Ranking the Stadiums, Part 3

And now we're getting to my favorite baseball stadiums.  Here we go with 1-7 in reverse order:

7.  Citizens Bank Park (1 game).  You go here and you get why Mets fans don't like Citi Field.  You walk in and you know this is where the Philadelphia Phillies play baseball.  They have the Phillies Hall of Fame out in center field.  It's what Citi Field should be like, except for the team that plays there.  It's a very solid stadium, but I wouldn't describe it as elite.  I would call these next six stadiums elite.

6.  PNC Park (1 game).  I always heard good things about PNC Park and I wondered what was so great about it.  I guess I just assumed it wouldn't be great because the team that plays there has been so bad for the last 20 years.  But it is great.  It's got a very Pittsburgh feel to it.  You have Primanti Brothers and Quaker Steak and Lube as food options.  You have a great view of the river and the skyline.  And Pittsburgh is a great city.  The team that plays there should be better.  If you had a better atmosphere, that would make the stadium even better.

5.  Wrigley Field (1 game).  Wrigley Field is great.  The area around the stadium is great.  You have the ivy on the wall (I went in April, so it hadn't grown in yet).  It's really hard to compare Wrigley Field to the new stadiums, but I can compare it to old Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park.  I'll explain why I have them ranked ahead of Wrigley when I get there, but one reason is the lack of history.  Unfortunately for Cubs fans, two of the greatest moments there are Babe Ruth's called shot in the 1932 World Series and the Steve Bartman game (great 30 for 30, I feel legitimately bad for him, the Cubs still could have won and there's no guarantee that they would have won even if he didn't interfere).  But this is a stadium I would definitely want to get back to.

4.  Petco Park (1 game).  This is my favorite new stadium.  I always thought it looked good on TV.  I had very high expectations when I went there and it probably exceeded them, despite the bad San Diego weather when I went (I wore shorts and a sweatshirt and I was legitimately cold).  It has a great location and a great view of the city.  They honor former players who served in the military.  That had plants that were growing and hanging down in the concourses (I thought that was really cool).  What would make it better would be a better atmosphere.  San Diego is a great city and it's the 8th biggest city in the country.  The Padres are good occasionally, but they should be consistently good.  That would make it even better.

3.  Old Yankee Stadium (at least 13 games, maybe as many as 20).  Like Shea Stadium, I wish I knew how many games I went to at the Old Yankee Stadium.  I'm pretty sure I didn't go to any Yankee games from 2000-2004.  From 2005 to the last year of the stadium in 2008, I think I went to seven games.  Before that, I can think of at least six games that I went to.  I sat everywhere.  I was in the left field and right field bleachers.  I was way up high.  I even went to at least three games sitting in the first row behind the visitors' dugout when I was young (my friend's father had connections).  I have some fun memories.  There was the time Rafael Palmeiro lied to me about giving me a ball (I never liked him).  There was the time one of the Royals actually did give me a ball (I've never caught a foul ball or a home run, so that's the only ball I've ever gotten).    There was the time John, Liz, and I saw a Chien Ming Wang get five outs away from a perfect game and Liz knew something was going on, but didn't know what.  And John and I did the whole superstitious thing and wouldn't tell her.  You can compare Yankee Stadium to the other really old stadiums that are still standing.  That's the biggest argument against Yankee Stadium.  There are no plans to get rid of Wrigley Field or Fenway Park any time soon, but Yankee Stadium was replaceable (I think they should have stayed at the old stadium, but George Steinbrenner's ego was not going to allow the Mets to be the only New York team to get a new stadium).  The biggest argument for Yankee Stadium is the history.  They've had a little more success there than the Cubs have had at Wrigley Field.  It doesn't have a feature like the ivy or the Green Monster, but it was Yankee Stadium.  It was the House that Ruth Built, except the post-renovation Yankee Stadium really wasn't the same stadium that Babe Ruth played in.  If it had still been the house that Ruth built with the facade and and everything, it might have been number 1 on my list.  Still, pretty good history with Reggie Jackson (fortunately I wasn't alive for that), Mariano Rivera, and Derek Jeter.  It had a great atmosphere.  I'd definitely take it over the new stadium.

