Results tagged ‘ Seattle Mariners ’
You Win Some and…(8/15/10)
On August 15, 2010, Tim and I woke up in our hotel in Cleveland ready to see the Mariners take another game from the Indians and for Tim to run the bases at Progressive Field.
But first we had to walk around downtown Cleveland a tiny bit to see what the city had to offer. Just down the street from our hotel was a big park where Tim and I rocked out on some huge guitars…
…and then we checked out a really huge “FREE” stamp, which I figured was a reference to the library nearby.
Sitting on the edge of Lake Erie and just down the hill from the park, we found this scene:
That is the Cleveland Browns Stadium (check out the huge windmill to the right of the stadium), some sort of NASA building (the domed thing), and the Rock’N'Roll Hall of Fame.
Okay, that’s enough Cleveland for us, it was time to head to Progressive Field.
We arrived shortly before Gate C opened. We were about 50 people back in the single line. After a few minutes, a stadium attendant came up to us and told us to walk up front to start a new line. So, all of a sudden, we were first in line:
It was interesting to witness the stadium workers preparing to open up the gate. It was like NASA mission control. The guy standing by us had a walkie-talkie that was *blowing up* with ready checks.
“Team store ready? “Check!”
“Suite ready” “Check!”
“Right field ramp ready?” “Check!”
Finally, all of the checks checked out and we hussled into the stadium to watch our Mariners take some BP.
All of those boxes at the gate? They were filled with mustard hot dogs…
…several weeks later, Tim still loves that hot dog. A few minutes after that pictures, young ace-in-training Jason Vargas tossed us a baseball.
Thanks, Vargas!
Tim wasn’t liking the sun beating down in RF, so we headed into the infield to hang out in the shade.
I was just hanging out watching BP and Tim was taking pictures of stuff all over the field. He loves to take pictures.
At some point, one of our fine Mariners drilled a line drive off of the L-screen and it landed in foul territory…
…Mariners trainer Rob Nodine walked over, grabbed the baseball and tossed it up to us. The baseball had really cool green marks from hitting the L-screen.
Thanks, Rob!
When BP wrapped up, Tim was sitting on my shoulders and we were shooting a video clip as all of our Mariners passed below us into the dugout. And that is when I got this clip of Alonzo Powell tossing us our third and final baseball of the game:
Thanks, Alonzo!
With BP concluded and half-an-hour or more until game time, we headed up to the second deck in RF so Tim could play in the kids’ play area…
…the sight of a major melt down last season shortly before we saw Griffey hit his 624th career homerun. Hmmm…Tim looks like a giant on that little motorcycle. He might be too big for this play area.
Before the game started, we headed back down to the field level behind the M’s dugout. During the national anthem, I got some pictures of our coaching staff including two Major League newcomers, veteran minor league coaches Daren Brown and Roger Hansen…
…along side a couple Mariners coaches who had both thrown us a baseball within the last 24 hours, Alonzo Powell and Lee Tinsley. By the way, Hansen is the same guy featured in a large scale Ken Griffey, Jr. prank during spring training. Griff and Hansen go way back. I think this is Hansen’s first stint in the majors and I hope that Griff gets out to the ballpark (any ballpark) to show his friend some major league support this season.
So, it was game time, and Tim and I found ourselves in the standing room area just behind the last row of seats on the 1B side of home plate. Yesterday, Ichiro led off the game with a quick single. Today, he never swung the bat…
…and received a four pitch walk to lead off the game. Unfortunately, he was left on 2B at the end of the inning.
It was lunch time. Amazingly, Tim did not want nachos. Instead, all he wanted was a ridiculously huge cup of french fries…
…that we ate at a table in the 1B side concourse. While Tim sat and attacked the fries, I nibbled on my fair share of fries while standing next to the table watching Felix Hernandez dominate the Indians.
With the score knotted at zero, Adam Moore grounded out in the second inning:
He’s playing an excellent catcher now-a-days. But after this game, his batting average dipped to a frighteningly low .159.
The Mariners were doing nothing offensively.
No worries. Felix Hernandez was still dominating:
Ichiro was still looking for his 151st hit of the season when he came to bat in the third inning. No dice. He grounded out:
It was time for some ice cream. We found this place in the 1B side inner concourse (the concourse on the 1B side splits into a two parts – the inside part is open to the field and the outside part is enclosed between concession stands, bathrooms, etc.).
They had ice cream helmets here and some excellent choices of real ice cream flavors…
…”Mariner” Moose Tracks, Mint Chocolate Chip, French Vanilla, Chocolate, Superman…and two others that I cannot read.
I got some “Mariner” Moose Tracks and Tim got Superman. The lady was even kind enough to scoop only blue, yellow and green for Tim (and no extreme hyperness inducing red dye no. 40 ice cream). Thanks, lady!
Tim enjoyed his Superman ice cream helmet from the handicapped accessible seating right by where we’d previously been standing in the SRO area…
…I asked if he could sit there and the usher was nice enough to allow it.
Felix, well, he was still dominating:
Actually, through four innings, we had a double no-hitter on our hands.
Finally, in the top of the 5th Casey Kotchman broke through with the Mariners first hit of the game, a leadoff double to deep CF. At this point, our ice cream was gone and Tim was wrapped up in playing with his new mustard hot dog…
…note that in the bottom center and right pictures, Tim is showing me that the mustard hot dog is eating and spitting sunflower seeds.
While Tim was busy with the mustard hot dog, the Mariners were busy trying to scratch out a run or two for King Felix. And, despite their best efforts, it wasn’t going too well for the M’s.
With runners on first and second, Michael Saunders attempted to lay down a sacrifice bunt…
…but Indians pitcher Justin Masterson was able to get the lead runner at 3B.
After Chris Woodward walked to load the bases with one out, Ichiro absolutely crushed a line drive…
…that Indians first baseman Matt LaPorta snared for the second out. It had extra bases and 2 RBIs written all over it! Chone Figgins then laid down another failed bunt for the third out of the inning.
Still, no runs for the Mariners.
Luckily, Felix was still dominating the Indians:
Sure, he gave up a hit in the fifth and another in the sixth, but he was looking pretty unstoppable.
If the M’s could just scrape out one run, we would have been feeling really good about our chances at seeing a second straight Mariners win.
Tim needed to visit the play area again. And he tossed some foamy baseballs into this pitching thingy:
Since we were up in the second deck in RF, we figured we better revisit the spot where we witnessed Ken Griffey, Jr.’s 624th career homerun. Everything looked beautiful from up there…
…except that Griffey was retired and not in attenance.
I noticed that the walkway went out over Gate C (in fact, this walkway is what we tried to take cover under during the rainstorm the day before) and then turned left and headed toward Heritage Park. So, we followed it. This was the view from the walkway in almost straight-away CF:
It was a beautiful day. We were witnessing an excellent pitchers duel. We were excited to be at the ballpark:
We decided to go down and visit Heritage Park. I saw this hanging on the wall, and it looked new to me, so I figured I should share it here…
…if you click on the picture you can enlarge it so you can read The Ray Chapman Story.
While down there, we spied on the Indians reliever…
…Masterson lasted only six innings and then Tony Sipp took over for the Tribe.
It was getting into the bottom of the seventh at this point. We headed to the bleachers in LF. Felix still had no run support, but he was still looking unhittable.
The first batter in the bottom of the seventh flew out to Franklin Gutierrez.
The second batter grounded out to short stop.
And then things took a disasterous turn. King Felix induced former Mariner Luis Valbuena to ground to 2B. But instead of recording the third out of the inning, Chone Figgins booted the ball.
It was nightmare time. Felix should have been out of the inning. The Mariners should have been batting in the top of the 8th. Instead, the Indians proceeded to score SEVEN UNEARNED RUNS. Six unearned runs were *charged* to Felix, including a grand slam by Travis Hafner. Then Sean White came in and gave up the final unearned run of the inning — a homerun by Jayson Nix.
Stick a fork in the Mariners. After a dominating 6.2 inning performance by King Felix, the Mariners were done.
Felix’s line on the day:
6.2 innings, 6 Hits, 6 Runs, 0 Earned Runs, 4 BB, 7K
We headed into the infield for the end of the game. We found some seats under cover where I got some close-up shots of some Mariners throw-away at bats…including, Russell Branyan…
…watching a low pitch en route to a four pitch walk in the top of the 8th.
And Jose Lopez fouling off a pitch…
…before hitting a single to RF, which sent Branyan to 2B. Branyan would go on to score the Mariners only run of the game on an infield single by Franklin Gutierrez.
Tim loves a kids show called “Team Umizoomi,” which has taught him to have “pattern power.” Tim grabbed my camera and showed off his pattern power with alternating shots of his mustard hot dog and the infield…
In the eighth, the Indians tacked on two more runs on a homerun by Michael Brantley, who by all indications appears to be the son of former Mariner Mickey Brantley…who happens to be the first person to ever give me a baseball…way back in my youth at the Kingdome.
Like yesterday, we found ourselves sitting in the front row behind home plate in the ninth inning. It was interesting to watch the home plate cameraman switch camera positions each time a different handed batter came to the plate…
…for righties he moved to the left side of home plate and then he switched to the right side when a lefty came to bat.
The game ended with little fan fare.
Once again, a million kids of all age materialized at the umpires’ exit and the home plate umpire ignored everyone.
We headed over to the Mariners dugout to cheer on our non-victorious guys and to pose for a picture:
I guess Tim is posing with his non-existent umpire baseball.
Finally, it was time to line up for Kids Run the Bases! Exactly 1 year and 363 days ago, Tim, my Dad, and I lined up in this very ballpark for our first ever Kids Run the Bases experience. We had to go almost to the top of the stadium to find the end of the line…
…you can’t really tell in that picture, but the line weaved back and forth up all of those ramps shown in the picture.
I was interested to see something while in line. When we ran the bases on August 17, 2008, we passed by a sign in the bowels of Progressive Field that notified us that it has been “19″ days since the Indians last “Lost Time Accident.” I was interested to see how many days they were at now. My math powers (just like Team Umizoomi) told me that the most days it could possibly be up to was 747 (August 17, 2008 to August 15, 2010 + 19 days = (365 x 2) – 2 + 19 = 747).
The suspense mounted as we wound our way down and down and down into the belly of Progressive Field. Finally, we reached the bottom. We turned the final corner and walked into a machine storage / random work stuff area and found the sign:
Let’s hear it for on-the-job safety!
Finally, we were on the RF foul warning track. We got some nice person to take our picture by the 325 sign…
…just like the one my dad took 728 days earlier. Tim has grown a bit in the past two years.
Then, I had a terrible idea: I would video Tim’s run around the bases. I’ve done this a couple times to moderate success. This time, my filming was a complete failure (well, of the running the bases portion at least, the lead up to the bases is okay). Here is the evidence:
One cool thing that is hard to tell from this video is that there were several Indians stationed on the field giving kids high fives — one by 1B (not sure who) and one at home plate (manager Manny Acta).
After running, we strolled by the 3B dugout and I got pictures of the fancy dugout seating between the two dugouts and behind home plate (to the left below)…
…and the Indians dugout (right above).
After running the bases and before we could meet up behind the plate, Tim scratched his finger on the metal fence in front of the dugout seating area. It was a teeny, tiny little scratch, but you would have thought his whole arm was ripped off. Here he is *gutting out* one last picture from the field…
…as he holds out his injured pinky to avoid touching anything with it. When we arrived back at our hotel, we applied a huge adult sized band-aid that really did the trick.
Before leaving the field, I got this panorama from foul territory down the 3B line:
And then I walked us back to our hotel with Tim on my shoulders. On our way back, we (once again) discussed this burnt out building a couple blocks north of the stadium (far left below)…
…this rock-with-a-tongue (middle), and I got a picture of us walking (reflection in windows).
Despite the bizzare 7-unearned run inning and the loss following a dominating performance by King Felix, we had a great time at this game and on our entire weekend trip to Cleveland.
