Results tagged ‘ Cincinnati Reds ’
Reds and National Monuments in D.C.
On April 28, 2013, for the second weekend in a row, we headed to a certain MLB ball game because Kellan had yet to see the visiting team play a game. This time, the venue was Nationals Park and the team checked off of Kellan’s “must see” list was the Cincinnati Reds.
I wasn’t happy to find out that our overpriced parking lot went up yet another $5 over the offseason (booo!), but I was happy to pull into the same parking spot we park in at all of our Nationals home games.
While walking toward the ballpark, we noticed that the Nats replaced the big photo on the back of the scoreboard. Tim recreated Bryce Harper’s jump in the new photo:
By the way, because we were super busy the day before (we usually go to Saturday night games), our only option was to go to this 1:35 Sunday game. Still, we arrived before the gates opened because the Nats always seem to have BP when we have attended 1:35 Sunday games. And this day was no different. Plus, as a bonus, it was kids run the bases day. And, as a double bonus, we planned to tour around the DC monuments after the game.
Tim had to use the restroom as we approached the stadium…
…(can you see us in that big metallic baseball?), so we headed into the Nats’ Team Store for a quick pit stop. We’d never been in there before so I’d never seen this big wall of red and white baseballs making a curly Nats “W.”
We had a bit of a wait until the gates opened and we passed the time by playing catch:
I don’t think we have ever made it to Nats Park, which is 2.5 hours from our house, before the gates opened. So we got a picture of Tim standing in front of the gate while the ushers prepared to open up:
Once the gates opened, we headed over to the section above the visitors’ bullpen. The Nats pitchers were warming up in RF and batters were getting ready for BP. In the LF grass, Bronson Arroyo was playing catch with the Reds bullpen catcher. Eventually, he wandered into the bullpen and threw a bullpen session…
…and we watched him.
While Bronson was throwing, former Mariners pitching coach Brian Price came out to watch and chat with Bronson:
Price oversaw a stellar Mariners rotation during the most successful days of the organization, the Lou Piniella years. When I saw him, I shouted out a greeting and pointed to my M’s jersey.
After Arroyo finished his session, he tossed his ball up to Tim:
Thanks, Bronson!
As the crew started clearing out, I had a quick chat with Price. I told him to come back to Seattle, and he said something like “maybe I will some day!” And I said, “And bring Lou with you!” But he was pretty sure that Sweet Lou is retired for good from managing. Brian was super friendly and seemed very happy to chat up some Mariners fans for a bit. Just after he left, we realized we should have asked him to sign the Arroyo’s warm up ball. But it was too late, the whole crew headed out of the bullpen and headed to the dugout.
He hung out in LF a while longer as BP started up. Eventually, we decided to head over to the seats in RCF. Zach Duke was running all over shagging balls out there:
Eventually, Duke ran back and caught a high pop fly on the warning track in straight away CF. When he looked over toward RF, we called out his name and I flashed him my glove. In response, Duke (apparently thinking I was made out of glass or some other delicate material) softly tossed the baseball short and way to our right and right into the storage area in CF. Many players would have shrugged their shoulders and headed back to shagging fly balls. But Duke walked all the way to the back of the storage area and retrieved the ball and tossed it to us again. I was thinking about this and I would be this is the first baseball we’ve ever caught at a MLB game where the player tossed the ball toward the field of play for us to catch.
Thanks, Zach!
We promptly headed over to the corner spot above the RCF end of the Nats’ bullpen:
But right as that happened, all of the Nationals with the exception of Zach Duke cleared the field. We just hung out there for a while and watched Duke play catch with the Nats bullpen catcher.
Soon’ish, the Reds headed out to LF to begin their team stretching routine. We were at the ballpark to see the Reds, so we headed back over to LF. When we arrived in LF, this was the scene:
Once the rest of the stadium opened up at 12:00 (or maybe 12:05), we headed down to the corner spot where we had a great view of Aroldis “Fireball” Chapman:
That guy is pretty impressive!
As we watched Chapman play catch, the Reds started hitting. We were right at the OF end of a big net that protects several sections of seats along the foul line. So when a Reds batter smacked a hard grounder down the line, it carried along the netting and rolled right to me. Kellan grabbed a seat to inspect his new baseball:
Now check out something crazy captured in the following two-part photo:
Chapman starting playing looooooong toss with is partner. Above to the left, Chapman is the guy standing right in front of the “G” in Geico on the RF wall. As shown on the right, from that extreme distance, Chapman still managed to toss a ball so hard that he got it past his partner on the LF foul line. He essentially threw the ball into the protective net.
It was mighty impressive!
After we got one more baseball in the corner spot, we repositioned, and then I took a photo of where we had been standing:
See the guy in the red shirt right behind the pole (he has his glove hand on the green railing and his other hand in his pocket)? That’s right where I’d been standing earlier with Tim just to my left (in the corner) and Kellan either sitting behind me or standing in front of me.
At one point before we moved from that spot, a Reds batter hit a TOWERING pop up in our direction. I didn’t think it was going to reach us, but it just kept carrying and carrying.
Kellan was standing right in front of me along the railing. I put my throwing hand on top of his head so I would know exactly where he was standing while tracking the ball. I then leaned out toward the field and made the catch on the fly. I’m pretty sure it is the highest pop up I’ve ever caught, and it stung my palm pretty good.
After catching the pop up, we moved down the line to watch Johnny Cueto throw through the net:
That is a whole lot of hair in that hat!
Cueto was throwing hard and wild. He sailed several balls over his partner’s head and into the net. I had to keep warning Tim to sit back from the net because I thought he was going to get smacked in the face through the net. Luckily, it never happened.
Toward the end of BP, we headed back to the corner spot in RF…
…where two unidentified Reds were shagging balls. We used my trusty old camera zoom to read their names off of their gloves. It was J.J. Hoover and Logan Ondrusek. Eventually, Ondrusek fielded a ball right in front of us on the track and tossed it up to Tim for our final ball of the day.
Thanks, Logan!
And, with that, it was off to the kids’ play area for us!
It’s great with Kellan being big enough to climb all around in the kids’ play areas there days. Tim’s a great big brother in the play areas. He sticks right with Kellan and makes sure that he has lots of fun and doesn’t get trampled by the bigger kids.
