I actually watched the crazy extra-innings Braves-Rockies game in which Mayne got the win on television from the Jersey Shore one night while on vacation. I wrote about it the following year, when I tried to get Mayne’s autograph one night in Seattle at Safeco Field, when he was playing with the Royals and I was there for a game. I never did get Mayne’s autograph, but I did get a batting practice ball that night, and the autographs of Mike Cameron and Brett Boone, back when they were both stars for the M’s.

So here’s the flashback post from August 16, 2001, in which I recount my trip to the ballpark and Mayne’s pitching performance along the way:

I arrived in the city known for coffee, Microsoft, and rain with tickets to a Mariners game in my pocket and a copy of Baseball Weekly in my bag. What does an East Coaster like me know about the Mariners? I know what every body knows, about the three superstars who left, about the best winning percentage in baseball, about a seventies expansion team that’s never seen the World Series, about a nice new ballpark that hosted the All Star Game, in this, the year the Mariners have put it all together with pitching, speed, and defense.

I work a job back in Boston that keeps me on the clock until 9pm most nights, which means I don’t get to hear much of my beloved Yankees games on the radio. But I do get home just in time to log in to MLB.com and listen to the Mariners’ broadcasts.

I picked a good year to start following the Mariners, what with the splash of Ichiro, the surge of Bret Boone, the return of Jeff Nelson, and the sudden dominance of their no-name rotation. When I realized my summer travel plans were going to take me to Seattle I immediately made plans to hook up with a friend to see a game and investigate Safeco Field for myself.

The first thing I noticed my first day in Seattle was how many Mariners hats I saw on people’s heads. I’ve been to a lot of major league cities, Chicago, New York, Baltimore–and I live in Boston. Only the Yankees in New York in October rival the sheer quantity of hats you’ll see people wearing this summer in Seattle. And not only a lot of standard design M’s hats, lots of funky variations, green bill, blue bill, “Mariners” spelled out in script, reverse color combinations, you name it. I rode the bus into the city from the ‘burbs and noticed people of every different class and ethnic background sporting the teams colors.

Once I got into downtown Seattle, the M’s fever became as obvious as the measles. So many store fronts had Mariners signs in their windows–”You Gotta Love These Guys,” “Go M’s,” were the standards, but also handmade signs exhorting individual players to greatness… and in every type of store I could find: art galleries, musical instrument shops, craft boutiques, drug stores, restaurants, most of which were NOT in the neighborhood of the ballpark.

When I did head toward the park late in the afternoon, I stopped in to the Elliot Bay Bookstore, one of the best literary bookstores in the country. There on the rack facing the entrance was a special display of sports magazines featuring the Mariners on their covers, a few racks over were the expensive hardcover books on baseball, including Roger Angell’s A PITCHER’S STORY, Don Zimmer’s autobiography, and THE BALLPARK BOOK.

From Elliot Bay, the park is walking distance, and I found myself walking with two fans from Oregon who had driven up just for the game. “We live on an island and the last ferry runs at 9pm,” they told me. “So we’ll stay overnight in a hotel and go back tomorrow.” They told me I’d love Safeco Field.

Walking from there, the new stadium doesn’t rise majestically out of the horizon. Instead, you walk under a highway overpass, and onto a side street that runs along the newly erected, not-quite-finished football stadium and convention center, built on the site of the old Kingdome. Along one side of the street are the businesses you see outside all the old ballparks like Fenway and Yankee Stadium, pizzerias, souvenir shops, beer joints. Out on the curb and in the street vendors have set up stalls selling caps, pretzels, t-shirts, bottled water, boxed pizza. As one pizza vendor proclaimed into his bullhorn, yes, you can bring food into the stadium! At first I thought, oh, how nice, but then I remembered, hey, you’ve ALWAYS been able to bring food into Yankee Stadium! When I was a kid we used to bring in buckets of fried chicken, sandwiches, pastry…

What you can’t bring into Safeco field is any liquid. Oddly, it’s not bottles themselves that are banned, they just make you empty your water bottle at the door. By contrast, Edison Field in Anaheim lets you bring in plastic water bottles so long as they are under a certain reasonable size. At Yankee Stadium, although it says no bottles of any kind, ushers have always okayed my bottle of Poland Spring. It was a bit surreal to see people pouring the contents of their spring water bottles into garbage cans at the entrance before proceeding into the stadium.

Two other stalls worth mentioning outside the park. One sold t-shirts and bumper stickers with the slogan TWO OUT … SO WHAT?! and a variation shirt that reads “Alex out, Junior out, Randy out… SO WHAT?!” There are some folks in the stands in left field who hang out a large black banner with the slogan in glowing green whenever there are two outs. I didn’t actually notice the crowd paying attention to it–there’s no rhythmic chant to go along with it, for example–but these kinds of things only pop up in towns where people are seriously crazed for their ballclub. The other stall I’d never seen before outside a ballpark was one selling roof tiles and reroofing services. I guess in a place where it rained 90 straight days last winter, that’s important.

Of course, the best and newest roof in Seattle is the rolling roof over Safeco Field, which I was interested to see at work, but was happier to have nice weather. It was a 96 degree heat wave when I left Boston, and in Seattle I found it sunny, pleasant, warm in the day, and comfortably cool in the evening. Still, it was a nice feeling of security to know that if rain were to appear, the game would go on no matter what. I’m sure the couple from Oregon would agree with that.

I reached the end of the street and there was the back side of the ballpark. Several thousand people appeared to be milling around it–then I realized they were all IN LINE to get in. It was 4:30 and the gates didn’t open until 5pm. Through various wrought iron openings we could see clear through the centerfield concessions concourse and into the outfield where Mariners were shagging BP flies. Two Japanese men ran up to the doorway, pointed and said something very excitedly to each other in Japanese, one word of which I made out: Ichiro.

From that vantage point, Ichiro was pretty much a speck. How could you even be sure that was him over there? One appeared to talk the other out of trying to take a photograph from there. They wandered away, undoubtedly to try to find the entrance closest to the right field seats that Mariners fans have dubbed Area 51. (Ichiro’s number and, of course, where this particular alien has landed.)

