Results tagged ‘ ice cream helmet ’
Father-Son Baseball? Yes, Please! (4/14/2012)
It has been a long and busy off-season. On Saturday, April 14, 2012, Tim and I kicked off our 2012 baseball season with a game between the Mets and Phillies in Philadelphia. I had been looking forward to this game like crazy.
I had originally planned to take both boys to Baltimore on Saturday, April 7th, but I didn’t realize it was Easter weekend and we had a house full of family. So we had to wait a whole week to get our first taste of major league baseball for the season.
I’ve been extremely busy at work this off-season. And our house has been crazy. Having two boys is awesome. But it is way harder than having one boy. Tim and Kellan get along great most of the time. But they also create non-stop action, tons of brotherly competition, a healthy dose of yelling and chaos, and they require a lot of discipline…or at least a lot of correcting. Don’t do this, that, or the other thing. Stop doing this, that, or whatever.
Baseball season provides something that the rest of the year generally does not. Something I really needed. Extended periods of father-son time in an environment that Tim and I just really enjoy. No chaos. Tim and I have gotten so good at attending games. We’re an amazing team. Hardly any discipline is needed. It is just fun and relaxing days connecting with my boy and sharing our mutual love of baseball. So let’s get to it.
The morning started with opening day of Tim’s first year of little league (which is the newest chapter of Tim’s life, extremely exciting, and will be up next on this blog). After opening ceremonies, we hopped in the car, grabbed a happy meal from McD’s…
…and headed toward Philadelphia. I was loving baseball season within the first fifteen minutes of our drive. It was a completely unchanged experience despite the six month break. Tim and I had great conversations the whole ride down, except of course for during the 15 minutes that we spent battling each other to see who could sing the best Gotye “Someone I Used To Know” (Tim’s favorite song). Tim won! As my wife will tell you, I’m a horrible singer. By the way, Tim’s best comment during our drive was his description of what college is: “college is where there are lots of boys and lots of girls and you find out who you are going to marry.”
We pulled into the stadium – paid our $15 to park. Pulled on Tim’s new Ichiro jersey…
…and sized up our destination: Citizens Bank Park!
Bring on the baseball.
We grabbed a spot second in line. We started up a nice conversation with the guy behind us, another guy excited to be back at the ballpark for another year. And within a few minutes, a young man approached and asked, “Are you Todd?”
It was a 12-year-old boy named Harrison who was at the ballpark with his father, Seth. Another father-son having a great day with the sport they love. Harrison reads our blog and leaves comments from time-to-time under the name “Philadelphia45.” It was great to get to know Harrison and Seth a little bit.
Tim loves hanging with older kids, and Harrison was no exception. Here they are hanging out at the gate – timed exactly when Tim blinked (oops):
When the gates opened, we went our separate ways, but we’d meet up again with Harrison and Seth. Tim and I headed to left field. We were among the very first people into the seats. And within a few minutes, a Phillies batter lined a foul ball into the roped off seats down the 3B line. An usher grabbed it and spotted Tim from a long way off. He siliently (so Tim didn’t realize it) called us over to the “chain” and handed Tim his very first baseball of 2012:
Thank you, Sir!
We have somewhat of a routine for the BP at Citizens Bank Park. First, we set up shop right down the line, in the very small piece of foul territory that is open at the beginning of BP. Here was our view:
There was a Mets player…I think he was a player, although he was wearing shorts and no jersey…hanging out below us. And I notice something very odd…
…he had a glove with “Todd Helton” embroidered on the thumb. I asked him why he had a Todd Helton glove and he responded, “Because he gave it to me.” “Oh, that’s really cool,” I responded.
Soon (as pictured above), Johan Santana showed up and started running from the foul line to CF. At one point, he was approaching the foul line when a Phillies batter hit a long grounder right to him. I called out, “Hey, Johan!” When he looked up, I pointed at Tim and he started to motion like he was going to throw it to Tim. But Tim was holding his glove in his throwing hand for some reason. So, Johan pointed…or maybe he nodded…at Tim and then threw the baseball to me. I handed it over to Tim and we both called out a loud and excited:
Thank you, Johan!!!
Wow, Johan Santana. That’s a great toss-up. Very exciting for our first toss-up of the season. But in retrospect, our next toss-up would be about ten times more exciting.
We hung out in the same spot until they opened the rest of the stadium. We watched Cliff Lee do some running…
…and we chatted with Harrison and Seth who had joined us shortly after the toss-up from Santana. They had also caught two baseballs already – one from Michael Stutes who I really want to connect with some day on a toss-up because he once heckled my softball team while he played for the Reading Phillies.
Normally, when the rest of the stadium opens, Tim and I head out to the “pizza wedge” in RCF. But the Mets have a commemorative baseball this season that I was really hoping we could get from one of the Mets pitchers warming up down the line. So we relocated (along with Harrison and Seth) to the corner spot down the LF line:
We ended up standing right behind Tim Byrdak. I was excited. I have wanted Tim to get a baseball from another “Tim” ever since we got one from umpire Todd Tichnor. Maybe this would be the day!?
When Mets coach Ricky Bones (I love that name!) walked by, Harrison asked for a picture. Bones told Harrison to hold on and when he returned about 10 minutes later, Tim was a co-beneficiary of Harrison’s request:
Thanks, Mr. Bones!
And then things got REALLY exciting! Tim Byrdak and his partner finished up playing catch. A Mets batter had hit a grounder that rolled to a stop about five feet from Byrdak’s feet. As he grabbed the ball to throw it in, while pointing at Tim, I shouted out, “Hey, Tim, how about throwing a ball to another Tim!?”
It worked. Byrdak turned around and tossed the ball at Tim. Tim has made amazing progress with his catching skills over the last two months, but I was nervous and anxious and excited all at the same time as the ball sailed toward Tim. What would happen?
Without hesitating, Tim reached out and made a nice one handed grab with his glove. A clean catch with zero assistance from his dad:
When the ball stuck in Tim’s glove I was ecstatic. I literally jumped in the air and shouted, “YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!” I was so happy and proud of my no-longer-so-little guy. All offseason, we’ve been talking about how he’s going to catch a baseball (or baseballs!) on his own this season, and we’ve been talking about trying to get a baseball from a Major League “Tim” for years, and it all came together in one moment and sheer awesomeness.
It was truly perfect and completely made my day.
Some of our hugest “thank yous” ever to Mr. Timothy Christopher Byrdak!
We’ve been fortunate enough to get a nice collection of baseballs at MLB games, but this one definitely ranks right up there at the tippy top of the list as one of the best.
On the natural high of the toss-up from Mr. Byrdak, Tim and I decided to report to the pizza wedge.
Here’s a tip. When relocating to another section of the ballpark, walk through the seats, not through the concourse. That’s what we did and…
…Mike Pelfrey rewarded us with a baseball in deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep center field.
Before hitting up the pizza wedge, we visited the Phillies hall of fame area so Tim could grab the different metal baseballs that have finger grips for different types of pitches, and then spit some seeds down…
…into the bushes in the batters’ eye. And then Tim called Richie Ashburn “saaafe!” in our first MyGameBalls.com photo scavenger hunt picture of the season.
The pizza wedge was dominated by a family a four with two 13-14 year old’ish girls who got some love from the players (as did “mom”), before Mets coach (and former player for numerous MLB teams) Tom Goodwin hooked Tim up with our first pizza wedge ball of the season:
Note: the balls from Pelfey and Goodwin followed the more traditional, point at Tim and throw to Dad method…although, Tim made an attempt at the Pelfrey ball, but it was too high and sailed over his glove and into mine.
There was still more BP, but we were done. Tim wanted to play some games. The speed pitch, for some reason, wasn’t open. But we played the trivia game and the running in place game…
…in the deep LCF concourse. This season, instead of handing out slips of paper that say you played one of these games, you collect stamps in the little booklet that Tim is holding in the above picture. I’m not sure what you get when you fill it up with stamps. We’ll see later in the season.
After some game time, we headed up the steps toward the upper deck. We got this picture of Tim on the second deck with a view of the bullpens and Ashburn Alley behind/below him:
And then we headed to the back row of section 302 for what we determined must be the farthest seat from home plate:
Yep, make that two pictures checked off the 2012 Photo Scavenger Hunt list!
While up there, of course, I got a panorama from section 302:
And then we headed back down to the second deck for our first father-son picture of the season:
Thank you to a nice usher who snapped the photo. As my Little Grandma would say, “Jiminy, Tim is gotten huge!” Remember when he used to look like this? It is fun looking back at game photos and seeing him grow up before my eyes.
Actually, he’s done some much growing that I was concerned he would be too tall for the kids’ play area. But fear not…
…plenty of growing still to do before he is shut out of the play area.
Tim was excited after posing for that picture, he told me “I can even come back and play when I am seven!”
The game started while we were at the play area. Soon, we grabbed some nachos…
…and our seats in section 104:
The Mets were already winning 1-0 on a David Wright homerun to LF.
We spent a lot of the game (we’re mobile so not all of the game) sitting behind this dude…
…named “Duda,” Lucas Duda, and this other dude named….
…Hunter “Ugliest Mechanics In Baseball But Monster Power” Pence.
After nachos, it was time for Tim’s first ice cream helmet of the season. We took the scenic route to our favorite ice cream lady at Citizens Bank Park…
…that’s the view from Section 242¸by the way.
Most of the teams in Tim’s little league are sponsored by local businesses, but one is sponsored by today’s Phillies starter, Vance Worley (who used to play for the Reading Phillies):
Big thanks to Vance for supporting our league, but this, unfortunately, was not his day.
On this pitch, Vance got Jason Bay to ground into a double play…
…but a run scored making it 2-0 Mets. Duda was up next and he clubbed a 2-run homer to make it 4-0 Mets.
How about a random shot of British Columbian-born, Gonzaga University-alum Jason Bay:
Guess what? Tim still likes ice cream hemlets…
…and our lady still makes a huge helmet.
The Phillies have not started strong this season. And I noticed something…the fans do not seem to believe in them as much as in the last couple years, at least at this point with Chase Utley and Ryan Howard both on the DL. Check out the patch of empty seats with the Phils losing 4-0 in the top of the sixth inning:
I never saw that last season at Citizens Bank Park.
Tim wanted to visit the team store. On our walk around the stadium, we noticed this nice mosaic art piece in the concourse:
While Tim and I were talking about the little Phanatic in the mosaic, the real Phanatic’s mom showed up on the scene. I pulled our my camera and it refused to fire when the Phanatic’s mom patted Tim on the head. Instead, the flash delayed the shutter and it didn’t take a picture until the Phanatic’s mom stuck her hand in my face with an exaggerated “Hi, Dad” wave:
So I got a rare close up of the Phanatic’s mom’s hand!
Shortly thereafter, Tim became the owner of a new stuffed Phanatic:
We stopped by the play area on our way back to RF, but it was just closing down. Sad news. So we headed back to the now hardly half-full RF seats. Between innings, an usher took this shot of me and Tim:
By the way, Tim’s eyes were starting to look puffy because he was battling serious hay fever, which has been a daily battle for the last couple weeks.
The Phillies really did nothing offensively in this game. Well, next to nothing. They did get a single on this pitch to Juan Pierre:
If you look closely, you can see the baseball heading toward RF in that picture.
It is almost impossible to get an umpire baseball in Philadelphia (it would be easier if you had seats in the Diamond Club), but it was our first game of the season so, heck, we were up for the challenge.
We relocated to the concourse behind section 130. For a while, we stood behind the camera man…
…where we saw Ruben Tejada drive in pinch runner Mike Baxter…
…off of Michael Stutes:
And then we watched David Wright…
…and Ike Davis…
…make outs for the Mets.
In the bottom of the ninth inning, Tim and I slid into nearly ideal seats for making the umpire ball attempt:
The umpire Alfonso Marquez (shown in the background) would enter a tunnel at the home plate end of the dugout, just to the right of the guy in the light blue Phillies t-shirt in that last picture.
We had a great view of Jimmy Rollins, as he grounded out:
And a great view of Hunter Pence, while he struck out:
There were tons of empty seats in RF as Jon Rauch pitched to the day’s final batter John Mayberry:
Mayberry ended the game in the ideal umpire attempt manner – a high pop up that allowed us to get into position while the umpire had to stay at home plate.
We slid all the way into the second a row and stood at the little railing separating the really nice seats (dugout) from the ridiculously nice seats (Diamond Club). Tim and I both called out “Alfonso” when he stopped on the grass just short of the warning track to wait for his colleagues. He heard us call his name and fired an absolutely beautifully rubbed up baseball to us:
And then he left.
We lingered for a bit and then headed toward the LF corner on our way to the exit. Tim was tossing the umpire ball into his glove over and over while we walked. I noticed that there were two ballgirls down the LF line and I asked Tim if he wanted to get a picture. He said yes, and then yelled and started running.
I thought he was running to the ballgirls, but he had missed his glove and fired his new umpire ball under some seats and it disappeared. We couldn’t find it anywhere, but fortunately, a nice fan pointed it out and we retrieved it from a tray of peanuts (or some type of food).
Fifteen seconds later and we would have missed getting this double ballgirl picture, which was taken mere feet from the spot where Tim caught the baseball from Byrdak about 4-and-a-half hours earlier:
A pose with his umpire ball and Citizens Bank Park sign…
…and with the Harry Kalas statute…
…and then we were “outta there!”
It was an incredibly awesome first day being back at the ballpark. I can’t wait to fold Kellan into the mix for our first 3-guys game next weekend.
I know why Ernie Banks always wanted to *play two* — hip, hip Hooray for Baseball!
2012 C&S Fan Stats
| 1/0 Games (Tim/Kellan) |
| 2/0 Teams – Tim – Phillies, Mets; Kellan – N/A |
| 1 Ice Cream Helmet(s) – Phillies 1 |
| 6 Baseballs – Mets 4, Phillies 1, Umpires 1 |
| 1/0 Stadiums – Tim – Citizens Bank Park; Kellan – N/A |
| 1/0 Player Photos – Tim – Ricky Bones; Kellan – N/A |
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. |
Cook Family In The Citi (6/18/2011)
With Kellan still less than a year old, most of our games this season will be just me and Tim. Essentially, I have planned out one game at each of our “local” stadiums (i.e., northeastern United States minus Boston) for our entry family to attend. On June 18, 2011, it was Kellan’s and Colleen’s first game at Citi Field. And we made a weekend of it.
Lots of “firsts” for Kellan on this trip. First NL stadium (Citi Field). First NL team (Mets). First Inter-league game (vs. Angels). First trip to New York. First hotel room (Club Quarter’s Wall Street). First sub-river tunnel (Holland). First subway ride (I can’t remember if it was the A, C, B, or D, but it was from 86thto Columbus Circle). First trip to the big FAO Schwartz….
…and to Central Park (FYI, this list isn’t in chronological order). First New York Pizza…
…(from Ray’s on 82nd & Columbus). First elevated train (the 7 Train…Queens portion). And first picture with a gigantic apple…
…or maybe I should say a “Big Apple.” Yep, lots of firsts.
I thought the stadium would already be open when we arrived, but it was not. So we got to stand in a fairly big line for about 10-15 minutes. I snapped this picture of Tim and Colleen as we waited:
Not only was this Colleen’s first game at Citi Field, it was her first home Mets game, period. She never joined me on any of my handful of trips to Shea Stadium. So was it was good to finally get her out to Queens.
By the time we made it to the seats, there were already a lot of people in the stands. But deep LCF was open. So we headed out to the corner spot by the even “Bigger” Apple:
Kellan is a humungous baby for a Baby Bjorn, but it is still the most convenient way to get him around the ballpark. Even then, Colleen had to lug the stroller along the way.
There were two “Mets” right in front of us…
…and another “Met” about 75 feet over toward left field. All three of them had “OO” and their first names (Anthony, Travis and Jimmy) on their backs. I guess they are bat and/or ball boys. Tim was pretty confused about why there were multiple people wearing “OO,” but he promptly forgot about the confusion and rained down a loud “THANK YOU” on Travis when he
tossed us a baseball:
Colleen thinks the ball is in my glove and she should know best since she took the picture. But, to me, it looks like I’m still watching the flight of the ball on its way up to me. Who knows?