Here they go up one of the climbing areas:
They poked their heads out of baseball sphere to give a wave to my camera:
And here’s a short video clip of the cutest moment of the day:
After a thorough play session, we busted out of the kids’ play area just in time for first pitch:
An usher was standing nearby and I asked her to take a family photo of us. He was very nice to accommodate the request, but it seems she might never have used a digital camera before. Her first two pictures were close ups of Tim’s elbow and hands. It took her the first two batters of the game, but she finally got a couple good shots, including this one:
It was lunch time and we had the best nachos in MLB on our mind. He headed to LF to grab ‘em, but we got side tracked when we saw this:
I’m a bit confused about this thing. I don’t remember seeing it last season. But the Nats have a new president on the team this season…so I’m not sure…but it seems new. And Tim and Kellan liked it so that’s all that counts.
They also enjoyed playing catch off of this wall:
This would be a recurring theme throughout the day.
Finally, we grabbed our nachos and headed to the upper deck down the LF line:
Check out our view of the U.S. Capitol Building behind us (right above Tim’s head). Pretty cool, eh?
There are a couple rows of picnic tables up there and we were in the last row. You couldn’t really see much of the action on the field from our table. But stepping a few feet over, we had a nice view of Bryce Harper…
…preparing to ground out to end the bottom of the first inning. Reds rookie pitcher, Tony Cingrani, was on the hill and he was *on* during this game. In six innings, he struck out 11 Nationals.
Oh, yeah, I should mention that the Reds scored 2 runs in the top of the first.
And the Reds tacked on another run in the second, in part due to this fielding miscue by Nats second basemen Danny Espinosa:
At the time, Cigrani had singled and was on 1B. Shin-Soo Choo followed with what should have been an easy ground out to 3B. Anthony Rendon fielded the ball and threw the ball to Danny Espinosa who booted the ball. After a walk to Zack Cozart, Joey Votto singled home Cingrani.
3-0 Reds after two innings.
We decided it was time for some ice cream. We walked across the concourse from LF to around 1B. On the walk, we got a Nationals Park bonus photo of the boys for the MyGameBalls.com photo scavenger hunt:
Do you see that little foam baseball in Tim’s left hand? An usher or some stadium employee gave that to Tim just before the game started. That’s what Tim was throwing against the wall in the photo above. He eventually lost that ball when it bounced off the wall and rolled completely out of the stadium, which was pretty upsetting to Tim.
The boys’ ice cream eating…
…went somewhat hilariously. Day games are tough for us because Kellan usually naps in the afternoons. During this game, Kellan actually fell asleep mid-ice cream eating.
By the way, here was our view of the game while Tim ate his ice cream:
After Tim finished his ice cream, we headed back to the little covered nook where the boys had previously been throwing the ball against the wall. Tim made another 100 or so throws while I sat holding sleeping Kellan and watched the game.
While we were over there, the Presidents showed up and we got a photo with them (completely with a totally conked out Kellan):
I have no clue who the new President in the middle is supposed to be.
Once Kellan finally woke up, we headed back toward the field. I wanted to see Joey Votto bat. Unfortunately (unbeknownst to us), it had started raining while Tim was playing catch with the wall. It wasn’t a lot of rain. But the fans flooded the concourse. We had to peak around multiple heads to get a distorted glimpse of Votto striking out:
By the way, by this point, it was 4-0 Reds.
The concourses were terrible so we headed back toward the outfield. On our walk we saw something cool:
A Griffey jersey. I’m only a fan of the Mariners, but I have a soft spot in my heart for the Reds because I watched tons and tons of Reds games during Griff’s tenure with the Reds.
We essentially walked around and around and around the ballpark aimlessly because it was too crowded everywhere in the concourses and rainy in the seats. As we passed by the 3B side of the concourse again, we saw something unfortunate:
Kids’ run the bases was cancelled due to rain. I think it was a premature call, but in the end we were fine with it.
We headed up to the second deck in RF for a bit. Here was our view from section 239:
We had never sat up there before during a game. It’s pretty nice. I liked it.
While we sat in the upper deck, probably for no more than 1 inning, Tim filled out an All-Star ballot, something he always enjoys doing. I had to take a picture because this ballot was awesome:
In case you can’t tell, here are the highlights of Tim’s ballot:
AL 1B – Justin Smoak
AL 2B – Dustin Ackley
AL SS – Brendan Ryan
AL 3B – Kyle Seager (oops…Tim accidentally made a huge hole when punching Seager’s name).
AL C – Jesus Montero
AL DH – Kendrys Morales
AL OF – Michael Morse, Michael Saunders and Ichiro (still Tim’s favorite player despite his unfortunate status as a member of the Yankees).
NL 1B, SS, 3B, C, P – No vote
NL 2B – accidental vote for Dustin Solano because he originally thought it said he played for the Mariners. Tim crossed out Solano’s name after realizing he had voted for a Marlin.
Information section:
Name – Timothy Cook
City – Pencillvanya
Email Address – Mariners
Favorite Team – X√√√√√√√√√√√√√√√√√√
All-Star Write In Votes – Timothy, Timothy
Late in the game, we sat in section 135 (the section where our actual ticketed seats were located). Here was our view of Bryce Harper’s at bat in the eighth:
He eventually walked and later scored on a double by Ian Desmond. That made the score 5-2 Reds after 8 innings.
Here are our two views from the spots we sat in during the late innings:
And here some random shots of Brandon “Dat Dude” Phillips:
With the Reds up 3-runs heading into the bottom of the ninth, we were treated to a save by Aroldis Chapman…
…and his 100 M.P.H. heater!
Reds win!
Instead of Kids’ Run The Bases (which would have been fun too), we ran all over Washington, D.C. after the game.
We parked two blocks behind the Capitol Building and made our first stop at the U.S. Supreme Court:
This was both boys’ first visit to the Supreme Court. The last time I was here was on my mom’s birthday in 2009 when I was admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court by Chief Justice Roberts and most of the other members of the Court.
Interestingly, in that picture of the Court above, what you are really seeing is *picture* of the Supreme Court hanging from the scaffolding that is currently encasing the entire Supreme Court building.
