going to do my best to confine to just this series:  asking ushers for baseball cards.

Since Tim has been going to MLB games, ushers from time-to-time have given him baseball cards.  He likes them a lot and has a nice little collection, nothing fancy, but it’s fun for him.  Well, at this series, Tim realized he could be proactive and simply ask ushers for a card when he sees an usher.

So, after our interaction with Cursi, Tim decided he wanted to go over to the dugout and ask the usher over there for some baseball cards.  So we went marching off in that direction:

Behind the dugout, I noticed something funny:

That is Evan Longoria raking the dirt around 3B.  I think he started out trying to fix something he didn’t like with the dirt, but then he switched over and tried to get in his teammate’s way with the rake (as he is doing in that last picture).

The ushers at the dugout gave both boys several baseball cards.  And in the process, my mom showed up.  Then we headed back toward the LF foul corner, and we had someone take our picture along the way:

My mom and Tim then headed off to the kids’ play area, Colleen headed to the Mariners team store, and I hung out with my dad and Kellan down the foul line:

We were sitting back hoping someone would hit a foul ball to my dad…

…, but the Rays were not cooperating.

Eventually, Colleen returned and we all headed up the stairs…

…and over to the playarea:

A couple things to note that group of pictures.  Kellan climbed up to the top of the play set and then got scared and wouldn’t move.  I had to climb up to the top and coax him out of there.  While up there, I took the top two pictures above from inside the play set.

In that bottom left picture above, the arrow is pointing to my buddy from high school, Mark, who was attending that game with my best buddy, Paul.  I hadn’t seen Mark in a couple years so it was good to briefly catch up with him.

Our seats for all three games this week were in RF, right behind Ichi…oh..wait.  No.  There, sadly, was no Ichiro.  We were stationed behind Eric Thames instead.  Here was our view as Kevin Millwood delivered the first pitch of the game:

I should mention that, instead of joining us at our seats, Colleen headed back to the Mariners team store at the beginning of the game.  She was in search of some good deals.

Now, unfortunately, things didn’t start too well for Millwood and the Mariners.  Desmond Jennings led off with a single to LF.  BJ Upton followed with a triple, scoring Jennings.  And two batters later, Evan Longoria hit a sac fly to score Upton and make it 2-0 Rays.

So, things didn’t start too great.  And it didn’t looked too good because Matt Moore was on the hill for the Rays.

In the bottom of the first inning, I went to get some pizza and nachos:

Nothing was doing for the Mariners in the bottom of the first.  Luckily, Millwood locked things down after the first inning.

And then the Mariners got one run back in the bottom of the second inning on a back-to-back doubles by Justin Smoak and Miguel Olivo.

After polishing off our own food, Kellan moved on to my mom’s food.  He *crushed* him some sweet potato fries:

Eventually, I realized that Colleen was still shopping!  I couldn’t believe it.  I “discussed” the situation with the Mariners over Twitter:

She finally arrived at our seats in the fourth inning!  That’s a lot of shopping.

In the fourth, Millwood was looking strong:

And I started taking some pictures, like this one:

And this one:

My dad and I noticed that B.J. Upton has some huge feet, or he wears clown shoes:

Here’s another set of cute shots of Colleen and Kellan:

Mid-game, Tim and my mom decided to go on an adventure.  They started out with Tim taking an artistic picture of the RF foul pole…

…and then an usher took a picture of my mom and Tim while she was telling them that section 110 (RF foul pole section) was closed for the game.

Then it was off to the Mariners pig…

…and a big pepsi sign by the play area.

Tim posed on the pick-off wall in the M’s Hall of Fame area:

And then they ran into the Mariners Moose:

They also collected a boat-load of baseball cards from the field level ushers.  As I mentioned, Tim was hooked on baseball card collecting.

When Tim and my mom returned from their adventure, I grabbed some ice cream helmets for the boys and Kellan and I took his ice cream to the bullpen for a change of scenery:

It was still 2-1 Rays.

Millwood was still pitching, but Lucas Luetge was warming in the pen:

Oh, yeah, and when Kellan was sitting on the SRO counter eating ice cream, that same supervisor lady from the beginning of BP came over and leaned in and said, “I know you know, so I’m not even going to say it.”

Oops!

So, we decided to head back our seats.

On our way back to the seats, we stopped and got this panorama of Safeco Field from the Dave Niehaus statue:

Colleen had bought some sweet potato fries on her town, and Kellan really enjoyed sharing them with her:

We had a pitchers’ duel on our hands.  Not much offensive activity to report.  Hey, Trayvon Robinson hit a foul ball:

And we started our own exclusive Cook family wave:

Millwood gave way to Lucas Luetge to start the top of the 8th inning.  Luetge retired the first batter on a fly ball and then turned the ball over to Stephen Pryor:

Pryor retired the next two batters and sent the game into the bottom of the 8th with the score still 2-1 in favor of the Rays.