Right when Travis tossed us the baseball, the Angels pitchers all reported to the LF foul line for stretching and throwing. I apologized in advance to Colleen and explained that we needed to relocate over there because I was hoping we could get a baseball from the Angels, and that it would be an Angels 50th Anniversary commemorative baseball (which is the reason I picked this particular game for Kellan’s first at Citi Field).
Us three boys grabbed a spot along the railing behind Scott Downs (among others), as Tim pointed out airplanes passing over head:
And what do you know, Downs tossed us his baseball when he finished playing catch:
Although it was not a commemorative ball, we were mighty appreciative.
Thanks, Scott!
Colleen was hanging out in some seats about 15 rows back from the field. We lingered a few minutes after getting the baseball from Downs, and then we raced over to her:
And , upon arrival, Colleen snapped this picture of Tim’s big cheesy grin:
Of course, we are competing in the mygameballs.com photo scavenger hunt, so we needed a Citi Field *bonus* picture. Colleen snapped two of them and I love them both. This is the one we submitted on mygameballs.com:
I picked that one because it shows Kellan more clearly and it clearly shows that he is trying to eat the baseball like an apple.
But I also love the funny face that Tim is making in this one:
After those pictures, Colleen headed to the family restroom to change Kellan. Tim and I headed back down to the front row while we waited for them to return. It was extremely obnoxious down there. We were surrounded by a group of young boys (maybe 10-13 years old…its hard to judge). They were flat out screaming at every player who touched a baseball. “THROW ME THAT BASEBALL!” They also mixed in a smattering of foul and derogatory language. You know, the kind of stuff that just *really* makes a ballplayer want to give a kid a baseball (yeah, that’s sarcasm).
While those kids were ensuring that no baseballs would be tossed into our section, the strangest thing happened. We got a *hit* baseball! It was so unlike us. An unidentified Angels lefty sliced (or is it hooked) a ball right down the LF line. I ran a full section over down a completely empty row. I was certain the ball was going to fall 10-15 feet (and 3-5 rows) below me and I was hoping that it would hop up in my direction. But lo-and-behold, the ball hung in the air and made it all the way to me. I was so surprised that it hung up that I botched the play as I turned my glove over in slow-motion to make the backhanded attempt. Luckily, it hit the pinky of my glove and fell into the seat right there. All I had to do was bend over and pick it up.
It was our first ever hit ball in Queens.
Colleen and Kellan were literally walking down the aisle toward us when we got the hit baseball. I picked it up, gave a kid a high five, and Tim and I went back up to where Colleen and Kellan were sitting.
We decided to skip the rest of BP and instead head out to the kids play area.
When we reached our destination, Mr. Met was out there taking photos with fans so we got a family shot with him:
Two notes: (1) I am attempting to catch Mr. Mets’ head and (2) all of us Cooks (except Kellan) are looking at our camera while Mr. Met is looking at the Mets fan photos photographer.
A few minutes later, Tim was manning the field…
…in the whiffle ball Citi Field. Like Jack Black and Kyle Gass, Tim has got some “Tenacious D.”
After a little hitting…
…and a little baserunning…
…it was time for dinner. We walked almost all the way around the stadium in our quest for food. It was took crowded in the large eating area above the Jackie Robinson Rotunda. So we headed out to the Pepsi Porch in RF. On the walkway out to the Pepsi Porch, I got this shot of Tim with *muffler city* in the background:
By the way, that’s just my name for it. It is basically a big eye-sore composed of dingy car repair shops.
We decided on an all-Nathan’s Famous hot dog dinner:
A corn dog for Tim. Spicy vegetarian dog for Colleen. A big sloppy hot dog with mustard, onions, relish and sauerkraut for me. And cut up hot dog bits (no condiments) for Kellan. Tasty.
While we ate, we were serenaded with the National Anthem by Roy Hobbs’s girlfriend, Glenn Close:
Mrs. Hobbs totally botched the second to last line of the anthem. Well, she sang all the right words, but her voice totally broke on the high note (“…land of the free-eeeeeee”). She rolled with it, gave a big laughing smile and the old college try as she belted out that cracking “freeeeeee,” and, in the process, she really won the crowd over. She got a huge ovation after she finished.
We sat in section 523 for almost the entire game. When Tim, Kellan and I climbed to the top, we took this picture of Colleen that shows a fair representation of our view (although, we were obviously closer than the camera view):
Obviously, we were hoping the Mets would win because that would be better for the Mariners. And at the end of the day, that’s what happened.
I was mighty pleased when native-British Columbian and Gonzaga University alum Jason Bay…
…came to the plate to Pearl Jam’s “Alive” off of their smash-hit debut album “10,” which was released during my freshman year of high school and was, of course, HUGE at my school.
I was quite pleased to hear Mike Pelfrey representing the Seattle Grunge era with his batting intro song: Nirvana’s cover of the Meat Puppet’s “Lake of Fire.”
It was also nice to see that Russell Branyan…
…had found a place to fit in this season. That guy can mash the ball! Luckily, he did not do so at this game.
In fact, the Angels didn’t do much mashing at all at this game. Mike Pelfrey pitched a complete game, giving up only five hits and 1 run.
The Mets had a good day at the plate. It started in the third inning, when Jose Reyes hit a single, stole second, advanced to third on a groundout and then scored the first run of the game on a single by Carlos Beltran.
In the third, Tim and I went to grab an ice cream helmet, and Tim spontaneously busted out in an in-stadium statue pose:
When we returned to our seats, Kellan was conked out on Colleen’s lap:
The Mets got right back at it in the fourth inning. Angel Pagan led off with a single. He then stole second and scored on a Jason Bay single.
Meanwhile, Bay didn’t look like he was long for first base:
Within seconds of taking that last picture, Bay swiped second base.
I should mention that Dan Haren was pitching:
It wasn’t his night.
Soon after stealing second, Bay scored the third run of the game…
…on a Russell Branyan error.
Both the ice cream and the Angels deficit were keeping us happy. Actually, Tim was focusing more on the ice cream at this point:
Here is a random picture of Citi Field and Kellan as he sits on my lap:
It should be noted that Kellan is wearing a hand-me-down Mariners t-shirt that he received (with love) from his big brother. It should also be noted that this was Kellan’s fourth Major League Baseball game and Tim wore the exact same shirt to his fourth MLB game.
Most of our pictures from this game are random smiling Cook Boys pictures. Here is one of them:
In our four previous games at Citi Field, we had never seen a Met hit a homerun and raise the Big Apple. Well, Carlos Beltran finally did it for us:
High fives for Carlos:
Beltran’s blast made it 6-0 Mets (Reyes had scored on the batter before Beltran’s homerun) at the end of the fifth inning. In the top of the sixth, the Angels got their sole run on a Mark Trumbo homerun. And that was all the scoring in this game.
Here is one of Tim’s standard silly faces that I never tire of:
I also never tire of playing with Kellan…
…or feeding him a bottle while taking in a ballgame. (Although Kellan will soon graduate from the bottle stage of life).
In the seventh inning, Tim asked to do some exploring. So, we walked through the CF area where the “Shake Shack” was all lit up in Mets blue and orange:
And we spent some time behind the bullpens watching relievers warm up for both teams:
At the very end of the game, we scooted back over toward the 3B side and positioned ourselves in the concourse above the umpire’s tunnel. With two outs in the top of the ninth (when they were still checking tickets), Vernon Wells hit a towering pop up for the final out of the game. As the ball ascended, I scooped up Tim and we started to scurry down the stairs towards the umpires’ tunnel. But a voice from above called us back. An usher told us, “you can’t go down there.” He did not realize the game was going to be over in literally 2-3 seconds. When he
realized it, he stuck to his guns, “the game is over, you can’t go down there.”
Oh, well. No umpire ball attempt for us at this game.
We slowly made our way out of the stadium, and we ended up sitting on some benches outside for a while so the traffic on the 7-train could die down a bit. While we were waiting, I got this picture of Tim with Citi Field lit up at night:
We then made our way back down to Wall Street and our waiting hotel room beds. The next morning, we trooped around the downtown area a bit before heading home. We got Tim’s picture with the famous bull:
And we checked out lady liberty from a far:
All-in-all, it was a nice little trip to New York City and Citi Field.
| 2011 C&S Fan Stats |
| 13/2 Games (Tim/Kellan) |
| 14/4 Teams [Tim – Mariners, Orioles, Rangers, Brewers, Nationals, Phillies, Mets, Rays, Braves, Diamondbacks, Astros, Royals, Cubs and Angels; Kellan – Mariners, Orioles, Angels and Mets] |
| 8 Ice Cream Helmet(s) (Orioles (2), Nationals, Phillies (2), Rangers (2), Mets (1)) |
| 41 Baseballs (4 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) |
| 6/2 Stadiums [Tim – Camden Yards, Nationals Park, Citizens Bank Park, Minute Maid Park, Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Citi Field; 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] |
| 4 Autograph(s) (Michael Pineda, Michael Saunders, Mark Lowe, Felipe Paulino) |
| 1 Bat* (Milton Bradley) |
| 3/2 Mascot Photos* [Tim – Mariner Moose, Teddy Roosevelt, The O’s Bird; 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. |
Deep In The Heart Of Texas (5/29/11)
On May 29, 2011, Tim and I were back for a second helping of baseball at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. After the blistering weather for the previous night’s game, I was fearing this 2:10 p.m. afternoon start. Fortunately, the weather decided to have a little bit of mercy on us. It was hot, but not unbearably hot like the day before.
We reported to the ballpark about two hours early. As we approached the third base gate, I snapped this picture of Tim:
It is definitely a nice looking ballpark, inside and out.
When we entered the seating around in foul territory down the LF line, we found an almost empty field and no batting practice. It was not a shock, but it was a little sad.
The only players on the field were a bunch of Rangers pitchers playing catch down the RF line. The first 2-3 rows were packed all the way down the RF line behind the pitchers. There was no reason for us to join the crowd.
So, we wandered down to the first row along the LF line. There were no Royals warming up, but there was…
…four baseballs and a little cone (like a training cone to run around or something like that) laying on the ground. We had about two hours to explore the ballpark, so we figured we had a little time to relax. So we just grabbed some railing and looked out upon the field.
Our patience paid off, within a couple minutes a couple Royals pitchers and coaches exited the visitors bullpen and headed toward the 3B dugout. One of the coaches (strength and conditioning coach Tyrone Hill) veered off to his right, doubled back about 30-40 feet, grabbed one of the baseballs, walked over and handed it to Tim (as represented by the red arrow in the last picture).
Thanks, Ty!
Meanwhile, new Royals pitcher Felipe Paulino started signing autographs down the line near third base. Tim and I walked over and Felipe signed Tim’s new baseball for him.
While we were waiting for Paulino, a lady (probably about 40-45 years old) ran up with a Rangers program. She was all giddy. Then, she cursed at herself for forgetting her pen. She asked if anyone had a pen, and I told her she could use ours. She was very thankful. Then, when I noticed she was going to get her program signed, I told her to hold on and I’d get her
a sharpie out of my backpack.
She was very excited. When she handed her program and my pen to Paulino, the following exchange ensued—
Lady: “I love to watch you pitch!”
Todd (thinking): “Whoa, why does this lady like a Royals pitcher so much!?”
Lady (accompanied by various giddy-squealing noises): “I LOVE MY RANGERS!!!”
Paulino (with a huge “ROYALS” emblazoned across his chest): “Thanks.”
It was hilarious.
Enough with that lady, it was time to explore this ballpark. First, we headed over to the 3B dugout and got this excellent picture of Tim:
It was a day for panoramas. And this was our first, from half way up the seats looking out at Rangers Ballpark from Section 26:
A lady was sitting nearby, and she kindly agreed to take this photo of us:
Next, we headed to the outfield and got this shot of the visitors bullpen:
The Rangers bullpen is situated parallel to the outfield wall in RCF, and is almost always in the shade (or at least the chairs along the back wall of the Rangers bullpen are shaded). In contrast, the visitors’ bullpen is situated perpendicular to the outfield wall and is almost always in the direct sun.
And lest the visiting relieves might forget who they are facing, the Rangers threw a big Texas “T” logo between the mound and home plate of the visitors’ bullpen.
We walked behind the bullpen and circled around toward the seats in section 54. Just behind the seats, I got this fairly unique looking panorama from the concourse:
As that last picture shows, there is a shady bench in the visitors’ bullpen. So, sure, the visiting relievers can sit in the shade…of course, from that bench they won’t be able to see the game.
We headed down into the seats and got this panorama of Rangers Ballpark from the first row of section 54:
While we were down there, we noticed several stray baseballs lying on and around the bullpen mound (a couple of them can be seen in the picture above from the back of the bullpen). I figured those baseballs would eventually become souvenirs, but no one was around at this point. So we continued on our tour.
Here is a view from the concourse behind section 47 in RF:
And then we went way up high and got this panorama from section 345:
From the concourse above the first base gate, we could see the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium out in the not-so-distant distance:
And this was the view from above the home plate gate:
Before heading to the top of the upper deck, we found an usher who was happy to take this shot of us in the upper deck behind home plate:
And from the back row Section 326, Rangers Ballpark looks a lot like this:
The inner workings of Rangers Ballpark are pretty interest too. Check out this weird little landing at the middle of a stairway down from the upper deck:
The usher who took this next photo back in the field level…
…, was quite nervous that I would trip and send Tim crashing to the ground. But she still took the photo and did not ask me to take Tim down.
We decided to head back to center field. There was a parade of dogs going on around the warning track and Tim loved watching it:
NOTE: In the bottom right picture above, the guy who is holding the big snow shovel (not full of snow on this day) is the same guy who pitched to Tim in Rangers (whiffleball) Park the day before.
When a couple Royals moseyed on out to the visitors’ bullpen, Tim and I walked over to the railing at the bottom of the section. Royals’ bullpen catcher Bill Duplissea walked over and tossed Tim one of the baseballs that we’d previously seen sitting on the bullpen mound.
Normally, players toss baseballs to me (because Tim usually is not wearing his glove) or they had them to Tim. But Duplissea just grabbed the ball and tossed it directly to Tim (unsolicited) and Tim reached up and made the barehanded grab – his first barehanded grab ever at the ballpark.
Thanks, Bill!
As Duplissea walked away, I got this shot of Tim and his new prize:
He was very excited about making the barehanded catch and demonstrated his technique for me numerous times – i.e., his technique was to put his hands together like a bowl.
In that last picture, you can see the official line-up card taped to the wall of the bullpen. Tim and I watched a coach (Foster) tape it up there few minutes before Duplissea tossed Tim the baseball. I’ve heard it is somewhat easy to get line-up cards from the Rangers Ballpark visitors’ bullpen, so I asked Tim if he wanted to come back after the game to see if we could get it. He did.
And then we continued on our tour.
Here is a shot of Rangers Ballpark from section 42 as Alexi Ogando (I just made up that spelling, hopefully its correct) warmed up in RF:
And another view from Section 36:
We’d seen enough of the ballpark, so we decided to go grab out seats out in CF. On our way, we stopped by a little make-shift ice cream stand just inside the first base gate. Walking by earlier, I had seen that they had novelty ice creams for only $1.00. So Tim and I plunked two $2.00 and each enjoyed one of these:
As the umpires met prior to first pitch, we noticed the Rangers mascot (whose name I do not know) standing behind home plate with a little girl:
That’s a good looking mascot. But I’m sure the Mariner Moose could take him in a battle of overall entertainment value.
Before we knew it, it was game time.
With two outs in the top of the first, Eric Hosmer strode to the plate. I don’t follow the Royals closely, but it seemed like Hosmer is supposed to be some hot shot rookie or something, so I
figured I ought to take his photo.
Although my camera didn’t focus properly, I captured a very blurry shot of Hosmer right after he snapped his bat off at the handle in the course of flying out:
From our seats, I continued our stadium tour. These windows, from what I understand, are the Rangers Diamond Club:
And just above the windows, are the Rangers retired numbers:
Note: both the Rangers and the Astros have retired Nolan Ryan’s “34.”
Early in the game, we dined on nachos and…
…placed a call to Colleen/mommy to check in. In the picture of Tim on the phone, he is in the process of asking Colleen the same question over-and-over-and-over-and-over. He was getting a little frustrated that she wasn’t answering him. Noticing his frustration, I grabbed that phone and saw that he has unknowingly hung up on his mother. No wonder she wasn’t answering his question!