I ended up in line with some young M-Heads, their faces painted blue and green and one of them sporting the actual giant foam M on his head. They seemed surprised that I, and then several other people as we stood in line, wanted to take their picture. How unlike New York where one would be disappointed if no one took a picture or if you didn’t at least once get picked up by the scoreboard camera. (Skipping ahead just a bit, I did notice that M’s fans are amateurs when it comes to the scoreboard camera between innings. In New York, people start waving and trying to get on the screen before the pitcher even gets to the dugout. In Seattle, the camera sometimes had to search for several seconds before finding someone who was aware they were on screen… Then again, watch the news in New York some night. At any murder scene, car crash, train wreck, or what have you where there’s a news reporter live on scene, what do you see in the background? Bunch of people jumping up and down and mouthing “Hi Mom.” So maybe it’s something about New Yorkers…)

Five pm came and the lines crept forward toward filling up the park. When I finally made it inside it was close to 5:30 and I was surprised to find the Mariners still on the field. Two hours before first pitch many home teams, like the Red Sox, are just clearing out as the fans arrive in their seats. (For the record, Yankees BP goes on until 5:40.) I explored the centerfield concourse area: sushi bar, barbecue pit, a bar where you can sit and face over the bullpen … how about three Nintendo set ups? Very cool, but I, like most other people there just then, were more interested by real life than the virtual game. Not far from the Nintendo machines, people stood behind a chain link fence to watch pitcher John Halama do some throwing. The bullpen is constructed on the same level as the concourse, and so you stand literally a few feet from the pitching rubber. The fence seems inconsequential except for the fact that if it were not there, you’d never stand that close to a pitcher on the mound. Even the bullpen coach watching the session is further from Halama than the spectators are.

Even more impressive was walking the sixty or so feet to the other end and standing next to the bullpen catcher. Halama was bringing some heat, if the loudness of the pop in the catcher’s mitt was any indication. Some of the pops were so loud, I would have wanted earplugs if I’d been catching.

From the centerfield concourse I went up the stairs into the main sections of the stadium, and investigated the concessions there. I quickly identified the theme of names of the various stands–any baseball pun relating to food that could be made, was. High Cheese Pizza, The Sweet Spot (bulk candy), Frozen Rope Ice Cream, Good Hops Beer, and how about the fresh stir fry place called Intentional Wok? That’s your cue to groan, but it’s hard to complain about the variety of food available. And how about those garlic french fries! Mmm!

I noticed the Mariners were still batting, but that I hadn’t seen a program vendor since outside the park. Weird. I’m used to places where they sell one thing outside the park, and something different inside, but I didn’t find them selling anything inside and began to wonder if I should have picked up that thing with Bret Boone on the cover while I was out on the street.

I KNEW I should have picked it up when I went down alongside the Mariners dugout a few minutes later. A tv crew was getting set up to do some onfield interviews and I figured I’d see who they got. Ichiro was out there in right field and every time he got a ball, people would scream for him to throw it to them. The coach hitting fungoes didn’t appreciate the intense hunger for souvenirs and made him throw them back in most of the time. Still, a lot of balls did get tossed into Area 51. Meanwhile, down near the dugout, I was standing next to a pretty blond woman, her boyfriend, and a kid who was one of their younger siblings, I believe. She kept waving to Boone, who was taking grounders at second base.

Suddenly he came trotting over. “Sorry! I didn’t see you, didn’t recognize you!” he said to the woman. “I don’t have my contacts in!” He proceeded to autograph everything the kid was carrying and his shirt, while exchanging pleasantries with the woman. Then he went on to sign at least fifty more autographs, including one for me. Unfortunately, all I had was my ticket! He graciously swooped his double B’s across the stub and then I yielded to other people trying to reach him. After he stopped signing, said goodbye to his friends, and headed for the dugout, Freddie Garcia came out and signed for quite a while, too. I don’t know why, I wanted Boone’s autograph but didn’t feel like fighting for Freddie’s. Maybe it’s because he beat the Yankees in the postseason last year? I didn’t even think of that until later though–at the time I was only thinking of the Mariners. One autograph from a star was enough for me, maybe, and I decided to check out my upper deck seat.

My favorite place to sit in many parks is upper deck, behind home plate (above the press box, usually) because of the complete and panoramic view of the action it gives me. I can watch a runner tagging up on the bases while watching the outfielder going back for the fly ball. I also like the view of the pitches it often gives. I made my way up several long flights of stairs (stairs! there ain’t no stinkin’ stairs in Yankee Stadium except in the seats themselves!) to my level. There an usher looked at my ticket and seemed as psyched about Bret Boone’s autograph as I was. “That is so cool!” he enthused and then pointed the way to my seat.

Stanley Jordan, the amazing jazz guitarist, played the national anthem by playing two guitars simultaneously–a very appropriate rendition here in the city that was home to Jimi Hendrix.

Now, the night before, the mighty Mariners had been humbled by the lowly Kansas City Royals. Today, the Royals learned they had lost their last remaining star, Jermaine Dye, to the same Oakland A’s who had taken Johnny Damon in the offseason. It didn’t seem too likely that they were going to be able to beat the Mariners.

But baseball is a funny game, and even the worst team can beat the best team on a given day. As I found out as they game went on and the Mariners were held scoreless until the ninth inning, when they scratched out a run on a double, single, and sac fly. Now, the Mariners bullpen stacks up favorably against just about any in baseball, but the Royals’ starter, a fella named Paul Byrd, pitched the complete game, holding the M’s to six hits in the game and walking only one. The result was a very pleasant evening in Safeco Field for me, but some measure of frustration. These weren’t the Mariners I had been hoping to see!

Instead, I spent most of my time watching the crowd. A few more observations about Mariners fans. In many stadia around the country, people start to leave en masse after the seventh inning. Not M-Heads. Maybe it was that they were still hoping for a miracle in the late innings? In any case, people did not really start to quit the ballpark until the ninth inning itself.

I saw some very clever home-made signs. KA-BOONE! and OLERULES! were among the slogans I saw, but my favorite was one in the distinctive maroon stripes of a certain overnight delivery company that read “AIR BOONE EXPRESS.”

And just to prove that the world really does revolve around ME, the scoreboard department made the oldies trivia song of the day “Cecilia” by Simon and Garfunkel.

Somewhere around the sixth inning I asked myself, what the heck does Safeco do, anyway? Looking around at the other ads sprinkled throughout the ballpark there were a number of head-scratchers. Cloverdale Meats? Try to imagine Perdue Chicken having a billboard in Yankee Stadium. Les Schwab Tires? Oberto Beef Jerky??

For the record, some M’s fans do know about the two strike clap, but they wait until the late innings to use it. Some of them out to give lessons to the Orioles fans at Camden.

Probably the final surreal moment of the night was, as my friend and I were walking from the ballpark to the big parking garage adjacent to it, there was a group of people there yelling “Free Money!” It was a group of Microsoft employees, giving away copies of the checkbook management software called “Money.” You know, in other parks they give things away free as you come IN to the ballpark, things like t-shirts, towels, cups, pins… Definitely something you’d only see in Seattle.

Well, maybe it was the delicious garlic fries, or maybe it was my still-not-quenched desire to see some exciting Mariners baseball that brought me back to the ballpark the next night to see if any seats were to be had. They had announced that only “single seats” were available, but hey, that’s all I needed. I arrived around 5pm again and went up to the window. For a mere $36 I was seated in the SECOND ROW just past the Royals dugout, close enough to third base to hear David Bell sneeze. Wow–I’ve never sat that close to the field even in spring training.