Colleen, the boys and I take a ton of pictures as a family, but we tend not to get many pictures of all of us as a family.  Over the last several years, some of our best (and most of our) family photos have been taken at Safeco Field.  Late in the game, we added to our catalog of Safeco Field family photos.

Here’s one:

And another:

And as we moved to the bottom of the ninth inning and the white shirts started waving (these shirts were a giveaway at this game)…

…to spur on a Mariners rally, we took a few more family pictures like this one:

Now, it was getting down to game time.  Bottom of the 9th, the M’s were still down by 1.  I felt good.  Even though the Rays had Fernando Rodney and his sub-1.0 ERA and only 1 blown save on the mound, I was confident the M’s could walk off with the win.

You see, this was the fourth time we had seen the Rays this season, and 2 of those 3 games has resulted in walk-off loses for the Rays, including Rodney’s one and only blown save and loss of the season up to this date.

Kyle Seager led off the inning with a single to RF.  We were in business!

Chone Figgins followed with a sacrifice bunt gone awry for the Rays.  First baseman Carlos Pena fielded the ball and threw it past the bag and down the RF line.  Seager advanced to 3B and Figgins to 2B on the error.  We were really in business now!!

Justin Smoak followed with a sacrifice fly that scored Seager to tie up the game and sent Figgins to 3B, ninty feet from the win.  Yes!

The Rays got desperate and creative.  When Miguel Olivo came to the plate with one down, the Rays brought right fielder Ben Zobrist in to play behind 2B as a fifth infielder:

It was a cool strategic move to see from Joe Maddon.  I was hoping we could *beat* the move with a soft liner down the RF or LF line for the win.  But it didn’t happen.  Actually, Miguel Olivo rendered the move moot by striking out.

So we turned to new-Mariner Eric Thames.  And guess what?  Thames hit a soft liner just over the glove of second baseman Sean Rodriguez.

MARINERS WIN!!!

Thames got a big ol’ shaving cream pie to the face:

In fact, he ended up spitting out a bunch of shaving cream.

Great Mariners win!

It was only Kellan’s second Mariners home win, and we were psyched about it:

And the win ensured us that we would not have a *losing* in-person Mariners season.  Hooray!

Now, we were one Mariners win (on Thursday) from hopefully securing a *WINNING*in-person Mariners season.  Double-hooray!!!

We celebrated a bit more with a grandparents-included Cook family photo:

And then we headed to the door with smiles on our faces.  On the way out, I snapped a parting-shot panorama from the concourse behind section 106:

And we watched the seagulls swoop in for some post-game feeding in the stands:

The good times continued on our way down the street toward my folks’ car.  Tim got a Safeco Field fire hydrant photo…

…a silly cop pose (that he did completely on his own) in front of a Seattle Police car, and finally a picture with a big picture of a hawk on the outside of Century Link Field (the *Clink*).

MARINERS WIN!  MARINERS WIN!  MARINERS WIN!

2012 C&S Fan Stats

 BONUS PICTURE:  Here is a look at 99 of the baseball cards that Tim and Kellan (mostly Tim) collected at our three games in Seattle:

After our April 28th game at Camden Yards, our next game was supposed to be the first of the Fifth Annual Cook Grandfather-Father-Son Baseball Roadtrip on May 12th.  The weekend of Cinco de Mayo, we were supposed to head south to Colleen’s sister’s house for our nephew’s first communion.  The plan was for me to leave work early on Friday, May 4 so we could drive south.  But plans changed.  I had to work later than expected.  As it stood, we would have arrived at our destination late.  So Colleen decided to go to her sister’s house alone while I stayed home and tended to the boys.

So…hmm…home all weekend with my boys…hmm…what should we do?

Actually, it took me less time to figure out the plan than it took you to read that last sentence:  we would go see the Mets and Diamondbacks at Citi Field!

I bought some tickets on Stub Hub and we headed out for Queens, NY at around 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 5, 2012.  On our drive, our plans changed again.  Instead of our usual practice of parking on the upper east side and then riding the subway to the park, while Kellan mostly slept and Tim played *fun with meat* with a  beef stick…

…we ended up driving all the way to Citi Field.  It cost…I think…$16.50 to drive across those two bridges on our way, but the freeway dropped us off right behind the scoreboard in CF of Citi Field.

After driving around the stadium the wrong way and then circling back, we parked in the general parking lot and BOOM…

…we had made it to Citi Field!