This picture…
…shows the inning-by-inning scoreboard behind home plate. Most stadiums don’t have a scoreboard like that behind home plate, but they should. It was very convenient.
One of my main observations about Rangers Ballpark at this game is that its construction seems to create a swirling wind in the centerfield grass. It must blow right out of the stands and into center. The result:
Massive amounts of garbage on the field. That is actually right fielder Nelson Cruz with and at least four pieces of garbage in his area.
Almost every half inning, a bunch of guys in blue shirts would run out into the outfield and collect the newly deposited garbage:
So, anywhere, in addition to our stadium observations, food and cellphone calls, there was a game going on too.
As shown above, it was 2-2 in the top of the fourth. The Rangers scored one run in the second on a Mike Napoli double that plated Michael Young. In the third, they went up 2-0 on a Ian Kinsler solo homerun. But the Royals wouldn’t settle for just two runs in the fourth. Instead, they scored five on back-to-back doubles by Wilson Betemit and Mitch Maier, which was promptly followed by a homerun by Brayan Pena.
The Rangers got back one run in the bottom of the fifth on a Napoli homerun. But Ian Kinsler struck out to end the frame, and was then tossed out of the game:
Another somewhat unique feature of Rangers Ballpark is that the right fielders warm up between innings with the 1B line ball girl:
They do that same thing in Milwaukee – or at least they did when we visited Miller Park in 2009.
I got a cool action shot in the top of the sixth inning as Billy Butler grounded out to second base:
As should be evident from the angle of all of the above game photos, we were once again sitting in section 50 in centerfield. In fact, we were sitting in the exact same seats as the day before. Here is a shot of Tim as he stood and watched the action below in the bullpen:
To Tim’s left in that picture the chain link fence ends at a point where the bullpen wall bends. At the end of the fence, there is a little open space where stuff can drop down inside the wall. Someone had crammed a plastic cup down into the open space and it was filled it all sorts of nasty looking junk. We figured we should join in on the fun, so Tim and I both contributed a few sunflower seed shells to the cup full of nasty junk. In that last picture, Tim has his left hand up to his mouth while he is working on cracking a seed open — he’s still a seed-eating-rookie and needs to use his hand.
Just for kicks, I got this shot of Josh Hamilton at the plate — before he grounded into a double play:
Despite the pre-game dollar novelty ice cream, Tim still had plenty of room for a mint chocolate chip ice cream helmet:
At some point, former-Mariner Mark Lowe warmed up in the bullpen…
…, but he never came into the game.
In the eighth inning, we relocated to some aisle seats that had opened up along Greene’s Hill. I as hoping for a chance to run out into the grass in chase of a homerun. This is what it looked like out there:
But no homeruns came our way. One did, however, land in the gap in right field:
It sailed into the gap around where the white shoe is sticking out over the gap in the above picture. It was a two run shot off the bat of Michael Young that tied the game at 5-5 heading into the ninth.
Everyone was excited about the new life the Young homerun brough to the Rangers. These gals (Rangers employees) showed their excitement in the form of in-unison flag waving on Greene’s Hill:
I would guess that Rangers Ballpark has more Texas state flags that any other ballpark has of its respective state flag.
While we were out by Greene’s Hill, Tim was making funny faces at this little kid…
…and it was cracking the kid up. In fact, Tim was exciting the kid so much that his dad handed him off to his mom — “you deal with this honey.” I felt a little bad about it. But what was I supposed to do, tell Tim not to have fun and make other kids have fun at the ballpark? Nah, the ballpark is about having fun. So I let it continue.
The Royals quickly dampened the Rangers mood once again. In the top of the ninth, they scored an unearned run off of Rangers closer Neftali Feliz. The inning started off with Chris Getz hitting a double to RF. He got to third when Nelson Cruz bobbled the ball. Cruz’s error is the reason Getz’s run was unearned when he scored on a Alcides Escobar’s sacrifice fly.
While everyone else in the stadium was upset with the situation, I was quite happy. A Rangers loss would be good for the Mariners. But the Rangers still had other plans. And they started with the would-be goat, Nelson Cruz. Fresh off of his costly error, Nelson led off the bottom of the ninth by blasting a homerun into the gap in LF. Tie game.
Tim and I decided to run over there to see if we could see the ball at the bottom of the gap. But the lady who jumped to the side to avoid being hit by Cruz’s homerun ball told us that a guy (Rangers employee) had walked through the bottom of the gap and retrieved the ball.
Anyway, we ended the game with this view from section 6:
I would like to report that the Royals stormed back to take the lead again and win the game. But they did not. Instead, they lost the game on a ridiculous play. After the Cruz homer, the non-fleet-of-foot Mike Napoli hit a single. Joakim Soria (who blew the save when he gave up the Cruz homer) struck out Mitch Moreland and David Murphy.
That brought Elvis Andrus, who had replaced the booted Ian Kinsler, to the plate.
Elvis slapped a single by the first baseman and into right field. It was a nice little hit that should have advanced Napoli to third (and no more than third). But for some unknown reason, Napoli just kept running toward home plate. Right fielder Mitch Maier relayed the ball to first baseman Eric Hosmer. Hosmer turned and fired a strike to catcher Brayan Pena. Napoli was dead to rights. Napoli had not even made it to the dirt around home plate. He was a good five strides and a slide away from home plate! But instead of coming out in front of the plate to meet Napoli, Pena STEPPED BACK and opened up the plate for Napoli to slide in safe while Pena tagged him on the shoulder. It was, perhaps, the worst bit of *catchering* that I have ever witnessed.
And it led to this unwelcome sight:
Another Rangers win.
Oh, well. (The silver lining is that former-Mariner Arthur Rhodes got the win).
Anyway, there was still plenty of fun to be had at the ballpark.
Our post-game fun started off with a visit back to the visitors’ bullpen. He went down to about the third row of section 54 and waved at a Rangers employee who was working in the bullpen. As she walked over to see what we wanted, I asked if we could get the line-up card that was still taped to the wall. As she went to retrieve it, I heard a voice from our right say, “Hey, I read your blog! You’re Todd and Tim, right?”
Indeed, we were, I confirmed as I said hello to Frank. Although we’d never met, I recognized him from a cameo Frank had made the previous month on Zack Hample’s blog. Tim and I have only been *recognized* a handful of times and it is always a funny experience. It was great to briefly meet Frank, and he very kindly offered to take this photo of us with our first ever line-up card:
Two show our appreciation (for the picture and for reading about our adventures), I *rewarded* Frank with two free taco certificates Tim and I had *won* at the previous nights game when someone-did-something (got a hit or an RBI or a homerun or something).
Hope them tacos were tasty, Frank!
After parting ways with Frank, it was time to go get in line for *FANS* run the bases day. Yes, FANS run the bases. Kids of all ages were invited to circle the bases, and I was quite happy about it.
As we walked toward the line circling up the ramps in the first base concourse, I turned back and got this shot of the RF concourse:
There are definitely a lot of interesting views of all types inside Rangers Ballpark. And here is another of them:
It’s an extra-wide tunnel into the RF foul seats. And I got this shot of the stars in the steel framing up high above the walkway along the outer part of the 1B side concourse:
When we entered the seating area again, the game had been cover for a while. The CF trash collectors were off duty, but the wind was still working hard. This was the result:
Unluckily, the infield was trash free, and that was where we were running:
A couple more bonus Fans Run The Bases pictures:
It is always great to run Major League bases. I believe this is the 10th set of Major League bases that Tim has run, including (in no particular order) Progressive Field, Miller Park, Rogers Centre, PNC Park, Camden Yards, Nationals Park, Citi Field, Petco Park, Citizens Bank Park.
As we always do, we got the traditional post-run shot of the third base dugout…
…and the father-son on field shot:
Finally, it was time to leave Ranger Ballpark. It had been a lot of fun. On our way out, we got this shot (actually two shots put together) of the third base entrance and a big Rangers logo on the ground outside the entrance:
And just like in Houston, we ended it all with a fire hydrant shot, this time a nice shiny silver hydrant outside of the third base entrance:
| 2011 C&S Fan Stats |
| 11/1 Games (Tim/Kellan) |
| 12/2 Teams [Tim – Mariners, Orioles, Rangers, Brewers, Nationals, Phillies, Mets, Rays, Braves, Diamondbacks, Astros and Royals; Kellan – Mariners, Orioles] |
| 6 Ice Cream Helmet(s) (Orioles (2), Nationals, Phillies, Rangers (2)) |
| 35 Baseballs (4 Mariners, 7 Rangers, 3 Orioles, 2 Umpire, 2 Nationals, 2 Brewers, 4 Phillies, 1 Mets, 1 Rays, 2 Braves, 2 Diamondbacks, 1 MLB Authenticator, 1 Easter Egg, 1 Glove Trick, 2 Royals) |
| 5/1 Stadiums [Tim – Camden Yards, Nationals Park, Citizens Bank Park, Minute Maid Park, Rangers Ballpark in Arlington; Kellan – Camden Yards] |
| 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] |
| 4 Autograph(s) (Michael Pineda, Michael Saunders, Mark Lowe, Felipe Paulino) |
| 1 Bat* (Milton Bradley) |
| 3/2 Mascot Photos* [Tim – Mariner Moose, Teddy Roosevelt, The O’s Bird; 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. |
C&S’s Opening Day: Let’s Play Two (4/9/2011)
Tim and I celebrated our own personal MLB Opening Day on April 9, 2011 at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Due to a rain out the night before, we were treated to a single-admission doubleheader. The match-up: Rangers vs. Orioles.
We met up with national news reporter and MLBlogs Top 50 blogger, Avi Miller, on the sidewalk in front of Camden Yards. (Read Avi’s game update). As the three of us walked toward the gates, Tim spotted Brooks Robinson’s “5″ statue and had to get a picture with his “favorite number”:
FYI, Tim always wants to sit in seat number 5.
We met up with a bunch of Camden Yards regulars and waited for the gates to open. There was one problem, no one, including the gate workers, knew when the gates would be opening. We thought it would be 2:30 – two hours before game time – but at 2:30, we were told the gates would not open until 3:00. And the word was there would be no batting practice.
When we entered the stadium at 3:00, we were happy to discover that the Rangers were, in fact, taking BP. We headed down to the first row in RF foul territory with the intent of walking around to left field. Before we could even begin the walk, a Rangers righty hit a looping foul ball down the RF line. It hit the warning track and bounced right over our heads. As I turned around, the baseball smacked off of a seat in the second row and flew straight into my glove. There we go, baseball no. 1 of 2011:
We circled around toward the LF foul pole and stopped along the brick wall in foul territory. Moments later, Rangers strength and conditioning coach Jose Vasquez, fielded a batted ball, spotted Tim on my shoulders (fyi, he’s way too big to be on my shoulders these days!), shouted to me “take the boy down! (fyi, players/coaches are always scared of hitting Tim with a baseball when he’s on my shoulders), and tossed the baseball to us:
Thanks, Jose! (Fyi, that is Jose in the blue sweatshirt just to the left of Tim’s head in that last picture).
One of our goals for this game was to get a picture of Tim wearing his Mariners hat with a Ranger for the 2011 mygameballs.com photo scavenger hunt (we are going to do our best to defend our title!). I made a list of three ex-Mariners who now play for the Rangers: Mark Lowe, Arthur Rhodes, and Adrian Beltre. Lo-and-behold, it wasn’t long before Tim got an autograph from and picture with Mark Lowe:
Thanks, Mark! We enjoyed having you in Seattle, and wish you good luck in Texas (provided that, after you get a hold, the closer comes along after you and blows all of the Rangers saves).
So, the day was going great already. It was time for a snack break. “Mommy” had packed a big bag of snacks. Tim chomped down granola bar number one before we left the LF foul line:
Soon, a group of Rangers ran in toward home plate to take their turn in the cage. For some reason, we were fooled. It seemed like BP was concluding. So we headed over toward the Rangers dugout. But it was soon plainly evident that BP was still in full swing. So we headed out to left field…where Tim did some gymnastics…
…and then had another snack…
…, this time it was peanut butter crackers.
After Tim finished his crackers, we worked our way into the first row in section 86, the closest section to centerfield. Mark Lowe and Authur Rhodes were shagging balls together – nice to see former- Mariners sticking together! When Lowe shagged a ball about 75 feet from us, I called out to him. He turned around and saw Tim and me in the first row and hit us with a perfect strike.
Thanks, again, Mark!
A few minutes later, BP wrapped up (for real this time). I took our first panorama of the season from an essentially empty section 86:
FYI, that’s Avi tossing his glove in the air in that panorama.
If you click on that last panorama to enlarge it, you’ll see three baseballs in the grass by the batters eye. Tim and I decided to get some dinner and eat sitting in section 90 next to the batters eye to see what would happen with those baseballs.
We found a nacho stand in the concourse by the kids play area. So we grabbed some nachos and…
…enjoyed them in section 90 as planned. Our first nachos of the season did not disappoint. And soon enough, a couple bullpen attendants came by and one of them tossed one of the baseballs up to us.
Thanks, bullpen guy!
While eating our nachos, I got a panorama of Camden Yards from the back of section 90:
As we ate our nachos, we watched the starting pitchers warm up in CF and then in the bullpens:
As the national anthem ended, I got a picture of the bullpen attendant who had tossed the baseball up to us in section 90:
Avi pointed out the new retired number markers hanging from the upper deck in LF:
20 is Frank Robinson; 5 is Brooks Robinson; 4 is Earl Weaver; 22 is Jim Palmer; 33 is Eddie Murray; 8 is Cal Ripkin, Jr.; and 42 is Jackie Robinson.
Finally, the first game started. It was Tim’s first single-admission doubleheader (we did, of course, do a two-city doubleheader last season) and only my second (this was my first – game 1/game 2).
I got a shot of Josh Hamilton playing catch in CF before the bottom of the first inning:
And I figured I ought to get a shot of the Rangers relievers since we were sitting right by them:
Tim and I were sitting in section 86 with Avi, Matt and Zevi, plus a couple of their friends, so I got this somewhat candid shot of Tim with 3-mygameballs.com members for the scavenger hunt:
Speaking of Matt, he was over in the Flag Court in RF during the bottom of the first and came close to snagging Nick Markakis’s homerun off of Colby Lewis. That put the O’s up 1-0, and that was all they’d need in game one.
Another shot I needed for the scavenger hunt was a picture of Tim with a baseball we caught at the game with a Camden Yard’s sign in the background. Here was out first attempt:
A great shot of Tim, but the Camden Yards sign was way too far away.
We were excited to see the O’s new acquisition, Vlad Guererro. Its nice to see that guy get out of the A.L. West where we won’t do as much damage against the Mariners. In his first at bat of the day, I caught him as he hit a single off the very end of his bat:
In the bottom of the second, Mark Reynolds hit his first homerun as an Oriole. The ball landed about 2 sections over from us – in straight away left field. Avi was off with the crack of the bat, but got tripped up and hit the deck en route to the ball. And that put the O’s up 4-0.
The scoring in the first game concluded in the bottom of the third inning when Adam Jones hit a RBI single to put the O’s up 5-0. The O’s lead was good for our Mariners, so we were happy with the way the game was going.
Around the fourth of fifth inning, Tim asked if we could get ice cream. So we went on a little walk. The concession stands at Camden Yards are all different this season. It looks good. Here’s a look at the new Orioles Shirt Shop on the 3B side of the concourse:
Tim and I bought our first chocolate ice cream helmet (with rainbow sprinkles) of the season and grabbed some ice cream seats down the 3B line:
The Rangers have a lot of impressive hitters these days. I snapped this picture of one of them, Nelson Cruz, because he looked like a punk high schooler with his untucked jersey:
Come on, Nellie, tuck it in!
We gave another shot at the “baseball with Camden Yards sign” picture, but we were still a bit too far away:
Our handicap accessible seats behind section 58 were great for taking action shots. Here is a shot of Elvis Andrus grounding out:
The ball is the little white blur on the far left side of the picture (vertically, right in the middle of the dirt).
Josh Hamilton singled to center on this swing:
Here’s Vlad again, getting ready to pop out:
In the 8th inning, we headed behind home plate to set up for an umpire baseball attempt. From the cross aisle behind home, we got another shot of Josh Hamilton as he hit another single…
…this time to left field.