Next, we headed across the street to the U.S. Capitol Building:
In the bottom right photo above, Tim is catching a fly ball on the lawn of the Capitol Building (the ball is just above to the right of the rotunda).
Kellan was on my shoulders for all of those Capitol Building photos. He didn’t want to come down for a photo. But he did give me a smile from up top:
We decided to walk around the reflecting pond and a nice pair of tourists from New Jersey took our photo on the far side:
And then I took a shot of the boys walking:
Kellan was loving the walk. We had to hustle just to keep up with him. It was super cute at one point when we were back up to the Capitol lawn and the boys were racing and Kellan told me, “This is so much fun!” (That doesn’t read as cute of funny, but he’s got a hilariously cute little voice).
From the front of the Capitol Building, we got a photo of the boys with the Washington Monument in the distance:
We walked back to the car and headed off toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:
The boys were excited to see Barack Obama’s house. They made some funny faces while sitting on the base of the front fence:
And then we finished off our little tour at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial:
I’d never seen the MLK Memorial. It is really cool. I highly recommend it. As you can see above, there is a big *mountain* in the background. The middle section of the mountain is pulled forward and MLK is carved into the front of it. On the side of the MLK statue, the rock says “From a mountain of despair, a stone of hope” or something along those lines. On either side of the mountain, walls extend about 50 yards and they have a number of MLK quotes engraved on them.
Pretty cool. Check it out.
And that was our day. A great day of baseball and sight-seeing.
2013 C&S Fan Stats
5 Game
9 Teams – Royals, Phillies, Red Sox, Rays, Orioles, Yankees, Dodgers, Reds, Nationals
9 Ice Cream Helmet – Phillies (jumbo), Red Sox 2, Yankees 2, Orioles 2, Nationals 2
18 Baseballs – Royals 4, Phillies 3, Rays 2, Orioles 1, Dodgers 1, Umpires 2, Reds 4, Nationals 1
5 Stadium – Citizens Bank Park, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Camden Yards, Nationals Park
11 Player Pictures – Daniel Nava, Alex Wilson, Andrew Bailey, Pedro Ciriaco, Mike Carp, Koji Uehara, Will Middlebrooks, Joel Hanrahan, Jonny Gomes, Alfredo Aceves, Clayton Mortensen
1 Autograph – Ryan Hanigan
The Ohio Cup (7/2/11)
I’ve been trying to get Tim and I to Comerica Park for a couple years now. It has never seemed to work. My original plan this season was to work it into our Texas trip back in May, but the flights just wouldn’t work. So we came up with a new plan: Fourth of July weekend road trip to Cincinnati and Detroit.
Cincinnati was up first. We hit the road in the evening on Friday, July 1st and drove to a hotel in Pittsburgh. On Saturday, July 2, 2011 we headed off to Cincinnati to take in a game in the “Ohio Cup” series – Cleveland Indians vs. Cincinnati Reds.
But the game wasn’t until 4:05 p.m., and it was only about a four hour drive to Cincinnati. No matter what, we were going to get there before the gates opened. So, when we were about 50 miles out from Cincinnati, I called Colleen and asked her to look up the address for Moeller High School – Ken Griffey, Jr.’s high school (and, oh, yeah, Barry Larkin’s too)!
First, we pulled up to the scruffy looking practice baseball field (The Tom Fitz Athletic Fields) behind the school…
…where I imagined Griffey playing ball as a teenager. We ran the “bases” (there weren’t really any bases) and took some lefthanded hacks (without a bat) at the plate. Ah, it felt just like we were “The Kid” himself.
Up above a hill out in right field, there were really (really!) nice looking soccer and football fields. It made me think that there must be other baseball facilities somewhere else.
Anyway, we pulled around to the front of the school and got a few pictures:
In the picture above to the right, Tim is pretending he is Griffey walking into school.
Just as we were able to leave, a guy exited the main doors (where Tim is approaching in that picture above) and started packing some stuff into a van. I ran over and asked him if he knew where the baseball team plays. He was very nice and we ended up striking up a 10 minute conversation.
It was probably obvious since we were wearing Mariners clothes and I was asking about the baseball fields, but I felt compelled to explain to him, “We’re ‘Griffey people.’” His reply was priceless: “So are we!”
It ends up that the guy was Griffey’s U.S. History teacher back in the mid-1980s. He shared a handful of Griffey stories with us that were incredibly awesome to hear. Nothing overly important or exciting. Just tidbits about Griffey the high schooler and Griffey the man returning home after being traded to the Reds in 2000. It was a cool behind the scenes glimpse at my all-time favorite ballplayer.
The least shocking story was that Griff wasn’t exactly a model student. He apparently gave a lot of “I’m gonna play professional baseball” responses when prompted by his teachers to take his schooling more seriously. They would remind him, “You know, lots of people say that, but it doesn’t work out for most.” And as his teacher told is, Griff would always assure the, “but it IS going to work out for me.”
If were really the discussions (and I have no reason to doubt it), it certainly looks like Griff proved himself right.
One other story I thought was cool to hear is that Moeller used to use a baseball field a couple miles away that was behind a Thriftway store. It had no fence and Griff would jack bombs over the outfielders that would roll and roll forever. He was so good at it that his teammates referred to the field behind the Thriftway as the “Griffway.”
Oh, yeah. And he mentioned that Griffey spent some time practicing on that scruffy field behind the school, but that’s it. He never played games there.
And with that, lets continue on to Cincinnati.
Great American Ball Park is interesting. Downtown Cincinnati (as far as I can tell) is essentially situated on a hill that runs down to the Ohio River. Route-71 comes into downtown
and cuts across downtown at 3rd Street – at the bottom of the hill – just above the river. The big downtown buildings are up the uphill side of 3rd Street and Great American Ball Park is tucked into the little space right between the buildings/3rd Street/Route-71 and the Ohio River. If you park in downtown, you have to walk across the bridge…
…to get to the stadium. (Those pictures were actually taken after the game…so everyone is walking away from the park instead of to it.) In the picture above to the right, you can see that the ballpark is tucked between two buildings. The building to the left the Reds front office and the building to the right is the main team store and the Reds (very cool) Hall of Fame.
Here is a look as you get closer to the stadium…
…and that picture to the left is a huge engraving (I guess that’s what you would call it) on the end of the front office building.