2010 Fan Stats:
21 Games
18 Teams (Mariners, Orioles, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Angels, Twins, Athletics, White Sox and Indians; Phillies, Dodgers, Pirates, Braves, Mets, Brewers, Padres, Giants, and Nationals)
17 Ice Cream Helmets (Orioles (3), Phillies (2), Padres (2), Pirates (2), Mets, Dodgers, Athletics, Nationals, Indians)
53 Baseballs (12 Mariners, 2 Angels, 3 Athletics, 3 Brewers, 3 Nationals, 2 Blue Jays, 7 Umpires, 2 Phillies, 1 Mets, 4 Braves, 1 Orioles, 1 Dodgers, 1 Padres, 1 Giants, 2 Twins, 1 White Sox, 7 Easter Eggs)
11 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)
13 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 and Scott Olsen)
2 Retired Player Photos (Jim Palmer, Bert Blyleven)
1 Umpire Photo (“Cowboy” Joe West)
9 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 and Scott Olsen)
7 Kids Run The Bases (Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park, PETCO Park, Camden Yards, Progressive Field)
Indians Lose! Indians Lose! (8/14/10)
On August 14, 2010, Tim and I hopped in the car and hit the road to meet up with our Mariners in…
…the “Mistake on the Lake” — Cleveland, Ohio!
As of this morning, we had seen the Indians play 5 times and they were 5-0 (3 wins over the Mariners, and 1 win a piece over the Twins and the Angels). We were hoping to witness our first Indians loss today (hint, hint: see the title of this entry).
Cleveland is about a 6 hour drive for us so we made a weekend of it. We stayed at the Doubletree. Here was the view from our room on the 12th floor…
…all that blue at the far left is the aforementioned “Lake.” Lake Erie. Its huge! Still, Tim persisted in referring to it as a “pond” all weekend.
Our hotel was a mile from Progressive Field and Tim was happy to ride on my shoulders for the whole walk to the ballpark. As we approached the CF gate (Gate C), we passed through a little park area with rock monuments for the Indians and the LeBron-less Cavaliers…
…which is right across from Gate C.
We pulled up to Gate C half an hour before it opened. In fact, not even the ticket windows at Gate C were open yet. So we got a picture…
…and headed toward the LF corner of the stadium (where I was told I would find the main ticket office).
We still had plenty of time before the gates opened, so before buying our tickets we headed over to the home plate entrance…
…for a photo opportunity.
And then we headed back to the main ticket office and bought tickets for this and the next game. Across the street in the little courtyard-type-area between The Jake and Quickens Arena, the Indians were all set up for Kids Fun Day:
Tim was ready to play and have some fun, but nothing was open yet. We did get a funny picture…
…but otherwise all we could do was look at all the fun they had planned for a little later.
So we headed over toward the LF gate and looked inside the stadium…
…there had not been a drop of rain all day, but the tarp was on the field. I wondered if the Indians knew something that I did not.
They did.
About ten seconds after peaking into the stadium, the rain started coming down. It was light rain, but we decided to head back over to Gate C where we could stand undercover and out of the rain. By the time we got there, it was absolutely pouring rain and the “cover” did not help because it was blowing in and soaking everyone.
It was massive, massive rain.
They ended up opening the gates a few minutes early because they felt sorry for us poor folks getting drenched in the rain. We headed into the concourse in RF to take cover.
Tim and I were standing in the concourse in deep RCF just watching the rain when I got a bright idea. No one was in the RF stands. No one at all. I decided to run down to the front row to check for something that I had only ever read about on other MLBlogs, but never myself witnessed in real life – easter eggs.
Well, after three separate trips down into the seats, I was ridiculously soaked but we had these guys tucked into our backpack:
Seven (7!) easter eggs, including a smudged Target Field baseball. Four of the baseballs were under random seats between the first to third rows in RF to RCF. The other three were found inside folded chairs a good 10-20 rows up in CF. The balls were SOAKED. However, they have dried nicely and are quite normal now.
Soon, the rain stopped and the grounds crew started working like mad to ready the field for the game, particularly the Lake Erie-esque centerfield…
It took a long time, but eventually CF was playable. Kudos to the grounds crew.
Eventually, the Mariners pitchers came out to stretch out their arms:
As the M’s started filing into the bullpen, this guy tossed us a baseball…
…”Hmm…,” I thought, “cool a baseball from Adam Moore.” He looked sort of like Adam, but he was clearly wearing Adam’s number 50.
Here is Adam wearing his number 50 last season in his MLB debut.
Well, soon enough, this number 50 starting pitching in the bullpen.
“Hmmm…,” I thought again, “I guess Adam must have changed his number.” I texted my lovely wife, and moments later she responded, informing me that Tim and I owed a big “thank you” to Mr. Jamey Wright.
Thanks, Jamey!
(And it turns out that Adam has changed to number 10, possibly in honor of former Mariners catcher Dave Valle. Who knows?)
Anyway, all of a sudden, we had 8 baseballs in our backpack. We’re not big numbers guys when it comes to getting baseballs — our goal is just to get one at a game — but I gotta admit that I was intrigued by the prospect of hitting double digits (even if aided by 7 easter eggs).
Soon, everyone was gone except Felix Hernandez and Jason Phillips…
…who were playing catch in RF.
I should mention that I had a brief but nice chat with Jason. I congratulated him on his recent marriage (the wedding ceremony was held at Safeco Field after a Mariners game).
While we were chatting, Tim yelled down to Jason, “My Daddy found four baseballs under the seats!” I thought that was pretty hilarious. But I later told Tim its better not to announce something like that to a player on the field.
The next picture tells two stories:
First, before everyone headed back to the dugout, John Wetteland (who is pictured in the middle) took a big crow hop and fired a ball against the RF wall right in front of the Mariners bullpen from about 100 feet out. Tim and I were standing in the corner spot at the front of the bullpen (where we had stood while chatting with Phillips). A few minutes after Wetteland fired the baseball against the wall, Felix Hernandez walked over, grabbed the ball and tossed it to us.
Thanks, Felix!
We’ve never got a baseball from Felix (although we have got one very dirty baseball from Erik Bedard after he and Felix used the baseball to warm up before a game in Boston), and I was really excited to get one from a guy who could someday become the most winningest pitcher in Mariners history.
Second, as illustrated by the other red arrow, Felix uncorked a wild throw to Jason Phillips that ended up about 20 rows up into the stands. They didn’t have another ball and the crowd hadn’t been let into the rest of the stadium yet, so Jason just hopped into the stands and walked up the stairs until he found the baseball.
Finally, the tarp came off of the field…
…althought it was giving the grounds crew some troubles.
It was close to 6 o’clock when Tim crashed…
…he fell asleep on my shoulders for about 15-20 minutes.
Finally, the rest of the stadium opened up…
…and the tarp was put back on the infield (although there wasn’t any more rain).
At this point, with the baseball from King Felix, we were sitting on 9 baseballs. We visited the home plate area to scout out the umpire exit. We figured they would exit through the door right in the middle of that last picture and then walk down the stairs just to the left. We were hoping the home plate umpire might help welcome us to double digits for the first (and most likely last) time.
Soon, the guys were back on the field getting ready for the game. And as the Mariners relievers made their backwards facing walk out to the bullpen, we spotted the pink backpack for the first time this season…
…being carried by Chris Seddon.
The 2010 Mariners bullpen…
…doesn’t look much like the 2009 Mariners bullpen. But they seem to have a lot of fun just like the guys did in 2009.
When the game started, we found ourselves sitting at the back of section 144. That is where we were when Ichiro connected for his 149th hit of the season leading off the game in the top of the first inning:
We went and grabbed some nachos for dinner and came back.
This was our view as we enjoyed our dinner and the beginning of the game:
We were still absolutely soaking wet. Particularly our feet. I took off Tim’s shoes and rung out his socks. His poor little toes looked like he’d been swimming for the last 3 hours. We had to do the unspeakable. We headed to a kids’ oriented team store in the concourse in the RF corner and bought Tim some new socks…Indians socks. I got him short socks so the Indians logos would be hidden under his shoes. All you could see was the navy and red stripes around the top of the socks.
In the third inning, the M’s were still winning 1-0 when Ichiro came to bat again. Tim decided to get his picture “with” his favorite player…
…some day we hope to get one “actually with” Ichiro. Maybe next year at Spring Training.
By the way, Ichiro grounded out.
Tim decided to do a lot of thumbs upping and thumbs downing…
…this boy can find fun anywhere, even when just confined to his hands.
One of the Mariners best stories of the year, Jason Vargas, was on the mound for the M’s…
…and he was looking strong.
Tim kept mentioning some flags on top of a building way out in the distance. We couldn’t tell what the bottom flag was, so I tested out my zoom…
…it was an Indians flag up there. While we don’t endorse the team, its good to see Cleveland supporting their squad.
In the top of the fourth inning, the Mariners took a 2-0 lead when Mitch Talbot walked Ichiro with the bases loaded.
Unfortunately, the Indians came back to tie it 2-2 in the bottom of the fourth inning on a double by Jayson Nix and a single by Andy Marte.
I felt bad for Marte. I know nothing about the guy. Literally, nothing. But they sure seemed to dislike him in Cleveland. There was all sorts of negativity being spewed at him from the stands, which is too bad. I’m not a big fan of fans trashing their own players. Maybe you trash a player at home among like-minded friends or family. But if you are a fan of a team, what good does it do to loudly yell derogatory comments at the player while he is trying to help your team win? It doesn’t make any sense.
With the score knotted at 2-2 moving at the end of fourth, we decided to *quickly* run to the ice cream stand for some ice cream helmets. Somehow we didn’t notice the fancy ice cream stand with helmets almost directly behind where we were sitting. Instead, we headed to the concourse behind home plate where we have gotten ice cream helmets in years past.
Here is a view of the concourse as we headed toward home plate:
This *quick* ice cream helmet run was a total debacle. They no longer had ice cream helmets behind home plate, so Tim had to get a waffle cone, which he loved but created a huge mess. And it took forever to get the waffle cone. While we were in line, the Mariners went crazy and all we could do was watch it on big flat screen TVs.
Russell Branyan hit a solo bomb to lead off the fifth innning.
Jose Lopez followed with a single, and then Gutierrez and Kotchman both grounded into E5′s courtesy of…uh, oh…fan unfavorite, Andy Marte. That did not help his cause.
It also didn’t help Marte’s cause that Josh Bard followed his two errors with a grand slam to run the score to 7-2, still with no outs.
Finally, we made it back into the stadium, just in time to see the Indians record 3 outs to end the inning.
We relocated to the standing room area in LF. Tim was able to sit on the cement base of the railing as I stood above him watching the game…
…the bottom of that cone snapped off and about half of that ice cream ended up smeared all over Tim’s clothes. It was a chocolately mess.
Actually, we did see one Mariners hit in the fifth inning before the Indians finally recorded the third out. And it was Ichiro’s 150th hit of the season:
While in the OF, I decided to take some shots of our outfielders right as Vargas was delivering a pitch. Interestingly, Franklin Gutierrez and Michael Saunders were up on their toes ready to get a jump on any swing…
…but Ichiro was firmly planted on the ground with each pitch. Interesting, indeed.
In the top of the sixth, the Mariners tacked on two more runs on a 2-run homerun by Casey Kotchman:
That made the score 9-2 Mariners.
Not even Slider with his flame throwing electric guitar…
…could help the Indians figure out Vargas and get back into the game.
Well, maybe Slider helped a little bit. Jayson Nix hit a solo homerun in the bottom of the sixth to make the score 9-3. But that homerun would cap the scoring for both teams.
In the late innings, we moved a little further out into LF. We hung out during the seventh and eighth innings in the handicapped accessible seating area at the front of the LF bleachers.
This was our view:
We stood there for two innings without an usher uttering a word to us (such as, “hey, you can’t stand there”). It was a nice spot from which to watch the game.
In the top of the ninth, we found ourselves behind home plate, but at the very top of the field level seats, above the cross aisle.
Here was our view:
We could see some empty seats down low behind home, which looked perfect for positioning ourselves for an umpire baseball opportunity.
By the start of the bottom of the ninth inning, we found ourselves in the first row directly behind home plate:
It was an excellent vantage point from which to watch Jamey Wright close out the Mariners win.
It also gave us a nice view of the Mariners dugout:
Before we proceed, lets make sure we focus on the important stuff:
Mariners win!
It would turn out that seemingly 1,000 people converged on the umpire exit after the final out. So the odds were low of us getting an umpire baseball. But it turned out that the odds were irrelevant becaues home plate umpire Mike Reilly sailed by everyone and didn’t unload give out a single baseball.
Oh, well. It seemed our chances are getting that 10th baseball were all but expired. Which was just fine with us. We decided to head over by the Mariners dugout to be close to the post-game celebration as our victorious Mariners cleared off of the field.