When some patrons left the fancy seats, an usher let us take their seats behind home plate. It’s a pretty sweet view from down there. Here is a shot of the final batter of the game, Michael Young:
And here is a screen shot from the TV broadcast showing where Tim and I were sitting as the game ended – Tim is sitting on my lap in this shot:
After Jason Berken put Michael Young away to end the game, home plate umpire Marty Foster awarded Tim his first umpire ball of the season:
And we finally got the perfect shot of Tim, his umpire baseball, and the Camden Yards sign.
Between games we hung out in the kids play area. It was essentially unchanged from last season. Tim did some jumping in the bouncy house…
…, which Tim loves. He also played on the wooden fort-thingy. Finally, before heading toward Eutaw Street, we got Tim’s picture with one of three big Oriole Bird bobbleheads:
Yes, that big thing is a bobblehead.
This was the first Saturday of MLB baseball in Baltimore. Eutaw Street was packed. I think a lot of people skipped the first game of the doubleheader and they were all showing up for the nightcap.
Tim played in the picnic area behind the batters eye before we headed back into the stands. As we made our way back into the LF stands, we passed by the MASN crew who, I imagine, were busy talking about the upcoming game:
I have no clue who this lady is, but as we passed by, some dude yelled really loud, “YOU’RE HOT, WHATEVER-HER-NAME-IS!!!” Classy, sir. Classy.
We spent most of game two with Avi, Zevi and Andrew in section 86. This was our view:
A lot of players were shuffled around in both line-ups, but big Josh Hamilton was still patrolling center field for the Rangers:
Tim was excited for game two:
In fact, he was so excited, that he put on a display of his super-rad dance moves:
In the picture above, that is Andrew sitting behind Tim in the black sweatshirt. Tim had great fun “sitting” next to Andrew. Tim laughed so much he got the hiccups twice during game 2. When we got in our car after the game, he told me, “That guy who gave me the hiccups was funny!”
The Game one “fan of the game” was standing nearby in his zany outfit, so I snapped a shot of him:
This game was all Rangers. ALL RANGERS. In fact, it was 13-1 Rangers.
Actually, the Orioles took a 1-0 lead in the second on an Adam Jones solo shot. This ISN’T the homerun swing:
Note, the Orioles were wearing black jerseys for this game.
But the Jones homer was all the O’s could muster. Meanwhile, the Rangers scored six in the third inning on the strength of 2RBI singles by Elvis Andrus and Josh Hamilton, and a 2RBI homerun by former-Mariner Adrian Beltre – his first as a Ranger.
I was happy to see former Mariner, Chris Jakubauskas warming up in the Orioles bullpen:
When he entered the game in relief, it was his first MLB action since getting drilled in the head with a pitch in the first inning of his first game in 2010.
Here is Jak in action, facing off against Josh Hamilton…
…and striking out the reigning A.L. batting champ.
Did I mention that Jakubaukas is officially the only MLB player Tim has ever invited to hang out in our hotel room? He is (scroll all the way to the bottom).
Unfortunately, things did not go great for Jak in his Orioles debut. He pitched the final three innings and gave up 5 runs (four in the 9th inning).
In the 8th inning, we headed behind home plate to make an attempt for Tim’s second umpire baseball of the day. Amazingly, we got down to the same exact seats as at the end of the first game.
Tim asked me to take this picture of him hiding in his glove:
Then I got this shot of Big Daddy Vladdy warming up for his final at bat…
…and this picture of former Mariner Mark Lowe pitching to Jake Fox:
Once again, a screenshot of the TV broadcast showed our final seating position of the night:
Tim was in perfect position to get another umpire baseball, and the usher even lobbied homeplate umpire, Jeff Nelson, on Tim’s behalf, but the ump gave out only one baseball and it was to a kid on the other side of the umpires’ tunnel.
Not to worry, it was a great day of baseball. Great father-son time. A great time hanging out with the Camden Yards regulars. And it was great to be back to live-and-in-person Major League Baseball.
Before we headed out of the park, a kind usher took this picture of two happy baseball fans:
Hooray for Baseball!
|
2011 C&S Fan Stats |
|
|
|
2/0 Games (Tim/Kellan) |
|
2/0 Teams [Tim - Orioles, Rangers; Kellan - none] |
|
1 Ice Cream Helmet(s) |
|
5 Baseballs (3 Rangers, 1 Orioles, 1 Umpire) |
|
1/0 Stadiums [Tim - Camden Yards; Kellan - none] |
|
10/6 Player Photos* [Tim - Felix Hernandez, Adam Moore, Garrett Olson, Chris Seddon, David Aarsdma, Michael Pineda, Miguel Olivo, Ryan Langerhans, Greg Zuan, Mark Lowe ; Kellan - Luke French, Milton Bradley, Franklin Gutierrez, Justin Smoak, Matt Tuiasosopo, Ryan Langerhans] |
|
3/1 Management Photos [Tim - Howard Lincoln, Jack Zduriencik, Eric Wedge; Kellan - Jack Zduriencik] |
|
1 Autograph(s) (Mark Lowe) |
|
1 Bat* (Milton Bradley) |
|
1/1 Mascot Photos* [Tim - Mariner Moose; Kellan - Mariner Moose] |
|
*includes Spring Training |
C&S’s Opening Day: Let’s Play Two (4/9/2011)
Tim and I celebrated our own personal MLB Opening Day on April 9, 2011 at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Due to a rain out the night before, we were treated to a single-admission doubleheader. The match-up: Rangers vs. Orioles.
We met up with national news reporter and MLBlogs Top 50 blogger, Avi Miller, on the sidewalk in front of Camden Yards. (Read Avi’s game update). As the three of us walked toward the gates, Tim spotted Brooks Robinson’s “5″ statue and had to get a picture with his “favorite number”:
FYI, Tim always wants to sit in seat number 5.
We met up with a bunch of Camden Yards regulars and waited for the gates to open. There was one problem, no one, including the gate workers, knew when the gates would be opening. We thought it would be 2:30 – two hours before game time – but at 2:30, we were told the gates would not open until 3:00. And the word was there would be no batting practice.
When we entered the stadium at 3:00, we were happy to discover that the Rangers were, in fact, taking BP. We headed down to the first row in RF foul territory with the intent of walking around to left field. Before we could even begin the walk, a Rangers righty hit a looping foul ball down the RF line. It hit the warning track and bounced right over our heads. As I turned around, the baseball smacked off of a seat in the second row and flew straight into my glove. There we go, baseball no. 1 of 2011:
We circled around toward the LF foul pole and stopped along the brick wall in foul territory. Moments later, Rangers strength and conditioning coach Jose Vasquez, fielded a batted ball, spotted Tim on my shoulders (fyi, he’s way too big to be on my shoulders these days!), shouted to me “take the boy down! (fyi, players/coaches are always scared of hitting Tim with a baseball when he’s on my shoulders), and tossed the baseball to us:
Thanks, Jose! (Fyi, that is Jose in the blue sweatshirt just to the left of Tim’s head in that last picture).
One of our goals for this game was to get a picture of Tim wearing his Mariners hat with a Ranger for the 2011 mygameballs.com photo scavenger hunt (we are going to do our best to defend our title!). I made a list of three ex-Mariners who now play for the Rangers: Mark Lowe, Arthur Rhodes, and Adrian Beltre. Lo-and-behold, it wasn’t long before Tim got an autograph from and picture with Mark Lowe:
Thanks, Mark! We enjoyed having you in Seattle, and wish you good luck in Texas (provided that, after you get a hold, the closer comes along after you and blows all of the Rangers saves).
So, the day was going great already. It was time for a snack break. “Mommy” had packed a big bag of snacks. Tim chomped down granola bar number one before we left the LF foul line:
Soon, a group of Rangers ran in toward home plate to take their turn in the cage. For some reason, we were fooled. It seemed like BP was concluding. So we headed over toward the Rangers dugout. But it was soon plainly evident that BP was still in full swing. So we headed out to left field…where Tim did some gymnastics…
…and then had another snack…
…, this time it was peanut butter crackers.
After Tim finished his crackers, we worked our way into the first row in section 86, the closest section to centerfield. Mark Lowe and Authur Rhodes were shagging balls together – nice to see former- Mariners sticking together! When Lowe shagged a ball about 75 feet from us, I called out to him. He turned around and saw Tim and me in the first row and hit us with a perfect strike.
Thanks, again, Mark!
A few minutes later, BP wrapped up (for real this time). I took our first panorama of the season from an essentially empty section 86:
FYI, that’s Avi tossing his glove in the air in that panorama.
If you click on that last panorama to enlarge it, you’ll see three baseballs in the grass by the batters eye. Tim and I decided to get some dinner and eat sitting in section 90 next to the batters eye to see what would happen with those baseballs.
We found a nacho stand in the concourse by the kids play area. So we grabbed some nachos and…
…enjoyed them in section 90 as planned. Our first nachos of the season did not disappoint. And soon enough, a couple bullpen attendants came by and one of them tossed one of the baseballs up to us.
Thanks, bullpen guy!
While eating our nachos, I got a panorama of Camden Yards from the back of section 90:
As we ate our nachos, we watched the starting pitchers warm up in CF and then in the bullpens:
As the national anthem ended, I got a picture of the bullpen attendant who had tossed the baseball up to us in section 90:
Avi pointed out the new retired number markers hanging from the upper deck in LF:
20 is Frank Robinson; 5 is Brooks Robinson; 4 is Earl Weaver; 22 is Jim Palmer; 33 is Eddie Murray; 8 is Cal Ripkin, Jr.; and 42 is Jackie Robinson.
Finally, the first game started. It was Tim’s first single-admission doubleheader (we did, of course, do a two-city doubleheader last season) and only my second (this was my first – game 1/game 2).
I got a shot of Josh Hamilton playing catch in CF before the bottom of the first inning:
And I figured I ought to get a shot of the Rangers relievers since we were sitting right by them:
Tim and I were sitting in section 86 with Avi, Matt and Zevi, plus a couple of their friends, so I got this somewhat candid shot of Tim with 3-mygameballs.com members for the scavenger hunt:
Speaking of Matt, he was over in the Flag Court in RF during the bottom of the first and came close to snagging Nick Markakis’s homerun off of Colby Lewis. That put the O’s up 1-0, and that was all they’d need in game one.
Another shot I needed for the scavenger hunt was a picture of Tim with a baseball we caught at the game with a Camden Yard’s sign in the background. Here was out first attempt:
A great shot of Tim, but the Camden Yards sign was way too far away.
We were excited to see the O’s new acquisition, Vlad Guererro. Its nice to see that guy get out of the A.L. West where we won’t do as much damage against the Mariners. In his first at bat of the day, I caught him as he hit a single off the very end of his bat:
In the bottom of the second, Mark Reynolds hit his first homerun as an Oriole. The ball landed about 2 sections over from us – in straight away left field. Avi was off with the crack of the bat, but got tripped up and hit the deck en route to the ball. And that put the O’s up 4-0.
The scoring in the first game concluded in the bottom of the third inning when Adam Jones hit a RBI single to put the O’s up 5-0. The O’s lead was good for our Mariners, so we were happy with the way the game was going.
Around the fourth of fifth inning, Tim asked if we could get ice cream. So we went on a little walk. The concession stands at Camden Yards are all different this season. It looks good. Here’s a look at the new Orioles Shirt Shop on the 3B side of the concourse:
Tim and I bought our first chocolate ice cream helmet (with rainbow sprinkles) of the season and grabbed some ice cream seats down the 3B line:
The Rangers have a lot of impressive hitters these days. I snapped this picture of one of them, Nelson Cruz, because he looked like a punk high schooler with his untucked jersey:
Come on, Nellie, tuck it in!
We gave another shot at the “baseball with Camden Yards sign” picture, but we were still a bit too far away:
Our handicap accessible seats behind section 58 were great for taking action shots. Here is a shot of Elvis Andrus grounding out:
The ball is the little white blur on the far left side of the picture (vertically, right in the middle of the dirt).
Josh Hamilton singled to center on this swing:
Here’s Vlad again, getting ready to pop out:
In the 8th inning, we headed behind home plate to set up for an umpire baseball attempt. From the cross aisle behind home, we got another shot of Josh Hamilton as he hit another single…
…this time to left field.
When some patrons left the fancy seats, an usher let us take their seats behind home plate. It’s a pretty sweet view from down there. Here is a shot of the final batter of the game, Michael Young:
And here is a screen shot from the TV broadcast showing where Tim and I were sitting as the game ended – Tim is sitting on my lap in this shot:
After Jason Berken put Michael Young away to end the game, home plate umpire Marty Foster awarded Tim his first umpire ball of the season:
And we finally got the perfect shot of Tim, his umpire baseball, and the Camden Yards sign.
Between games we hung out in the kids play area. It was essentially unchanged from last season. Tim did some jumping in the bouncy house…
…, which Tim loves. He also played on the wooden fort-thingy. Finally, before heading toward Eutaw Street, we got Tim’s picture with one of three big Oriole Bird bobbleheads:
Yes, that big thing is a bobblehead.
This was the first Saturday of MLB baseball in Baltimore. Eutaw Street was packed. I think a lot of people skipped the first game of the doubleheader and they were all showing up for the nightcap.
Tim played in the picnic area behind the batters eye before we headed back into the stands. As we made our way back into the LF stands, we passed by the MASN crew who, I imagine, were busy talking about the upcoming game:
I have no clue who this lady is, but as we passed by, some dude yelled really loud, “YOU’RE HOT, WHATEVER-HER-NAME-IS!!!” Classy, sir. Classy.
We spent most of game two with Avi, Zevi and Andrew in section 86. This was our view:
A lot of players were shuffled around in both line-ups, but big Josh Hamilton was still patrolling center field for the Rangers:
Tim was excited for game two:
In fact, he was so excited, that he put on a display of his super-rad dance moves:
In the picture above, that is Andrew sitting behind Tim in the black sweatshirt. Tim had great fun “sitting” next to Andrew. Tim laughed so much he got the hiccups twice during game 2. When we got in our car after the game, he told me, “That guy who gave me the hiccups was funny!”
The Game one “fan of the game” was standing nearby in his zany outfit, so I snapped a shot of him:
This game was all Rangers. ALL RANGERS. In fact, it was 13-1 Rangers.
Actually, the Orioles took a 1-0 lead in the second on an Adam Jones solo shot. This ISN’T the homerun swing:
Note, the Orioles were wearing black jerseys for this game.
But the Jones homer was all the O’s could muster. Meanwhile, the Rangers scored six in the third inning on the strength of 2RBI singles by Elvis Andrus and Josh Hamilton, and a 2RBI homerun by former-Mariner Adrian Beltre – his first as a Ranger.
I was happy to see former Mariner, Chris Jakubauskas warming up in the Orioles bullpen:
When he entered the game in relief, it was his first MLB action since getting drilled in the head with a pitch in the first inning of his first game in 2010.
Here is Jak in action, facing off against Josh Hamilton…
…and striking out the reigning A.L. batting champ.
Did I mention that Jakubaukas is officially the only MLB player Tim has ever invited to hang out in our hotel room? He is (scroll all the way to the bottom).
Unfortunately, things did not go great for Jak in his Orioles debut. He pitched the final three innings and gave up 5 runs (four in the 9th inning).
In the 8th inning, we headed behind home plate to make an attempt for Tim’s second umpire baseball of the day. Amazingly, we got down to the same exact seats as at the end of the first game.
Tim asked me to take this picture of him hiding in his glove:
Then I got this shot of Big Daddy Vladdy warming up for his final at bat…
…and this picture of former Mariner Mark Lowe pitching to Jake Fox:
Once again, a screenshot of the TV broadcast showed our final seating position of the night:
Tim was in perfect position to get another umpire baseball, and the usher even lobbied homeplate umpire, Jeff Nelson, on Tim’s behalf, but the ump gave out only one baseball and it was to a kid on the other side of the umpires’ tunnel.
Not to worry, it was a great day of baseball. Great father-son time. A great time hanging out with the Camden Yards regulars. And it was great to be back to live-and-in-person Major League Baseball.
Before we headed out of the park, a kind usher took this picture of two happy baseball fans:
Hooray for Baseball!