This approach leads you to the gates right behind home plate. There are a bunch of statues in the area in front of the home plate gate:
In the picture above to the right with Tim facing the statue of the pitcher, Tim explained that he was being the catcher and he was telling the pitcher what pitches to throw.
When we arrived, it was still about 20 minutes before gate opening. And it was really hot. We scooted around to the third base gate, where it was somewhat shady, and we hopped in
line. While in line, we spotted our first (of many) Griffey jerseys of the day:
After entering the ballpark and stowing our two new Dusty Baker bobblehead/toothpick holders, we headed to section 109:
The Reds were hitting, but they were almost finished, and the Indians pitchers were starting to report to the LF line to warm up and do some throwing. BP got packed quick. My hunch was that we wouldn’t come away with a baseball from GABP. But after the Indians pitchers finished up throwing, an Indians batter hit a ball behind 3B that veered over into foul
territory where an Indians pitcher fielded it right in front of us. When I asked if he could toss it up to Tim, he walked over and handed it directly to Tim.
As he walked away, I called out, “Wait! What’s your name!?” He reply, simply, “Tony!” I thought that was pretty funny. We’re on a first name basis, you know? I later checked the roster and found that Tony’s last name is Sipp.
Here is a picture of Sipp walking away from us…
…and Tim smiling for the camera with his baseball:
Thanks, Tony!
Okay. We had a ball from GABP and that was enough for us. We’d only been to this ballpark once before so it was officially time to do some exploring. We started by heading behind home plate, where we got this picture of Tim (again posing with his Tony Sipp baseball):
Tim looks pretty sweaty in that picture, but it is really water. It was so hot that we kept dousing Tim’s head with cold water.
Here is a panoramic view of Great American Ball Park from the cross aisle right behind section 121:
Next, we headed down into the seats behind the third base dugout and got this panorama from the second row of section 117:
Although no one checked our tickets when we headed down into the seats behind the dugout, I got the feeling that someone was supposed to have done so. There was hardly anyone in the seats behind dugout, but lots of people down the foul lines and in the outfield.
They definitely were checking the tickets of anyone who dared stand in the front row behind the dugout. But they did let Tim stand there long enough to get this picture:
There is a big steamboat looking thing above the batters’ eye in CF and Tim requested that we go out there and check it out. So that’s what we did…well, we tried to. You can’t actually get out onto that steamboat unless you are part of the group that has the steamboat for the game.
So we just stood around in upper deck next to the steamboat for 10-15 minutes. Here was our view:
One Indians player in CF was clearly having more fun than anyone else on the field. I had no clue who he was. The last group of hitters was only two guys and I am pretty sure they were pitchers preparing for their final interleague games. They hardly got the ball out of the infield.
But they did get one ball out to the “fun guy” in center field. He was way out there in CF. After gloving the baseball, he started walking toward another player in LCF. I didn’t say a word, but I held my glove up. As he walked, he noticed us and he threw a laser to me. It was an amazing throw considering the height and distance the ball traveled.
Here is “fun guy” and Tim with our first ever upper deck toss up:
I took pictures of the guy and tried to get a close up of his glove…where it appeared that his name was embroidered. In the best photo, I could tell the first name was “Cade” and the last name looked like it started with “Dur.” The roster told me that Chad Durbin now pitches for the Indians and Wikipedia told me that Durbin has a son named Cade. So there you go, thanks are due to Mr. Durbin.
Thanks, Chad!
This picture taken later in the day illustrates Durbin’s impressive throw:
Interesting side note, the baseball that Durbin threw up to us is a minor league baseball. It is so scuffed and dirty that it is impossible to read which MiLB league it is from, but it clearly appears to have the MiLB logo instead of the MLB logo.
Next, we headed over to the LF corner of the upper deck and got this panorama from section 406:
And then we got a picture of Tim from the same spot:
After running up to the top of the seats, we got this panorama from the top of section 406:
Next, we headed over into the infield. We headed up to the tippy-top of the stadium and found a nice spot where we could get a good picture of Tim with his Chad Durbin baseball and the Great American Ball Park sign for the MyGameBalls.com scavenger hunt:
After climbing up to the top of section 510, this is what it looked like:
Zooming in, here is a look at the batters’ eye steamboat:
Tim was not feeling the tippy-top of the upper deck. Too high. So we headed down to the upper deck concourse. I kept dousing Tim’s head with water. When we visited the restroom after leaving section 510, Tim noticed his wet hair in the mirror. Before leaving the restroom, he asked me to help him spike his hair up into a mohawk. When we headed back
into the concourse, this is what Tim’s hair looked like:
Speaking of the concourse, this is what it looks like in the upper deck behind third base at Great American Ball Park:
It was time to circle the upper deck and take some more panoramas. First, section 516…
…section 423…
…a picture of the two of us between panoramas…
…section 430…
…and finally a panorama from the cross aisle above section 436:
That was enough of the upper deck for us, so we headed down to the field level and got this panorama from behind section 139:
Section 139 is right next to the visitors bullpen. This is what the bullpen looks like:
The bullpens were actually pretty interesting to me. A lot of stadiums where the bullpens are not side-by-side seem to put the visitors’ bullpen out in the direct sunlight and the home bullpen in a shady area. The Reds, however, did the opposite. Pretty early in the game, the visitors’ bullpen was in the shade while the Reds relievers were still in the direct sun.
There is a great standing room area in CF just to the RF side of the batters’ eye. Here is a panorama that I took from that SRO area just behind section 146:
We were in the SRO area when someone-or-other sang the National Anthem. Just behind the plate, Mr. Redlegs and Rosie were standing with hands over hearts:
Mr. Redlegs is very similar to Mr. Met. But if you ask me, Mr. Redlegs is hands down the superior mascot. The Rollie Fingers ‘stache really sets him apart…as does his retro Reds hat.
We had seats in the direct blazing sun in RF so we started hearing that way. As we walked behind the Reds bullpen, we noticed something interesting:
Aroldis Chapman was down there signing autographs. Of all of the players at this game, Aroldis is the player with whom I most wanted Tim to get his picture. While that was out of
the question, we were hoping Chapman would sign Tim’s baseball from Tony Sipp. Soon after we arrived at the stairs up above Chapman, he called it quits and walked into a door opposite the bullpen. We waited patiently. And then he reappeared. I called his name and I’m pretty sure that he only stopped because he saw Tim.