The Mariners hadn’t lost three in a row the whole season, and I was hoping I wouldn’t be on hand to see them finally do it. I’d really think I was a jinx then. But they were sending rookie Joel Piniero to the mound, and he’d been battered a bit in his previous two starts. Confidence–or maybe it was naivete–was high among fans though. When your team has a completely ridiculous winning percentage, that’s what happens. And even if you lose, so what? The nearest division rival is what, thirty games back? Among the fans gathered behind the dugout, I was the only one mildly concerned.

In fact, the only thing these fans weren’t cocky about was their team’s ability to make it to the World Series. One woman wouldn’t even say the words “World Series.” Yet another difference between M’s fans and Yankees fans, who repeat the words “World Series” like a mantra.

I was once again in the right place at the right time. This time I had bought the magazine (The Grand Salami) outside the park and was prepared with my Sharpie to get autographs. This time it was Mike Cameron who took time to make the fans happy! Now, if I had really planned ahead, i would have gotten Boone to sign the magazine which has him on the cover, and would have had Cammy sign on the ticket stub. But there’s no planning for random good luck. Cammy graciously signed the magazine and then I found myself trapped by the crush of fans. I served as a conduit for several people behind me, including a woman who played softball and wanted a softball signed. Cammy signed everything within arms reach for a good ten minutes. Then BP was over, and the team came in, and he joined them in the clubhouse.

The Royals then had their BP and I caught sight of the guy they had gotten in trade recently, Brent Mayne. He was taking grounders at first, even though he’s a catcher most of the time. I yelled to him, but didn’t expect him to turn around while he was busy. If there was one non-Mariner player whose autograph I would have liked it was Mayne’s. Why? Well, last year, when he was with the Rockies, he was a part of the weirdest game I’ve ever seen.

I was on vacation in New Jersey, and turned on the tv to find the Braves and Rockies game was on TBS. The game went into extra innings so long that the Rockies were down to their last pitcher, John “Way Back” Wasdin (who they had picked up from the Red Sox), facing Andres Galaragga. Wasdin hit Galaragga with a pitch, then while Andres was trotting to first, exhorted the Big Cat somehow with commentary from the mound. He said something that made Galaragga suddenly snap, veer toward the mound, and deck Wasdin. Benches cleared and when all was done, Wasdin had been ejected.

Let me say for the record that although I like a lot of the individual Braves players (Galaragga, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz) I really don’t like most of them (Chipper Jones, then John Rocker, etc…) and don’t like the Braves in general. I really wanted to see the Rockies beat them. But the Rockies were out of pitchers. Mayne was on the bench and they ended up bringing him in to pitch.

At this point the Braves were now out of pinch hitters, and had to use Tom Glavine as a pinch hitter. So here’s Glavine, a starting pitcher, pinch hitting against Brent Mayne, a catcher. it doesn’t get much wackier than that. No wait, yes it does. Mayne pitched a one-two-three inning, and when he got back to the dugout, his teammates made a big thing out of it, wrapping his arm in a towel, getting him a drink, etc. Then in the bottom of the inning, they got him the win! Thus Brent Mayne became the first position player to be credited with a pitching win in a million years. Okay, not a million, but I’m too lazy to look up the actual stat. A long time. The point is, that’s why I really like Brent Mayne, and why I would have really like to meet him.

With this in mind, I went over to the Royals side of the field, where I discovered just how close to everything my seat was. I had my glove on in case any foul balls should come my way, and lo and behold, one did. It kicked off the wall and rolled onto the grass. A stadium employee went and picked it up and I yelled and waved my glove–and he tossed it right at me. Without the glove, I think the kid next to me would have grabbed it. But I got the ball in my glove, and hung on.

The ball was a bit muddy and had bits of wet grass stuck to it. I turned it over and found it was marked with a red circle and the letter KCR. For Kansas City Royals, I presume. Wow, do major league teams need to bring their own balls to each park they visit?

I didn’t get a chance to get Mayne to sign the ball, though. The Royals were doing a good job of ignoring the crowd, who were also mostly ignoring them. They hustled into their clubhouse at the end of their BP, and that was that.

People began filling in their seats and I wondered who I would be next to. A few rows over from me I spotted one guy in a NY Yankees hat, blue turtleneck and home white pinstripes. I went over and chatted with him for a few minutes, but then went back to my seat. Next to me were two Japanese tourists, who spoke just enough English that they could ask me questions,and I could come up with answers that they seemed to understand. They were a couple, I think, a man and a woman, young and nattily dressed.

The first question they asked me was after the fourth inning. Rookie Piniero had allowed only one hit up to that point (to Brent Mayne! yeah Brent!) with four strikeouts and one line drive comebacker that he snared out of the air himself to end the inning–after which he shook his glove hand in pain! “This one of the best pitcher?” the woman asked me. “No,” I said, “rookie.” “Ah, rookie?” her partner asked. They knew the word rookie perfectly well, they were just finding it as hard to believe as everyone else what a gem Piniero was pitching.

The Mariners began to score in the bottom of the fourth, scratching out a run on back to back doubles by Boone and Olerud, but that was all they could get. They got another one in the fifth, spreading out the excitement and making Piniero bear down to hold the lead. Which he did, leaving the game after six still having only yielded that one hit to Brent Mayne.

The next question the tourists asked me was “What does SODO MOJO mean?” This was after the Mariners got their third run on hits by Cameron, Bell, and Stan Javier. First I had to explain that SO- DO- is short for “South of the Dome” since that neighborhood where Safeco is now is south of where the Kingdome used to stand. There’s no dome anymore, but they still call the area SODO. And Mojo? That’s another word for magic. So, SODO MOJO is Seattle Mariner’s Magic. Phew–they seemed to understand my explanation.

“Take Me Out to the Ballgame” I did not have to explain–they both sang along perfectly, so I can only assume that they sing it in the seventh inning in Japan, too.

Nelson pitched a perfect inning. Arthur Rhodes pitched a perfect inning. There was much cheering and excitement for every Ichiro at bat, and I don’t mean just from my neighbors. Ichiro, unfortunately, never made it to third base so my neighbors could take lots of pictures of him–though he did steal second in the eighth. But if you want to hear Safeco Field get loud, have a listen to the place when Kazuhiro Sasaki comes in for the ninth.

Kaz did not have a one-two-three–I’ll be darned but Brent Mayne got the second and only other Royals hit of the night off him–but he did the job. And so the Mariners streak of not losing three in a row continued, and I finally got to see what the buzz was all about.

My next ballpark sojourn would be to the Oakland Coliseum, to see the A’s take on the Yankees for two games. Coming soon!

This was during the same MLB all-star tour of Japan on which Moe Berg did some of his infamous spying. The MLB team played 10 games on the tour and won them all, but the game Fitts described, which the young Sawamura pitched, was a near thing. Sawamura held the big leaguers in check, ending up losing 1-0 on a solo homer by Lou Gehrig.

I ducked out of the room just as Fitts was reading an ironic quote from some optimistic observer of the baseball tour of Japan, claiming that these nations would never be wracked by war again. (World War II was just around the corner.)