FYI, I do not normal dress Kellan in the morning.  So I did not realize at the time that I had put him in a teeny-tiny Ichiro shirt.  But, hey, it made him look like a big muscly stud.

We had about 45 minutes until the gates open for non-season ticket holders.  Our plan was to take a ride on the 7-train for kicks.  But we ended up having a lot of fun at the stadium and never hopped the train.

We started out with some pictures at the Shea Stadium homerun apple:

Tim has been working on catching pop flies lately so it was cool to get a picture of him catching one in front of the Big Apple.  It was fun, but not everyone appreciated our good time.  You can’t tell from that last picture, but the flower beds in which the homerun apple sits is elevated a couple feet off of the ground.  The path that runs across the front of the apple runs to the edge of the elevated flower beds so people can hop up and get a picture.  At the end of the path running to the left (on the “Home” side of the apple), a very large and odd lady was sitting on the edge of the flower beds.  She was apparently upset that Kellan wandered into the flowers (I got him out of them within about five seconds) and that Tim was playing with a (dangerous) ball *near* other people.  She didn’t really confront me, but she started muttering loudly so I could hear her displeasure.  I didn’t think we were doing anything wrong, but I took her hint, and we left.

There were hardly any cars in the parking lot right in front of the Jackie Robinson rotunda so I decided we should go play catch in the parking lot.  But on our walk over there, I noticed something awesome:  a nice strip of grass along the edge of the parking lot.

So we took our gloves and baseballs over there…

…and had a heap of fun playing around.

Kellan mainly just ran around jumping and laughing.  Tim and I played catch.  And for extra kicks, we played catch for a while over a forked tree:

Tim and I were hooping and hollering when Tim finally caught a pop fly through the tree, which was really difficult because the ball would get lost in the branches as it went through the tree.  It was a lot of fun.  But then the unthinkable happened!

Tim tossed the ball over the tree to me…

…and it never came down!

Tim somehow threw the ball just perfectly that it landed in the little nook in the tree and stayed there.  I pulled another ball (not a real baseball) out of my backpack and tried to knock the first ball out of the tree.  I hit the first ball several times, but it never fell down.  And, eventually, neither did the second ball!

We lost TWO BASEBALLS in that tree!

Tim was not happy.  It caused him a lot of pain walking away from that tree without being able to bring his baseballs.  Those were baseballs we play with a lot in the backyard.  So it is sad to have lost them.

As we walked away from the tree, I said to Tim, “Hey, you should think of this as a good thing.  I mean, how many people can say their baseball is stuck in the tree outside Citi Field?”  “Probably about a thousand,” was Tim’s response.  But I think he overshot it just a bit.  I’m pretty sure our baseballs are the only baseballs stuck in that tree!

With no baseballs left, we decided to hop in line for the last 15 minutes before the gates opened:

Tim and Kellan played around that tree a bunch, and then Kellan ran up to the front of the line so I followed him while Tim held our place in line.  Kellan and I ended up having 5-6 races down the strip of concrete strip, much to the delight of the people in the line.  Several fans ahead of us in line gave Kellan compliments on his Ichiro t-shirt.

Once inside the stadium, we had to stop and get a picture with this pig before heading off to BP:

While putting this blog entry together, Tim had me make his shirt into a Mets t-shirt.

We decided to switch things up at this game.  Every time we’ve been to Citi Field in the past, we’ve headed to LF for BP.  But the Mets are using 50th Anniversary commemorative baseballs this season and they warm up down the RF line.  So that’s where we headed.  Tim had bounced back from the balls-lost-in-the-tree fiasco and was excited for a fun day at the ballpark:

When we reached the field, the Mets pitchers were finished throwing and a bunch of them were running from the foul line to CF and then…

…walking back to the foul line.  That is Bobby Parnell on the far right end.  He kept smiling and waving at Tim and Kellan each time the pitchers returned to the foul line.  He seemed like a really nice and friendly dude.

Once the pitchers finished running, they all dispersed but one stayed right in the RF corner.  It was our buddy from several weeks prior, Tim Byrdak.

The first time someone hit a ball down the RF line to Byrdak, I called out, “Hey, Tim!”

Byrdak turned and tossed Tim a big underhand lob:

That ball actually fell a tiny bit short, tipped off the very end of Tim’s glove and rolled back toward Byrdak.  He tossed it again from about half way out on the green tarp and Tim caught it.  Just then, another ball was hit down the line to Byrdak.

Kellan was standing on the ground next to me and Tim.  Byrdak looked at Kellan and asked, “Do you want one too?”  Then he turned back to Tim and said he would have to catch Kellan’s ball too.