When Chapman stopped below us, he was holding a Gatorade-type bottle in one hand and he motioned for me to toss the Sipp baseball down to him. At this point, he had the drink in one hand and the baseball in the other hand, he motioned for me to toss down our pen. I figured he would just let it hit the ground and then pick it up. But he showed some major hand-eye coordination by catching the pen at hip level with his index finger. It was very impressive.
After he signed the ball and tossed us the ball and pen, I shouted out a big “Gracias, Aroldis!” That put a huge smile on his face. During this interaction (and while previously watching him signing autographs), we were probably 10 feet above Chapman’s head and it was impossible to chat with him. Nevertheless, it was clear that the guy conveys a ridiculously warm/nice/pleasant attitude. He really seemed like a great guy.
Here is a picture of the Chapman autograph.
Finally, it was time for the game to start. We headed to the Skyline Chili stand right behind section 103 and grabbed some nachos and a cheese coney…
…and then we headed down to our seats in section 103. This was our view from section 103, row C, seats 13-14:
It was crazy hot in our seats. I could tell that we wouldn’t be able to stay in these seats for too long, which was unfortunate because they were great seats. But I knew we’d last at least a couple innings because Tim was going to town on our big pile of nachos:
It was good to see the Reds play again. We haven’t seen them since 2008, Griffey’s last year with the Reds. During his time in Cincinnati, I watched tons and tons of Reds games. They have a lot of new players since then, and a lot of players that were there in 2008, but have really matured over the past several years. Like this guy…
…2010 N.L. MVP Joey Votto. In that at bat, Votto is about to ground out in the first inning.
This was a low scoring game. The pitching match-up was Fausto Carmona vs. Homer Bailey. We sat in our assigned seats through the second inning and the score was 0-0.
We were overheating (well, Tim was), so we headed to the standing room area in RCF which is set up as a big misting station. It really felt amazing in there. We stayed under the
mist-sprayers for a long time and we got soaked:
Meanwhile, former-Mariner Mickey Brantley’s son Michael Brantley hit a 3-run homerun in the top of the third inning. That would be all the runs that the Indians would score during this game, and it was all they would need to win.
While we were interested in the game, we were just as interested in seeing as much of Great American Ball Park as we could. After we were thoroughly misted, we decided to head in the opposite direction of our seats and keep exploring.
As we headed toward the 3B side concourse, we looked up and took this shot of the big toothbrush-style light stands:
We lingered in the SRO area behind section 118 for a while. It looked like this:
And then we cut through the concourse and found a nice standing room spot behind section 130:
Aside from the Brantley bomb, Homer Bailey was looking pretty good:
An inning after the homerun, Bailey had no problem retiring Brantley on a weak pop up to short stop:
We decided to wander aimlessly around the ballpark and it quickly paid dividends. We ran into both Slider (the visiting Cleveland Indians mascot) and Gapper (the “B-list” Reds mascot…or at least that is how I would rank him compared to Mr. Redlegs):
In the concourse behind home plate, there is a really cool looking Reds logo set into the floor:
And some cool (and really big) mosaic pictures on the wall…
…check out Ken Griffey, Sr. in the mosaic to the left (of course, Sr. (wearing number 30) was an instrumental part of the “Big Red Machine” back in the day). Junior has got the Hall of Fame stats, but Senior has got the rings (2 of them).
Behind section 119, there is a big staircase that is mostly blocked off and is used as a SRO area:
That’s where we were standing in the bottom of the fourth inning when Jay Bruce…
…flied out to CF. I would have got a great action shot of the Grady Sizemore and Austin Kearns running into each other just before Sizemore made the catch, but a lady walked into my pitch and totally ruined it. Booo!
We decided to stop by at this little bouncy house/slide thingy…
…on our way to the very impressive Reds team store:
Two notes: in the upper right picture, that is a game-used Dusty Baker jersey Tim is pointing to with his thumb and in the bottom right picture Tim is throwing a one-seamer on the
baseball seams on the floor of the team store.
Upstairs in the game-used area, we found this cool old Big Red Machine black-and-white photo on the wall…
…which again features Ken Griffey, Sr. (wearing number 30). Lets see if I can name the rest of the Big Red Machine (from left-to-right): Pete Rose, Ken Griffey Sr., Joe “Everyone’s Favorite Broadcaster” Morgan, Tony Perez, George Foster, Johnny Bench, Cesar Geronimo, and Dave Concepcion.
After perusing the team store, we headed over to section 126…
…but just for a minute. We had our sights on ice cream helmets. So we headed toward the first base side concourse where we had got our ice cream helmets back in 2008. As we approached the ice cream place, Mr. Redlegs was approaching walking in the opposite direction. I asked Mr. Redlegs if he could pose for a picture with Tim. Mr. Redlegs’ handler
shut us down explaining, “we’re in a rush to get somewhere.” But Mr. Redlegs was having none of it. He leaned in and gave Tim a big hug:
Awesome! Thanks, Mr. Redlegs!
The ice cream helmet line was ridiculous. It was as if every fan at the game was in line. We were in line for at least a full inning. But when we got to the front of the line, it was worth the wait. They had about 6 (maybe 8) toppings, and they were free and unlimited!
We both got twist soft serves. Tim got smashed up M&M’s with whipped cream and a cherry (which he got specifically to give to me) and I got smashed up Reese’s pieces. Delicious.
We reported back to our seats (well, our section at least) to eat our ice cream in the hot sun:
Just for kicks, we got this shot of Tim smiling with a belly full of ice cream:
It was still too hot to stay in our seats for too long. So we headed back to the misting SRO in RCF. On our way, we noticed that the Reds had a reliever warming up in the bullpen:
As I watched the game from the front of the SRO area, Tim whipped a wet wipe (from ice cream face clean up) around in the sunny mist trying to make rainbows in the mist:
It is pretty interesting watching the game from this SRO area. Sometimes it looks like you are watching the game on a HD television. But at other times, it looks like you are watching it through a thick fog (or mist) or a light fog:
That’s our buddy Tony Sipp pitching in those last two pictures. He gave up a solo homerun to Joey Votto, but still earned a “hold.”