As it turned out, I needn’t have rushed to get to the bus on time, as when I arrived in the lobby, no bus was in evidence, and a heavy downpour, with thunder and lightning, was. Radar showed a storm front working its way through, and it looked for sure like the start of the game would be delayed. Eventually buses did pull up and we made our way through the flooded driveway to get into them.

By the time we arrived at the park, the rain had lightened, at least long enough for us to walk to the park.

The SABR group was broken into a few different sections (and price points) and I’d apparently chosen, months ago when I bought my tickets to the convention, a seat by the left field foul poul that included $10 worth of food in the ticket price. Sweet! I circumnavigated the concourse with my friend Joanne Hulbert from Boston, surveying the food options. Joanne’s ticket was in yet a nother section, of All You Can Eat seats, so I left her off there and then went to the SmokeHouse barbecue stand myself, where for $8.25 you can get an entree with two side dishes. Quite a bargain. I got ribs, mac & cheese, and corn.

They had glitches in the system scanning the tickets, though. Apparently with all the lightning strikes and such the computer systems needed to be rebooted. Eventually it was all straightened out at the central computer banks and off I went. I found a picnic table indoors and settled down to eat and watch the first few innings of Yankees/Red Sox on my iPhone. Yes, I now take every MLB TV and radio broadcast with me in my pocket wherever I go. I love living in the future.

A lovely rainbow appeared in the sky on the first base side some time later, as the sun set and the rain started to clear. The game was ‘delayed’ still further by the actual Tom Glavine induction ceremony to the Braves Hall of Fame and the retirement of his #47. Glavine looked dinstinctly uncomfortable up there on the podium, probably holding in a lot of emotion. He gave a short speech, saying he knew the players had had a really long day already, between the earlier ceremony at the CNN Center, and then the delay, and now they had a ballgame to play.

The opponents were the San Francisco Giants, and I have to say I am really spoiled from the American League East. I felt like pretty much no matter who got up to bat for either team all night long that none of them would have batted higher than eighth in any AL east lineup other than Baltimore’s. What the hell has happened to Chipper Jones? Just getting old suddenly, or off the juice, or what? (Those two things are not mutually exclusive, and might even be related, I realize.)

Barry Zito pitched for the Giants, which meant I sort of went against my usual policy of rooting for the home team whenever I’m not seeing the Yankees play. I’ve been to Turner Field before, though, and rooted for the Braves then.

Zito pitched great. He appears to have abandoned that big 12-6 curve in favor of a bunch of other baffling junk. There were only three big hits off him all night. Chipper had a double in the first but was stranded. Later, Alex Gonzalez hit a homer off him, and then Chipper took him deep an inning after that, but that was it. Seven innings, 10 strikeouts. But I bet Zito misses the days when he had Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada and Eric Chavez putting up three-run bombs behind him on a regular basis. The Giants didn’t managed to tie the score until the ninth.

When they did, they did it off Billy Wagner. I have to say, as a Yankees fan, that I felt somewhat the Wagner deserved this, for the hubris of having co-opted Mariano Rivera’s “Enter Sandman.” At the end of the eighth inning, all the scoreboards go completely dark. Then, flames start to appear. The opening strains of “Enter Sandman” play. And then the word WAGNER appears all over the stadium IN FLAMES. Ooooh. And then Wagner jogs to the mound. It’s all quite overblown and I am not the only person in my section who remarked, “Mr. Wagner, you are no Mariano Rivera,” at that point.

All that buildup, all that hoopla, and then Wagner laid an egg. Ooops. At least he didn’t cough up the lead run, as well, though it was a near thing. There’s a poster presentation downstairs making the claim that Wagner is the best lefthanded relief pitcher of all time. I wonder if by now someone has tacked on a page that says “But is no Mariano Rivera.”

The Giants eventually won the game, which actually was VERY briskly played, despite going into extra innings. However, because of the two hour delayed start, it was after midnight when the game ended, and because of local noise laws, the fireworks were cancelled. Disappointing, but ah well. By the time the bus pulled in to the hotel, it was so late the bar was already closed. I went right back to my room and was so exhausted I slept through the morning research presentations and the Joe Jackson Black Sox panel, which supposedly had new revelations to share. I’ll try to get the scoop on those later and post what people said, if I can.

Now it’s time for the luncheon with John Shuerholz. I’m too poor to attend the banquet part so I’m having a cup of ramen noodles in my room and then I’ll go down just to hear the awards and speeches.

EDIT: I should add that the one scoreboard shot of the SABR group at the ballpark focused on Mike Conlon, and it was fitting that at his moment of glory, he wasn’t looking at the scoreboard at all, but actually using his smartphone to look up a fact on Retrosheet. Cheers, Mike!

You may recall that last year I was forced to post via the horrible WebTV interface in my hotel room because my laptop died on the way to the convention. Let’s hope not to repeat that performance.

On today’s slate we had:
Tour of Nationals Park
History of DC Baseball Talk by Phil Wood
Baseball-ese Talk by Paul Dickson at Smithsonian

My friend Eric, who has worked for the last four years as a stat consultant for the Red Sox (but not this year–economic cutbacks all around…), has come along with me on the trip. We got up at the literal crack of dawn to catch the 5:55 am train from Boston so we could make it here in time for the 3pm ballpark tour.

We took a cab straight from Union Station to the hotel, dropped off our stuff, literally spending under two minutes in the room before hopping in another cab to the ballpark. We had a funny exchange with the cab driver in which I kept calling the new stadium here “the Nationals’ park” without realizing that the actual name of the place is Nationals Park.

There was traffic. We arrived just two or three minutes after three pm, but then had to run (we literally ran) around the ballpark to try to find our designated meeting spot for the tour, the Center Field Gate. When we got there, the place looked deserted. No, wait! We could see a group of people inside. Waving and yelling to them produced no effect. Finally we found a security guard who radioed to ask if someone inside could find the group and find out what we should do. Several minutes went by. Meanwhile, a SABR member from Philadelphia joined us, then three more, all with tickets for the 3pm tour. I then caught sight of some young marketing/front office types walking by carrying handfuls of schedules and asked them if they could do anything.

A few minutes later, a nice young man in a blue shirt, whose name I didn’t catch but he was another fresh-faced young marketing intern type, came and let us in and led us to where our tour group was. Of course by then they had made it all the way to the farthest point from the entrance, and were in the Diamond Club behind home plate. So it took a few minutes to hoof it down there. When we got there, the group was milling around in the club, taking pictures of the bar, which was themed to the 1924 World Series victory by the Washington Senators.

After a few minutes I asked someone what we were waiting around for. They said they were waiting for the stragglers. “But we’re the stragglers,” I said. Apparently, the actual tour guide had also been dispatched to try to pick us up, and now was looking for us…

Tour Guide Bob arrived back shortly after that and proceeded to tell us a bit about the Diamond Club and its motifs. Among other things, the light fixtures were modeled after the old fixtures at Griffith Park, and one wall was done up like the outfield. Behind the bar was the linescore of the 12th inning extra-inning walk off victory in the 1924 World Series, the only World Championship won in the city of Washington so far. Bob recounted the events of the epic final inning in dramatic fashion. The entire game ended up hinging on the final ball hit bouncing off a pebble at an odd angle so the third baseman couldn’t make a routine play to end the inning, and Muddy Ruehl scoring the winning run all the way from second.