As all of this happened, Byrdak kept getting closer and closer and we were chatting a little bit.  You know, a funny thing happened a couple weeks back after our first game of the season when Byrdak tossed a ball to Tim.  I wrote it up on our blog and, the very next day, I got an email from Tim Byrdak’s agent (Mike Mosa who represents “Only Baseball Players”) mentioning that he read the blog and thought it was great.  He offered to send us some autographed Tim Byrdak cards, and they arrived in the mail about a week later.  I told Byrdak how all of this had happened.  He thought that was pretty cool.

I asked Byrdak if he would sign a ball for Tim.  Tim made sure it was the ball Byrdak had tossed up for him, not the ball for Kellan.  In retrospect, I should have asked him to sign both balls because he ended up giving Tim just about the coolest autograph of all time:

Once he was finished signing the ball, he tossed it back up to Tim and then he tossed the pen, which bounced out of Tim’s glove.  Afterwards, Tim gushed about how he “caught three baseballs and almost caught a pen” from Tim Byrdak.  It was pretty funny.

Super, huge, ridiculous thank yous to Tim Byrdak!

The day was off to a fabulous start.  And it was just gonna keep being awesome.

We hadn’t planned to try to see Byrdak at this game, we just got extremely lucky.   But we did have one major plan.  The Mets were going to be playing the Arizona Diamondbacks and beloved former-Mariner Willie “Ballgame” Bloomquist.  Tim has loved Willie for  awhile now, although he didn’t realize until recently that he is no longer a Mariner, and hasn’t been for a long time.

Anyway, my dad gave Tim a Willie Bloomquist card last year that he has always had in a single card holder.  Tim decided he wanted to try to get Bloomquist to sign the card at this game.  If it worked, it would be the first time Tim had ever gotten a card signed by a player.

After parting ways with Tim Byrdak, we walked around CF and all the way over toward the 3B dugout, or as close as we could get to it without our tickets.  A bunch of Diamondbacks were out playing catch, but Bloomquist was nowhere in sight.

We were stationed in the second row right behind a handicapped seating area that was not accessible to fans unless you had tickets in that area.  The handicapped seating area was right on the field level.  Right in front of us on the other side of the handicapped seating area, Lyle Overbay and John McDonald were playing three-way catch with Paul Goldschmidt.  When finished, Goldschmidt walked over to Overbay.  McDonald had already walked off.  And when Overbay left, Goldschmidt…

…tossed us their warm up baseball and then headed toward the dugout.

Thanks, Paul!

Very soon after this, we spotted Willie Bloomquist in the 3B dugout.  I was intentionally wearing my Bloomquist Mariners t-shirt.  I called out a loud and low “WWWWWWIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLIE!”  When Bloomquist looked our way, I turned around and gave him a double-thumb “check out my shirt” point toward the back of my shirt.  He signaled his approval with a big fist pump.

A few minutes later, Bloomquist walked out toward 3B to warm up.   I called out to him again.  When he looked over, I asked him if he would sign Tim’s card after he finished his warm ups.  He immediately turned and proceeded to walk directly toward us.

As he approached, the usher in charge of keeping the riff-raff out of the handicapped seating area turned to me and asked, “Is this Willie coming over to see you?”  When I responded in the affirmative, she said, “Okay, you guys can all come down here” and she unchained the special area for me, Tim and Kellan.

On his way over, Willie stopped and picked up a baseball.  He then signed the baseball and Tim’s card for Tim.  We chatted a little.  He asked if we were from Seattle and I explained I had lived there for 20+ years and we’re huge Mariners fans.  He asked where I lived in the Seattle area.  I complimented him on his number switch from “16” as a Mariner to “18” as a Diamondback.  I wear “18” myself in softball and did in my former life as a baseball player.  He confessed, “I never liked 16!”

And then we all posed for a picture taken by the usher:

Check out how Willie is actually in the seating area with us, not out of on the field.

It was all incredibly awesome!

Then, after chatting with us, signing for us, giving Tim a baseball, and posing for a picture, Willie headed back out to warm up in LF.  As he left, a thunderous chorus of “WILLIE! WILLIE! WILLIE!” rained down from about 20 people who had gathered around to watch us chat with Willie.  But Willie was gone.  He came to see us and only us.  How cool is that!?

Thank you, Willie Ballgame!

Now Tim likes Willie even more than before!  And he was officially rooting for the D-backs to win this game.

Immediately after Willie left, we all headed up to the concourse.  I was so excited that I left my back pack down in the second row and we had a comeback for it several minutes later when we finally realized it was missing.