Here is what it looked like in the SRO area behind section 145 when the mist was blowing in the opposite direction:
We were going to stay at a hotel 3.5 hours north in Toledo, Ohio after this game. So we decided to head over to the SRO areas behind home plate to watch the end of the game. The plan was to make a quick exit once the game ended.
Here was our view, once again, from the concourse behind section 126 (or so):
With the score at 3-1 Indians, it was still anyone’s game as the Reds pitched to the Indians in the top of the ninth:
While we were in position, I figured I better get a shot looking into the Indians dugout. Here is what it looked like:
The Reds needed two runs in the bottom of the ninth and they had the heart of their order coming to the plate. With one out and one on base, Brandon Phillips couldn’t get anything going:
Phillips struck out for the second out of the inning.
Joey Votto batted next and lined a single to leftfield on this inside-out swing:
With the tying runs on base, Scott Rolen came to bat with two outs as the potential winning run. But he struck out to end the game.
Indians win 3-1.
On our way out the of the ballpark, Tim did a “rounding second” pose on the “statue” base near by the Ted Kluszewski statue:
We also got a couple fake batting poses to try to recreate a picture that we took outside Great American Ball Park in 2008:
Although we missed a lot of the game because of all of the exploring we did around the ballpark, we had a great time.
And the great time didn’t stop just because we had a 3.5 hour drive ahead of us. It was the night of July2nd and people were out in full force lighting off their own fireworks demonstrations. Tim had a great time watching the fireworks and didn’t fall asleep until after 11:00 p.m., right we pulled up to our hotel.
| 2011 C&S Fan Stats |
| 15/2 Games (Tim/Kellan) |
| 14/4 Teams [Tim – Mariners, Orioles, Rangers, Brewers, Nationals, Phillies, Mets, Rays, Braves, Diamondbacks, Astros, Royals, Cubs, Angels, Indians and Reds; Kellan – Mariners, Orioles, Angels and Mets] |
| 11 Ice Cream Helmet(s) (Orioles (2), Nationals, Phillies (2), Rangers (2), Mets (1), Reds (1)) |
| 45 Baseballs (6 Mariners, 7 Rangers, 3 Orioles, 2 Umpire, 2 Nationals, 2 Brewers, 5 Phillies, 2 Mets, 1 Rays, 2 Braves, 2 Diamondbacks, 1 MLB Authenticator, 1 Easter Egg, 1 Glove Trick, 2 Royals, 2 Cubs, 2 Angels, 2 Indians) |
| 7/2 Stadiums [Tim – Camden Yards, Nationals Park, Citizens Bank Park, Minute Maid Park, Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Citi Field, Great American Ball Park; Kellan – Camden Yards, Citi Field] |
| 11/7 Player Photos* [Tim – Felix Hernandez, Adam Moore, Garrett Olson, Chris Seddon, David Aarsdma, Michael Pineda, Miguel Olivo, Ryan Langerhans, Greg Zuan, Mark Lowe, Michael Saunders; Kellan – Luke French, Milton Bradley, Franklin Gutierrez, Justin Smoak, Matt Tuiasosopo, Ryan Langerhans, Michael Saunders] |
| 3/1 Management Photos* [Tim – Howard Lincoln, Jack Zduriencik, Eric Wedge; Kellan – Jack Zduriencik] |
| 5 Autograph(s) (Michael Pineda, Michael Saunders, Mark Lowe, Felipe Paulino, Aroldis Chapman) |
| 1 Bat* (Milton Bradley) |
| 6/2 Mascot Photos* [Tim – Mariner Moose, Teddy Roosevelt, The O’s Bird, Mr. Redlegs, Gapper, Slider; Kellan – Mariner Moose, The O’s Bird] |
| 1/0 Divisions Closed Out** [Tim – A.L. West (Safeco Field, Oakland Coliseum, Angel Stadium & Rangers Ballpark in Arlington); Kellan – N/A] |
| 1 Line-up Card (Royals vs. Rangers) |
| *includes Spring Training**divisions where we have seen each team play a home game. |
Tim’s Second MLB Anniversary (9/12/08)
On September 12, 2008, my mom, dad, Tim and I headed to Chase Field for Tim’s Second MLB Anniverary. Here was our first view of the stadium as we approached from the parking garage:
We were going to see the Arizona Diamondbacks face off against the Cincinnati Reds. Early in the season, I picked this game for Tim’s baseball anniversary game for three reasons (i) if we cannot make it to Safeco Field for Tim’s anniversary, I plan to take Tim to a different stadium each year on his MLB anniversary game, (ii) the Mariners were on the road, and (iii) I wanted Tim to see Griffey. As I said, we planned this early in the season. By the time this game rolled around, Griffey had been playing for the White Sox for more than a month.
Oh, well. Still, it was a great game. Brandon Webb pitched for the Diamondbacks and if he could earn the win, he would become the NL’s first 20-game winner of the season.
My folks took a picture of me and Tim in front of these big bats in front of the stadium entrance:
As the security lady checked my bag, Tim was itching to enter the first domed stadium of his life…
…I’m not counting Safeco Field as “domed” because the roof is really just a canopy, its always open-air at Safeco Field.
We entered the stadium in the LF foul corner and made our way around the concourse toward the third base side. I was happy to see a Randy Johnson poster as we made our way around the concourse:
Actually, I wanted to go to the game the next day too so Tim could see Randy pitch, but Tim and I took a long nap and my folks let us sleep right through the beginning of the game. Its okay because Randy got a no decision after pitching 6 innings of 1-run baseball.
Anyway, I love domes. I have to, I grew up in the Kingdome. But here is a bad thing about domes…
…dark and boring concourses, no natural light.
The grounds crew was readying the field as we made our way into the field level seats. Here is a panoramic view of Chase Field as we crossed behind the 1B dugout:
I liked Chase Field, but it did seem quite dark to me with the roof closed. By the way, I’m not sure why the roof was closed. It was beautiful outside and not so hot that we needed protection from the heat.
Before the game, we toured around the park a little bit…
…here, we’re looking down at a special group seating area behind the RF fence.
This picture says it all…
…Tim was impressed by his first domed stadium. The Kingdome must be in his blood.