Bob then pointed out more cool things about the park as we went out into the seats to look around. There is a large 10 on the wall like a retired number, but this 10 stands for the tenth man, the fans.

At one point in the outfield fence it jogs inward. This replicates the shape of the fence at old Griffith Park, which had an oak tree growing right there. Also the visitors bullpen has been placed so it is always baking in the hot sun, while the home bullpen is always in the shade.

There is very little in the way of billboards on the decks of the stadium, unlike most of the newer parks (and Fenway), but they do have replica classic ads on the walls, like Ted Williams shilling for Moxie, and Walter Johnson for Tuxedo Tobacco (which he apparently did not use.)

I did not know, until this tour, that Frederick Douglass was the president of the Washington Mutuals for a few years (the Mutuals being the first negro league team in Washington DC) and that his son played for them. From the Stars & Stripes club one can see the Frederick Douglass Bridge across the Anacostia river.

My favorite of all the things we saw in the ballpark though, more than the oval clubhouse (no corners in it to discourage cliques) and all the historical photos of President’s throwing out first pitches, was the press area, which is dedicated to the great baseball writer Mr. Shirley Povich. So many of the articles I have used for research over the years were written by him. His family donated some of his memorabilia to the club and they have enshrined in the press area several amazing artifacts, the most amazing of all is Povich’s actual scorecard from Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series. I attempted a photo which I shall try to get uploaded.

Phil Wood’s talk was lively and informative, and at the end he did a “show and tell” of baseball jersey’s he’s collected for various Washington teams, including one of Frank Howard’s, and one that had been worn by Ted Williams when he managed the team. Eric and I took photos with my cell phone camera of us holding the Teddy Ballgame jersey.

We hooked up just by chance with a local SABR member named Mike who offered to give us a ride to the museum then for the Paul Dickson talk. In fact, he took us up to Capitol Hill to eat, so we had a nice dinner at the Hawk & Dove, and then Mike took us down to the Museum of the American Indian, where the talk would take place. (Thanks, Mike!)

Paul Dickson is the man behind the Dickson Baseball Dictionary, and he did a lovely 90 minute presentation about the newly released 3rd Edition, which included many anecdotes about words and seeking their etymologies. Among the things I learned, he told the story of how “on deck” and “in the hole” came into baseball. The Boston Red Sox of 1857 (who are not related to the current franchise) played a game against a team in Belfast, Maine that was made up mostly of seafarers and sailors. And it was one of them who used the megaphone to announce the batters referred to the man “on deck” and “in the hold/hole” as the next two batters up, which was widely reported by and adopted by the press who had followed the Sox to the game.

The word in the dictionary that has the most definitions is “hook” which has 15 meanings in baseball alone. (In the English language, the word that has the most meanings is “set” with 137.)

Did you know Rudyard Kipling is the one who introduced the Britishism “rookie” to mean “recruit” in his poems about the war? The term was quickly picked up in baseball to mean “first year player” and proliferated in American English from there, while it was largely lost from British English, until the Falklands War, when the military heard the term and started using it. And subsequently thought that they had adopted an American baseball term when it was actually a British term to begin with.

I plan to download the ebook edition of the dictionary myself (I have the second edition sitting on my desk as it is).

Then we walked to the Metro with a throng of other SABRites and headed for the hotel. Some went off to a late dinner, while Eric went to the bar for a piece of chocolate cake, and I came up here to make myself a cup of tea and type this up. I am falling asleep as I type this even though it is only 11pm… but I did get only a total of three hours of sleep last night, two hours at home and one hour on the train.

Women and Baseball’s committee meeting is tomorrow at 8am, so I better get to sleep now anyway! More tomorrow!

I promised photos of the New Yankee Stadium, and so I’ve uploaded them to my Flickr account. Here are some of the highlights:

Click on any of the small images to see the full size image.

Walking past the old place with the new one beckoning on the horizon. Construction of a new parking garage and playing fields and restored playgrounds for Macombs Dam Park is also continuing.

View of the grand entrance hall on 161st Street, taken from the second level.


Just outside the Yankees Museum inside the new Yankee Stadium, reproductions of classic baseball cards, done life-size, adorn the wall.

The view from my season tickets, section 421.

Another view from Section 421.

Here’s a photo I bet you won’t find in the New York Times. The new look for the women’s restrooms! Gone is all the horrible Pepto Bismol pink! And the bathrooms were heated! Surely that’ll be important this year when the World Series stretches into November!!

The entire photoset can be viewed at my Flickr account here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26277413@N06/

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Coming up in this week’s Welcome Back Baseball! An interview with writer Dale Tafoya, more book reviews, a roster preview… who knows, maybe I’ll even make some predictions…!!

NEW DIGS

Today I set foot for the first time in the New Yankee Stadium.

The first thing I did, though was park in one of the old parking lots. Good old Lot 8, which used to be right next to the stadium, making it a quick run for the exit at the end after the final out. Now it’s on the far side of the old building from the new one, and at $19 to park today, not such a great idea any more, but until I try one of the new lots, I’ll take my chances.

Parking there meant I had to walk past the old stadium, which strangely enough had its lights on and flags flying inside, making it look a bit like the old place was set up for the ghosts to have their own game. The phone booths are empty, the spaces where the old signs in the entryways were now blacked out like missing teeth.

Meanwhile, the gleaming edifice of the new place beckons you to hurry past the old hulk to reach the brightness and music and life.

The first thing you come to on crossing 161st Street in what is the largest crosswalk I’ve ever seen, is the Babe Ruth Plaza, and a grand multi-story atrium entryway, at one end of which is the largest Diamondvision I’d ever seen–at least until I looked across the field and saw the even bigger one in center field.

I found it a bit bewildering at first to try to find my way around, partly because the crowd was just so thick. Through the tinted glass I could see the New Era souvenir store was packed with people like FAO Schwarz in late December. I walked up some ramps, rode some escalators, and found the Yankees museum, but the line to get into the museum was a half hour wait, and I didn’t want to stand around when there was more to be seen. The chilly weather also encouraged me to keep moving–did all these Chicago Cubs fans bring the wind with them? Gusts reached 50 miles per hour and the temperature was only 47 degrees at game time.

I finally climbed up to my seat in the “grandstand” (the equivalent of what we used to call Tier Reserved, the upper half of the upper deck) and was pleased to find the Seat Relocation Plan worked for me. I have essentially the identical position and view (and price…) as my season ticket seats in the old stadium. The sightline is slightly improved into the left field corner, in fact.