2.  Dodger Stadium (2 games, 1 stadium tour).  Yes, a very biased choice.  However, Dodger Stadium is the one great stadium from a terrible era of stadiums.  It was built before Shea Stadium, but it's a million times better.  If the Dodgers had stayed in New York, they would have ended up with a terrible stadium (it would have been Shea Stadium but worse, O'Malley wanted a dome).  Unfortunately for me, they ended up 2,500 miles away, but they built a gem of a stadium.  If you look behind the stadium from the top deck, you can see downtown Los Angeles.  From the seats, you have mountains in the background.  You can park on your level.  You can be sitting way up high in the top deck and park up there and enter the stadium at that level.  I didn't understand how this worked until I went there.  It's built into a hill so you can park at each level.  Also, I remember thinking about how you drive on the Long Island Expressway or Grand Central Parkway and at some point you see Shea Stadium or now Citi Field.  You can't see Dodger Stadium until you're there.  On one side you have the hill and beyond the outfield is a parking lot and then mountains.  I thought it was cool how it's hidden.  Also, you can walk around the concourse and still see the field.  The stadium was built in 1962.  Being able to see the field from the concourse was definitely not common until the last 15-20 years.  It's now the last symmetrical ballpark in the National League.  Symmetrical ballparks used to be boring, but now Dodger Stadium is unique.  And there's great history.  Ten no-hitters, two perfect games, eight World Series, Pope John Paul II, and The Naked Gun.  One of the things I enjoyed about the tour was figuring out what was impossible in The Naked Gun.  The woman who fell on Reggie Jackson would never have fallen on him (she fell at an angle instead of straight down).  And Vincent Ludwig's fall probably wouldn't have hurt him too badly (it was from the top deck, but it wasn't that high).  I used to say that there were two places that I absolutely needed to get to.  One was Australia (I still hope I get there someday).  The other was Dodger Stadium.  And Dodger Stadium was as awesome as I thought it would be.  I can't wait to get back tomorrow.

1.  Fenway Park (3 games).  I was first there in 1995.  I saw Mo Vaughn hit a grand slam.  I saw games in 2009 and 2010 there with John.  The best thing about Fenway is that you just go there to watch baseball.  None of the other nonsense that you get at the new Yankee Stadium.  It's all about baseball.  You have the green monster.  You have the weird dimensions.  The best thing about it compared to Wrigley Field is the atmosphere.  The Red Sox have had a lot of success lately (I know, last year was terrible, but still).  You always have a packed house and you have fans that really care about baseball.  You can go to Fenway Park and kind of imagine that you've gone back in time to when Ted Williams is playing.  You can't really do that anywhere else except for Wrigley Field.  If there was a baseball equivalent of the Super Bowl, Fenway Park is where I would want the game to be played.  And that's why I'm ranking it number 1.

Ranking the Stadiums, Battle of the New Stadiums in New York

Citi Field (12 games, I think) vs. Yankee Stadium (3 baseball games, 1 football game).

I have these two ranked next to each other, so I'll compare them before giving my verdict on which one gets 8th place and which one gets 9th place on my rankings.

Let's start with Citi Field since I went there first and that's the one I've been to more times.  I think it's 12 games.  I just discovered this MLB.com At the Ballpark app today on my phone.  I had downloaded it a while ago and never used it.  It's probably my favorite app now.  One of the things you can do is keep a record of every game you've been to going as far back as 2005.  I came up with 39 games that I've been to during that time, but I'm pretty sure I'm missing some from 2005-2007.  So unless I missed any games at Citi Field (I don't think so, but maybe), I've been there 12 times now.  It's much much nicer than Shea Stadium.  I like how it has the old home run apple and parts of the old scoreboard from Shea.  But a lot of Met fans have issues with Citi Field.  If Mr. Burns sat down at Citi Field and then saw the Mets take the field, he would say, "So you say the Dodgers don't play in New York anymore?"  The outside of the stadium looks like Ebbets Field and you walk in and the rotunda is dedicated to Jackie Robinson.  You see pictures of him and Branch Rickey.  It looks like it should be the home of the Dodgers.  So yeah, for me, that's a good thing.  But they have done some things since it opened to make it look like the home of the Mets.  I like the whole center field area and the top of the rotunda area.

Now for some bad things about Citi Field.  Some of the seats have pretty bad views.  That might be true anywhere, but I've never noticed any stadium being as bad as where I was the first time I went to Citi Field.  We were way up high in left field.  From where we were, you couldn't see a good part of the outfield.  Also, you can see the field as you walk around the concourse on every level except for when you're behind home plate.  On every level, you're cut off from the field when you're behind home plate on the concourse.  So I would sacrifice that nice top of the rotunda area for a view of the field from the concourse behind home plate if I could.  And there are some good food options, but the best one is probably Shake Shack.  But the only location is in center field and there's always a long line before the game.  If there was one a Shake Shack on the upper level, that would help.  They also made the field dimensions too big (they finally brought in the fences and lowered them last year) and the color scheme made no sense (dark green, at least the outfield wall is now blue and orange).

I know I've been to Yankee Stadium four times.  I'll start with the bad.  Somebody that I used to work with described it as "a shopping mall with a baseball game going on inside it."  That's a pretty good description. There's too much going on.  If you just want to go and watch a baseball game, Citi Field is probably better.  I don't have many other negative things to say, but that's a pretty big negative.  It's more expensive than Citi Field, but that's to be expected with the Yankees.