Eventually, the game started. And I must apologize, I did a really poor job photographing it. (Of course, in my defense, I didn’t have an MLBlog at the time…or even know that MLBlogs existed).
Our seats were in section 111, row 7. But Tim and I watched the first couple innings from the first row of section 111. We were stationed right behind the ballgirl (or ball lady) down the RF foul line. We discussed it with her before the game and she agreed that she would give Tim a foul ball if or when she got one. Sadly, not one single foul grounder was hit down the 1B line. It ended up being the first time in his 2.5 years that Tim did not get a baseball on September 12th.
Eventually, someone came to claim our seats so we met up with my follks in row 7.
The game was a pitchers dual between Webb and Aaron Harang. By the sixth inning, there were a couple hits recorded on the scoreboard, but no runs.
Of course, Tim got an ice cream helmet…
…and an ample amount of chocolate ice cream on his face.
By the way, the Diamondbacks ice cream helmet is different than all of the other ice cream helmets Tim and I have collected to date. Here are some photos showing a comparison with the holy grail of ice cream helmets, a Mariners helmet from Safeco Field:
Hopefully the difference is decipherable in these pictures. The Diamondbacks helmet is longer than other helmets. Generally, ice cream helmets can be stacked on top of each other. The Diamondbacks helmet can sit on top of a stack of helmets, but other helmets do not fit over the Diamondbacks helmet.
Back to the game. As the fancy scoreboard in CF showed…
…the Diamondbacks broke the scoreless tie in the bottom of the sixth inning. The run was unearned due to an error by Aaron Harang who was also pitching a gem. With one out, David Eckstein hit a weak grounder to Harang and Harang threw the ball into right field. Eckstein made it all the way to third. He then scored on a single by Chris Young.
In the middle of the game, Tim got a little restless in the seats so my dad took him to the kids play area, which is behind the seats in the upper deck out in left field. Tim had lots of fun sliding and generally monkeying around:
Amazingly, I took zero action shots at this game. So here is a random picture of us enjoying the game…
…I have no clue why I’m wearing my sunglasses indoors in that picture. And here are some more pictures:
After seven innings of an excellent pitchers dual, the Reds relievers entered the game in the bottom of the eighth and promptly stunk it up. After giving up a lead off triple to the pinch-hitting Jeff Salazar and striking out Stephen Drew, the Reds relievers walked three consecutive batters. The final walk scored Salazar making the game 2-0 in favor of the Diamondbacks. Mark Reynolds then struck out. Chad Tracy then strode to the plate and promptly watched the first pitch sail to the back stop. Another run scored on the wild pitch. Tracy then struck out. For the Reds, it wasn’t the most impressive way of striking out the side.
Next it was the Diamonbacks relievers turn to pitch terribly. After 8 innings of scoreless baseball by Brandon Webb, the Diamonbacks bullpen gave up four singles in the bottom of the ninth. But, alas, they were unable to blow Brandon Webb’s stellar performance. The 3-2 victory was Webb’s 20th of 2008. It was the first (and only) time Webb has won 20 in a season, and he was the only NL pitcher to accomplish that task in 2008.
After the game, we stuck around for fireworks. After a bunch of waiting…
…they opened the roof and the show began…
…it was fine, but not all that impressive compared to the excellent fire works show we’d seen the prior month in Cincinnati. Part of the problem was that the fireworks were shot off the top of a building (I think a parking garage) across the street from Chase Field and they barely made it above the framing of the roof.
Nevertheless, despite no Griffey, no catching a baseball, and not overly impressive fireworks display, we had an excellent time spending Tim’s Second MLB Anniversary with my folks in Arizona.
For see the rest of Tim’s MLB Anniversary games (through 2009), follow the links below:
- 2006 – Blue Jays at Mariners
- 2007 – Rockies at Phillies
- 2008 – This game
- 2009 – Orioles at Yankees
Baseball Roadtrip ’08, Day 1: Cardinals at Reds (8/15/08)
Last August, I did an entry summarzing The (First Annual) Great Cook Grandfather-Father-Son Baseball Road Trip. The purpose of doing so was to give some background and context for the Second Annual Roadtrip that took me, Tim and my dad through Chicago, Minnesota and Milwaukee in August 2009. Those entries were just a combination of emails I sent to family members while we were on our first roadtrip. Now, its time to do actual game updates for those four games.
After I got off work on August 14, 2008, my dad (Jim), Tim and I packed into the car and drove to Washington, Pennsylvania where we spent the night at a KOA. Over the next five days, we would visit Great American Ball Park in Cinncinati, the Louisville Slugger factory in Kentucky, Progessive Field in Cleveland, PNC Park in Pittsburgh, and Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.
We woke up on the morning of August 15, 2008, and packed up our stuff to head to Great American Ball Park…
…as my dad packed his stuff, Tim stomped around the campground exploring and hit some whiffle balls off of his Tee.
I’d been watching the Reds on TV since Griffey was traded to Cincinnati, so I knew exactly where we had to go for dinner before the game…
…Skyline Chili was right on the way as we walked from our hotel to the ball park. If you like cheddar cheese, this is the place for you.
Downtown Cinncinati slopes down toward the Ohio River, the Ohio-Kentucky border…
…and Great American Ball Park.
Now, in the grand scheme of all of the new stadiums, I had heard that Great American Ball Park was nothing special. But, you know what, I really liked it. Its no Camden Yards or Safeco Field, but it had a special feel of its own. In fact, I almost felt like it was a Major Leauge size minor league ball park. That’s not meant to be insulting. What I mean is that it sort fo felt *quaint* — maybe it was because we sat in the RF bleachers with the big steam boat nearby in CF and the river behind us. Anyway, I liked it a lot.
As we approached the main entrance of the ballpark, we found a statute of Ted Kluszewski and a big banner thanking Griffey for his 600th homerun…
Tim monkeyed around in the grass between Griff and Kluszewski…
…and practiced his power stroke.
Sixteen days before this game, Griffey was traded to the Chicago White Sox. We’d planned to sit right behind him in RF.
By the way, I didn’t write an entry about it because Tim wasn’t with me, but after missing seeing Griffey’s 600th homerun in Philadelphia, a buddy from high school and I saw Griff’s 601st homerun at Yankee Stadium during interleague play.