The scoreboard department hasn’t changed their pregame programming. When I had walked in, the Hammond Organ had been playing “New York, New York” and as I took my seat the song “Heart of a Champion” was on. The improvement in the sound system was immediately apparent as before today I had never been able to make out a single one of the lyrics beyond the chorus.

Even the bald eagle Challenger wanted to check the place out, making several laps back and forth before finally settling on his trainer’s arm on the mound at the end of the National Anthem.

What is it with this city and plane disasters? The standing ovation for Captain Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who safely landed that jet on the Hudson recently and saved the lives of all his passengers and crew, was spontaneous, loud, and enthusiastic when he threw out the first pitch. That was the one moment all day where I got really emotional, 9-11 flashbacks and all.

Well, and there were also tears of joy when I realized that upon getting some hot chocolate THERE ARE CUP HOLDERS IN THE UPPER DECK!! Yes, thank you!

The stadium staff are still clearly working out the bugs, as the snafus today varied from the small (the concession stand by my seats had only foot long hot dogs, but only 6 inch buns) to the large (the whole sound system blew out in the 6th inning, just before the YMCA… and the rest of the game was played in silence, meaning the YMCA dance was not performed, and me and one Cubs fan in the row behind me sang Take Me Out to the Ballgame all by ourselves).

Does the Stadium really play as small as all the home runs we saw over the weekend seem to suggest? Only time will tell, but the interesting thing is that inside the stadium bowl it actually has a much more closed-in and intimate feeling than the previous stadium. My impression is that the place is going to really rock when the Yankees win. The Bronx Zoo will go nuts with plenty of energy in a space like that. Meanwhile outside the bowl, everything is more spacious and open. The concourses are open–which was a bit of a detriment in the biting wind–and the women’s rooms are huge compared to the old ones. Gone is the Pepto Bismol pink paint in the women’s rooms, too, replaced by shiny chrome & steel.

So, yeah, it was different, and yet it was everything it has been hyped to be. It’s a lot like moving into a newer, bigger house.

But there was a roll call, the fans are clearly getting into the swing of things, and so were the Yankees, who won easily 10-1, with great pitching from Pettitte and Burnett, and home runs from Derek Jeter, Shelley Duncan, and two by Mark Teixeira, in addition to the three yesterday by Cody Ransom, Hideki Matsui, and Robinson Cano. There were only sporadic breakouts of “Let’s Go Yankees” and “Hip Hip Jorge” but that is normal for an exhibition game. I don’t know about the “ghosts,” but the spirit of Yankee Stadium is in the lifeblood of the fans, and that will be what really makes the new place feel like home.

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P. S. Tomorrow, photos!

I’ve waxed poetic before about Yankee Stadium, and well, I’m about to do it again. Yankee Stadium embodies, for me, the Platonic Ideal stadium. If my baseball history is right, it was the first three tier stadium, as well. Add to that the fact that it is The House That Ruth Built, and the tremendous amount of baseball history that has been made in that park, and, well… I could go on and on. (But won’t.)

It does occur to me, though, that my views on Yankee Stadium are a bit skewed by the fact that, well, I’ve never really been anywhere else. There was one year when the stadium was being refurbished in the seventies. I remember going to Shea for a Yankee game that time–but most of what I remember about it was that it poured rain. And I do mean poured; Niagara-like spouts of water were shooting from the upper decks. We arrived home sopping wet and wringing out our clothes. I was probably about seven years old at the time.

So, not counting that one soggy trip, I was at Shea for a concert in the 1980s (was it 1983?)–The Police, Joan Jett, and R.E.M. I don’t think that counts either.

And I’ve been to Fenway Park only once, despite the fact that I lived a block from the place for five years, and it was to see a high school World Series game in around 1995.

Admittedly, most of what I remember from that trip to Fenway was how exciting the game was–and it was. We of course didn’t know any of the players or any of the teams, but what a thrill to see a seventeen year old player blast a home run over the Green Monster! I don’t know that kid’s name, but I gotta wonder if he went on to the big leagues, or if he finished college somewhere and is now working a desk job somewhere…

So, this year will be the first time I really see a big league game somewhere other than Yankee Stadium.

In fact, it looks like I’ll see more of the Yankees at Fenway than I will in New York. I scored tickets to June 19, June 21, and September 8 here in Boston, whereas I’ll probably only see a game in April and a game in August in New York. (OK, maybe I’ll see two games in August, and that will even things up.)

And then there are the five spring training games I’m going to see all over Florida: Dunedin, Clearwater, Tampa, Sarasota, Winterhaven… (and if I get really, really lucky, the Yanks/Sox game in Fort Myers. But it sold out before I could get tickets.)

But back to stadiums. Now every time I have a road trip planned, I look at the baseball calendar to see if there’s a game going on nearby. I’m still kicking myself over not going to see a Yanks/Mariners game last August at Safeco Field, when I was in town there, which turned out to be the bench-clearing brawl game…. (Then again, maybe it’s just as well I wasn’t there…. )

If I have my way, in the next five years or so, I’ll see a bunch of the other stadiums that are out there. Everyone raves about Coors Field and Camden Yards. Will the new PacBell Park be less windy than Candlestick?

And then I’ll come back, and tell you that Yankee Stadium is still the canonical stadium.

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(Addendum: Since this post was written in 2000 I’ve visited so many ballparks it’s gotten difficult to count: Fenway, Camden Yards, Citizens Bank Park in Philly, Nationals in DC, Dolphins/LandShark Stadium, Tropicana Dome, Comiskey/US Cellular Field, The Metrodome, Jacob’s/Progressive Field, new Busch Stadium, Turner Field, The Ballpark in Arlington, Coors Field, BankOne Ballpark, Safeco Field, Pacbell Park, Dodger Stadium, Edison/Angels Stadium, Oakland Coliseum… I think that’s it. In 3 of the above I didn’t see a game, just took the tour or it was a rainout.)

This from the Old Tiger Stadium Convervancy:

Reports of Tiger Stadium’s demise are greatly exaggerated. For over a year The Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy has been quietly working on a plan to preserve the entire playing field and a significant portion of the beloved old ballpark. (See what is still standing: http://www.aerialpics.com/G/TigerStadiumDemo.html)

On Tuesday, the Detroit City Council rejected a plan that would have demolished the entire structure, but have given the Conservancy only until Friday to come up with the money to fund their plan. The Conservancy has “reached agreement on a Memorandum of Understanding that will ultimately transfer title to the stadium to the Conservancy and grant a long-term lease of the playing field. We … are continuing to pursue our goals of preserving and redeveloping the historic Navin Field grandstand and upper deck, restoring the playing grounds as a first-class youth baseball facility and revitalizing Corktown, Detroit’s oldest neighborhood.”

To move forward, the Conservancy needs to raise $50,000 by Friday “to provide for six months of onsite security while we put our long-term financing in place. Our $15M project plan expects to receive $4 million via a federal earmark and more than $6 million in historic preservation and economic stimulus tax credits.” They have already raised $170,000 and must hit their goal of $219,000 in the next 24 hours.