Next, it was time to sit down and check out one of Tim’s new prizes:  the Tom Seaver bobblehead that they gave to the first 20 or 30 thousand fans.  Tim loves bobbleheads and he was very excited about this one:

Tim decided we should sit in the last row of section 136 (although, it might have been 137).  This was our view:

Kellan drank some water and ate some snacks, and then spit some snacks into our water (foul!), while Tim surveyed his bobblehead.

After Tim had his fill of looking at his bobblehead and they both had their fill (for the time being) of snacks, the three of us headed down to the first row above the new LF party deck so I could check it out.  This is what it looks like:

I assume we’ll never set foot down there.

We hung out there for a while and watched BP.  Brad Ziegler was right in front of us:

At one point, Kellan and Ziegler looked eyes and Kellan gave him a big “Hi, Mister Baseball Player” wave.  Ziegler cracked a big smile and waved back at Kellan enthusiastically.  When that happened, I was 95% certain that the next ball Ziegler fielded would end up in Kellan’s hands…and it did.  Someone hit a ball to his right.  Ziegler went over and fielded it, and then walked towards us and tossed it to me.  Kellan grabbed it and held it tight like it was his new favorite toy.  And Tim and I yelled out a big,

“Thank you!” to Mr. Ziegler.

And then, like Kaiser Soze, *poof* we disappeared.

We were off to the very steep and awkward RF bleachers.  This was our view:

We hung out there for a while and watched former Reading Phillies pitcher and former heckler at one of my beer league softball games, Mike Zagursky, shag balls with a couple teammates.

While in RF, we checked out the new fence lines at Citi Field.  Here is the crazy new set up in RCF:

Weird!

When BP wrapped up, we headed out to the kids play area in CF.  They have some batting cages, a whiffle ball field, and some video game stations.  Tim switched things up from past games at Citi Field, instead of heading to the whiffle ball field, he tried out the video game station.  It was one of those new baseball games they’re always advertising…maybe the one with the Justin Verlander commercials.  Kellan tried to get into the action with Tim.  But Kellan also did some running around in circles, which eventually resulted in him falling face first on the pavement.  And that sent us to the first aid station for a skinned-knee clean up and bandage:

After the first aid room, we headed to the upper-deck, grabbed some food and headed to our seats in section 420:

We had a great view of the action while the boys chowed down on dogs and fries:

The Diamondbacks (with Tim cheering them on loudly) sent Patrick Corbin to the mound…

…and he sat the Mets (including David Wright) down in order in the first.

The Mets sent their ace, Johan Santana, to the mound:

And while he would eventually earn the win, he lost the battle against Ryan Roberts in the top of the second inning:

That made the score 1-0 Diamondbacks.  Tim was happy!

We were having a nice time watching the game and eating out tasty food.  After he finished eating, Tim decided he was jealous of his little brother for getting to sit on dad’s lap.  So he jump on my right leg.  I had to get a picture as I played the role of easy chair for both boys at once:

Hey, you can’t beat a day at the ballpark with two son’s snuggling up on you lap.

Over Easter weekend, Tim and I, my brother-in-law Kevin and nephew Gill watched the movie “The Big Year.”  If you haven’t seen it, go check out The Big Year.  It’s a very nice (and extremely positive) tale of a group of bird watchers who are in a contest to see who can spot the most birds during the calendar year.

We’ve always been into watching birds in our back yard, but we were never “birders” until we watched The Big Year.  Now, we are officially sub-amateur birders.  Every once in a while Tim spots a bird and tells me, “remember, we’re birders!” and instructs me to take a picture.  So, that’s a long backstory for very little payoff – in the second or third inning, Tim spotted…

…a pigeon!  This little guy was watching the game from the top of the stadium behind home plate.

After watching The Big Year, my father-in-law and brother-in-law told me we should do a “Big Year” in MLB ballparks.  Okay, here we go. We’re now at 1 species!

Around the third inning, we decided to go for a walk.  We ended up walking down toward the LF foul corner, and then we decided to walk down the switch-back walk way, all the way down to ground level.

As we started on our way down, I took this shot of the parking lot:

It was our first time parking here, so I figured I should capture it.  We were parking in the single row of cars between the two red arrows (in fact, I can see our car!).  As the big “X” shows, Shea Stadium used to sit right out there.  The Mets practically built Citi Field right on top of Shea Stadium.

I still very much prefer Shea over Citi Field.

Tim loves switch-back ramps!  After getting his picture with the Citi Field sign on the outside of the stadium…

…Tim ran and bounced down the ramp like an out of control airplane.