And guess what? Mariners third base coach (and former Mariners outfielder) Lee Tinsley spotted us (Tim was on my shoulders) and tossed us our previously unimagineable TENTH baseball of the day:
Crazy! Of course, this happened solely because the driving rain kept people out of the RF seats so I could extract 7 soggy easter eggs. But still, all we could say was “WOW, 10 baseballs!”
Our day was still far from concluded. For the second year in a row, we were treated to the Indians annual post-game “Rock’n'Blast” fireworks show. It is a big fireworks show set to music. I’m not sure if this is standard or not, but all of the music in the show was by bands inducted into the Rock’n'Roll Hall of Fame, which is in Cleveland.
As they prepared the field, Slider shot tons of shirts and other stuff into the stands. Deep into the stands. Tim was all excited to try to catch one…
…but nothing was shot short.
Soon, it was time for one of the coolest (maybe *the* coolest) fireworks show we’ve ever seen.
Here is a little taste of it that shows (i) awesome fireworks and (ii) Tim’s unbridaled excitement:
After the fireworks, Tim hopped back up onto my shoulders and I walked us the mile back to our hotel for a good night’s sleep.
It was awesome to see our first Indians loss ever, and even better to see our third Mariners win of the season.
2010 Fan Stats:
20 Games
18 Teams (Mariners, Orioles, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Angels, Twins, Athletics, White Sox and Indians; Phillies, Dodgers, Pirates, Braves, Mets, Brewers, Padres, Giants, and Nationals)
16 Ice Cream Helmets (Orioles (3), Phillies (2), Padres (2), Pirates (2), Mets, Dodgers, Athletics & Nationals)
50 Baseballs (9 Mariners, 2 Angels, 3 Athletics, 3 Brewers, 3 Nationals, 2 Blue Jays, 7 Umpires, 2 Phillies, 1 Mets, 4 Braves, 1 Orioles, 1 Dodgers, 1 Padres, 1 Giants, 2 Twins, 1 White Sox, 7 Easter Eggs)
11 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)
13 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 and Scott Olsen)
2 Retired Player Photos (Jim Palmer, Bert Blyleven)
1 Umpire Photo (“Cowboy” Joe West)
9 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 and Scott Olsen)
6 Kids Run The Bases (Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park, PETCO Park, Camden Yards)
2010 GFS Roadtrip Game 5: Mariners at Padres (6/13/10)
On June 13, 2010, two factors [incredibly awesome seats + extremely relaxed stadium staff during Kids Run The Bases] combined to result in one of the longest, more picture laden game reports that we have ever produced. Here it goes.
We woke up at the KOA in Chula Vista and hit the local Denny’s for breakfast. Then we came back, got ready for the Mariners game at Petco Park and used the spare time we had before the game to play in the KOA’s play area:
It was an afternoon game, so it was still morning when we got to the park. I know an extremely cool guy named Al who lived most of his life in our area in PA, but now lives in San Diego. Back in November 2009, he mentioned that he has the ability to get incredibly awesome seats at Padres games and offered to get them for us for this game. I was unsure if it would actually happen so I bought cheap outfield tickets before the season started to be sure we had tickets.
Al was planning to join us for at least part of the game so we arranged to meet him at the stadium. But we arrived about 45 minutes before him. So we used the cheap outfield tickets to head inside for BP. After Tim collected his Padres batting helmet giveaway, we headed in and found there was no BP today. Even worse was the fact that Tim couldn’t play in the Beach because it was closed. There was a “breakfast in the park” event on the warning track and I guess they didn’t want loud kids right next to the people who were literally eating breakfast at tables on the warning track.
Only two Mariners were on the field when we arrived.
Mr. Ryan Rowland-Smith was doing his running and stretching routine in LF…
…and Ichiro was stretching and playing catch with his interpreter in shallow LF:
Soon, Chone Figgins and Casey Kotchman came out to play some catch. While they were playing, I noticed that my Dad had wondered off. I wasn’t sure where he had gone. When Figgins and Kotchman finished playing catch…
…Kotchman walked back to the dugout. As I watched him approach the dugout, I saw that my Dad was the only person standing directly above the dugout — and he was wearing a Mariners shirt. Kotchman rewarded him with the his and Figgins’ warm up baseball.
Tim and I headed over to the dugout to hang out with my Dad. The stadium was empty and it was a cool “morning in the park” type atomosphere. People were quietly getting ready for a day of baseball. At one point, a guy started mowing the infield:
The Padres helmets came with number stickers. I put “18″ on the back of Tim’s helmet. When we were standing behind the dugout with my Dad, Tim asked me to put a “5″ on the bill of his helmet. Then he told me to put a “1″ in front of the “5.” I did…
…and then Tim said, “5-1 just like Ichiro!” He was a little bummed out when I told him that we’d really done “15″ — Milton Bradley — not Ichiro’s “51.” A second later, Al called us and we left the stadium and met him out front. Because we’d be entering the stadium again on new tickets, I told Tim he would get another helmet and we could put Ichiro’s “51″ on it.
We headed out the exit in LF and then we circled…
…around to the main entrance by home plate. Inside the main entrance, there is a big, cool, rock waterfall wall:
My Dad, Tim, Al and I headed to our seats, which were in the 18th row directly behind home plate. They were amazing seats. A bunch of Mariners pitchers were playing catch down the 3B line, so Tim and I headed over there while my Dad and Al hung out chatting in our seats.
We stayed in the same place and watched a couple different sets of M’s pitchers play catch. First, Jason Vargas (foreground below) and Luke French (background below) played right in front of us. At one point, French threw a low and inside (for a righty) pitch that Vargas couldn’t handle…
…it trickled right by Vargas and into my glove. I immediately scooped it up and tossed it back to Vargas — he needed the ball and I couldn’t stand in the way of my team’s pitchers getting their work in. When I tossed the ball back to Vargas, I asked if we could get the ball back when they were finished. He said, “Maybe.” Unfortunately, the maybe turned into a “no” because Vargas and French got into a deep discussion about grips on the ball (see inset picture) and they kept handing the ball back and forth as they walked back to the dugout.
Next, David Aardsma and Brandon League started stretching right in front of us. The D.A. gave Tim a smile and a little wave…
…which Tim thought was pretty cool. After playing some warm up catch, League started pitching to Aardsma with the D.A. crouched on the foul line. Early on, a pitch trickled by the D.A. and I scooped it up. As I tossed it back to Aardsma, I asked if we could get it back after they finished playing catch. He gave me a more definitive answer than Vargas, “Yeah.”
As we waited for League and Aardsma to wrap up, former All-Star Chad Cordero walked by and was happy to sign an autograph and pose for a picture with Tim:
Tim was working on another All-Star ballot while we watched the pitchers warming up. League was still pitching to Aardsma. Eventually, Tim asked me if I would pick him up. For the first time, I took off my glove (set it on the wall) and bent down to pick up Tim.
WHHHHHHHIZZZZZZ BAAAAAANGGGGGGGG!!!
The hard tossing Brandon League uncorked a wild and blazing fast ball past Aardsma. From the corner of my eye, I saw it skip off the outer edge of the warning track. As I lifted Tim up, the ball violently hit the very top of the padded wall…at literally the top inch of the wall. People shreaked as they thought the ball was going to smash me and Tim. Had the wall been an inch shorter, it would have slammed into my side. And it would have really hurt, I could tell. An usher came to ask us if we were alright. Luckily, the wall was just high enough and the ball bounced back onto the grass on the 3B side of Aardsma.
Soon, League and Aardsma switched positions and League was crouched on the foul line catching the D.A.
The day before, Ryan Rowland-Smith had told us that he has daily discussions with Cliff Lee about pitching. Today, we watched first hand as…
…RRS worked with (and learned from) Lee.
Eventually, Aardsma snuck a pitch by League and, for the third time, I scooped the ball up off of the warning track and threw the ball back. This time, I asked League if we could get the ball when they were finished. Instead of making us wait to find out the answer, he walked over and grabbed his wild pitch ball that had almost taken me out, and he tossed the baseball to me.
Thanks, Brandon!
Soon thereafter, Lee and RRS headed over to RF so RRS could do some work off of the mound in the M’s bullpen. We decided to head over there as well. Actually, we didn’t know they’d gone over there. We just saw action in the M’s bullpen and figured we should see what was happening.
When we got over there, Lee was chatting up a Padre in the OF grass right next to the bullpen and RRS was pitching to Cook & Son Hall of Famer Jason Phillips:
Between pitches, Phillips saw us and said hi. After RRS finished his work, Jason came over to the fence and chatted with us a bit. It was nice to chat with him. As we were splitting up, I asked if I could get his picture with RRS and he asked if we wanted a baseball. So, after he hooked us up with a ball — our ninth overall from Phillips and our 7th stadium getting a ball from him — he went to grab Ryan. But Ryan was busy talking to Rick Adair. When RRS was finished, he said hi to us and I asked if I could get his picture with Phillips. So, he grabbed Jason and they posed for the picture above.
Ryan knows that Jason is a Cook & Son Hall of Famer because he saw it on our blog, so he understood why I wanted their picture together. But I have no clue if Jason knows about the C&S Hall of Fame. I guess I should ask him later this season.
After the picture, Tim and I started heading back to our seats and Tim tapped me on the leg and quietly asked, “Can I ask Jason Phillips something?” (FYI, Tim pretty regularly asks me extremely quietly if he can ask people questions). We headed back over to the bullpen and I got Jason’s attention and said, “The little guy has something he wants to tell you.” Tim yelled out, “My favorite baseball players are the MARINERS!” That gave Jason a big smile.
Then we headed to our seats. Check this out:
In that picture, I am sitting in my seat (Section 101, Row 18, Seat 1) and Tim is standing next to the row in front of us (wearing his new helmet with Ichiro’s “51″ on the front and side).
Here was the view:
So you want to hear something crazy? We literally just left the bullpen where we were talking to Jason Phillips and we arrived at our seats where we discovered we were sitting right next to Jason’s family. Prodded by a very nice and talkative federal employee, we all started chatting. I ended going over and sitting right in front of Mr. Phillips for a bit and discussing our many run-ins with his son. He told us an interesting piece of trivia that I did not know: Jason Phillips hit the 5,000th homerun in Mets franchise history off of Randy Wolf of the Phillies. (FYI, Ken Griffey, Jr. achieved the same accomplishment for the Mariners in 2009).
The reason the whole discussion started in our section is because Jason’s dad was wearing some huge rings and the federal employee asked him what they were. Here is a look at one of the rings:
Jason’s dad is on a softball team that has won the world championship twice in the last couple years. And these were some huge and legit looking rings. Two seconds after this picture, Tim asked Jason’s dad if he could have this ring.
By the way, this wasn’t the only championship ring in our immediate vicinity. This ring was sitting on a finger two rows behind us on the opposite side of the stairs…
…and it belonged to a Yankees scout (whose work failed to prevent the Mariners from soon taking 2 of 3 against the Yankees in the Bronx).
You might have noticed in the panorama a couple pictures above that there were military people standing at each position on the field. Sundays at Petco Park are military appreciation days. There were a bunch of military people on the field before the game…
…and a whole bunch more sitting in the upper deck down the 1B line.
This meant that the Padres were also wearing their camoflague jerseys…
…which I am showing off in this picture because I think the contrast in the first kid’s face and Heath Bell’s face is hilarious. That kid gunned the ceremonial first pitch to the backstop…and the throw would have been behind a left handed batter.
Soon, the game was underway. Ichiro led off with a walk…
…check out that view! Unfortunately, as is happening way too much this season, Figgy erased Ichiro…
…by grounding into a double play.
This view of home plate was so great, I could hardly stop myself from taking pictures of every at bat.
I cannot thank Al enough for hooking us up with these seats. It was a joy to watch King Felix dominate the Padres from this amazing view:
By the way, that is David Eckstein about to pop out to lead off the bottom of the first. He would go 0-4 with 2 Ks against King Felix.
The only downside about these seats was that they were right out in the open beneath the hot sun. No shade at all. Tim is a big fan of shade, and not so much of the sun. But we cooled the boy off with an ice cream helmet…
…early in the game. By the way, that is Jason Phillips dad three down from Tim wearing the royal blue hat and about to pop some seeds in his mouth. He was decked out in Blue Jays gear to support his other son, Kyle Phillips. And that is Al sitting right next to Tim.