Make your donation at http://www.savetigerstadium.org. The Conservancy is a registered Michigan non-profit corporation and has been accorded 501(c)3 status by the Internal Revenue Service, making all donations tax deductible.

For updates, visit: http://savetigerstadium.wordpress.com/

Answer: Jose Molina.

Jeter tried to do it, but his line drive was caught just short of the wall. Johnny Damon tried to do it, blasting a three-run shot to put the Yankees ahead in the third inning. But after the Orioles had tied it up again in the top fourth, it was Molina who came up with the two-run blast that put the Yankees ahead for good.

If the Orioles’ defense had been a little bit better, then Mariano Rivera would have gotten a save. Instead, it was a comfortable 7-3 lead when the strains of Enter Sandman blared for the last time, but the appearance was no less pressure than in any playoff game. National media watching. Fans in full voice.

Oh, and did I mention, the Yankees elimination number stood at one when the game began?

Mo closed the door and brought down the curtain with a perfect 1-2-3 inning. Did you notice how through all the postgame ceremonies, Mariano kept the game ball in his glove?

As it turned out, the win was a balm for the anxious souls who could have made the final game quite maudlin. I avoided going to the game myself because I didn’t want to cry so much, and I didn’t, watching it on ESPN from The Forest Cafe in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My Sox-loving bar friends kept me from getting too down, anyway, by making jokes, like “What if Kevin Millar is the last man to hit a home run in Yankee Stadium?” (Please God, no….)

Bobby Abreu looked like he was having fun. All smiles after he reached first base on an excuse-me hit. He was a good reminder that baseball is fun. It’s supposed to be fun. Sometimes it can be fun even when your team doesn’t win. 39 Pennants, but over 100 seasons, after all.

We dreamed a little while walking back from the bar tonight. “What if they won all the rest of their games, and the Red Sox lost all of theirs?” corwin mused, as we picked around the puddles that an unexpected rainstorm had left all along our street. “Wouldn’t that be something?”

That would be something. And amazing, incredible, miraculous, magical things can and do happen in baseball, and seemingly especially with the Yankees. They don’t happen every year, but it is just like going out to the ballpark on any given day. You never know when you are going to see something incredible, maybe even something that has never been done before.

I think back to the game I brought corwin to in 1999 which turned him overnight into a tremendous Yankees fan. It was a beautiful late-summer night and the Yankees were playing the Oakland A’s. corwin and I had been together for eight years at that point, and yet he’d never gone to a game at the Stadium. We were recently minted thirty-somethings then and going through a bit of a second childhood, I suppose, including a trip to Disney World, so returning to the site of some of my favorite childhood memories was fitting.

Here’s what I wrote at the time. “corwin made an audible gasp as we came through the dark, dank, concrete corridor that leads to the seats and out into the intense green and blue open space that is Yankee Stadium.”

I wonder if the new Stadium will provide that same “wow” moment, or if that one, which so many people experienced at Yankee Stadium, was a function of the too-cramped, too-dim hallways and ramps in its innards?

Here was my game summary: “It was the best kind of game, the come from behind victory. We got to see a little bit of everything that game. Controversial umpire calls. Home runs. Double plays. Rookies blossoming. Old hands making their comebacks. History in the making.”

And that’s really it in a nutshell, isn’t it? The Yankees went on to win the World Series in a sweep of the Braves that season, which entirely cemented my newly rekindled Yankee love.

I honestly think the reason there has not been more outcry to “Save Our Stadium” is that the extended family of the Yankees, their alumni, and their fans have all accepted the idea that the old place has to come down. I think it’s not just the potentially structural disintegration, which we have been turning a blind eye to for years, but other factors, too. Crowd/group psychology is a tricky thing. You might have thought that after the destruction of one of New York’s iconic structures, the Twin Towers, that people might might have resisted even more giving up the historic locale. But I think things actually went the other way. The Towers themselves were not, ultimately, what was important about September 11th. Rebuilding them would not bring back those who perished, nor would failing to rebuild them keep us from regaining our spirit.

Likewise, tearing down the Stadium will not kill our love of the Yankees. As Jeter said in his address to the fans after the game, the memories remain, and we’ll carry them across the street. We, the fans, will do our part. We’ll keep making banners and signs, we’ll keep chanting for our favorite players, we’ll keep coming out to the park.

The Yankees have to do their part, though. They have to win. They have to do amazing and miraculous things. But we know they will. We just hope we won’t have to wait too long for more.

The reason I went all the way to Baltimore for this is that the company he works for gets tickets at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Nice tickets. Behind home plate nice. So when he asked if I’d come down and see a game with him and explain what all the fuss was about, of course I said yes.

I took Amtrak, which is about the perfect way to travel from Boston to Baltimore in comfort. I got a lot of work done, since even the cheap-o train I took still has power plugs for my laptop and is only an hour slower than the Acela. If only they could come up with a way for the train to have wireless Internet, I’d seriously take it all the time to New York, too.

When I arrived it was mid-afternoon, just enough time to get settled and then head over to the park early so we could have a thorough look around. When we got down to the park they were already letting people onto Eutaw Street. The sky was clear, the temperature was a comfortable 68 degrees, and the humidity was low. Lucky us. The night before, it had been 85 degrees, 100% humidity, and a thundershower had delayed the game by 90 minutes in the ninth inning with the score tied 8-8. Not only that, but the Yankees lost in the 11th. Grrr. In the good news department, though, Jason Giambi hit a home run onto Eutaw Street–the 41st dinger to land on the street since the park was built.

The first thing we looked at was the brass plaques set in the street where various of the home runs have landed. I would have thought that most of them would be Orioles, but no. Red Sox, Yankees, Rangers… we found David Ortiz and Paul O’Neill and many other favorites, including one Giambi hit in 2005.

There was also one hole where it looked like one was missing. Stolen?

We also searched the side of the warehouse for the one plaque for Ken Griffey Jr.’s homer that is the only one to hit the actual building, which happened during the Home Run Derby the year the All Star Game was in Baltimore. We didn’t find it, though. For some reason I remembered it being at the same height as the first row of windows, and also that it was the size and shape of a baseball (three-dimensional) instead of a flat plaque like the others.

We watched a bit of batting practice from the bleachers, but no balls came particularly near us. We had not brought gloves. We had fun watching Mike Mussina shagging though, and I explained how batting practice works. We then watched wooden bats being made for a short time (Brian is into woodworking but the demonstration was not every engrossing), and then looked at our food options.

I always like to get something unique at a ballpark that cannot be gotten at other ballparks. We got a crab soup and a knish, then walked up to the upper deck just to see the view from up there. Had a nice chat with a female usher who is an aspiring baseball writer, too. From up there we could see the mow patterns in the grass, and the sod farm that grows beyond the bullpen.