We stopped off on the second level…I think it has some silly name like Excelsior Level…and stopped into the Acela Club.  I bought our tickets on stub hub for two reasons: (1) they were the cheapest tickets I found online and (2) they said they came with access to the Acela Club, the Ceasar Club and the Promenade Club.  Unfortunately, if the tickets normal do have that type of access, any tickets that are run through stub hub come out lacking the special designations that normally allow you access to these clubs.  Anyway, we stopped in and I showed our tickets to the lady and asked if we had access.  She said our tickets didn’t say we had access, but she said they never turn people down who want to come in and see the Acela Club.  So we strolled through.

Here is the bar area:

My pictures of the dining area on the same level as the bar turned out all blurry.  But here is the view of the field looking down over several levels of dining tables:

This is a sit down restaurant.  Looks pretty cool, but not of interest to us, excepts as a new spot to walk through and check out what it looks like.

We continued on our way down the switch-back ramp.  I love spots like this where you get a little glimpse of the field:

You know what happens when Tim does something (anything)?  Kellan wants to do it too.  As we continued on our walk down, down, down, Kellan tried to do his own running airplane:

At the bottom of the ramp (we went ALL THE WAY down, below field level), we rode an elevator back up to the field level.  And then we walked over to the SRO area behind the seats and got a glimpse of the action:

It was still 1-0 Diamondbacks as the Mets batted.

We decided to head back out to the play area.  On the way, I got a shot of the new party deck from the opposite angle of our earlier picture:

Those big circles behind the party deck used to be on the old outfield wall.  The Mets apparently need all the help they can get to hit homeruns.

Despite the bloody knee, Kellan was not discouraged.  He ran around like crazy, with no spills this time…

…and Tim played more video game baseball.  In that picture, he is celebrating a homerun.

After leaving the video game area, we grabbed some ice cream helmets (check out the Mets awesome commemorative ice cream hemlets!), and headed to the picnic tables behind the bullpens.

This bullpen picnic area provides a terrible view of the game.  But it cool to check out from time-to-time because you can watch the relievers warm up…

…and from time to time someone will toss you a baseball.

And guess what?  This was one of those times.  Kellan was chattin’ up two bullpen attendant guys and they loved him.  I had no clue it was happening, but one of them headed into the Mets bullpen and came back with something special for Kellan:

Yowzers!  That’s one beautiful baseball.  I’m not sure how our day could be any better – playing catch outside the stadium, Byrdak, Bloomquist, fun times goofing around the stadium, and now a Mets 50th Anniversary commemorative baseball!  This was officially my favorite of the handful of games we have attended at Citi Field.

I should mention that the Mets scored four runs while we were hanging out behind the bullpen.  It was the bottom of the fourth inning.  Mike Nickeas hit a 2-RBI single off of Corbin.  And then Josh Collmenter, who we watched warm up in the bullpen, came in and gave up a 2-RBI single to Andres Torres.

That made the score 4-1 Mets.

The Diamondbacks would get two back on a 2-RBI double by Paul Goldschmidt in the top of the fifth.  That made it 4-3 Mets.  Unfortunately for Tim and the Dbacks, that was all the scoring for the day.  Johan Santana earned the win for the Mets.

Next, we headed to the Mets Hall of Fame.  We’d been there before (well, Kellan hadn’t).  But they had something in there that was pretty cool, and I’m pretty sure it was new — a display of 50 years of Mets team programs:

We actually went to the Mets Hall of Fame because I wanted to get a picture of the boys with the Jackie Robinson “42.”  Of course, Tim didn’t feel like do a normal pose.  So he flopped all around the 42 and Kellan tried his best to emulate his big brother.  This was my favorite of the handful of pictures I got:

Lounging with 42!

My boys are goofy.

Anyway, we decided to head up to the Pepsi Porch.

In the top of the seventh, Santana got Justin Upton (who we were hoping would hit a big fly) to ground out weakly:

We just hung out in a handicapped seating area behind the seats.  The boys alternated between watching the action…

…and just dancing around like the silly boys they are.

It was getting late in the game, and I had designs on trying to a post-game Citi Field umpires ball, which is very difficult because they check tickets at all times, even with 2-outs and 2 strikes on the last batter in the bottom of the ninth.

On our way to the umpires tunnel area, we walked around the upper deck and go this silly picture behind section 420 (where we sat for all of 2-3 innings):

We watched the last inning and a half from the SRO area behind the section above the umpires’ tunnel.  It was a one run game and it got interest in the top of the ninth.  When Lyle Overbay reached first with one out, the Diamondbacks brought in Willie Bloomquist to pinch run…

…and he quickly swiped second.

Way to go, Willie!

But that was all see wrote.  The Dbacks couldn’t tie it up and they lost 4-3.