The last time I saw King Felix hit in interleague play, he hit a grand slam off of Johan Santana. Today, he was all about sacrifice bunting…
…like this successful sacrifice in the top of the third. Unfortuantely, this sacrifice ultimately did not produce any runs because Ichiro…
…followed with a groundout for the final out of the top of the third inning.
Leading off the bottom of the third, Scott Hairston got the first Padres hit of the day off of King Felix, and then something crazy and horrible followed.
Tony Gwynn, Jr. hit this pitch on a low line to CF (see how Gutierrez is already reading the ball to be a little off toward LF)…
…but the ball was low and must have knuckled. I could see right off the bat that Guti was having trouble figuring out how far the ball would travel. The ball was coming down quick…
…and at the last minute, Gutierrez swooped in to try to snar it. But it fell a tiny bit short and rolled all the way to the wall. Gwynn was off to the races and he did not stop until he had a stand up “quadruple.”
I don’t think that I have ever witnessed a professional “inside the park homerun” before, Tim definitely had not. After witnessing this one, I think they should be called “quadruples” because they are a whole lot more like triples than they are homeruns. They’re fundamentally different than homeruns. Pretty exicting. I just wish the Mariners could have had a “do over” because Gutierrez catches everything and given a second chance, I know he would have caught this one too.
All of sudden, we were losing 2-0 despite the fact that Felix Hernandez was generally dominating the Padres. We needed some offense, and Milton Bradley was happy to provide it…
…in the form of a traditional 2-run homerun in the top of the fourth. The score was now tied 2-2, much better.
Soon, Tim needed some relief from the sun. So we took a walk in the shady concourse that turned into a tour of the remaining part of Petco Park that I didn’t see the day before. We headed up to the upper deck in RF…
…where it looked like this:
Then we headed to the top of the upper deck in deep RCF:
From up there, we could look down on the Park in the Park…
…the bleachers…
…and the Beach:
By the way, check out the kids sitting digging in the sand with their backs turned to the field. Not a bright idea. Hopefully no kid ever gets (or has already gotten) tagged by a homerun into the Beach.
On our way back over to foul territory, a nice fan took our picture (with Ichiro batting in the background):
We noticed a weird little flag court area in the RF foul upper deck area where the Padres have flag depicting the league standings…
…I describe it as “weird” because from most places in the stadium these flags range from very hard to see to impossible to see. In fact, I never noticed them until walking by them…for the second time.
Even from above, Felix looked dominant:
We decided to go up to the top of the RF foul seats behind the military guys. Here was the view:
…and a very, very similar view (from just across the aisle and down a little bit from the last panorama:
Tim did his best attempt at standing at attention when this kind Marine officer (at least I’m guessing he is an officer, he appeared to be in charge of the rest of them) agreed to pose for a picture with Tim:
Sometimes Tim is a little shy. Just before these pictures, he walked down the stairs whispering “thank you” to the Marines. I am positive that none of them heard him.
As we made our way down the walkway ramps to the field level, I took this shot showing the interesting architecture of Petco Park:
At the very bottom in RF (it seemed like it was even lower than the field level), the concourse was full of military stuff. Like this huge model aircraft carrier:
By the time we returned to our seats, Al had taken off. So it was just the three of us roadtrippers when an ausher took this picture of us as Felix warms up in the background…
…with the score tied 2-2 in the bottom of the seventh.
After our stadium tour, Tim did a much better job staying cooling in the seats. He did some fake running poses…
…and exploded a bunch of peanut shells. See that funny straw hat on the lady sitting in front of Tim in the top right picture? That old lady was unintentionally hilarious. She was a Padres fan and her husband was a Mariners fan who used to live in Seattle. At random times throughout the day, she would aggressively mutter “hit it over the fence! hit it over the fence!” at her Padres batters and she would sound disgusted if the Mariners did anything good.
Luckily, the Mariners gave her a few more opportunities to sound disgusted.
Going into the top of the 8th inning, the score was still 2-2. The Padres starter, Clayton Richard, had gone 7 innings giving up only 5 hits and 2 runs, but they lifted him for Luke Gregerson in the 8th.
Gregerson started off by giving up an infield single to Chone Figgins. Two batters later, Jose Lopez smacked this ball…
…for a line drive double down the 3B line. Chone touched home to grab a 3-2 lead for the Mariners.
Although nothing more came of it, it was fun to see Milton Bradley talk home plate umpire Angel Hernandez into a hit by pitch later in the inning…
…the Padres weren’t too happy with the call, but Hernandez wasn’t persuaded to reconsider his call.
In the top of the 9th, the Mariners were still leading 3-2 when Joe Thatcher took the hill for the Padres. Thatcher promptly surrendered a single to Mariners catcher Rob Johnson. It was Rob’s third hit of the day and I later learned that it was only the second 3-hit day of his career. Interestingly, we were also present for his only other 3-hit game last season.
Felix Herandez came to the plate next and sacrificed his favorite catcher over to second base.
That brought Ichiro to the plate. Ichiro and the Mariners were looking for a little insurance for their slim 1-run lead. Ichiro started by bunting the first pitch foul…
…next he watched a ball and foul tipped a stike…
…then with a count of 1-2, Ichiro got his pitch and played a little game of switcheroo with Johnson…
…Ichiro took Rob’s spot at second and Rob took Ichiro’s at home. And just like that the Mariners had a 4-2 lead.
Tim and I like to try to get a ball from the umpire after a game. But in the first four games of the roadtrip we hadn’t even tried. Since we were already sitting so close to the umpires’ tunnel at this game, we figured we might as well give it a shot.
The umpires’ tunnel at Petco Park is at the home plate side of the visitors’ dugout. In the bottom of the ninth, with Felix back on the mound gunning for a complete game, we headed over to try to stand in the cross aisle right behind the tunnel. An usher saw us and suggested that we sit in some of the open seats nearby. He pointed out some seats that he had in mind.
I asked him if it would be okay to go a little closer to the umpires’ tunnel. He said, “Oh, you want to try to get a ball after the game? Sure!” And he let us take these seats right above the tunnel:
In that picture, Felix Hernandez is about to walk down into the dugout. He got the first batter in the bottom of the ninth, but then surrendered a single to Adrian Gonzalez. When Scott Hairston hit an infield grounder, everyone in the stadium thought it was a game ending double play. But Hairston beat it out and Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu decided to pull Felix and put in David Aardsma.
Felix was upset about not getting to finish the game. But on his fourth pitch, the D.A. induced a pop fly by Nick Hundley and the scoreboard showed the happy totals:
After the almost double play, the usher came by to give us some advice on getting a ball from the umpire. He was very nice. But with the pop fly out, we had plenty of time to get into the corner spot right at the back of the dugout and side of the umpire tunnel.
Angel Hernandez walked off and walked right over to Tim and handed him this baseball…
…5 seconds later, 3B umpire “Cowboy” Joe West walked by and grabbed the baseball back from Tim and started walking into the tunnel with the baseball. He then turned back around and brought the ball back to Tim. He was very amused by his little prank. And we used the opportunity to give Joe West some high fives and then get this awesome picture (above left) of Tim and West.
I had wanted real bad to get a picture of Tim with an umpire for the mygameballs.com photo scavenger hunt. It seemed to me like it was the hardest picture in the competition to get. The umpires generally don’t linger on the field after games. They take off quick. So the fact that West decided to play a fast one on Tim and take his baseball back was the perfect opportunity.
Thank you, Joe West! And thank you, Angel Hernandez, too!
Our day at the ballpark wasn’t finished just yet. It was Kids Run The Bases time!
The line started deep in the Park in the Park…
…while waiting to get back into the stadium, the Marines marched by and the crowd gave them a long ovation as they filed by. Tim was up on my shoulders and asked, “Is this a parade?”
We entered the field through a ramp next to the bleachers and beach:
The line took a while to finally get into the field. But finally we made it! And it was awesome. Some stadiums have strict policies and strict ushers enforcing them during Kids Run The Bases. Our first sign of the relaxed attitude was that an usher agreed to take this picture of us kneeling in front of the “400″ foot sign:
Normally during Kids Run The Bases, we have to ask other fans to take our pictures because the ushers just say, “Keep moving, keep moving.”
We stopped right by the usher who took that picture so I could get a shot of Tim with the field behind him…
…after I took those pictures, he told me he was standing like an umpire.
We always try to get our picture by the RF foul pole and OF fence distance marker. This turned out being one of my favorite pictures ever…
…first I told Tim to stand next to the “322″ like he was playing outfield. Then I told him to jump against the wall like he was trying to catch a baseball. I absolutely love that jumping picture. Check that out, he’s hanging in the air!
The relaxed usher attitude carried over to the bullpen. Tim played a little catcher…
…by the way, we seemed to be the only people running around taking fun pictures on our walk to home plate. Sure, some people were taking pictures with the field behind them. But I didn’t see anyone else snapping pictures by the wall or in the bullpen. They missed out on some great photo opportunities!
Thanks, Padres!
Here is another random shot with the field behind Tim…
…and then I opened up this box and checked out the bullpen phone…
…and Tim sat on the bullpen bench.
The Padres did a great job with the actual run too. They spaced the kids out really well. When we walked up, I must have looked like I wanted to follow Tim (which I did) because the 1B usher said to me, “Go for it!” So I followed Tim with my camera ablazing…
…along the way, Tim gave the Friar a high speed high five.
My dad stayed in the seats behind the 3B dugout where he got this video on his camera:
After the run, the ushers were still pretty relaxed. I got our standard “with the dugout” picture…
…then an usher let my Dad hop down onto the field to get this picture with us…
…and I transferred Tim over to my Dad’s shoulder to get this picture by the “336″ sign in LF:
By the way, see those two windows behind the LF fence? Those go into the Padres team store. There is a door from the team store into a little triangle standing area just behind the fence where fans can watch the game from field level through the chain link OF fence.
After that last picture, we headed out to our car…
…and said our good-byes to Petco Park. It was a great two game set in San Diego.
We stayed at the Chula Vista KOA again. After the game, we took a little dip in the pool…
…and then went to dinner at an amazing Mexican restaurant in a little strip mall. It wasn’t an impressive place from the outside, but the food was delicious and the people were extremely nice. So, if you’re in Chula Vista, be sure to check out Casa Del Taco.
2010 Fan Stats:
13 Games
14 Teams (Mariners, Orioles, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Angels and Athletics; Phillies, Dodgers, Pirates, Braves, Mets, Brewers, Padres and Nationals)
12 Ice Cream Helmets (Orioles (3), Phillies, Padres (2), Pirates (2), Mets, Dodgers, Athletics & Nationals)
32 Baseballs (6 Mariners, 1 Angels, 3 Athletics, 3 Brewers, 3 Nationals, 2 Blue Jays, 5 Umpires, 1 Phillies, 1 Mets, 4 Braves, 1 Orioles, 1 Dodgers, 1 Padres)
8 Stadiums (Camden Yards, Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park, Oakland-Alameda County Stadium, Dodgers Stadium, PETCO Park)
11 Player Photos (Ryan Rowland-Smith (2), Chad Cordero, Mike Cameron, Joel Piniero, Frank Catalanotto, Billy Wagner, Jeff Suppan, Tommy Hanson, Jeff Weaver and Scott Olsen)
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, Jered Weaver and Scott Olsen)
5 Kids Run The Bases (Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park, PETCO Park)
2010 GFS Roadtrip Game 4: Mariners at Padres (6/12/10)
We woke up in Pamona, California on the morning of Saturday, June 12, 2010, and were excited to venture further south through California, passed Angel Stadium in Anaheim (not Los Angeles), down the coast…
…to the city of San Diego, and then a little further south to our cabin waiting for us at the KOA in Chula Vista, California. But more than anything, we were excited because over the next two days we’d be watching our Mariners try to battle out of a slump and win some ball games.
After taking a dip in the pool at the KOA, we were off to Petco Park…
…and the “Beach” in centerfield:
Tim loves a good sand box, so he was in sand box heaven. By the way, Tim was sporting a full Mariners uniform to this game — Ichiro jersey T-shirt, baseball pants, stirrup socks, and an M’s hat. I told him that maybe Ichiro would ask him to play with the team.
The CF gate opens half an hour earlier than the rest of the stadium and provides access to the bleachers and the beach. The “bleachers” are incredibly unique at Petco Park, check them out…
As Tim played with the dozens of buckets, shovels and other toys, the Padres were taking BP. Eventually, a ball rolled to the wall in the deepest center part of the beach and Luke Gregerson moseyed on over to pick it up right in front of me and my Dad.