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2011 C&S Fan Stats |
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2/0 Games (Tim/Kellan) |
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2/0 Teams [Tim - Orioles, Rangers; Kellan - none] |
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1 Ice Cream Helmet(s) |
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5 Baseballs (3 Rangers, 1 Orioles, 1 Umpire) |
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1/0 Stadiums [Tim - Camden Yards; Kellan - none] |
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10/6 Player Photos* [Tim - Felix Hernandez, Adam Moore, Garrett Olson, Chris Seddon, David Aarsdma, Michael Pineda, Miguel Olivo, Ryan Langerhans, Greg Zuan, Mark Lowe ; Kellan - Luke French, Milton Bradley, Franklin Gutierrez, Justin Smoak, Matt Tuiasosopo, Ryan Langerhans] |
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3/1 Management Photos [Tim - Howard Lincoln, Jack Zduriencik, Eric Wedge; Kellan - Jack Zduriencik] |
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1 Autograph(s) (Mark Lowe) |
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1 Bat* (Milton Bradley) |
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1/1 Mascot Photos* [Tim - Mariner Moose; Kellan - Mariner Moose] |
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*includes Spring Training |
Kellan’s MLB Debut (10/1/10)
October 1, 2010 was a big day, and its going to result in a BIG game report. Here we go.
The day was finally upon us: Kellan’s first Mariners game! In the morning, I laid out our shirts for the day in small, medium and large sizes:
For this extra special game, I decided to don my extra special jersey: my official Mariners Ryan Rowland-Smith No. 18 jersey.
It was a night game and we had a busy day preparing for it. In the morning, my mom and I went shopping at a craft store and then, just like I’d done a little more than four years ago, I set up shop in my parents’ garage to paint version 2.0 of the First Gamers Club sign:
My mom headed up a project of her own: creating a picture display for the “2006 First Gamers Club Reunion“:
On September 12, 2006, we celebrated the first “First Gamers Club.” The guests of honor (the “First Gamers”) were Tim, Julie (my cousin Janet’s daughter), Laura (my cousin Daniel’s daughter), and Kasey (our family friends’ grandson). With the exception of Laura, all of the 2006 First Gamers would be in attendance for the second First Gamers Club celebration.
This time, the guests of honor would be Kellan, Gill and Kate (Kellan’s and Tim’s only first cousins (my sister-in-law Kimberly’s and brother-in-law Kevin’s kids)), and Tyler and Erika (my cousin Janet’s 3-year-old twins).
Thanks to my wonderful parents, Tim’s first game was in Suite 5 at Safeco Field (the Ted Williams suite). Thanks again to my wonderful parents, Kellan’s first game would also be in Suite 5 at Safeco Field. Here is Kellan’s extremely cool first game ticket:
We arrived right when the gates opened. As we slowly made our way from the parking garage, through the suite level concourse and down to the field level, several ushers gave Tim and Kellan some baseball cards, including these two absolute keepers:
It was quite the chore to keep Tim from playing with (and thereby destroying) his Felix and Griffey cards during the game. He was very excited about them. I kept them safe and let him play with (and destroy) several less important cards he also received from ushers during BP.
When we made it to the field level, Tim and Colleen headed to the team store where Tim got some cool Mariners athetlic shorts (pictured throughout this entry) and Kellan and I reported directly to the RF foul line to watch BP.
This is the first picture ever of Kellan at Safeco Field (or any MLB stadium):
We watched BP from almost the exact same spot from which Tim and I watched BP at his first game. The only disappointing part of the pre-game events was that the Mariners were already off of the field when we arrived. So Kellan’s first BP was limited to the visiting Oakland A’s.
When we arrived at the field, my mom, dad and brother had already hung the First Gamers Club sign from our suite:
By the way, the “M” in “GAMERS” looks different because I painted silver sparkles over the black paint of the “M.”
According to the time coding on my camera, it took exactly 11 minutes until A’s 30-year old, first time September call-up, Bobby Cramer, bestowed upon Kellan the very first MLB baseball of his life:
Here is a cellphone picture I took so I could immediately show off Kellan’s prize:
Bobby Cramer was very nice. We chatted a little bit during BP and he agreed to sign Kellan’s first baseball after the conclusion of BP.
After hitting the team store, Tim and Colleen met up with us and Colleen took this picture of her three guys with Kellan’s first baseball:
Tim was excited for his little brother. He really loves that little guy.
Then, someone took this excellent family picture of the four of us:
That kid in the yellow shirt explained that the Mariners had stamped some of the BP balls with a “CATCH & WIN” stamp. If you caught one of the stamped baseballs, you could turn it in for an autographed Mariners baseball at a prize table in the concourse behind home plate. (I guess I should mention that it was Fan Appreciation Night).
Well, Kellan’s first baseball had the stamp. It is visible in the last couple pictures — it looks like a blue blob on the baseball. As much as I would like to get an autographed Mariners baseball, there was no way in the world that I was going to trade in Kellan’s first baseball.
Soon, more First Gamers showed up. In this picture, Tim is jumping for joy (and sporting his new shorts!) as my dad chats up Tyler and Erika:
Julie is in the pink hat just behind Tim. I got a kick out of the fact that Tim and Julie shared their first game together back in September 2006. Now, just over four years later, Julie was enjoying her second baseball game while Tim was taking in his EIGHTY-SECOND game!
Eventually, my dad was able to secure a couple baseballs for Julie, Erika and Tyler:
I believe that both of those baseballs also came courtesy of Bobby Cramer.
Soon, Kimberly, Kevin, Gill and Kate also made their way down to join us for some BP. Colleen and Kimberly took this nice “sisters” shot…
…that features the First Gamers Club sign in the background.
True to his word, the second BP ended, Bobby Cramer ran over and signed Kellan’s first baseball:
Note that Bobby is using the Cook & Son tried-and-true baseball glove hat method while signing Kellan’s baseball. Kellan’s first baseball is pictured below. I am extremely happy with it. Bobby did an excellent job with his autograph. The placement of his autograph and his jersey number (“64″) off-set to the side of the “CATCH & WIN” stamp and a nice grass/dirt smudge easily make it one of the most visually unique and pleasing baseballs in our collection.
Even if Bobby doesn’t turn out to be an all-star player, he can rest assured that he will always be remembered by the Cook family.
Thanks, Bobby!
BP was great fun with all of the kids. The only regret was that I had not been able to get a baseball for Gill and Kate. I’d once given Gill a baseball Gil Meche used to do some rehab work at old Yankee Stadium, so they had a real MLB baseball already. But I was determined that Gill should get one at his first game. At this point, I wasn’t sure how or if that was going to happen.
Before leaving our BP spot, I had to pose for a picture with Tim in his familiar shoulder riding position and Kellan in his baby bjorn:
In that picture, you can see the “CATCH & WIN” logo on the big screen behind us.
After BP ended, Tim headed up to the suite with his Grandma. Meanwhile, Kellan, Colleen and I headed over to the Mariners dugout. I really wanted to get a picture of Kellan with a Mariner at his first game. I had discussed it with Ryan Rowland-Smith at our last game and he said he’d gladly pose for a picture with us and that we should come over by the dugout. So that’s what we did.
Kellan took a little power nap:
And he concentrated hard on taking “it” all in while he was awake:
When Colleen split off from us to go fetch Kellan’s pacifier, a nice fan asked if I wanted him to take our picture. Hey, why not? Right? So here it is:
No Mariners were in sight for a long time. Then, John Wetteland came out and started signing autographs down the foul line. A couple rookie calls up soon joined him. We stuck by the dugout looking for RRS. Eventually, he came out and we locked eyes. I pointed down the foul line and we both nodded our heads. But when he went down the line to meet up with us, a throng of fans rushed him for autographs. Then more players came out and joined the huge autograph session.
We moved down the line a bit and waited for people to clear out from the RRS line. In this picture, Kellan looks like a pro-autograph hound as RRS signs an autograph for another fan in the background:
We ended up getting pictures with four Mariners:
Clockwise from top left: David Pauley, RRS, Chris Seddon, and Garrett Olson.
Olson posed for a picture with us and then saw the little helmet in my hand. He grabbed the helmet, put it on Kellan’s head, and leaned in for a second picture. Excellent move, Garrett!
I got a bright idea earlier in the day, I brought Tim’s ice cream helmet from the last game and a metallic-silver pen and got the guys to autograph it:
A couple of the autographs are on the far side near the back. On the bill of the helmet, those autographs are Cook & Son Hall of Famers Jason Phillips and Ryan Rowland-Smith.
Phillips wasn’t autographing down the line. While the autograph session was going on down the line, he was out in the bullpen and outfield working with starting pitcher Luke French and catcher Josh Bard. After we got those player pictures above, it was getting close to game time. We still had not visited the suite yet. But before heading up, I told Colleen we needed to go out to the bullpen because I wanted to say hi to Jason.
We found Phillips pretty quickly. He came over to chat and meet Kellan. And he asked, “Hey, where’s the big guy?” Yep, Tim has graduated from being our “little boy” to being our “big guy.”
Jason Phillips has been so incredibly cool to Tim and I over the past two seasons. I definitely don’t want to try to take advantage of the relationship. But this was Kellan’s first game! So I had to ask if he could hook Kellan up with his first Mariners baseball. “Of course,” was Jason’s response.
Thank you, Jason!!!
Faced with a fresh, new-to-the-world Mariners fan, Jason told us a story about when his kid was born and he was just days away from the start of a baseball season. When we parted ways, we wished each other well for the offseason. By the way, the baseball Jason gave to Kellan was fresh out of the box. It is a beautiful clean pearl of a baseball.
Here is a look at Kellan’s first two baseballs:
Wait, that’s three baseballs? To the left, that is Kellan’s absolutely beautiful Bobby Cramer autographed, “CATCH & WIN” stamped first baseball. The baseball on the right (“107″) is the baseball from Jason Phillips. (FYI, I internally debated with myself long and hard about whether we should start again at “1″ now that Kellan has joined our little baseball team. I’m still not convinced I made the right decision, but I decided that we’d just keep on with our existing numbering system under the theory that all of the baseballs are collectively “Cook & Son” team baseballs. Right or wrong, I’ll live with that decision until the boys are old enough that I’m no longer “cool” and they feel the need to have their own separate numbering system. Hopefully that’s in the distant future because I love being on my sons’ team.)
Anyway, what about that middle baseball? We wandered by the prize booth. I showed them Kellan’s baseball (now autographed by Bobby Cramer) and told them there was no way I was going to give it to them, but that we still would like to get an autographed Mariners baseball. They put a little red dot inside the “C” in of the “CATCH & WIN” stamp and let me pick a bag from the autographed baseball grab bag. Truth be told, I like that red dot a lot. It adds to the story of Kellan’s first baseball and it looks cool. Anyway, Colleen and I both pointed to the same grab bag, and we ended up pulling the above-pictured Jose Lopez autographed baseball. We like Jose. The Jose baseball is definitely a welcome addition to our home.
Okay — it was game time. We reported to the suite and said our hellos to the gathered crowd of family and friends.
I absolutely love Tim’s “first pitch” picture. So, in addition to myself, I assigned two other people to photograph Kellan’s first pitch. One took the shot too early and one took it too late. Luckily, I took it at just the right time and Kellan is now the proud owner of a framed picture of the first pitch of his first Mariners game. Here it is:
If you cannot tell, the baseball can be seen in the foul grass on the 3B side, just to the right of the circle of dirt around home plate (click to enlarge the picture and you’ll be able to see it). Just like Tim’s first pitch thrown by Gil Meche, Kellan’s first pitch thrown by Luke French was a called “strike one.”
On the second pitch, Rajai Davis popped out to…
…Ichiro in right field for the first “out” of Kellan’s career as a Mariners fan.
After that second pitch, sadly, it was all downhill for the Mariners. The next batter hit a homerun and the A’s never looked back.
But lets dwell on the positive. Here was our beautiful view from Suite 5 at Safeco Field:
When you attend a game in a luxury suite, its easy to end up not hanging on every pitch of the game. There is a lot that goes on in a suite. And my mom and Colleen did an excellent job snapping pictures of all of the fun.
In no particular order, lets check in on the fun:
Top left: my dad with my folks’ closest friends and co-Mariners season ticket holders Lynn and Steve. And half-hidden behind Lynn in Kasey from the First Gamers Club class of 2006. Kasey and Tim had a blast together at this game.
Top right: my cousin Annie smiles for a picture with her (and my) uncle Raaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy! Ray is Julie, Erika and Tyler’s grandpa.
Bottom left: Annie with her sister (and my cousin) Katie, my Dad, Julie and Kate (my neice).
Bottom right: My dad, Julie and Kate sans Annie and Katie.
My hope was that the Mariners would win. Unfortunately, they were facing Trevor Cahill who was looking to cap off a stellar season with his 18th win to go along with is sub-3.0 ERA. As with all apparent Mariners losses in the making, my second goal was that hopefully at least Ichiro would get a hit. I was poised with my camera ready to capture the moment:
But he walked in the first and, as shown here,…
…grounded into a fielder’s choice in the third.
Back to the suite pictures. In the top left photo below, Katie shares a moment with her (and my) cousin Janet:
Janet, of course, is Raaaaaaaaaaayyy’s daughter, and Julie, Erika and Tyler’s mother.
Top right: My dad holds Kellan as uncle Raaaaaaaaaayyy watches on.
Bottom left: My mom goofs around with Julie.
Bottom right: Katie holds Kellan as they watch the game from the suite’s top row of seats.
By the way, each of my cousins at this game are children of my mom’s sisters, each of my aunts at this game are those very same sisters of my mom (she has four sisters and two of them were at this game), and each of my uncles at this game are the husbands of the aforementioned aunts and fathers of the aforementioned cousins.
More pictures:
Top left: Lynn, my dad, Kellan, me, and my aunt Carol (wife of Raaaaaaaayyy, mother of Janet, and grandma of Julie, Erika and Tyler).
Top right: My dad and Steve.
Bottom left: Kasey (in his grandma’s arms) pats Kellan (in my dad’s arms) on the arm, while Colleen and I smile for the camera.
Bottom right: Trouble with a capital ”T” and “K”. Left to their own devices, I am certain that Tim and Kasey could get into unruly amounts of mischief. (And, for good measure, Kate is hiding under the table).
The Mariners love new fans. They were quick to bestow unto Tim, Kellan, and all of the kids these fancy “first game” certificates:
Of course, this wasn’t Tim’s first game, so I digitally edited his certificate.
You know what else they have in suites? Awesome food, and lots of it. Here, my best buddy, Paul, and I point out (with amazement) part of the spread:
Along the wall off-camera to the right, we also had pizzas, hot dogs, and delicious little mini corndogs.
As the Mariners fell further-and-further behind their opponents, we just kept having fun:
Top left and right: Carol plays with Kellan. In the photo on the left, my aunt Margaret watches on in the pink jacket. In a crazy and by all accounts unplanned twist of fate, Carol wore the exact same white sweater and Margaret wore the exact same pink jacket to Tim’s first game. Here is the photographic evidence.
Bottom left: Me and Paulie (taken about two seconds before (or possibly after) our “pointing at the food” picture above).
Bottom right: Tim and one of his favorite people in the whole world, his grandma.
This has been a lot of pictures…well, that’s not even the half of it. Let’s keep going:
Top right: the kids gather for some First Gamers Club cake!
Bottom left: I paparazzi-style ambushed my brother Jason as he got up to get more food and/or drink. Paulie laughs at Jason in the process. Back in 1998-99, Jason, Paul and I were roommates during the year after I graduated from college and before I moved to Pennsylvania for law school. Between the three of us, there was a lot of making fun of each other going on in that house. Good times.
Bottom right: Janet watches the game with all three of her kids.
Wait. That was three pictures in a row without Kellan. Here we go, its Kellan and Lynn on the left…
…and Kellan and aunt Kimberly on the right.
And how about some Kellan, mommy and the Safeco Field sign pictures? We got those too:
Like at Tim’s first game, the Mariners Moose paid a visit to the suite and posed for pictures with everyone. Here are just two of the many Moose pictures:
Heck, let’s see a few more:
By this point, all of these people should look familiar except two of ‘em. In the top left, Janet’s husband Destry is holding Erika and Tyler. At the bottom left, Katie and Annie are joined by their dad (and my uncle) Tom in their Moose picture. By the way, to connect the dots, maybe I should mention that Margaret and Tom are the parents and Katie and Annie are the sisters of my cousin Nathan with whom Tim and I went to a Nationals vs. Mets game on September 6, 2010.