Unlike Citi Field, you can see the field from anywhere on the concourse.  They do a much better job than the Mets of honoring the history of the franchise (I'll let you make your own joke here).  You have the facade around the top of the stadium and Monument Park.  But actually, Monument Park is kind of a negative.  It's in a bad location (it's like a cave down there, it was better at the old stadium) and the Steinbrenner monument is absurd.  Steinbrenner definitely deserves a monument, but there's no reason for his to be bigger than the monuments for Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle combined (I don't know if it's really bigger than all of those put together, but it's outrageously large).

So like I said, if you just want to go and watch a baseball game, Citi Field is probably better.  Now you're expecting me to rank Citi Field ahead of Yankee Stadium, but I'm not going to.  The verdict:

9.  Citi Field

8.  Yankee Stadium

I'll tell you why.  It's the one football game I went to at Yankee Stadium.  I was there for the first football game at Yankee Stadium, Notre Dame-Army in 2010.  You could easily fit a football field at Citi Field.  But why would you when you could play football at Yankee Stadium?  Citi Field just isn't Yankee Stadium (If Pope Francis ever comes to the United States and says mass in a stadium in New York, which one do you think it will be?).  I was surprised by how well Yankee Stadium worked for football.  I was in the last row of the stadium and it was a great view of the field.  I've said that the NFL should have put the Super Bowl in Yankee Stadium instead of Met Life Stadium (I know, they would never do that).  Met Life Stadium is so bland and sterile.  And it's in East Rutherford, New Jersey.  It would be so much cooler in Yankee Stadium.  It would actually be in New York City and you could retell the story of the Greatest Game Ever Played (Giants-Colts in the 1958 NFL Championship Game at the old Yankee Stadium).  Now that college football is going to move their championship game around, they should have it in Yankee Stadium.  I'm all for football at Yankee Stadium.

Now if they would just fix that Steinbrenner monument.

Ranking the Stadiums, Part 1

I think I explained in my first blog post how I want to see every Major League Baseball stadium (although there are two or three that I'd be fine with never getting to).  I love going to baseball games and one of the reasons is the uniqueness of the stadiums.  If I could go back in time, one of the things I would definitely do would be go to baseball games at Ebbets Field, Yankee Stadium before it was renovated, and the Polo Grounds.  Last year I went to games in eight different stadiums, including six that I had never been to before.  I've been planning on doing this post for a long time, but I never got around to it.  With the season starting tomorrow, it seemed like a good time to finally write this.  I'm ranking the 16 stadiums I've been to (14 current stadiums and 2 New York stadiums that don't exist anymore).  I'll be going to number 17 on Tuesday.  That will mean I've been to half of the current Major League Baseball stadiums.  I hope to get to a few more before this season is over, but I don't have anything planned yet.  Anyway, it's hard to do this because you can't really compare Fenway Park to new Yankee Stadium.  They have nothing in common except for the fact that baseball is played in both stadiums.  This list is going to be completely biased and I'm sure I'll get some disagreements from people that have been to some of these stadiums.  Feel free to share your thoughts if you disagree with my rankings.  Let's start with numbers 10-16 on my list, with the number of times I've been there in parentheses:

16.  US Cellular Field (1 game).  There's nothing interesting about this stadium.  The best part of going there was Kyle's cell phone antics on the bus on the way back (which I think I was blamed for at first).  Good times.  But yeah, US Cellular Field was built before Oriole Park changed the way stadiums were built.  Of the stadiums I've been to, it's the one I would least want to go back to.  I think that's enough for it to take last place on my list.

15.  Marlins Park (1 game).  I covered this in my first blog post about going to a stadium last year.  I'm sure it's a million times better than playing in the football stadium that they played in until last season, but I don't like indoor baseball.  I don't like the colors (too weird).  And the dimensions are too big.  They have fish tanks behind home plate.  That sounds really cool, but you can't really see them.

14.  Chase Field (1 game, 1 stadium tour).  If you took the roof off of Chase Stadium and made Phoenix 15-20 degrees cooler on average, Chase Field would probably be higher on my list.  It was a really nice stadium and I know they need the roof in Phoenix, but again, I don't like indoor baseball.  The pool is a nice feature, but the desire to be in a pool is reduced when you're indoors with air conditioning.

13.  Coors Field (1 game).  Coors Field is very nice.  I liked it.  But I can't rank it any higher because baseball doesn't work at that elevation.  There's no good way to build a stadium there.  The humidor has helped, but it was by far the easiest stadium to score runs in last year.  That's been true three out of the last four years and it's consistently in the top 5.  The dimensions are actually very big.  That still doesn't make up for how the ball carries.  But it's not just home runs.  If you're an outfielder, you can play deep and give up more singles.  Or you can play shallow to take away some of those singles but take a chance on the ball going over your head for a double or triple.