As he picked up the ball, I asked him:
Todd – (Pointing at Tim) “Hey, could you please toss that ball over for my son over there in the Ichiro shirt?”
L.G. – “Ichiro shirt!?”
Todd – “Yeah, Ichiro shirt. But, hey, my Dad here works as an usher for Padres spring training games in Peoria!”
L.G. – Really?
Dad – Yep.
L.G. – (Tosses the ball)
Todd – Thanks!
I had no clue who the player was, but it said “57″ on his back and my computer tells me that number 57 on the Padres is Luke Gregerson. So…
Thanks, Luke!
By the way, here is a panoramic view through the beach from a couple rows back in the bleachers…
As you can see, the view of LF and CF is obstructed by the OF wall from the bleachers.
Something funny happened when we were in the beach. The Padres pitchers, including team jester Heath Bell, were running sprints in RF when a baseball rolled to the middle of the warning track toward the RF side of the beach. When Health Bell finished up his work and started walking over to LF, a girl called out to him and asked for the baseball. He walked over and with his foot pushed the ball up against the wall (which is simply a chain link fence in the beach) and said, “there you go!” and then he ran off.
Then the girl, who was probably about 8-10 years old grabbed the ball through the fence and passed the ball back-and-forth from hand-to-hand as she went up the fence. When she got to head level, her dad picked her up so she could continue going up the fence passing the ball back-and-forth to herself. Finally, she was at the top of the fence and passed the baseball over the top to herself. I’ve never seen anything like that before at a game. Pretty cool.
Here is another view from the beach area — taken by my dad…
…all of that open space behind CF is where they store the batting cage during the game.
While we were hanging out in the Beach, a guy named Scott (who just commented on our last game) — Hi, Scott! — came up and introduced himself to me and said he enjoys reading our blog and checking out our pictures. Its always cool to meet someone who enjoys following along with our adventures on MLBlogs.
Soon, the rest of the stadium opened and we headed behind the batters eye toward the LF seats. On our way over there (as we passed a big concert stage), we ran into a mariachi band…
…I absolutely love Mariachi music so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get Tim’s picture with the band. Check out the one guy whose face is hidden behind two of his bandmates sombreros!.
Anyway, we swung around to the field leve seats in LF where we hung out for just a few minutes…
…in that last picture that is Heath Bell crouched down like a catcher and a Padres player and ball boy looking kid were taking turns pitching to him. Later, Heath was practically wrestling the kid in the OF. Bell was having himself a good old time during BP.
To get from LF to the seats in foul territory down the 3B line, you have to go behind the Western Metal Supply Co. warehouse and up a couple flights of stairs. And that is what we did when we saw the Mariners come out and start stretching in front of their dugout.
Tim and I went down the 3B line and an usher informed us that we had to sit down to watch BP from foul territory. WHAT? That’s just weird. But whatever. This is the view from where we sat down:
As i was taking pictures, a nice guy who was probably in his sixties walked over and put a baseball in Tim’s hand and walked away before I could tell him he should give the ball to another little kid. I guess a lot of kids like it when some random fan gives them a baseball, but Tim has got a bunch of balls already in his life and the few times it has happened, I always tell the generous would-be ball giver that Tim has already got a ball and he should give the ball to another little kid. But this guy took off before I could say anything. “Hmmm…,” I was thinking, “what are we going to do with this random baseball?”
Meanwhile, the Mariners were jogging back-and-forth in front of their dugout…
…as they ran back toward 3B for the final time, Cook & Son Hall of Famer Ryan Rowland-Smith was at the front of the pack and he immediately noticed us sitting in the front row a couple sections passed 3B. He gave me a nod and I have him a wave with my glove.
Thirty seconds later, RRS was sitting on the wall chatting with me…
…and signing that ball the random fan had just given to Tim. We got RRS to sign baseball for us last season, so after he signed this ball, I gave it to my dad who has never got RRS’s signature.
Here’s the deal, RRS is awesome. He hung out sitting on that wall and chatting with me, my dad and Tim…
…for 15-20 minutes (note, that on the clock behind us you can see there is a 7 minute difference between those last two pictures).
We talked about all sorts of cool stuff, but I am going to keep our conversation private becaues I didn’t ask RRS if he would mind if I shared our conversation on here. But I will note that one of the coolest parts was when RRS talked about the conversations he has on a daily basis with Cliff Lee as he tries to overcome his early season struggles. He got down in a catcher’s crouch and was showing us what locations he has been hitting and what locations he should be hitting. It was extremely cool to get a behind the scenes glimpse into the work that goes into being a professional pitcher.
By the way, did you notice that they stationed a security guard to stand behind RRS as he chatted with us? Not only that, the ushers actually let us stand during BP so we could chat with RRS. I guess that is one of the perks you get when a player comes over to chat with you at Petco Park.
Oh, yeah. I should also mention that I was wearing the jersey that RRS gave me!
Eventually, we went our separate ways.
We headed out to the LF corner. And right when we got there, Ian Snell tossed us a baseball. The Mariners were just starting to get into the cage by this point. So we decided to head over to the Padres dugout to watch Ichiro hit. On the way, I took this shot of the the concourse down the 3B line:
We had a nice view as Ichiro was hitting…
…Tim decided to tie himself in knots with the Padres scarf that they gave away to the fans at this game. After the first group of Mariners finished hitting they all ran out into the infield to pick up stray baseballs and return them to the basket at the pitchers mound. The pitcher was M’s batting coach Alonzo Powell. As he grabbed a ball just in front of the mound, I called out, “Hey, Alonzo!” He looked up and my Dad and I both flashed him some leather. He tossed the ball over to my Dad for his first baseball at Petco Park.
Next, we headed out to RF where this was our view:
The front row was shoulder to shoulder. A couple Mariners pitchers were in LF including the D.A., David Aardsma. Soon, a ball got over his head and rolled the wall in front of us. I shouted, “Hey, D.A.!” He looked up, made eye contact with me, and tossed me the ball on a weird angle as he walked back to his spot in LF.
And this is what I don’t like about a getting a toss up in a crowded area. The ball was plainly, 100% without a shadow of a doubt intended for me and Tim, and I caught it without moving my feet whatsoever. However, with the weird angle on which Aardsma threw us the ball, I ended up catching the ball 6 inches in front of a young (22′ish year old), moderately good looking girl. I don’t think anyone would have thought anything about it if I just handed the ball over to Tim, but to me it felt a little funny. Actually, it didn’t feel funny, because I knew the ball was intended for us. But it felt like it probably looked funny (does that make sense?). So instead of handing the ball to Tim, I just opened my glove, held it out for the girl (who was there with her boyfriend), and let her grab the ball out of my glove. And she did just that, without a “thank you” or the slightest hint of acknowledgement that I’d just done something nice for her, which was not very cool in my book.
The worst part is that the situation with the girl threw me off and I don’t think I even thanked the D.A.
So, thanks, D.A.!
BP wrapped up, we headed out to the Park in the Park. First, we checked out the Tony Gwynn statue:
I turned around and took a panorama of the field from the Park in the Park:
And then we walked over…
…to check out the kids’ baseball field in the Park in the Park. I’m not sure if they have a name for the field, but they should call it “The Park in the Park in the Park.”
I took another panorama from the beyond the CF wall of the Park in the Park in the Park…
…with our buddies in the Mariachi band on stage doing their thing. Then we walked around the Park in the Park in the Park…
…and headed back over to the beach:
And what the heck, how about another beach panorama looking toward RF:
Tim wanted to play in the Beach so my Dad stayed with him while I toured the stadium a bit. As I headed to the second deck in LCF, I took this picture looking down over the Padres bullpen:
Remember this picture of the Padres bullpen, because in a bit, I will show you the Mariners/visitors bullpen.
Next, I took what very well may be the coolest panorama that I have ever taken…
…click on the photo to see it much larger. Cool, huh?
Next, it was off to the other side of the seats right next to the warehouse, where I took this shot:
From there, I circled around to the infield and got this shot behind home plate…
…then it was up to the second deck, which is some sort of special deck. It seemed like they don’t let you into these seats generally, but the usher said I could go in to take some pictures. Here is what it looked like from there:
Soon, I found myself right next to the warehouse. I wanted to get into the warehouse, but I didn’t know if I could. There was a sign in the concourse behind the warehouse that said there was a private party going on there. So, I went into the seating area and got this panorama right next to the warehouse…
…but then I notice something, an odd little hallway:
…a stadium worker had just walked into the hallway. There was no rope and no one to say I couldn’t go in there, so I did. As I walked down the hallway, there were a couple open doors with soda fountains and random food prep paraphenalia strewn all about. At the other end of the hallway, there were two food server type stadium workers and neither of them said anything to me.
At the end of the hallway, I took a right and there was a narrow walkway that led out to the porch on the top of the warehouse. There was an usher standing in the middle of the walkway and two garbage cans blocking the way. I walked up and acted confused for the guy, “Are we on the warehouse? Am I not supposed to be here? Hey, can I go out there real quick to take a picture?” The guy looked a little confused right back at me and then said, “sure, okay.”
So, I made it out on top of the warehouse! And this was the view:
As the game was about to start, I began making my way toward home plate. Here is a view a from the corner where the seats change angles…
As I reached behind home plate, Ichiro came to bat. I wanted a clean shot of him so I headed back toward 3B. I got this picture…
…as he started his swing that resulted in a leadoff single on the first pitch of the night. A good start to the game.
I headed back behind home plate and got this panorama:
Seconds later, Chone Figgins reached out and slapped this ball into the outfield for the M’s second hit of the night…
…I liked this, we had a little something going here.
I headed toward RF and got this picture…
….from right next to the light stand with the suites in it.
Franklin Gutierrez walked on this pitch:
The bases were loaded with no outs! I liked it. I headed down to the cross aisle around the 300 level and got this shot:
I then got this shot of Lopez….
…right as he swung his way into a double play.
The Padres then intentionally walked Bradley…
…before Josh Wilson popped up for the final out of the top of the first inning…
…so the M’s squandered a great opportunity to score some runs.
It was time to head to our seats. I got this panorama on the way to our seats…
….because I thought it was cool that it had a scoreboard for the fans standing in the concourse behind the seats.
Tim played in the beach until they cleared out all of the non-bleacher ticketed fans. They made it to our seats shortly before I did. Tim was hungry so we got our customary nachos:
After the Mariners left three runners on base in the top of the first, the Padres showed them how to take advantage of scoring opportunties. David Eckstein led off with a single and was replaced on first after Chase Headley hit into a fielder’s choice. Adrian Gonzalez then blasted a two run bomb to put the Padres up 2-0. Unfortunately, that was all the offense the Padres would need.
Still, it was a good game and the Mariners were in it until the end thanks to a solid outing (despite the loss) by Cliff Lee — somehow I failed to take a single picture of Lee at this game.
In the second inning, the M’s cut the Padres lead in half. It started with Rob Johnson’s double down the RF line:
…and then Ichiro followed two batters later with a little chip shot…
…that landed behind third base just in fair territory and Johnson scored from second.
In the bottom of the second, I snapped this picture of Tony Gwynn, Jr. hitting a single on a swinging bunt:
I am not positive about this, but I think Gwynn (who I have probably seen play before) completes the third father-son set that I have seen play in the majors. Others include Ken Griffey-Ken Griffey, Jr. and Cecil Fielder-Prince Fielder. Maybe there have been others, but not that I can recall.
The next time Ichiro came to the plate, he grounded out. But check out the interesting stat that they put on the big screen during his at bat…
…pretty impressive, eh? I’m guessing that Ichiro will finish his career in sole possession of the lead on this list.
Soon, it was time for some ice cream. I walked all around the field level concourse looking for ice cream helmets. Here are some views from the concourse:
In that upper right picture, that big wall to the right is a slanted wall that runs from the upper deck all the way down to the ground outside the stadium. I finally found the “Kettle & Cone” stand where they have ice cream helmets. The tricky thing about finding it is that it is not on the main concourse. Rather, it is behind the concourse (if that makes sense) on the 3B side near home plate. Actually, in that upper right picture (with the slanted wall) if you click on it to view it full sized, you’ll see part of a red sign over a opening in the wall to the right. The red sign says “MERCADO” and the opening in the wall is a hall way that leads back behind the concourse to a big bar and a couple different food stands. That’s where the ice cream helmets can be found.