The second the game ended, we high tailed it down the stairs against the current of people flooding the exits.  But we managed to get through and reach the umpires’ tunnel before Jerry Layne entered the tunnel.  Layne ended up giving out three baseballs directly into little kids’ gloves, and then he just randomly tossed 3-4 more.  And luckily, we snagged one of them.

Although it was unintentional, thanks, Jerry!

Then we headed over to the dugout, and Diamondbacks bullpen coach Glenn Sherlock tossed us a baseball on his way in from the bullpen.

Thanks, Glenn!

After the game, we got a picture by the end of the visitors’ dugout:

This game was official getting ridiculous!  We had 8 baseballs including two commemoratives, plus interactions and autographs with Byrdak and Bloomquist.  It was crazy.

And it wasn’t quite done yet.

On our way out of the seat area, we walked behind the dugout and this guy…

…gave Kellan another baseball!

Thanks, guy!

Aye, aye, aye…this was our second biggest baseball total ever (tying Tim’s fourth MLB anniversary last September):

It was nice having the car right outside the stadium.  But I think this will be our last time driving to Citi Field.  It is more fun to ride the 7-train out from Manhattan.  Plus, it took forever to get out of the city on the roads from Queens.  The game ended around 7:30 and we got home around 11:20.

But a long and slow drive can’t change our mood:  this was a great day.  Tons of fun!

Hooray for baseball!

2012 C&S Fan Stats

Since we live about 75 miles from the closest MLB stadium, every game we go to is sort of like a mini-roadtrip.  We like roadtrips!

With our first game still a couple weeks away, Tim and I took our first mini-roadtrip of the season this weekend.  We had tickets to the Phillies’ April 4th “On-Deck Series” game.  It is a pre-season exhibition game played at Citizens Bank Park.  We attended an On Deck Series game once before — in 2008 (at the end of that entry).  But this year it is on a Tuesday night and we can’t make it.  On stubhub, the tickets were selling for next to nothing.  So it was either exchange the tickets or waste them.  I called the Phillies and they said I could exchange the tickets for a later date, but there were two catches (1) it had to be done in person at Citizens Bank Park and (2) it had to happen at least 48 hours before the game (which meant we had to do it on Saturday).  I asked my wife if there were anything kid-friendly family events we could do on Saturday in Philadelphia, but she didn’t know of anything.

So Tim and I decided to make an afternoon of it.  No big plans.  Just drive to Philadelphia and exchange the tickets.  But we found ways to have some fun along the way and the 5+hour trip ended up being a great time.

I lived in Center City Philadelphia for three years while I was in school.  Instead of driving to Citizens Bank Park, we decided to drive to my old stomping ground.  We parked next to one of my old pizza places, Lazaro’s Pizza on South Street by the Graduate Hospital, and got some lunch:

You gotta love Lazaro’s!  We hit the pavement with our pizza in a box.  We headed down South Street toward Board.

If you’ve never been to Philadelphia, you might not know that it is the number one spot in the country (who knows, maybe the world) for murals.  They have thousands of really amazing murals all around town.  Instead of old broken down buildings covered in graffiti, they have cover their broken down buildings with amazing pieces of art.  Here is one building I used to walk by every day on my way to the subway — the Royal Theatre:

We passed the Royal and walked a couple more blocks to Broad Street where we hopped on the Broad Street subway line:

Tim loves trains and subways.  Broad Street runs north-south throught he middle of Center City.  I used to ride the Broad Street line north every day to my alma matre Temple University…

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…and at the very last stop to the South, which is now called AT&T Station and was formerly the just called the Pattison Avenue stop, is all of Philadelphia’s major sports facilities: Citizens Bank Park, Lincoln Financial Field, and the Wells Fargo Center (formerly the CoreStates Center, First Union Center, and Wachovia Center).

Tim loved the ride down.  He sat in the very front seat and chowed down on his big and thin Lazaro’s pizza:

It is hard to tell from the pictures, but his seat had a window that looks out the front of the train:

Yep, he loved it.

When we exited the subway and walked up the stairs, we found ourselves just down the street from Citizens Bank Park:

There were lots of cars around because the Flyers were playing an afternoon game — at least that is what it seemed like.  We walked through the Phillies main parking lot and stopped to get Tim’s picture with Connie Mack:

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That statue has a bunch of information on it about the Philadelphia A’s.