Tim and his cousin Kate are about 9 months apart in age (Tim is older) and they have a great time with each other. Here, Tim makes silly faces at my camera…
…while Kate smiles at someone else’s camera.
Meanwhile, Kate’s big brother and Tim’s cousin, Gill, was having fun sitting with his dad (“uncle Kevin”) and playing with the large stack of baseball cards he’d acquired from various ushers throughout the night:
Gill’s baseball fan loyalty is somewhat up in the air. While his dad is a moderate Phillies fan (more of an Eagles and Flyers fan) and his (and Tim’s) grandpa is a Yankees fan, I have designs on drafting Gill into a life of indentured Mariners fanitude.
Tim continued having way too much fun, alternatively, with Kasey and his grandma:
And aunt Kimberly and uncle Kevin couldn’t say enough about their experience at Safeco Field…
…where everyone was “so very nice” to them.
With Kellan’s first game not quite going as planned on the field, there was plenty of time to smile at Kellan…
…or to take “guys” shots with my littlest boy and Paulie…
…and, of course, I had to get a shot with both of my boys…
….with Tim wearing a pair of rabbit ears courtesy of his uncle Jason.
At some point, Gill requested to go to the kids play area. Lynn, Kasey, Tim and I decided to join them. I took this shot from a little concourse that joins the 1B side suite level to the RF suite level:
The play area was pretty crowded and it was easy to lose sight of the kids in there. So we didn’t stay too long. Before we left, I made a suggestion to Kimberly: if they would like, we could stop by the Mariners bullpen and I could try to get a baseball for Gill and Kate before heading back to the suite.
Things worked out ideally. As we approached the bullpen, Garrett Olson was warming up, but for some unknown reason, Jason Phillips wasn’t doing the catching. Instead, Jason was standing behind the catcher just off to the lefthanded batters box side of the plate. He was standing against the fence to the bullpen.
In the picture below to the left…
…you can just barely see a little piece of Jason’s blue baseball cap above the green padding right over Gill’s right hand. As we walked up to the fence, I noticed that Jason was standing right there. I said hello and he turned around to chat.
Again, I don’t like asking Jason for too much, but these were drastic times. Gill and Kate were never going to have another first game. I introduced Jason to everyone, mentioned that they’d flown out to Seattle from the east coast to share their first baseball game with Kellan, and I asked if it was possible for them to get a baseball to mark the occassion. “No problem,” Jason said, “just let him finish warming up so I can get over to my bag.” Above to the right, Gill watched through the fence with wide eyes.
Once Garrett finished warming up, Jason headed over to his equipment bag, pulled out a baseball and tossed it over the fence to uncle Kevin who handed it over to Gill who then gladly handed it over to his sister, Kate.
Thanks, again, Jason!
To celebrate Gill and Kate’s first baseball, the three cousins got ice cream helmets and took them back to the suite:
Ichiro came to the plate for his final at bat of the night in the 8th inning. He was still looking to collect his first hit of the night, and his 211th of the season. And with this swing…
…he extended his hit streak in games attended by Kellan to one (1) game (and counting).
It was getting late and the action in the suite was quieting down a bit. The Martelons enjoyed some more “first game” action from the steps in the suite’s seating area:
The food service people started cleaning up…
…while Colleen and Kellan relaxed in a cushy chair:
Others, including me and Tim, quietly watched the Mariners offense sputter to the finish line of a 9-0, six hit, shutout loss:
The brutal loss, however, couldn’t dampen our spirits. The season was long lost months ago and, while a win would have been great, this night was about family, friends and sharing our five kids’ “first game” experience with one another. And on that front, the night was a smashing success.
After the game concluded, people slowly said their temporary good-byes (we’re all family, we’d see each other again soon):
Paulie pointed out the framed shot of our favorite baseball player of all-time hanging on the wall:
Months earlier, I had hoped and expected that Ken Griffey, Jr. would be playing in this game. Given his retirement, I was at least happy to have him “in” the suite with us.
I didn’t want to leave. I grabbed my “big guy” and we got a picture as the Safeco Field roof rolled shut:
In the name of preserving history, I got a picture of the “unhappy” totals:
Then we got a picture of our whole family:
We try to get a full family shot at least once a year. It was great to get this one at Safeco Field (although poor little Kellan was lights out at this point). Oh, by the way, there is my camera-shy sister-in-law, Alison, between my mom and brother! (With this picture, I am pretty sure I’ve now included at least one picture of each person who attended the game with us in the suite).
Then, I got yet another panorama from the suite (showing the roof closing)…
…and one more picture of my happy little family (the “PA Cooks”):
Aside from the final score, it was an almost unbeatable day at the ballpark.
Welcome to the Majors, Kellan!
Ken Griffey, Jr. and Ichiro greeted us in the hallway…
…as we made our way from the suite to the car.
Why did the night have to end?
2010 Fan Stats:
28 Games
20 Teams (Mariners, Orioles, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Angels, Twins, Athletics, White Sox, Indians and Yankees; Phillies, Dodgers, Pirates, Braves, Mets, Brewers, Padres, Giants, Nationals and Marlins)
24 Ice Cream Helmets (Mariners (2), Orioles (4), Phillies (3), Padres (2), Pirates (2), Mets, Dodgers, Athletics, Nationals (2), Indians, Yankees)
64 Baseballs (14 Mariners, 2 Angels, 4 Athletics, 3 Brewers, 4 Nationals, 2 Blue Jays, 10 Umpires, 2 Phillies, 1 Mets, 4 Braves, 2 Orioles, 1 Dodgers, 1 Padres, 1 Giants, 2 Twins, 1 White Sox, 7 Easter Eggs, 1 Yankees, 2 Marlins)
13 Stadiums (Safeco Field, Camden Yards, Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park, Oakland-Alameda County Stadium, Dodgers Stadium, PETCO Park, Angel Stadium of Anaheim, AT&T Park, Progressive Field, Yankee Stadium)
18 Player Photos (Jamie Moyer, Ryan Rowland-Smith (3), Omar Vizquel, Chad Cordero, Garrett Olson, Chris Seddon, Mike Cameron, Joel Piniero, Frank Catalanotto, Billy Wagner, Jeff Suppan, Tommy Hanson, Jered Weaver, Jay Buente, Brian Sanches and Scott Olsen)
2 Retired Player Photos (Jim Palmer, Bert Blyleven)
1 Umpire Photo (“Cowboy” Joe West)
16 Autographs (Ryan Rowland-Smith (3), Omar Vizquel, Jason Phillips, Chad Cordero, Garrett Olson, Chris Seddon, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Joel Piniero, Frank Catalanotto (2), Billy Wagner (2), Bobby Cramer, Jeff Suppan, Tommy Hanson, Jeff Weaver, Brian Sanches and Scott Olsen)
8 Kids Run The Bases (Citizens Bank Park, 2 Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park, PETCO Park, Camden Yards, Progressive Field)
Guys Night Out In Baltimore (9/18/10)
The day before Tim’s 4th MLB Anniversary game, my buddy Greg accompanied me on a trip to the car dealer to get some equipment installed on my wife’s car. Greg (and his former-lady friend) had accompanied me and Tim to a Blue Jays home game in Philadelphia back in June. While waiting on the car, I asked Greg if he would be interested in going to Camden Yards with us the following weekend. He was.
Some people arrive two hours before a baseball game, chase balls during BP, and explore the stadium before and during the game. That’s me and Tim.
On the other hand, some people show up five minutes before first pitch, report to their assigned seats, and stay put thoroughout the game other than trips to the concourse for food/drinks/bathroom visits. Heck, they may even leave early to “beat traffic.” That’s Greg.
But on September 18, 2010, Greg proclaimed that he wanted the full Cook & Son ballgame experience. So Tim and I called the shots at this game. Let’s see how it turned out.
The only bad part of the night was that Baltimore was invaded by hordes of Bronx-based baseball fans. The line to get into the stadium…
…was ridiculous. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people were there before the gates opened.
With the help of Mr. Avi Miller, we had “season tickets” allowing us to access the main stadium while the riff-raff were confined to Eutaw Street and RF-CF. With the help of some other Camden Yards regulars, we managed to get into the stadium ahead of 98% of the hundreds of people pictured above.
Thanks, OPACY regulars! (Its good to know people).
Five minutes after the gates opened, we were in LF and…
…Chris Tillman (the player above on the right*) tossed a baseball to Tim. After we got the ball, Greg asked if he could hold it. It was the first time he’d EVER touched an actual Major League baseball.
I wanted Greg to catch a BP homerun. Unfortunately, the O’s stopped hitting early and the Bronx horde (much like the evil Jun Horde of Beastmaster fame) made an early entrance:
Non-season ticket holders were not supposed to be let in until 5:30. But we think they were let in early because there were simply too many “Juns” to be contained out on Eutaw Street.
We decided to head up to the upper deck to see some sights.
When we reached the top of the winding ramps, Tim popped a squat in the concourse…
…and had us lob him some pitches. Look, a no-eyes catch!
Next, we headed over to LCF and watched the action out on Eutaw Street…
….it was packed. Then we headed into the seats where I got this shot of the bullpens and batters eye…
…the team from the Bronx was peppering the back wall of the batters eye with homeruns. I think there were about 8 balls hit in there. Also, notice all of the strips of grass transplanted for use in the outfield.
In centerfield, we spotted Mariano Rivera…
…who I’m guessing must be the last baseball player who wears the number 42.
After spitting lots of sunflower seeds out of the upper deck, we headed around the upper deck concourse toward right field:
Then it was down to the field level concourse for some fun in the kids play area. But it was ridiculously packed. So, after Tim took some hacks, he decided to head to the Camden Club for some dinner.
On our way out of the play area, we noticed this sign showing the evolution of the Orioles’ logo:
I like ‘em all except the angry “Cuckoo” Bird second from the right. That one is just silly. This sign raises the question, what did the O’s use from 1989-1996?
Eutaw Street was insanely packed:
We ended up getting the same table in the Camden Club where we sat with my mom back in July. This time, I realized I could open the window a tiny bit. So I stuck my arm out and took these shots looking down on crowded Eutaw Street:
As we waited for our dinners to arrive, we could see C.C. Sabbathia warming up in the visitors’ bullpen:
Tim the photographer took this shot of me and Greg hanging out at our table:
We arrived at the Camden Club pretty late in the pre-game festivities. When we ordered, our waitress told us that our food wouldn’t arrive before the game started. That was fine with us. We ended up watching the first 2-3 innings from our table in the Camden Club. It was quite pleasant up there.
Derek Jeter led off for the visitors and Jeremy Guthrie “welcomed” him to Baltimore with a first pitch to the back/elbow…
…to see the video clip, click here.
Eventually, our food came, and it was delicious:
Tim and a chicken strip posed for a picture by the window:
Unfortunately, after hitting the Bronx short stop, Guthrie walked the Bronx third baseman and then gave up a 2-out 2-RBI single to the Bronx catcher. So the O’s trailed 0-2 after the first inning.
For the record, we were rooting for the O’s. My forever first and favorite team is the Mariners. My second favorite team is whoever is playing the team from the Bronx.
After the sun dipped behind the stadium, I was able to get a halfway decent panorama:
We headed down to the field around the third inning. On our way, I talked the elevator operator into letting us get out on the second floor (while she continued on with other elevator passengers) so Tim could get a good look at the Camden Yards model…
…and Greg could get his picture in front of the glass doors to the O’s front office. Tim loves that model.
When we got to the field level, it was time for something special…
…the first ice cream helmet of Greg’s life.
Even with the packed house, we were able to find some nice unoccupied handicapped accessible seats in the cross aisle behind section 16. This was our view:
Unfortunately, this guy’s game was on…
…and he was gunning for his twentieth win of the season. And when he did in fact win it later this evening, it was the first time a pitcher in either league had won 20 games since 2008 and the first time Sabbathia had won 20 in a season in his career.
On a side note: In 2008 there were several pitchers who won 20 games (Cliff Lee, Brandon Webb, Roy Halladay, and Mike “20 & Retire” Mussina), and Tim, my parents and I witnessed Brandon Webb record his 20th win of the season at Tim’s second MLB Anniversary game in Arizona. It was also the first time Webb had ever won 20 in a season.
Things were going the visitors’ way all night.
The O’s couldn’t get them out…
…and Buck “The Miracle Worker” Showalter couldn’t argue his way into any additional outs.
In addition to Sabbathia’s milestone 20th win, we’d also witness Robinson Cano hit a lesser milestone with a 2-run homerun in the 5th inning. When A-Rod touched the plate on Cano’s homerun, it marked the first time in Cano’s career that he had reached the 100-RBI mark.
We had plenty of fun, nonetheless.
In that picture above to the right, Tim looks pretty serious. Possibly because we were on a mission to finish off our final two pictures needed to complete the MyGameBalls.com Photo Scavenger Hunt.
Earlier in the game, we found a mulleted beer vendor and were able to check off the highest point value picture in the scavenger hunt. Only one picture remained. Above, Tim is wearing my glove as a hat and there is a long rope’ish looking thing coming off of my glove. We needed to find an usher to pretend to cut the string. And we had a tip from the aforementioned OPACY-crew regular, Avi Miller.
After watching A-Rod very satisfyingly ground out weakly to 3B…
…we decided to head toward LF to find Kelly, the usher Avi advised would be a good choice for our final scavenger hunt picture.
On our walk toward LF, Tim looked up and spotted the Bird sitting in the press box window…
…without even realizing he was doing it, I managed to capture the Bird as he waved to Tim. Tim was very excited to be the recipient of the Bird’s wave.
We decided to get an usher to take our picture in the concourse behind home plate…
…this same usher usually takes our picture every time Tim and I visit Camden Yards. He always does a fine job.
Out in LF, we grabbed some seats in the last row. Eventually, an usher walked by and I spotted “Kelly” on her name tag. I flagged her down and asked if she knew Avi. She did! And she was more than happy to help us with the final scavenger hunt picture once the half inning concluded. Here is the final scavenger hunt photo:
A difficult part about this one is that you either (i) had to find an usher with a pair of scissors (I guess meaning he/she really intended to cut some ball retrieving devices during BP) or (ii) you had to bring scissors to the game (something that didn’t really seem possible).
Well, it turns out that the letter actually is possible. Without planning it or even knowing I was doing it, I brought a pair of craft scissors to the game. Security at the gate did not find them because (unknown to me), they were in by back pocket. Apparently, I had driven 2 hours to Baltimore while sitting on these scissors, but never noticed.
During BP, I felt something in my back pocket and figured it was Tim’s sunglasses. I grabbed the “sunglasses” and was delighted to find they were actually a pair of scissors I’d used earlier in the day to help my wife with a project around thehouse. So, I knew we *had* to get this photo. Interestingly, we’ve never used the glove trick, so we had to figure out how to rig it specifically for the photo. Luckily, it all came together with some MacGyverish ingenuitity.
Shortly after we got the picture, the 9th inning was on us. We planned to go for an umpire ball. I made a rookie mistake, but we were able to overcome it.
The last time we were at Camden Yards, I saw the same usher who took our picture (above) seating some little kids to go for an umpire baseball. So, when he took our picture at this game, I asked him if he could seat us down there to go for an umpire ball. He said he would take Tim down to the umpire tunnel, but Greg and I couldn’t come because we didn’t have tickets for that section.
Well, that wouldn’t work because there is no way Tim would go off on his own with an usher and then ask for an umpire ball. In fact, without me, he is not tall enough to see over the wall of the umpire tunnel.
The problem was that the guy now *knew* we didn’t have tickets for that area. If I had not asked, he never would have even questioned it. Anyway, we made our way down there at the top of the ninth. We were on the other side of the tunnel (not in that usher’s section) about 8 rows back. But then I got greedy. I saw that rows 3-5 were completely empty on the other side of the tunnel. So we headed over there.
The usher saw us and told us Tim could stay, but Greg and I could not. I told him Tim wouldn’t stay there on his own. But the guy wouldn’t budge. Again, I never should have asked him in the first place. Anyway, as the three of us exited the section, a couple was leaving the same section and they walked over and gave us their tickets (unsolicited). We thanked them profusely and then turned around. I walked up to the usher and showed him the tickets. He waved us in and gave his blessing for us to sit anywhere we wanted in the section.