And this was my ice cream helmet’s view of the game from my seat in section 120, row 29, seat 1:
As we watched the game, I noticed something odd in the OF. Check out the OF wall below the Subway sign in this picture…
…it is like there is a little cubby hole below the subway sign. I have no clue what that is all about.
After showing you the Padres bullpen toward the beginning of this entry, I mentioned that I would show you the visitors’ bullpen at Petco Park a bit later. Well, in this picture of Figgy playing 2B, you can see the visitors’ bullpen in the background:
How’s that for treating your guests poorly? The Padres get your standard modern bullpen and the visitors get to sit in foul territory like its still the 1980s or something.
During this game, Tim fell in love with the all-star ballot. As shown here, with Grandpa’s assistance he kept busy…
…punching out holes on the ballot. Together, they voted for the entire National League on this ballot. Tim was very proud of his completed ballot.
Cliff Lee gave up his third and final run of the night in the fourth inning and then went on to pitch 7 innings, giving up 7 hits. Cliff actually went an inning deeper in the game than the Padres starter, Wade LeBlanc, who also gave up 7 hits in his six innings. The difference in the game was that LeBlanc and his relievers (including the baseball giving Luke Gregerson) kept the Mariners baserunner, just like Milton Bradley here in the sixth inning…
…stranded on base longing to touch the plate. Over the course the game, the Mariners had 12 runners left on base and the Padres had a mere 2 LOB.
In the 7th or 8th inning, we decided to head out to the Park in the Park to see what the game looks like from out there. Before departing our seats in section 120, a nice fan took our picture…
…by the way, I bought some wet wipe before this game because I had forgot to bring any on the trip. I usually use them to wash down Tim’s chocolate covered face after he devours an ice cream helmet. Unfortunately, after buying the wipes, I misplaced them under the car seat and never took them to a single game on this trip. Therefore, like in this picture, Tim’s face was a bit chocolatey a lot during this trip.
We grabbed a spot on the hill in the PITP, and Tim stood in front of us and hit fake pitches and circled faked bases. Here he is standing at his fake home plate…
…and that was our view of the last inning or two. I guess in that picture you can tell better than before that he is wearing a full baseball uniform.
You know what, I took a video of Tim hitting a fake homerun, here it is:
Although it was only a two run game when Lee handed the ball off to the M’s bullpen in the 8th inning, the M’s relieves quickly put the game out of reach. Sean White got only one out in the 8th inning, but gave up 3 runs. Brandon League got the final two outs in the 8th and gave up one more run. Actually, to be more precise, I should mention that two of Sean White’s runs actually scored on a 3-run homerun that League gave up to pinch hittig Oscar Salazar.
Between the Salazar homerun and the victory, the batters’ eye was shooting blasts of fire into the air a lot in the evening hours at Petco Park:
After it was a close game for most of the night, the final score was an ugly 7-1 loss. But it was a fun night at the park and it was great to see the Mariners and get to know Petco Park.
We decided to hang out in the PITP for a bit to let the crowd thin out a bit, but then we realized the crowd was getting bigger. There was a post game concert in the PITP. So, we had another nice fan take our picture…
…and then we headed to our car.
To book end the game, I took another picture of Petco Park from the parking lot…
…then we hung out in the parking lot for 15 minutes because the cars were inching out of the lot. Tim spent the time jumping and having me take pictures of him in the air…
…when I showed him this one, I told him he jumped so fast that his arm disappeared. He was pretty proud of that. He crashed out soon after hopping in the car.
In just about 12 hours, we would be back at Petco Park for a day game and hoping to see our second Mariners win of 2010.
2010 Fan Stats:
12 Games
14 Teams (Mariners, Orioles, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Angels and Athletics; Phillies, Dodgers, Pirates, Braves, Mets, Brewers, Padres and Nationals)
11 Ice Cream Helmets (Orioles (3), Phillies, Pirates (2), Mets, Dodgers, Athletics & Nationals)
29 Baseballs (4 Mariners, 1 Angels, 3 Athletics, 3 Brewers, 3 Nationals, 2 Blue Jays, 4 Umpires, 1 Phillies, 1 Mets, 4 Braves, 1 Orioles, 1 Dodgers, 1 Padres)
8 Stadiums (Camden Yards, Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park, Oakland-Alameda County Stadium, Dodgers Stadium, PETCO Park)
10 Player Photos (Ryan Rowland-Smith (2), Mike Cameron, Joel Piniero, Frank Catalanotto, Billy Wagner, Jeff Suppan, Tommy Hanson, Jeff Weaver and Scott Olsen)
7 Autographs (Ryan Rowland-Smith (2), Daisuke Matsuzaka, Joel Piniero, Frank Catalanotto (2), Billy Wagner (2), Jeff Suppan, Tommy Hanson, Jeff Weaver and Scott Olsen)
4 Kids Run The Bases (Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field, PNC Park)
Hello, 2010 Mariners! (5/11/10)
Since opening day, we’d been looking forward to May 11, 2010: our first Mariners game of the season. Like in 2007 and 2008 , our first Mariners game of the season would take place at Camden Yards.
I wanted to maximize our time with the Mariners so we headed down to Baltimore in time for batting practice. Unfortunately, it started raining as we neared Baltimore. As we entered the centerfield seats, we found the tarp covering the field. No batting pratice.
It was about 5:20 at the time. Because we did not have “season ticket” tickets, we were stuck in CF until 5:30. So we couldn’t go over to the third base foul line where Ichiro was running sprints in the outfield and a couple of Mariners were playing catch.
After about 2 minutes in the seats, Jesus Colome came out to centerfield to grab two baseballs that were sitting out there in the grass. There were a bunch of O’s fans in the first 2 rows of the seats and we were hanging back in about the 10th row. Colome saw us and yelled to get our attention. He then proceeded to throw one of the baseballs nowhere near us. Seriously, while looking me straight in the eye, he managed to throw the ball about 30 feet to our left and about 7 rows below us. One of the O’s fans grabbed it as it ricocheted off some seats. Colome yelled, “Sorry!” and patted himself on the chest as if to say, “my bad.”
Oh, well.
About 2 minutes later, something incredibly cool happened. I’m going to save the complete story for later, but here is the abbreviated version.
Ryan Rowland-Smith came walking through the outfield on his way to the bullpen…
…in that picture, Tim and I were standing at the “T&T” (Tim was on my shoulders) and I noticed Rowland-Smith as he was walking at the “RRS.” The yellow line shows the route he was intending to walk to the Mariners bullpen.
Background Fact No. 1: Last season in Toronto, we met RRS and he threw a baseball to Tim (twice) so Tim could catch it himself in his glove.
Background Fact No. 2: Over the off-season, I wrote a letter to RRS to (among other things) thank him for being so kind to us in Toronto, and I included with the letter the picture my wife snapped of us with RRS.
Background Fact No. 3: I follow RRS on Twitter where it had recently been implied that he buzzed his hair. Check him out @hyphen18.
So, as he approached the OF wall, I yelled out, “Hey, Ryan, let’s see the new hair!”
He laughed and (without looking over) took off his hat to show me his buzz-cut. Then, as he went through the door in the OF gate, he looked over at me and…
…exclaimed, “Oh, hey, Man!” as he pointed at me. He immediately changed courses (follow the new yellow line above) and came over to chat with us.
I was thinking, “Wow, RRS really likes seeing Mariners fans on the road!” But as he approached, he said, “You wrote me that letter, right?”
To put it mildly, I couldn’t believe it! I wrote him a letter months earlier about an interaction in Toronto and IMMEDIATELY upon seeing us in Baltimore (totally out of context), he recognized us and came right over to chat.
Here he is standing below us…
…and, to once again put it mildly, he came over to chat about something incredibly, amazingly, ridiculously awesome. That’s what I’ll save for later. For now, I will just note that we made plans to meet up later in the season about something I asked him in my letter. Also, I must note that RRS is officially one of the most fan-friendly, coolest dudes ever to wear a major league baseball uniform…hands down.
After chatting with RRS, we waited five more minutes for the rest of the stadium to open (by which point Ichiro was gone), and then we headed over toward the Mariners dugout. And guess who we ran into…
…you got it: Mr. Ryan Rowland-Smith. Although Tim looks sorta “ho-hum’ish” in this picture, its not because he wasn’t happy to get his picture with RRS. It was because he was standing on top of a wet brick wall and he was scared he was going to fall off. RRS is holding him from behind to keep him steady.
We chatted for another minute or two with RRS. And he noticed the T-Shirt I was wearing under my jersey. It was a special shirt that Griffey made for his Mariners teammates during spring training. You can read about it (and how my mom got her hands on one of them during spring training) in our entry Griffey the Prankster. I told RRS that I had my mom send to shirt to me so I could wear it to this game to see if I could manage to get my picture with Griff. However, due to the SleepGate scandal (that had just broken the day before), RRS didn’t think Griff would be out on the field at all before the game.
A few minutes later, I saw Ichiro pop out of the M’s dugout with a bat and walk over to the O’s dugout/clubhouse entrance. So we headed over to the O’s dugout and confirmed with an usher that the M’s would be taking BP in cages back by the O’s clubhouse.
We said hi to most of the guys as they headed over to take BP…
…Lopez said “Hi” to us, but Guti did not. Speaking of Franklin, check out his pant legs before and after hitting.
Adam Moore said hi to us too:
Here is Figgy and a coach, Sweeney and M’s PR guy Tim Hevly (they were talking about SleepGate!)…
…Don Wakamatsu said hello to us, and Ken Griffey, Jr. did too. Unfortunately, that’s the best picture I got of Griff. As he approached, he saw my T-shirt and he said something to me that I couldn’t understand…something odd like, “Oh, so that’s what’s going on here.” In response, I mentioned that he’d given the shirt to my mom at spring training and asked if we could get a picture. He responded as if it was a possibility, but said he had to go hit first. Of course, by the time he finished batting, there were 50 people standing by the dugout. By that point, we decided there was no chance Griff would stop on his way back to the M’s clubhouse so we left to get something to eat.
There was a little raining falling at this point, so we retreated to Section 49…
…and dug into a big pile on nachos:
As we enjoyed our nachos, Mike Sweeney started playing catch with his first basemens glove…
…but he didn’t play first (or at all) in this game.
After our nachos, we headed over to the bullpen to watch Cliff Lee warm up. Here he is on his walk to the bullpen:
And here is the view from the seats right next to the bullpen in section 86:
After Cliff Lee left the bullpen, the relievers huddled together like they do before every game…
…and when they broke apart David Aardsma pointed at me and said to his colleagues, “Look at that guys shirt!” They all got a kick out of seeing a fan wearing one of Griffey’s prank shirts.
By the way, our buddy Jason Phillips is in that blurry picture and he is the guy seated closest to Tim in the picture to the right. It was nice seeing him again. We exchanged a few words several times throughout the day. Its good to have him in the M’s bullpen again this season.
We continued sitting by the bullpen during the first inning, but then it started raining again. We took refuge under cover over by where we’d eaten our nachos. And I got some pictures of Griffey batting in the third inning…
…he ultimately popped out to LF.
And I got some pictures of Ichiro, also batting in the third inning…
…he grounded out to the pitcher.
I took tons of pictures (using my wife’s camera with a sequence feature) of Cliff Lee:
On this pitch, the batter (I think Miguel Tejada) grounded out to Josh Wilson at short stop.
We got some random defensive shots:
After it stopped raining, we headed out to the standing room area in RF…
…where Tim asked for sunflower seeds to make “seed sail boats” in a puddle.
I had to get Tim out of the standing room area pretty quick. It was covered with huge puddles and Tim wanted to jump in every single one. I was envisioning his little toes freezing later in the game inside wet socks.
So, we headed out to the concourse and got an ice cream helmet and a hot chocolate. We grabbed some ice cream seats in section 10 down the 1B foul line:
Pictured at the back of the photo is a guy named Avi who we met before the game. In addition to going to tons of O’s games, Avi reads our blog (and writes one of his own). Thanks, Avi! It was great meeting you.
Here is the view from our ice cream seats in section 10:
At this point (the fifth inning), the score was 0-0 and Cliff Lee had given up only 3 hits.
Ryan Langerhans broke the scoreless tie with a lead off homerun in the fifth. Later in the inning, the M’s scored again when Chone Figgins drew a bases loaded walk.