Then Tim played catcher for Mike Schmidt:

And while I exchanged our “On Deck Series” tickets for some regular season tickets against the Rockies — hopefully, Jamie Moyer will pitch and get the win! — Tim inspected the Robin Roberts statue:

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We decided to walk all the way around the stadium.  In CF, we could see that Richie Ashburn was in mid-season form and looks excited to run right into the regular season:

Tim loves fire hydrants (for some reason), so he was excited to get a picture with this Citizens Bank Park fire hydrant:

In LF, the Phillies opening day line-up cards were telling a confusing story.  I’m not sure if this is the remnants of the last game from 2011 or a partial listing of opening day 2012…

…, but i certainly can’t imagine that Joe Blanton will be the opening day pitcher this season.

Tim did his best “Lefty” pose with the Steve Carlton statue outside of the LF gate:

And we generally passed time by playing catch on our walk around the stadium:

Before heading out, Tim posed with some football statues…

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…I have no clue who any of these football people are:

Then we grabbed the same front seat on the Broad Street line north…

…and we headed home.

Fun times.  Next time, we’ll be sure to see a game too.

Last season, MLBlogs switched from the entirely free mlb.com to the potentially expensive wordpress.com.  The switch probably didn’t affect the bulk of mlbloggers.  But for those of us who take thousands of pictures at the ballpark, it was definitely not a good development.  When the switch took effect, I already had about four times the storage allowed for a free wordpress account.  I didn’t want to lose any of my blog content.  So I started PDF’ing all of my entries and uploading all of our panoramas to our personal site.

Well, I kept uploading and uploading and uploading…and it turned into something that I think is pretty cool:  The Cook & Son Baseball Museum.  Check it out, and enjoy:

Did a little doodling on a map of the U.S. today.  Check it out:

This map shows all of the stadiums that Tim and I have visited since his first ballgame back on September 12, 2006.  We live outside of Philadelphia, PA (to the west) and its a great spot for a baseball fan who isn’t scared to hop in the car and drive a few hours.  The red lines on this map show drives that Tim and I have made to baseball stadiums.  Obviously, several of the red loops do not start in Pennsylvania.  Those are roadtrips we have taken (usually with my dad on the annual Cook Grandfather-Father-Son Baseball Roadtrip) after flying to a starting point (i.e., Chicago, Oakland, Houston, and St. Petersburg).

In order, (not counting my countless games at the Kingdome and numerous games at Veterans Stadium before Tim’s birth) Tim and I have visited the Stadiums in blue in the following order (order of first trip to a particular stadium):

1. Safeco Field (’06-’11)
2. Citizens Bank Park (’07-’11)
3. Camden Yards (’07-’11)
4. Yankee Stadium (1923) (’07)
5. PNC Park (’07, ’08, ’10, ’11)
6. Great American Ball Park (’08, ’11)
7. Progressive Field (’08-’10)
8. Shea Stadium (’08)
9. Chase Field (’08)
10. Citi Field (’09-’11)
11. Nationals Park (’09-’11)
12. Yankee Stadium (2009) (’09-’11)
13. Fenway Park (’09)
14. Wrigley Field (’09)
15. H.H.H. Metrodome (’09)
16. Miller Park (’09)
17. U.S. Cellular Field (’09)
18. Rogers Centre (’09)
19. Oakland Coliseum (’10)
20. Dodger Stadium (’10)
21. Petco Park (’10)
22. Angel Stadium of Anaheim (’10)
23. AT&T Park (’10)
24. Minute Maid Park (’11)
25. Rangers Ballpark in Arlington (’11)
26. Comerica Park (’11)
27. Sun Life Stadium (’11)
28. Turner Field (’11)
29. Tropicana Field (’11)

Meanwhile, Kellan is on his way through the MLB circuit too.  So far, he has been to ten games at six MLB stadiums:

1. Safeco Field (’10-’11)
2. Camden Yards (’11)
3. Citi Field (’11)
4. Yankee Stadium (2009) (’11)
5. Citizens Bank Park (’11)
6. Nationals Park (’11)

Back to the map, the 2012 Cook Grandfather-Father-Son Baseball Roadtrip is outlined in green on the map.  This will be Kellan’s first year on the roadtrip.  We’ll meet my dad in Minnesota for a game at Target Field (Tim’s 30th stadium), then on to St. Louis for two games at Busch Stadium (Tim’s 31st), to Kansas City for one game at Kauffman Stadium (Tim’s 32nd, which will close out the American League for us), then we’ll cap it off in Denver for two games at Coors Field (Tim’s 33rd).    Coors Field will be huge for us because it will mark the completion of our (first) trip around the MLB circuit — Tim and I we will have seen each team play at least one home game.  Hooray.  (Of course, we’ll still have to get back to Miami to check out the new Marlins Ballpark).

So there you go.  More fun times ahead for us at a bunch of great MLB ballparks.