We ended up here…
…sitting directly behind the usher. With no one else on that side of the tunnel, it was easy pickens for Tim to get an umpire baseball from Tony Randazzo.
Thanks, Tony!
Sadly, Chad Gaudin shut the door in the bottom of the ninth and the O’s fell to the visitors 11-3.
Before heading out, a nice fan took one more group shot of the three of us:
As we slowly left the stadium, Greg gave me his assessment of the Cook & Son ballpark experience: two thumbs up. He’d never seen so many parts of a stadium or been “on the go” throughout a game and he found it to be quite fun.
So did we.
Hopefully, Greg will be back for another game or two with us next season.
2010 Fan Stats:
26 Games
20 Teams (Mariners, Orioles, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Angels, Twins, Athletics, White Sox, Indians and Yankees; Phillies, Dodgers, Pirates, Braves, Mets, Brewers, Padres, Giants, Nationals and Marlins)
22 Ice Cream Helmets (Orioles (4), Phillies (3), Padres (2), Pirates (2), Mets, Dodgers, Athletics, Nationals (2), Indians, Yankees)
60 Baseballs (12 Mariners, 2 Angels, 3 Athletics, 3 Brewers, 4 Nationals, 2 Blue Jays, 9 Umpires, 2 Phillies, 1 Mets, 4 Braves, 2 Orioles, 1 Dodgers, 1 Padres, 1 Giants, 2 Twins, 1 White Sox, 7 Easter Eggs, 1 Yankees, 2 Marlins)
12 Stadiums (Camden Yards, Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park, Oakland-Alameda County Stadium, Dodgers Stadium, PETCO Park, Angel Stadium of Anaheim, AT&T Park, Progressive Field, Yankee Stadium)
15 Player Photos (Jamie Moyer, Ryan Rowland-Smith (2), Omar Vizquel, Chad Cordero, Mike Cameron, Joel Piniero, Frank Catalanotto, Billy Wagner, Jeff Suppan, Tommy Hanson, Jered Weaver, Jay Buente, Brian Sanches and Scott Olsen)
2 Retired Player Photos (Jim Palmer, Bert Blyleven)
1 Umpire Photo (“Cowboy” Joe West)
10 Autographs (Ryan Rowland-Smith (2), Omar Vizquel, Chad Cordero, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Joel Piniero, Frank Catalanotto (2), Billy Wagner (2), Jeff Suppan, Tommy Hanson, Jeff Weaver, Brian Sanches and Scott Olsen)
8 Kids Run The Bases (Citizens Bank Park, 2 Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park, PETCO Park, Camden Yards, Progressive Field)
Tim’s Fourth MLB Anniversary (9/12/2010)
On Sunday, September 12, 2010, Tim and I headed out of the house early in the morning en route to Tim’s Fourth MLB Anniversary game. I had debated in my head for months about which game we would attend. It was between Marlins @ Nationals or Phillies @ Mets. We’re more interested in the Phillies and Mets. But we already saw the Phillies on Tim’s First Anniversary. So, we hopped in the car and headed south to Washington, D.C. for a date with the Marlins, Nationals, and Tim’s “Poppy” (his materal grandfather, who I call Kevin).
In addition to all the excitement surrounding it being Tim’s MLB Anniversary game, we had the opportunity to do something special at this game. If we could manage to get two baseballs at this game, Tim and I would hit the 100 baseball mark on the fourth anniversary of Tim’s first baseball (which was given to Tim by Blue Jays September call-up, Davis Romero).
It was a drizzly morning. We arrived right as the gates opened (2.5 hours before game time), but there was no batting practice. When we arrived, there was no action on the field at all. But a Marlins pitcher was throwing in the bullpen out in LF.
I had no clue who he was. But I noticed he had his name stitched on his glove, so I zoomed in…
…to find out it was Alex Sanabia.
As we watched Sanabia throwing under the supervision of his pitching coach, Poppy arrived. In addition to the three of us, there were a few other people (maybe 5 or so) watching Sanabia pitch.
When Sanabia finished up, he walked under us and I called out, “Hey, Alex, any chance you could toss up that baseball for my son (pointing at Tim).”
And just like that, Tim has baseball number 99 in his hands:
Thanks, Alex!
After a while, some Nationals gathered around the bullpen in RF. We took Poppy, who was visiting Nationals Park for the first time, over to RF to look down into the Nats bullpen. But then some Marlins came out. Given the options, I thought it would be a lot better to get number 100 from a Marlin. So we headed back over to LF.
We couldn’t go into the infield seats until 12:00 o’clock. So we just hung out in the outfield and watched…
…I had no clue who any of the Marlins were down there. Finally, the ushers waved us toward the infield. We were free to roam wherever we wanted to in the stadium.
We made our way to the LF foul line where we stood behind a pitcher who we’d never heard of before (despite the fact we’d actually seen him pitch two innings against the Phillies the weekend before). I used my zoom to figure out…
…that it was Jay Buente.
Poppy wandered off to find a hot dog for lunch while Tim and I watched the action on the field. Finally, Buente and his partner finished up and Buente started walking toward the baseball bag. There were literally zero other fans along the foul line with us. As Buente passed right in front of us, I recycled my question to Alex Sanabia, “Hey, Jay, any chance my son could get that baseball?”
Buente took 1-2 more steps toward the bag and then took a sharp left turn and walked the baseball over and handed it to Tim. I was quick to ask if he’d hang out for two seconds to get his picture with Tim…
…and Buente was happy to do so.
100 Thank yous, Jay Buente!
Sweet!!
After Buente walked away, Tim turned toward me and held the ball high over his head and yelled with excitement, “We have 100 baseballs!”
Wow – that’s cool!
We were just about to go meet up with Poppy when Marlins pitcher Brian Sanches wandered by. We got Sanches to autograph a spare baseball we had in our bag (FYI, when fans insist on giving baseballs to Tim (meaning, I cannot talk them into giving it to another kid), we use them for autographs. This ball was from Cleveland.).
Then Sanches, who seemed to be an incredibly nice and genuine guy, posed for a picture with Tim:
Thanks, Brian!
Finally, we met up with Poppy. I had a hot dog, but Tim wasn’t hungry. After eating, it was time to walk around the stadium with Poppy. First, we stopped in LF to get our picture with a guy in a Cowboys jersey for the MyGameBalls.com Photo Scavenger Hunt.
Next, we headed into the upper deck to check out the Capitol Builiding and Washington Monument. We got a photo of Poppy, Tim and the Capitol building:
Then we looked down over the seats and into the field:
Those two guys in LF in the picture to the left above are Jose Veras and Jorge Sosa. I yelled down “JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORGGGGGEEE!!”
Sosa looked up and I flashed my glove at him.
Jorge was holding a baseball and he reared back and cocked his arm like he was going to give it a mighty toss up to me. Then he stopped and made an exaggrated “oh, my arm is hurt” look and pointed to his arm. Then he gave a big chuckled and went along on his way. I’ve always thought it would be cool to catch a baseball in the upper deck and this was the closest we’ve ever come to doing it.
Oh, well, on with the stadium tour. We walked around to the RF side and gazed upon the river (just like we’d done the weekend before with my cousin, Nathan). Out in the distance, Poppy pointed out Fort McNair…
…where a young Poppy just back to the States after a tour in Vietnam met a young Grammy (Tim’s maternal grandma). The story goes that Poppy was to be reassigned to Texas to finish out the final year of his military commitment. After a tour in southeast Asia, Poppy wasn’t too excited to spend another year away from his home in the northeast. So he headed to the Pentagon to meet with some military big wigs and request a change of assignment to be closer to his home in New Jersey. The officer in charge couldn’t get him to New Jersey, but he offered to change Poppy’s assignment to a job in Washington, D.C. Poppy jumped at the opportunity, and Grammy (who worked for the officer) was in charge of typing up Poppy’s change of assignment orders.
Eventually, Poppy would begin courting Grammy. They’d marry. Have a daughter. Have another daughter. Have both daughters move away to Philadelphia where the younger daughter would meet and eventually marry a guy who had just moved to Philadelphia from Seattle. The younger daughter and the guy from Seattle would have a kid. They’d take the kid to his first baseball game on September 12, 2006. Poppy would also attend the kid’s first game. And fourth years later, Poppy, the guy from Seattle, and the kid would go to another baseball game on September 12, 2010, where Poppy would point out the building where the whole the whole story began. And then they would all go buy some more hot dogs and nachos, and then report to their seats in CF.
Here was their view:
For the second week in a row, we had front row seats in the OF. This time, it was in section 143.
Once again, Nyjer Morgan was playing CF for the Nationals…
…because he was still appealing his two suspensions. Eventually, he’d prevail on one of his suspensions, I believe.
This is what it looked like as we watched the game:
Although it looks a little gloomy, the weather was actually ideal for us. No rain at all and none of the brutal sun that chased us from our seats by the fourth inning the week before.
Tim ate some extremely unimpressive nachos…
…he still liked them despite their relative unimpressiveness to other nachos Tim had enjoyed this season. In the picture above to the right, he is pretending that the chip is his mouth wide open. Four year olds are easily entertained.
There was some more unusual entertainment early in the game…
…a squirrel ran across the outfield. Eventually, he’d run up and down the chain link fence in front of the Nationals bullpen. They should have chased that squirrel down and taken him away in handcuffs for running on the field during the game.
Hey, there was a game played too.
Mike “The Beast” Stanton was in the house. And he brought a big bat with him…
…on this swing, Stanton crushed a homerun DEEEEEP into the leftfield stands. That put the Marlins up 1-0. Later in the inning, Emilio Bonafacio hit an RBI single to make it 2-0.
Then things got a little interesting. Bonafacio stole second. Nats pitcher Jordan Zimmermann tried to pick Bonafacio off of second, but threw the ball high and behind second baseman Adam Kennedy. Kennedy should have caught the ball, but it tipped off of his glove and scooted into shallow RF.
Bonafacio took off for third with blazing speed. Meanwhile, Kennedy jogged after the loose ball like he was bored and had nothing better to do. Bonafacio had his afterburners on. I shouted, “HE’S GONNA SCORE!!!” And that is just what he did. He scored from second base on a failed pick-off move and Kennedy’s laziness in chasing the ball. This is what Kennedy looked like as he hung his head in shame:
The Marlins led 3-0. But the Nats were about to get in on the action. In the bottom of the second, Ivan Rodriguez came to the plate with the bases loaded. On this swing…
…he hit a single to left field scoring Adam Dunn and Mike Morse.
Mike Stanton was not pleased that the Nats had closed the gap to 3-2. In the top of the third inning, Stanton flexed his muscles again on this pitch…
…another deep homerun to left field. This one was a 2-run job staking the Marlins to a 5-2 lead in the top of the third.
Starting in the bottom of the third, the Nats would score one run an inning for the next three innings. And the Marlins scored a single run in the fourth. None of those runs were particularly exciting or notable, other than the fact that one of them was credited to future Hall of Famer Ivan Rodriguez (on a weak grounder to 2B in the bottom of the fourth inning).
So that made the score 6-5 Marlins after five innings.
In the middle innings, Tim enjoyed an anniversary ice cream helmet…
…choloate with sprinkles, of course.
And, we cheered on everyone’s favorite running President, Teddy Roosevelt…
…but he came in a distant fourth place in the 4-man Presidents race.
Yeah, we were having fun. It was a great day:
The outfield seats were practically empty. I was hoping a homerun would come our way. When Adam Dunn would bat, I camped out in the stairway with room to run in every direction…
…above to the left is my view of Big Adam Dunn during his at bats. To the right, my view of Tim and Poppy (and some guy who stood the whole game a couple seats away).
Of course, no homeruns came anywhere near us.
In the sixth inning, Tim wanted to go to the kids play area. That’s when the drama began. Tim was so excited he was running up and down the outfield stairs as Poppy and I followed him. On his way up the stairs, Tim tripped and smacked both shins on the edge of a concrete stair and his forehead right on the top of the next stair up.
He went crazy with the water works.
It was legitimate water works. He had scrapes on both knees and over his left eye.
Tim no longer wanted to go to the play area. He wanted to go to the first aid office and get some bandaids. So that’s what we did. He was still huff’n and puff’n.
As we walked to the office, I snapped this picture of our new buddy, Brian Sanches…
…pitching to Pudge Rodriguez. Sanches would strike out Pudge, Willie Harris and Ian Desmond in the bottom of the sixth inning. He’d also qualify for his first win of the season.
The people in the first aid office had just the thing to cure Tim’s blues. In addition to some bandaids, they gave him a plastic cup with a metalic silver Nationals “W” on one side and a metalic silver picture of Nationals Park on the opposite side. Between the bandaids and the cup…
…Tim started to feel a lot better.
We grabbed some seats around 1B just in time to see Adam Dunn bat again. He hit this foul ball…
…and then eventually drew a walk. No homeruns for Big Dunn on this day.
Here was our view from the seats we found in section 133:
We were still in these seats in the top of the 8th when Hanley Ramirez struck out looking to end the inning…
…and then stood at the plate with his hand on his hip and feet crossed talking to umpire Wally Bell for what seemed like forever.
Heading into the top of the ninth, we decided to swing around to the 3B side to go for an umpire ball. But as we walked through the concourse behind 1B and about to duck into the closed off tunnel behind the fancy clubs and restaurants behind home plate, I noticed that the guard watching the entrance to the fancy seats directly behind home plate was leaning far over a railing watching something in the seats.
We decided to walk in there like we belonged and see what would happen. With Tim on my shoulders I breezed right by the usher and into the fancy seats. Right as we got into the seats, someone hit a pop foul ball about 10 feet away from us. As people were going for the ball, Tim and I took some seats undetected. Interestingly, there was a ticket in the drink holder where we sat down so we were golden incase someone came and asked to see our ticket.
This was our view from section 124:
With all of the commotion from the foul ball, I didn’t even realize that I had no clue where Poppy was. I called his cellphone and discovered that another usher stopped him as he walked into the fancy seats behind us. I guess that foul ball really helped us out. Anyway, it was the ninth inning and Poppy told us to enjoy the fancy seats and he’d meet up with us after the game.
Thanks, Poppy!
Mike Stanton was up again in the ninth…
…but failed to hit his third homerun of the day. He would have to settle for 3-4 day with 2HR and 3RBI.
Now, the “fancy” seats behind home plate are segregated between the “fancy” seats, the “really fancy” seats, the “ridiculously fancy” seats, and the “outrageously fancy seats.” We were in the “really fancy seats.”
However, I realized we could still go for an umpire baseball if we could get into the “ridiculously fancy” seats (or, heaven forbid, the “outrageously fancy” seats) at the end of the game. Actually, if we could get into the “outrageously fancy” seats, an umpire baseball would be almost guaranteed. But we had no fanciful thoughts about making it into the “outrageously fancy” seats.
We headed over to the far side of section 119, where this was our view:
Those stairs to the left lead down into the “ridiculously fancy” seats. An usher sits right at the bottom of the stairs, to keep people with mere “really fancy” seats out, no doubt. I figured we could probably get down there and sweet talk her, if need be, right at the end of the game so Tim could ask for an umpire ball in the “ridiculously fancy” seats.
First, Tim did some kung fu:
After Ian Desmond grounded out to end the game, things went even better than we could planned. We rushed down the stairs. The usher at the bottom of the stairs stood up and walked toward the field. As she made her way to the field, she opened a gate to the “outrageously fancy” seats.
All of a sudden we found ourselves in the IDEAL spot. In that kung fu picture above, there is a little kid wearing a bright blue shirt in the first row at the far left side of the picture. That is where we were standing when home plate umpire Wally Bell walked off of the field.
Essentially, when a kid stands in that spot with no other kids present as the umpire comes off the field, that kid is going to get an umpire baseball. It is close to guaranteed.
And when Wally Bell set this baseball (baseball no. 101) in Tim’s glove…
…we had officially embarked on a new journey: the journey to baseball no. 200.
Thanks, Wally Bell!
Okay, so the game was over and it was time to go meet up with Poppy. We had to exit the seats and make our way around the concourse toward CF. But we were in the first row of the fanciest seats at Nationals Park. We had to get a picture:
And, how do people in those seats leave the field of play? They exit through the uber-fancy Lexus Club.