Here is a shot of Griff hitting in the sixth inning:
Griff eventually drew a walk and came around to score. After six innings, the Mariners led the Orioles 5-0.
From our ice cream seats, we had a great view of Ichiro in RF. In these pictures, Ichi is playing catch between innings with Franklin Gutierrez.
Click on that picture to see it full-sized. In the picture to the left, the rotation of the seems on the ball look pretty cool.
Here is Tim after finishing off his ice cream and hot chocolate:
He absolutely loved the hot chocolate.
As we sat in section 10, I noticed the same guy catch two foul balls straight behind home plate. I decided he should go over there. However, when we arrived behind home plate, we noticed that the ushers were essentially taking the night off. Although there were ushers all around, they were letting people stand in the aisle and sit anywhere they wanted. So, after an usher took our picture…
…we headed down behind the M’s dugout to see if we could get a third out baseball. We never did. But we got some great up close views of our Mariners. Here is Ichiro about to hit a double…
…and about to be stranded on third base in the 7th inning.
And when we got home, I noticed that we’d been on TV while we were sitting in the third row behind Franklin Gutierrez:
After Griff’s final at bat in the 8th inning…
… the crowd gave Griff a warm ovation on his way back to the dugout (it was a fly out to CF (or maybe a deep 2B or SS)).
We’d been sitting in the third row, but between innings Tim would stand in the first row above the dugout…so I snapped this picture of him:
…and in the 8th or 9th inning, we decided to just take the seats up there in the first row. It was crazy how empty the seats were.
Here was the view from the first row:
After giving up only one run and 8 hits in 7.1 innings…
…we cheered Cliff Lee as he left the game in the bottom of the 8th inning. This was his first win as a Mariner.
Ichiro hit another single in the 9th inning…
…but once again he was stranded on base.
It was raining very lightly, so Tim wore my glove has a mask/umbrella…
…which he thought was a great fun.
I mentioned already we didn’t get a third out ball. Oddly, however, we did get a second out ball! Here Tim is with his first ever game used ball (well, it is possible that one of the umpire balls he’s gotten has been game used, but we *know* this one was used in the game):
With one out in the bottom of the ninth and Brandon League pitching, Matt Wieters grounded out to Ryan Langerhans at first base. Langerhans tagged Wieters for the 26th out of the game and then threw the ball around the horn. Somehow, the around the horn attempt failed. I’m not sure what happened. I think that Figgins threw the ball in the dirt to Jose Lopez and it got wet or dirty. For whatever reason, Lopez rolled the ball into foul territory. It ultimately came to rest right in front of us.
We were the only people in the first row behind the Mariners dugout. We were wearing all Mariners gear. Tim’s a cute kid. The ball was directly in front of us. It seemed almost like we were guaranteed to get the ball. And we did. An unidentified Mariner reached over the railing/netting and grabbed the ball off of the warning track, turned around and flipped it right to me.
Maybe two minute later, the Mariners won the game by a final score of 5-1. And Ichi victoriously ran off of the soggy field after high fiving his teammates:
The grounds crew immediately started to put the tarp back on the field:
Our friend, MLBlogger, and Baseball Collector extraordinaire, Zack Hample, was at the game. We’d spent some time with him during pre-game and then met up again after the game. As the Mariners bullpen headed to the dugout, Jesus Colome flipped a ball to Zack and John Wetteland bestowed a second baseball on me and Tim.
Moments later, Zack’s buddy Brandon captured this photo of me, Tim, and Zack:
re-make of a picture we got moments after we met Zack in person for the first time last season — at the memorable Randy Johnson 300th win rainout “game.” After this photo, Tim and I walked to our parking garage with Zack and Brandon (on their way to their hotel).
It was a great first Mariners game of the season that included (i) a much needed Mariners win, (ii) Cliff Lee’s first win as a Mariner (and his first since the 2009 World Series), (iii) two memorable meetings with Ryan Rowland-Smith, (iv) fun interactions with several players about the Griffey prank shirt, (v) meeting up with some cool MLBloggers, and (vi) Tim’s first game-used baseball.
I already cannot wait to see the Mariners again…next month in San Diego on the Third Annual Cook Grandfather-Father-Son Baseball Roadtrip of 2010! See you there, Mariners!
2010 Fan Stats:
5 Games
8 Teams (Mariners, Orioles and Blue Jays; Phillies, Braves, Mets, Brewers and Nationals)
5 Ice Cream Helmets (Orioles (2), Phillies, Mets, & Nationals)
15 Baseballs (2 Mariners, 3 Brewers, 3 Nationals, 2 Blue Jays, 3 Umpires, 1 Phillies, 1 Mets)
4 Stadiums (Camden Yards, Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field)
4 Player Photos (Ryan Rowland-Smith, Frank Catalanotto, Jeff Suppan and Scott Olsen)
3 Autographs (Frank Catalanotto (2), Jeff Suppan and Scott Olsen)
3 Kids Run The Bases (Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Citi Field)
Hello, 2010 Regular Season!
The 2010 regular season starts tomorrow. We’re excited. And we have lots of plans for making it a great season. At a time like this, we can’t help but look back on where we have been and forward to where we are going.
Since Tim’s MLB debut on September 12, 2006, Tim has seen every team play live at least once. With twenty-two games, he has seen our Mariners the most, followed by the Phillies (14) and Orioles (9). Here are all of the teams with their record at games Tim and I have attended together (listed in the order in which Tim saw the teams for the first time):
Teams (win-loss record):
-
Mariners (10-12) -
Blue Jays (1-2)
-
Mets (3-2)
-
Phillies (9-5)
-
Orioles (4-5)
-
Twins (2-1)
-
Yankees (1-3)
-
Marlins (1-1)
-
Rockies (1-0)
-
Cardinals (3-0)
-
Pirates (1-2)
-
Cubs (2-1)
-
Giants (0-1)
-
Reds (0-3)
-
Indians (5-0)
-
Angels (0-1) -
Nationals (1-4)
-
White Sox (1-2)
-
Diamondbacks (1-0)
-
Rays (1-0)
-
Padres (0-1)
-
Athletics (1-2)
-
Rangers (2-0)
-
Braves (0-1)
-
Dodgers (1-0)
-
Tigers (1-0)
-
Red Sox (1-2)
-
Astros (1-1)
-
Brewers (0-1)
-
Royals (0-1)
Tim debuted at Safeco Field. But through his fifty-four (54) games, Tim has visited 18 MLB stadiums. Not surprisingly Tim’s top three stadiums closely track his top three teams: Citzens Bank Park, Safeco Field, Camden Yards. Here is the complete list of Tim’s stadiums:
Stadiums (number of games):
-
Safeco Field (11) -
Citizens Bank Park (12)
-
Camden Yards (8)
-
Yankee Stadium – ’23 (1)
-
PNC Park (2)
-
Great American Ball Park (1)
-
Progressive Field (3)
-
Shea Stadium (1)
-
Chase Field (1)
-
Citi Field (2)
-
Nationals Park (2)
-
Yankee Stadium – ’09 (2)
-
Fenway Park (3)
-
Wrigley Field (1)
-
H.H.H. Metrodome (1)
-
Miller Park (1)
-
U.S. Cellular Field (1)
-
Rogers Centre (1)
So, after such a great 2009 season, where do we go from here? Like last year, I have made a full Cook & Son Baseball Agenda complete with games to attend and goals to achieve. Like last year, I won’t bore you with all of it. But, like last season (when we achieve almost all of our goals), here are the highlights:
Season Goals:
1. See Ken Griffey, Jr. hit another homerun.
2. Witness final home run of Ken Griffey, Jr.’s career (assuming he retires after 2010 season).
5. See Jamie Moyer win a game.
6. Run the bases at 5 stadiums (Citizens Bank Park, PNC Park, Petco Park, Citi Field, Nationals Park).
7. Catch a Target Field inaugural season ball.
8. Catch a game homerun or foul ball.
9. Get Gill and Kate (Tim’s cousins) to their first game.
10. See the Mariners play at 5+ stadiums (Safeco (4), Camden (2), Yankee (2), Petco (2), Progressive (2)).
11.-14. & 17. – Focus on pictures with players. I won’t list them all, but I have a number of specific players we would like to try to get our pictures with and general “picture with players” goals.
15. Third Annual Baseball Roadtrip – All California Stadiums.
16. New Stadium and Teams for Tim’s Fourth MLB Anniversary.
18. Eat an Orioles ice cream helmet at Camden Yards.
19. Win MyGameBalls.com photo-scavenger hunt.
20. Have fun and make memories.
Goals aside, we plan to have another great season. We will visit all five California stadiums (Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Anaheim, and San Francisco) on the Third Annual Cook Grandfather-Father-Son Baseball Roadtrip of 2010, along with probably 8 more stadiums (Safeco Field, Camden Yards, Nationals Park, Citi Field, Citizens Bank Park, Yankee Stadium, Progressive Field, and PNC Park).
It is going to be great. And, we plan to end the season in Seattle, where we will be joined by a special guest and we hope to witness Griffey’s final home run of his career.
Good Old-Fashioned Baseball Tickets
My wife and I love getting mail. I’m not sure why. We hardly ever get anything but junk mail. But we always hold out hope that something wonderful will be waiting for us each aftenoon in our trusty mail box.
Well, the past couple weeks, something wondeful, indeed, has started arriving…in twos, and threes and fours. Baseball tickets. Tickets to Citizens Bank Park and to Petco Park and to Dodger Stadium and to Angel Stadium and to Citi Field and to Nationals Park, too.
I love good old-fashioned baseball tickets. Printed from a ticket machine with perferated edges where your tickets used to be connect so someone else’s tickets. You can’t beat it.
Personally, I am not a fan of print-at-home e-tickets. A ticket is a souvenir. Growing up (and really until Tim’s birth), I always kept my tickets in the inside band of my baseball caps. At any given time (and for years at a time), I walked around with 30 baseball tickets in my cap. They became wrinkled and faded and stained from sweat as I wore those tickets through softball games, and Mariners games, and high school, and college and life.
When Tim was born and soon started going to game with me, I stopped putting my tickets in my cap because I wanted to keep them clean for him.
Does anyone save print-at-home e-tickets? I doubt it. They’re not very memorable. Certainly, they don’t seem like an artifact of the game worthy of preserving, etc., etc., etc., like a real old-fashioned baseball ticket. And when tickets become unimportant (merely a key to the gate) and we stop saving them, we lose one of the easiest and best ways to track the games, players and history we have seen.
So, when given the options at the end of the online ordering process, don’t count on me selecting “print at home” any time soon (or, if not forced to (i.e., stubhub), ever).
So as Tim and I gear up for another fun filled campaign and our 2010 tickets continue to bring joy to the afternoon trip to the mailbox, I figured it would be fitting to reflect on our past with a look at some of our tickets. Let’s start with the most important and memorable tickets.
My Top 10 (or so) Tickets
No. 1 – September 12, 2006, Blue Jays vs. Maniners at Safeco Field – Tim’s first game. A truly great day. I made this wooden home plate frame and this ticket hangs on Tim’s bedroom wall:
No. 2 - October 10, 1995, Indians vs. Mariners at the Kingdom: Game 1 of the 1995 ACLS in case you didn’t know. A great game:
No. 3 – August 23, 2009, Mariners vs. Indians at Progressive Field – Tim and I witness Ken Griffey, Jr. hit his 624th career home run – our first Ken Griffey, Jr. home run together (and Tim’s first period):
No. 4 – Various dates and teams at the Kingdome – my only remaining Kingdome tickets (except for No. 1 above). The Kingdome is the most important baseball venue of my life and a place I will always remember fondly.
No. 5 – August 15, 2008, Cardinals vs. Reds at Great American Ball Park – the first game of the first year of the now annual “Great Cook Grandfather-Father-Son Baseball Roadtrip.” The start of a grand tradition.
No. 6 – July 5, 2009, Mariners vs. Red Sox at Fenway Park – one of the (personally) most memorable baseball moments of my life. Pinch-hitting for Mike Sweeney in the top of the 4th inning, Ken Griffey, Jr. lined a single off of the Green Monster. Tim was sitting on my shoulders as we watched the beautiful flight of the ball. It was the first time Tim ever saw Griffey get a hit in person.