With no Griffey in sight, I was all about seeing Albert Pujols do something special in this game. As we entered the park, Albert was standing right there behind home plate speaking with Edinson Volquez…
…a few minutes later, Volquez walked into the Reds dugout just below me and Tim. All I had on me was a cheap plasticy ball we bought on our way to play catch with on the trip. Anyway, Volquez and some other unidentified Red signed it.
We headed out to the seats in RF to watch some BP. It was pretty packed out there. Tim and I squeezed into the first row and my dad hung back a row or two behind. We were having no luck. Then, on what I think was the final pitch of BP, someone hit a ball off the wall right in front of us. As it bounced off of the wall, all of the Cardinals started to run toward their dugout. But reliever Chris Perez turned around to grab that ball. He grabbed it and started running back toward the field. Then everyone yelled at him. He turned around. The 20-something guy next to us and I both pointed at Tim. Perez fired the ball over to us.
Yes!
It was the first ball Tim had got this season.
With Tim’s new baseball in hand, we headed to the concourse behind 1B and made our way over the Reds Hall of Fame:
As Team Halls of Fame go, this one probably sets the standard. It is excellent.
Along the far end of the Reds HOF (closest to the outfield and Ohio River), there is a wall of 4,256 baseballs representing Pete Rose’s record-setting career hit total.
The balls cover the wall the entire way as you ascend three flights of stairs. If you click on that picture to enlarge it, you will see that the balls are all game (or at least BP) used. They are all dirty and scuffed with bat marks. Its an excellent visual representation of Rose’s hit record.
The Reds HOF is packed with jerseys, bats, gloves, and shoes with little descriptions of the Reds Hall of Famers.
I was happy to see a Ken Griffey, Sr. jersey in there. I’m a big proponent of team Halls of Fame. I think the Baseball Hall of Fame should be reserved for the super-elite, best of the best of the best of the best. Some peopel refer to “inner circle” Hall of Famers. To me, the “inner circle” should be the entire Hall of Fame. If a player is borderline, if an “argument” mut be made for a player’s candidacy to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I think that means that player is not a Hall of Famer.
But that doesn’t mean there is no place for such players. If a player can’t make the Baseball Hall of Fame after years on the ballot. No problem, those players can still be remembered forever by the people to whom they were most important in their respective team’s hall of fame. Anyway, those are my two cents.
And anyone lucky enough to make it into the Reds HOF should be very pleased, indeed, this place is spectacular.
Check out this great picture they have on the wall of the members of the Reds HOF:
Do you see Ken Griffey, Sr! He’s almost right in the middle. And he’s not just in the Reds HOF, we’ll see him again before the end of this entry.
Like a Safeco Field, they have a fake wall where you can pretend to pick-off homeruns. Unlike Safeco Field, the Reds offer a variety of gloves from past and present. Check out the sweet piece of leather I picked in the picture below:
Hey, Ken Griffey, Jr. was represented in there as well…
…they had a little kids club house type area with little lockers with little jerseys they could wear and slides and things to climb. In another area, they had a mock *man cave* full of stuff the ultimate Reds fan my have in his den. Check out this picture of Ken Griffey, Jr. Notice anything odd?
He signed it “George K. Griffey, Jr.” I have never seen him do that before.
Soon, it was game time. I took this panaramic view from our seats in RF.
I bought these tickets literally the second they went on sale…in February or March or 2008…and the best they could give us in RF (where I was hoping Griffey might hit a homerun) was 3 rows from the top of the bleachers.
In to top of the first, Pujols popped out. But the Cards scored two runs on a homerun by Rick Ankiel.
Then, in the bottom of the first, I got this picture just as Reds rookie Chris Dickerson hit his first career homerun.
The ball landed in the Cardinals bullpen just below the glass partition to the left of the picture.
After Dickerson’s homerun, I tried to zoom in for a picture of Albert Pujols, but this is the best my old camera could do:
Next, it was time to go get some ice cream helmets. I headed out toward centerfield…
…but didn’t find any cream helmets until I made it all the way around to behind home plate. So I ended up doing a full loop of the ballpark. I’m sure the wait made Tim appreciate the ice cream even more:
I took this random shot of the LF seats and the scoreboard.
The scoreboard seems sort of short, doesn’t it? Its really wide, but not very tall at all.
After we finished our ice cream, we headed back toward home plate because I saw some ballpark artwork I wanted to photograph while I had my hands full of ice cream helmets. Here they are, two big mosaics of the .
Above is the 1869 Red Stockings, which according to Wikipedia were the first “openly professional” baseball team. Below, is the Big Red Machine from the 1970s…including short-time Mariner and father of a future Hall of Famer, Ken Griffey.
Back to the game, in the top of the third, Pujols hit a ground rule double. The first of two doubles and three total hits on the evening. By the end of the third, a bulk of the scoring for the game was done. The Cardinals were winning 4-2. Each team would score only one more run.
Late in the game, I ventured out in search of some pizza and took some more ballpark pictures. Here is Great American Ball Park from foul territory in the LF corner.
Our seats are all the way across in the top corner of the RF bleachers.
Here are two more pictures:
To the right, a view of the extra wide concourse in foul territory down the 3B line. To the left, a picture of the Cardinals bullpen. Directly across the field I have circled in yellow the big open concourse pictured to the right.
After taking that shot of the bullpen, I turned to the right at took two more pictures:
To the right, my dad in our seats up above the cardinals bullpen. To the left, I backed up a bit and got a shot showing a little more of the standing room area down the RF line.
And when we were over there, we ran into a local celebrity, Rosie Red…
…I tried to also find Mr. Redlegs for a photo-op, but he was nowhere to be found. The pictures to him above to the left are from earlier in the game.
With one out in the bottom of the ninth, the Cardinals brought in Chris Perez. He gave up one hit, but struck out two to secure the win for the Cards and the save for himself.
After the game, they shooed us out of the OF seats. He relocated into the infield seats, where I took a couple more random stadium shots…
…we got a group shot of the roadtrippers…
…and then we settled into the seats for Tim’s first firework show of his life…
…it was an amazing firework show. And an outstanding first day of our first roadtrip.
Tim would fall asleep on my shoulders as we walked back to our hotel.
Cook & Son Bats
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