Back down to sign up as non-drinking Designated Drivers and get coupons for free drinks (of which we only redeemed 2 of the four we were given), and then to our seats. One of the GEICO Cavemen threw out the first pitch–I had no explanation for that. After the national anthem I had to explain the “O” in “oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave…” and warned him that John Denver’s Country Boy would be coming up later in the game. Every park has their traditional songs, after all. Fenway Park has, in recent decades, developed a cult around Neil Diamond’s SWEET CAROLINE, to the point that Neil Diamond is now going to play a concert at Fenway. And Yankee Stadium has Cotton-Eyed Joe.

What followed was a close-fought battle, where neither team ever held more than a one-run lead until the ninth, and every at bat was a battle. Andy Pettitte was pitching for the Yankees, and although he managed to be effective, he was throwing a lot of balls, falling behind in the count, and generally struggling. And yet he walked only one man, and his only mistake was a low fastball then Melvin Mora golfed into the seats for a two run home run.

On the O’s side there was young Jeremy Guthrie, who was throwing some heat, hitting 93 on the radar gun and getting some big and exciting strikeouts, like fanning Derek Jeter in the third to strand a man on third. The Yankees managed a single run off him in the second when Matsui hit a one-out double and then Giambi stroked a single to score him. Giambi also hit another home run–I couldn’t tell if it hit Eutaw Street or not–in the fourth, to make it 2-2. The third run came in the fifth, this time with Melky hitting the one-out double, Damon singling him to third, and then Jeter hitting a line drive deep enough to be a sacrifice fly.

In close games, every play is magnified. When Roberts got picked off second, the crowd was in an uproar, as O’s fans and Yankee fans alike were stirred up by it. At the time, Brian had gone off to the souvenir shop. Chatting with the clerk he mentioned it was his first major league game, and the clerk took him over to the fan assistance office where they gave him a certificate for his first game, complete with his name and the date, some Orioles postcards, and a special envelope to keep it all in. Kinda neat.

Each team mounted their threats, but no one was able to run away with it. In the ninth the Yankees scratched an insurance run, as Matsui led off with a double and they played small ball to get him in. The importance of that run became quickly apparent when Mariano Rivera, pitching the ninth, had to face the tying run in the person of Brian Robets and then Melvin Mora, when a man had reached on an A-rod error. (A-rod’s second in two games… and he looked lost at the plate, hitting the 2nd or 3rd pitch of every at bat on the ground to third or short.) But Mariano showed his Hall of Fame form (ERA 0.41–I explained to Brian that most pitchers are happy with a 4.10 ERA…) and got both Roberts and Mora to pop up.

Not only that, the game was over with in under three hours. Wow. The night remained dry, pleasant, and cool, and we walked out with a feeling of deep satisfaction. Or at least, I did. I think Brian had fun, too.

He mentioned, among other things, that the game seems different when you are in the stands than watching it on TV. And of course it didn’t hurt that I was there to explain every little thing, including the strategy of pitching, signs and sign-stealing, the difference between pitching from the wind-up and the stretch, why bullpen guys would rather pitch one inning several times a week than 2-3 innings only once or twice, the difference between pulling the ball and going the other way, how Chad Bradford learned to pick up dirt while he pitches underhand, and many other topics.

Just another night at the ballpark.

It’s really, really sunny in Anaheim. It’s so sunny that when corwin and I took in a beautiful day of baseball at the “Big A”–which they now call Angel Stadium–we got sunburned even though we sat in the shade all day. Perhaps it was just how scorching hot the Yankee bats are that left us reddened.

We came to in Anaheim for a business trip, but when we realized the Yankees would be in town at the same time we were, we decided to bag out of the conference a day early and take in a game. You’re never too old to play hooky for baseball. It wasn’t our first trip to The Big A; we went a few years ago to see an A’s/Angels game back when it was called Edison Field and owned by Disney. But this would be our first Yankee road trip since the day we took my Dad to Tropicana Field for his 70th birthday.

Although there have been the kerfuffle’s about nomenclature, not much about the field itself seems to have changed since Arte Moreno bought the Angels. We didn’t have a lot of time to walk around before the game, as it started at 12:35 for no apparent reason. Trained to 1:05 starts in the East, we were nearly late. Instead, we had just enough time to hop a cab from the hotel, get some barbecued chicken down at field level, and then find our seats way up on the 500 level.

Our normal preferred place to sit in any stadium is in the upper deck behind home plate. We couldn’t quite get behind the plate this time, and were a bit off to the third base side, but upon reaching the seats we discovered a distinct advantage to their location: our seats were shaded and would remain in the shade the entire game. (Did I mention the Southern California sun is much brighter and hotter than the weak rays we are used to in the northeast?)

I was disappointed to find that Jason Giambi was out of the lineup since the Angels were starting lefty rookie Joe Saunders, as I remain convinced that Giambi will hit a home run for me whenever I’m in the park. (I’m of course wrong about this, yet the delusion persists.) Instead, as Derek Jeter’s ball left the yard in the first inning corwin turned to me and said “I guess he told Jeter to hit one for you instead.”

“Well, then Bernie has to hit one for you,” I replied. Even though corwin had neglected to pack his Bernie Williams shirt.

Well, of course, Bernie hit one in the second. 3-0 Yankees. The embarrassment of riches continued in the third as the Yankees piled on five runs, capped by Bernie’s second home run in two innings. That knocked Saunders from the game, and destroyed any possibly tension we might have felt about the game. (The Angels have that knack of beating the Yankees…) Jeter hit a second shot himself in the eighth, so he and Bernie really paid us double.

It was Southern California, and we got to kick back and chill out. Dude. By the end of the day, Bernie had four hits and in the eighth inning a chance to hit for the cycle, something I’ve never seen. Sadly, he grounded out. It was also interesting–by which I mean like how it’s “interesting” to watch crocodiles at the zoo–to se Alex Rodriguez in the depths of his slump. Three strikeouts, two of them looking, and a pop-up–his swing simply looked terrible. But he was a little lucky, hit a grounder that got through the infield in the middle of the five-run rally… and as we now know, as soon as they got home, went on a tear.

The only really urge to scream like a New Yorker I had was in the bottom eight, when Kyle Farnsworth came on to pitch. He walked the first two men, gave up a single and a stolen base, then walked the number nine batter, and was removed summarily from the game. All I can say to that is… what the F***, Farnsworth? Three of the four men he put on scored, and the Angels even scratched a run off Mo in the ninth, thanks to defensive indifference. The final score on our lazy afternoon ended up 11-8, a little scary, but given where we were in the standings, we didn’t let it bother us.

Anaheim. Great place to see a game, especially when the Yankees win.

Notes on the Season as of September 7th:

Dmitri Young was released by the Tigers today. Does this mean the Boys and Girls Clubs won’t play his ad for them anymore?

Boston media today is crowing delusionally about how the Red Sox “almost swept the White Sox,” and did take two out of three. Excuse me guys, but you scored a total of five runs in three days, squeaking out the two wins 3-2 and 1-0. Football season starts tonight and it’s time to concentrate on the Patriots.