No. 7 – September 3, 2007, Mariners vs. Yankees at Yankee Stadium (1923). Tim’s only game ever at the old Yankee Stadium. A truly great game. Felix Hernandez gets the win. Ichiro hits a home run off of Roger Clemens for his 200th hit of the season for his seventh consecutive season. Clemens notches the final loss of his soon-to-be-taint but still-probably-hall-of-fame career. Mike Mussina pitches in relief after Clemens gets hurt. It is the only relief appearance of Mussina’s career. Between Clemens, Mussina and Kyle Farnsworth, the Yankees send over 600 career wins to the mound and end the day with the same number of career wins as when the day started:
* – FYI, a guy who left early and spotted me walking around with Tim on my shoulders gave us his ticket (on the right above) so we could sit almost directly behind home plate (in the equivalent of what is now the Legends Suite tickets at the new Yankee Stadium).
No. 8 – June 8, 2003, Mariners vs. Mets at Shea Stadium. The only double-header I have ever attended and the most wins (2) that I have ever seen the Mariners collect in one day. Excellent performances by both Jamie Moyer and Freddy Garcia.
No. 9 – Weekend In New York — June 22, 2008, Reds vs. Yankees at Yankee Stadium (1923) and June 23, 2008, Mariners vs. Mets at Shea Stadium. My high school buddy, Jason, visited from Seattle to see Yankee Stadium before it closed down. We realized the Mariners were at Shea the next day. On Sunday, we saw Ken Griffey, Jr. hit home run No. 601 of his career (the first and only home run I have seen him hit in a non-Mariners uniform. The next day, we saw Felix Hernandez hit a GRAND SLAM off of Johan Santana. An unforgettable weekend of baseball.
No. 10 – September 12, 2007, Rockies vs. Phillies at Citizens Bank Park – an acquaintance who works for the Phillies “comp’d” us four excellent tickets (8 rows behind the 3B dugout) for a mid-week Phillies game against the Rockies. Tim and I invited some friends and had a blast. While at the game, I realized for the first time that it was the 1-year anniverary of Tim’s first Mariners/MLB game. Instantly, a new tradition (and one of my favorite holidays) was born: Tim’s MLB Anniversary Game. I plan to take Tim to a game on September 12 every year, forever.
HONORABLE MENTION(S):.
- June 3, 2003, Mariners vs. Phillies at Veterans Stadium – Jamie Moyer collects a hit and adds to his Mariners legacy by beating his future team (and what a beautiful ticket – it even has the word “TICKET” embossed across the second panel from the right):
- August 15, 2009, Indians vs. Twins at H.H.H. Metrodome – Tim’s first game in a traditional domed stadium. My first real dome since the Kingdome. It really brought back the Kingdome feel for me and we enjoyed it thoroughly.
- Various Veterans Stadium tickets – I like defunct stadiums and odd tickets. These next five are my only other remaining Veterans Stadium tickets and they include (i) my three smallest tickets, (ii) my first game seeing Griffey play for the Reds, and (iii) my only game ever seeing the Expos:
And now, a whole bunch more (without descriptions) in chronological order…
.
.
* – FYI, Barry Bonds hit his 689th home run at that last game.
.
.
* – Pedro Martinez pitched this game for the Reading Phillies while preparing for his debut with the Philadelphia Phillies. He was on fire with the strike out pitch.
From PA to AZ, It Is Time For Baseball
The snow has almost completely melted away in our little part of Pennsylvania, and today was a remarkably warm and “springish” day. So, Tim requested that we go to the park to play some baseball. Usually, we just play in the back yard. But Tim wanted a real field with a dirt infield.
When we arrived at my favorite local softball field, we found the infield was unplayable:
What did we expect after all of that snow melted away? This isn’t Arizona, you know.
No problem. We used the outfield fence as a backstop and had a lot of fun hitting, running, throwing and chasing brightly colored practice baseballs all over the outfield.
Meanwhile, almost all the way across the country, our Mariners were rained out. No problem, I’m sure that beautiful Arizona sun will be shining again tomorrow, the infields will be playable, and King Felix will be holding Court over his Kingdom:
Ah, yes. It is a beautiful time of year.
Hot Dog Model
I received a funny email today. The author was Sara, from ScoreboardGourmet.com. I’d never heard about website before. It is a site that is dedicated to discussing the food served a sports stadiums. An interesting idea.
Sara was writing to ask permission to use one of my photos in one of her entries. I agreed. And just like that (as my father-in-law put it), I became a hot dog model. Here I am, modeling the “Ruthian” at the Peoria Sports Complex, spring home of the Seattle Mariners:
And here is the link to the full entry. If you’re in Peoria, be sure not to miss the Ruthian.
Tim’s Game Log
We record all of Tim’s MLB games in his Baseball Log, a book I made for him a couple months before he was born to record all of his MLB games. We started this blog to share our baseball stories and pictures from the ball park. Its all in the name of preserving Tim’s personal baseball history. This entry provides a map through Tim’s MLB adventures, featuring a picture from every regular season game he has attended along with the final score, date, location and a link to the relevant game report.
1. Mariners 4 def. Blue Jays 2 (Safeco Field – Sept. 12, 2006)
2. Mets 8 def. Phillies 3 (Citizens Bank Park- June 30, 2007)
3. Mariners 13 def. Orioles 8 (Camden Yards – August 9, 2007)
4. Twins 11 def. Mariners 3 (Safeco Field – August 14, 2007)
5. Twins 6 def. Mariners 1 (Safeco Field – August 15, 2007)
6. Mariners 7 def. Yankees 1 (Yankee Stadium – Sept. 3, 2007)
7. Phillies 8 def. Marlins 5 (Citizens Bank Park – Sept. 9, 2007)
8. Rockies 12 def. Phillies 0 (Citizens Bank Park – Sept. 12, 2007)
9. Cardinals 7 def. Pirates 3 (PNC Park – Sept. 27, 2007)
10. Orioles 3 def. Mariners 2 (Camden Yards – April 6, 2008)
11. Phillies 5 def. Cubs 3 (Citizens Bank Park – April 11, 2008)
12. Phillies 6 def. Giants 5 (Citizens Bank Park – May 2, 2008)
13. Phillies 5 def. Reds 4 (Citizens Bank Park – June 2, 2008)
14. Indians 9 def. Mariners 6 (Safeco Field – July 19, 2008)
15. Cardinals 5 def. Reds 3 (Great American Ball Park – August 15, 2008)
16. Indians 4 def. Angels 3 (Progressive Field – August 17, 2008)
17. Pirates 5 def. Mets 2 (PNC Park – August 18, 2008)
18. Phillies 5 def. Nationals 4 (Citizens Bank Park August 19, 2008)
19. Orioles 11 def. White Sox 3 (Camden Yards – August 27, 2008)
20. Phillies 6 def. Mets 2 (Shea Stadium – September 7, 2008)
21. Diamondbacks 3 def. Reds 2 (Chase Field – September 12, 2008)
22. Rays 11 def. Orioles 3 (Camden Yards – April 12, 2009)
23. Phillies 5 def. Padres 4 (Citizens Bank Park – April 19, 2009)
24. Mets 8 def. Nationals 2 (Citi Field – April 25, 2009)
25. Mariners 8 def. Athletics 7 (Safeco Field – May 1, 2009)
26. Athletics 3 def. Mariners 2 (Safeco Field – May 2, 2009)
27. Mariners 8 def. Athletics 7 (Safeco Field – May 3, 2009)
28. Rangers 6 def. Mariners 5 (Safeco Field – May 4, 2009)
29. Rangers 7 def. Mariners 2 (Safeco Field – May 5, 2009)
30. Phillies 10 def. Braves 6 (Citizens Bank Park – May 8, 2009)
31. Dodgers 9 def. Phillies 2 (Citizens Bank Park May 13, 2009)
32. Phillies 8 def. Nationals 6 (Nationals Park – May 17, 2009)
33. Tigers 3 def. Orioles 0 (Camden Yards – May 31, 2009)
34a. Giants vs. Nationals – postponed due to rain (Nationals Park – June 3, 2009)
34. Mariners 4 def. Orioles 1 (Camden Yards – June 10, 2009)
35. Nationals 5 def. Orioles 3 (Camden Yards – June 28, 2009)
36. Mariners 8 def. Yankees 4 (Yankee Stadium – July 2, 2009)
37. Mariners 7 def. Red Sox 6 (Fenway Park – July 3, 2009)
38. Mariners 3 def. Red Sox 2 (Fenway Park – July 4, 2009)
39. Red Sox 8 def. Mariners 4 (Fenway Park – July 5, 2009)
40. Cubs 11 def. Nationals 3 (Nationals Park – July 19, 2009)
41. Cardinals 8 def. Phillies 1 (Citizens Bank Park – July 24, 2009)
42. Marlins 12 def. Phillies 3 (Citizens Bank Park – August 9, 2009)
43. Cubs 17 def. Pirates 2 (Wrigley Field – August 14, 2009)
44. Indians 7 def. Twins 3 (H.H.H. Metrodome – August 15, 2009)
45. Astros 8 def. Brewers 5 (Miller Park – August 16, 2009)
46. White Sox 8 def. Royals 7 (U.S. Cellular Field – August 17, 2009)
47. Indians 4 def. Mariners 3 (Progressive Field – August 22, 2009)
48. Indians 6 def. Mariners 1 (Progressive Field – August 23, 2009)
49. Orioles 7 def. Yankees 3 (Yankee Stadium – September 12, 2009)
50. Mariners 4 def. White Sox 3 (Safeco Field – September 17, 2009)
51. Yankees 10 def. Mariners 1 (Safeco Field – September 19, 2009)
52. Blue Jays 5 def. Mariners 4 (Rogers Centre – September 26, 2009)
53. Mets 5 def. Astros 1 (Citi Field – October 3, 2009)
54. Orioles 4 def. Blue Jays 3 (Camden Yards – October 4, 2009)
55. Blue Jays 3 def. Orioles 0 (Camden Yards – April 10, 2010)
56. Brewers 11 def. Nationals 7 (Nationals Park – April 18, 2010)
57. Mets 3 def. Braves 1 (Citi Field – April 24, 2010)
58. Phillies 10 defs. Mets 0 (Citizens Bank Park – May 1, 2010)
59. Mariners 5 defs. Orioles 1 (Camden Yards – May 11, 2010)
60. Braves 4 defs. Pirates 2 (PNC Park – May 22, 2010)
61. Pirates 3 defs. Braves 2 (PNC Park – May 23, 2010)
62. Red Sox 8 defs. Orioles 2 (Camden Yards – June 5, 2010)
63. Angels 7 vs. Athletics 1 (Oakland Alameda County Coliseum – June 9, 2010)
64. Athletics 6 defs. Angels 1 (Oakland Alameda County Coliseum – June 10, 2010)65. Angels 10 defs. Dodgers 1 (Dodger Stadium – June 11, 2010)
66. Padres 7 defs. Mariners 1 (Petco Park – June 12, 2010)
67. Mariners 4 defs. Padres 2 (Petco Park – June 13, 2010)
68. Brewers 12 defs. Angels 2 (Angel Stadium of Anaheim – June 14, 2010)
69. Orioles 4 defs. Giants 1 (AT&T Park – June 15, 2010)
70. Twins 4 defs. Phillies 1 (Citizens Bank Park – June 20, 2010)
71. Blue Jays 5 defs. Phillies 1 (Citizens Bank Park – June 26, 2010)
72. Twins 5 defs. Orioles 0 (Camden Yards – July 22, 2010)
73. Orioles 4 defs. White Sox 3 (Camden Yards – Aug. 8, 2010)
74. Mariners 9 defs. Indians 3 (Progressive Field – Aug. 14, 2010)
75. Indians 9 defs. Mariners 1 (Progressive Field – Aug. 15, 2010)
76. Yankees 9 defs. Mariners 5 (Yankee Stadium – Aug. 21, 2010)
77. Nationals 13 defs. Mets 3 (Nationals Park – Sept. 6, 2010)
78. Phillies 7 defs. Marlins 4 (Citizens Bank Park – Sept. 6, 2010)
79. Marlins 6 at Nationals 5 (Nationals Park – Sept. 12, 2010)
80. Yankees 11 defs. Orioles 3 (Camden Yards – Sept. 18, 2010)
81. Athletics 8 defs. Mariners 1 (Safeco Field – Sept. 30, 2010)
82. Athletics 9 defs. Mariners 0 (Safeco Field - Oct. 1, 2010)
83. Athletics 4 defs. Mariners 3 (Safeco Field - Oct. 3, 2010)
Cook & Son Bats
Recent Comments