Sounds good to us!
It was dark in there. These were the best pictures I could get of the bar and the area behind the bar:
That bar (above to the right) is directly inside the glass doors directly behind home plate at Nationals Park. The picure above to the left is taken from the 1B side of the Lexus Club. To the left and behind those big panels that spell “NATIONALS” is restaurant-style seating.
To the far 1B side of the club there is a wall of windows. In the windows closer to the field you can watch the Nationals take BP in the underground cages…
…as you walk toward the back of the club (away from the field), there are more windows that peer in on the interview room.
It was pretty sweet in there. One cool thing that I tired unsuccessfully to photograph was a hallway with pictures of a whole bunch of U.S. Presidents throwing out first pitches at MLB games. Sadly, the lighting in there was so weird (and we needed to get back to Poppy so I rushed and) none of my pictures came out.
Anyway, we headed back out of the field, circled the concourse, met up with Poppy, and went and got in line for KIDS RUN THE BASES!
YES!
This was Poppy’s first Kids Run The Bases and only the second MLB field he’d ever walked on before (the first being Camden Yards where he once attended a wedding).
Poppy stood in for me in our traditional Kids Run The Bases right field distance marker picture:
Note: both Tim and Poppy are standing in fair territory. Excellent.
Running the bases, as always, was awesome:
And, amazingly, I actually got a decent picture of Tim at each base:
Before heading out, we got a picture of Tim by the “Nationals Park” sign on the rock wall behind home plate…
…we’d just been in those blue seats right on the other side of the rock wall.
A nice fan took a picture of the three of us on the field to mark the occassion:
Yes, coming to Nationals Park for Tim’s Fourth MLB Anniversary was the right call.
Unquestionably.
We got our 100th baseball.
Spent some great quality time with Poppy.
Visited the Lexus Club.
Ran the Bases.
Other than maybe “not bashing your head on a concrete step,” what more can you ask for in a day at the ballpark? Not much.
It was another great MLB anniversary.
Thanks, MLB!
2010 Fan Stats:
25 Games
20 Teams (Mariners, Orioles, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Angels, Twins, Athletics, White Sox, Indians and Yankees; Phillies, Dodgers, Pirates, Braves, Mets, Brewers, Padres, Giants, Nationals and Marlins)
21 Ice Cream Helmets (Orioles (3), Phillies (3), Padres (2), Pirates (2), Mets, Dodgers, Athletics, Nationals (3), Indians, Yankees)
58 Baseballs (12 Mariners, 2 Angels, 3 Athletics, 3 Brewers, 4 Nationals, 2 Blue Jays, 8 Umpires, 2 Phillies, 1 Mets, 4 Braves, 1 Orioles, 1 Dodgers, 1 Padres, 1 Giants, 2 Twins, 1 White Sox, 7 Easter Eggs, 1 Yankees, 2 Marlins)
12 Stadiums (Camden Yards, Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park, Oakland-Alameda County Stadium, Dodgers Stadium, PETCO Park, Angel Stadium of Anaheim, AT&T Park, Progressive Field, Yankee Stadium)
15 Player Photos (Jamie Moyer, Ryan Rowland-Smith (2), Omar Vizquel, Chad Cordero, Mike Cameron, Joel Piniero, Frank Catalanotto, Billy Wagner, Jeff Suppan, Tommy Hanson, Jered Weaver, Jay Buente, Brian Sanches and Scott Olsen)
2 Retired Player Photos (Jim Palmer, Bert Blyleven)
1 Umpire Photo (“Cowboy” Joe West)
10 Autographs (Ryan Rowland-Smith (2), Omar Vizquel, Chad Cordero, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Joel Piniero, Frank Catalanotto (2), Billy Wagner (2), Jeff Suppan, Tommy Hanson, Jeff Weaver, Brian Sanches and Scott Olsen)
8 Kids Run The Bases (Citizens Bank Park, 2 Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park, PETCO Park, Camden Yards, Progressive Field)
Thanks, Ma! Thanks, Grandma! (7/22/10)
Our new son Kellan’s due date was July 18th. The closest major league ball park to our home is about 70 miles away. Obviously, I didn’t want to miss Kellan’s birth. Therefore, we scheduled zero MLB games for July 2010.
But you know what? My mom ended up coming on July 2nd to help us and to be with Tim when Kellan was born. My dad joined us the day after Kellan was born and was also great to have around. But my mom ended up spending the entire month of July with us and she was amazing.
Although it was impossible to thank her enough, we figured we needed to try. And, like us, she’s a big baseball fan. We decided we should take her to Camden Yards for her first time.
We arrived early and hung out with the Camden Yards regulars outside the CF gate…
We’re usually cheap seats guys at Camden Yards. But my mom deserved the best. Our new friend, Avi Miller…
…used his season ticket holder status to secure us some amazing seats.
With the tickets in hand and time to spare before the gates opened, we decided to walk around the stadium so my mom could check the place out.
My mom liked the party area in CF…
…and we all liked that we could see BP going on inside.
Outside the 3B side of the stadium, we stopped on a patch of grass so Tim and I could play a little catch:
He’s getting better and better at catching the ball. He’s finally using two hands.
We got a few pictures of my mom and Tim in Schaefer Circle. Here are the best parts of those pictures combined together:
Next, we headed out to the far end of the warehoue (RF side) to get a picture with another Camden Yards sign:
For the first time this season, we entered the stadium through the RF gate:
The Warehouse ends right at the CF gate. But on the RF side, the warehouse runs another 100-200 feet passed the RF gate. So fans don’t have to walk all the way around the warehouse to get to the RF gate, there is a passage…
…under the warehouse.
The tickets Avi helped us buy included the magic phrase – ”Season Ticket Plan” — that allowed us to get into the main stadium right when the gates opened. Without those words on our tickets, we’d have to stay out in RF for the first half hour of BP.
The early access paid off quick. As we approached home plate, we saw probable 2011 Hall of Fame inductee Bert Blyleven signing an autograph. We ran over and chatted him up and then got this picture:
Thanks, Bert! You’ve been circled!
Bert was pretty cool. He asked Tim if he was a Mariners fan. I noticed Bert’s BEAUTIFUL Twins world series ring. I complimented him on it. He held it up for Tim, “do you think you’ll get one of these some day?” I mentioned that if he does, hopefully it will say “Mariners” on it. Bert held it up for Tim again, “This is a Mariners ring, it has a big ‘M’ on it!”
Hopefully some day I will get to see an actual Mariners world series ring.
After Bert took off, we turned around and watched the field.
Despite what it looks like in the following picture, the O’s were still hitting and this was our view:
Next to the two guys in the Morneau jerseys, Hall of Famer Jim Palmer was chatting with another O’s TV guy. When there was a break in their conversation, I asked Jim for a picture. He gladly obliged:
After we left Jim, a bunch of autograph guys pounced on him. He signed for none of them. He was there just for our picture.
Thanks, Jim!
Speaking of Jims, we also got a big “hello” and wave from slugger Jim Thome who was waiting to get into the batting cage.
As the Twins prepared to start hitting, we headed down the LF line. We had plans, we were hoping to quickly get our hands on a nice Target Field commemorative baseball and then head to the Camden Club for a nice dinner.
We weren’t the only people in the northeastern portion of the United States hoping to snag a Target Field baseball. Our Citi Field friends, Joe Faraguna and Alex K, were in the house, as well as some other guys from MyGameBalls.com (including new 1000 baseball man, Greg Barasch – congrats, Greg, it was nice meeting you).
My mom snapped this picture of me and Alex…
…because Alex joined an exclusive club — he joined Nick “The Happy Youngster” Yohonek as the second member of MLBlogs/MyGameBalls.com whom Tim and I have run into at three different stadiums in three different states. By the way, we first met Alex at U.S. Cellular Field and we have run into each other twice at Citi Field.
After this big Twins reliever…
…Jose Mijares finished playing catch, he pointed at us (Tim was on my shoulders) from about 150 feet out in LCF. I pointed at myself, “Us?”, I still couldn’t tell if he really meant us. He then threw the ball directly to the guy next to us. I could have easily caught it, but it would have looked like I was totally reaching in front of and robbing the guy (an adult without a kid). So I let it go.
But Mijares was having none of it. He pointed a big forceful finger at the guy — POINT, POINT! — and then he pointed his big finger up at Tim — POINT, POINT!
The meaning was clear: ”that ball is for that little kid, dude, give it to him now!!!”
The guy couldn’t disobey Mijares’ finger:
It was a beautiful commemorative baseball.
Thanks, Jose!
After I visited LF to grab a look at Alex’s roster (confirming the ball giver was Mijares) and watching some out of control guy absolutely mug Joe on a BP homer (LF is definitely no place for Tim quite yet), we headed toward the Camden Club.
As we passed by first base, I saw Orlando Hudson taking grounders at 2B:
I absolutely love watching Harold Reynolds interview Hudson. He’s got a great personality. I shouted out a big, “Yo, O-Dogg!” And Hudson turned around and gave us a big shout and a full armed wave.
Unless you are a “member,” you cannot make reservations at the Camden Club. You can still eat there, you just can’t reserve a spot. Nevertheless, I was happy that we were able to grab what appeared to be the last table with a window:
Tim enjoyed blowing bubbles in his ice water. And we all enjoyed out food, a lot:
Top Left – Tim had chicken tenders and fries (in the bottom right he is lining up some french fries for an unprecedented simultaneous honey mustard and ketchup double dip)
Top Right – my mom had the “Bases Loaded,” which includes crab soup, a mini-Boog’s BBQ sandwich, a mini-crab cake, and a slider. I talked her into it because Maryland is famous for its crabs and she likes the little suckers. She loved the meal.
Bottom Left – I had a tasty bison burger with fries.
By the time we finished eating, Denard Span had led off the game for the Twins:
We reported to our ridiculously awesome seats in section 36, row 20, seats 8-10 (10 being the aisle seat). This was our view:
The match-up was Carl Pavano vs. Kevin Millwood.
After Joe Mauer doubled and Jason Kubel and Michael Cuddyer walked, the Twins won the game in the top of the first inning on a 3-run double by Delmon Young.
Pavano would shut the O’s down in the first. And, for the rest of the game too for that matter. He was just as impressive as he was on Phathers’ Day in Philadelphia.
The Twins featured some unimpressive play as well. Specifically Nick Punto’s base running blunder in the top of the second inning. After singling to start the inning, Punto was still on first with one out when Denard Span flew out routinely to centerfielder (and former Mariner) Adam Jones.
The usual rule is to go half way on such a fly out. But, perhaps, Punto was feeling unusual. He decided to go all the way to 2B and then wait on the bag for Jones to catch the ball. It was almost as if he was tagging up to run back to first. It did not work out so well.
He was doubled off with massive ease. Here is Nick with egg on his face after his huge blunder:
I suspect that first base coach, Jerry White, was thinking “are you kidding me, Nick” in that picture.
In the third, I tried to get a picture of Orlando Hudson connecting for a base hit…
…instead he grounded out to 2B.
In the middle of the third, Tim wanted to go to the kids play area, which had been revamped since our last game in Baltmore.
This batting tee cage was new:
So was this pitching cage…
…and this wooden playset.
The old and trusty bouncy house, however, was still there and going strong:
On our way back to the seats, Tim and I grabbed some ice cream helmets (for him and my mom) and a funnel cake (for me). I prefer ice cream.
Carl Pavano was still dealing…
…here to Nick Markakis in the bottom of the sixth.
Despite a tray full of sweets in his lap, Tim was tuned into the game:
Between the bottom of the sixth and top of the seventh, I took Tim to the restroom. While we were in there, we could hear the stadium erupt. Something big was going on, but we weren’t sure what.
When we headed back to our seats, we tracked down the Bird so Tim could give him five:
When we got back to our seats, my mom explained that J.J. Hardy had led off the seventh with a single and then should have been thrown out going back to first base. The replays quite clearly showed that Hardy was out going back to first, but that wasn’t how first base umpire Gary Darling saw it.
The eruption we’d heard from the restroom was Ty Wigginton and the crowd going crazy when Hardy was called safe. Wigginton was tossed from the game.
After Hardy scored the 5th Twins run of the night on a single by Drew Butera, the crowd went crazy. As the teams changed sides, someone was jawing in the O’s dugout Home plate umpire Bill Hohn was having none of it. He yelled at the folks in the dugout.
O’s manager Juan Samuel then stormed out of the dugout…
…and was booted from the game after throwing a nasty tantrum, capped off by a toss of his cap into the infield.
Jason Kubel couldn’t help the Twins tack on any more runs…
…in the top of the seventh.
It was time for the seventh inning stretch. We all stood to sing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.” I looked up at the big screen, and Tim and I were front and center on the screen. I took this shot…
…but failed to zoom in.
It must have been in the 8th inning when this 15-seconds-of-fame seeking fan ran onto the field and spent a while there…
…he ran back-and-forth and back-and-forth. He jumped into the crowd and then came back. It was the longest fan on the field run I have ever witnessed. Eventually he stopped running after the still incredibly angry home plate umpire Bill Hohn came out to yell at the kid. The kid was eventually apprehended.
It kept getting hotter and hotter throughout the game.
Tim had to relax on Grandma’s lap:
Tim and his grandma found some papers and fanned each other to beat the heat:
In the ninth inning, Tim and I relocated to the third row behind home plate to go for an umpire ball after the game. I took a shot of the Twins dugout…
…featuring A.L. MVP Joe Mauer in the foreground.
We had an unbeatable view of the ninth inning match-up beteen Pavano and Miguel Tejada…
…Pavano won the battle on a ground out to 3B.
Several batters later, Jake Fox grounded out to 3B for the final out of the inning.
Tim hopped up and hung his open-gloved arm over the wall into the umpire tunnel. We were hoping that Bill Hohn would find the bottom of Tim’s glove. But it was a crazy and tense scene behind home plate.
First, the grounds crew couldn’t get the gate opened up to the umpires’ tunnel. So all four umps had to stand there waiting. A couple fans had some choice words for Mr. Hohn. He was not a happy camper and had some choice words of his own for the unruly fans.
A couple seconds later, Hohn became the angriest person to ever give Tim a baseball at a MLB game…
Thanks, Mr. Hohn!
Before heading toward the car, we got a picture of the three of us behind home plate:
On the way to the car, we stopped in Eutaw Street…
…to check out a few of the homerun markers, including the Griffey markers.
It was a great night at the ballpark and a fun way to say “thanks” to my mom and Tim’s grandma for helping out so much as we prepared for Kellan’s birth and then as we started adjusting to being a family of four.
Thanks, Ma! Thanks, Grandma!
2010 Fan Stats:
18 Games
16 Teams (Mariners, Orioles, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Angels, Twins, and Athletics; Phillies, Dodgers, Pirates, Braves, Mets, Brewers, Padres, Giants, and Nationals)
15 Ice Cream Helmets (Orioles (3), Phillies (2), Padres (2), Pirates (2), Mets, Dodgers, Athletics & Nationals)
38 Baseballs (6 Mariners, 2 Angels, 3 Athletics, 3 Brewers, 3 Nationals, 2 Blue Jays, 6 Umpires, 2 Phillies, 1 Mets, 4 Braves, 1 Orioles, 1 Dodgers, 1 Padres, 1 Giants, 2 Twins)
10 Stadiums (Camden Yards, Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park, Oakland-Alameda County Stadium, Dodgers Stadium, PETCO Park, Angel Stadium of Anaheim, AT&T Park)
12 Player Photos (Jamie Moyer, Ryan Rowland-Smith (2), Chad Cordero, Mike Cameron, Joel Piniero, Frank Catalanotto, Billy Wagner, Jeff Suppan, Tommy Hanson, Jered Weaver and Scott Olsen)
2 Retired Player Photos (Jim Palmer, Bert Blyleven)
1 Umpire Photo (“Cowboy” Joe West)
8 Autographs (Ryan Rowland-Smith (2), Chad Cordero, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Joel Piniero, Frank Catalanotto (2), Billy Wagner (2), Jeff Suppan, Tommy Hanson, Jeff Weaver and Scott Olsen)
5 Kids Run The Bases (Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park, PETCO Park)
Cook & Son Bats
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