12.  Shea Stadium (probably at least 30 games, maybe as many as 50).  I was going to games at Shea Stadium from 1989-2008.  That's 20 years.  There might have been a couple of years when I didn't get to any games there, but most years I probably went to at least two games.  I wish I knew how many games I went to.  I know Shea Stadium is objectively the worst stadium I've ever been to and it's not even close.  But it was the stadium I grew up with.  I remember going to my first game in 1989.  I even remember going there in 1988 in the rain only to have the Dodgers-Mets game that would have been my first game ever rained out (I was 4 at the time). Citi Field is obviously better, but it's not the stadium I grew up with.  I remember going to Mets-Cardinals in July 2008.  I knew it was the last time I would be in Shea Stadium.  I'm not going to lie, it got a little dusty as I was leaving the stadium.  I'll never forget Shea Stadium.

11.  Oriole Park at Camden Yards (1 game).  I know, everybody loves this stadium.  It is historically significant because as I mentioned, it changed the way stadiums were built for the better.  You get a nice view if you're sitting behind home plate.  You have the warehouse in right field and a nice view of the city in center.  I'm taking points off because you can't walk around the concourse and see the field (except for right field and center field).  And it's not like nobody had come up with that architectural concept until after Oriole Park was built (we'll get there in the last installment of my stadium rankings).  It's a solid stadium, but I think it's overrated.

10.  Nationals Park (2 games).  This was the first new stadium that I went to (I'm counting US Cellular Field as the last of the old stadiums).  I was there in 2008 and 2010.  It was very different from what I had known after years of going to games at Shea Stadium and old Yankee Stadium.  It's kind of bland compared to the other new stadiums I've been to.  It's hurt by the fact that the Nationals don't have any history.  But you can walk around the concourse and still see the field.  There's nothing wrong with Nationals Park, but there's nothing all that exciting about it either.

My 10 Favorite Days of the Year

I had this idea for a blog post a a few weeks ago.  Today is one of my 10 favorite days of the year (we'll get there).  And we're just a few days away from another one, so it seemed like a good day to write this.  Let's start with some honorable mentions:

NFL Championship Sunday, Easter Eve, the first night of the NFL Draft, Easter Eve, Memorial Day, Christmas Eve.  Easter Eve was probably the toughest one for me to leave out of the top 10.  I've had some great Easter Eves with John, Vinny, and Darryl.  The most famous one involved somebody having to be carried away in a Superman pose.  NFL Championship Sunday is the last day with more than one football game and those games happen to have great significance.  The first night of the NFL Draft is the oasis in the long football offseason.  Memorial Day is the unofficial start to summer.  And Christmas Eve is great, but I'm more of a Christmas Day fan.  Now let's get to my top 10 in reverse order:

10.  New Year's Day.  I can't put this any higher right now, but it might be in my top 5 in a couple of years.  College football used to own New Year's Day.  Now they still have a good number of bowl games, but the Rose Bowl has been the only game on New Year's that I've made a point of watching recently.  There's also the NHL's Winter Classic, which is solid.  Apparently the college football playoff is going to reclaim New Year's Day for college football.  If New Year's Day becomes a great day of college football again, I'll have to move it up the list.

9.  The first Saturday of college football (but not in 2007 or 2011).  College football has the shortest season of the big sports.  It really goes for three months.  Then there's the awful wait from the end of the season until the bowl games.  Usually there aren't many great games as the big teams try to schedule easy wins for week 1, but it's just nice to have college football back after the long offseason.

8.  Thanksgiving.  Football:  good.  Food:  good.  Recovering from Thanksgiving Eve:  well...

7.  The first day of summer vacation.  It's such a great feeling to not have to worry about anything for two months.

6.  Super Bowl Sunday.  This would rank higher if I liked a team that had made the Super Bowl during my lifetime.  It's the last day of meaningful football until late August.  It's a day where sports and capitalism come together.  We just need to make it so that we have the next day off (I already covered that in my Lincoln's Birthday post).

5.  Today.  What is today?  The day Sam Adams Summer Ale comes out.  As one of my friends once said, "I love Summer Ale and everything it stands for."  If you think I'm kidding, you obviously don't know me well enough.  Last year I wrote on the Sam Adams facebook page, "The day I drink my first Summer Ale each year is easily one of my ten favorite days of the year."  And now here I am blogging about it.  I just picked up my first 12 pack today and that was the inspiration for this post.  I will be drinking Summer Ale from now until the end of November.  Those four months without Summer Ale are rough.  It's definitely my favorite beverage.  Octoberfest is also excellent, but it means that Summer Ale is disappearing.  Winter Lager really doesn't do anything for me.  Alpine Spring is good, but it's no Summer Ale.  I've gotten several of my friends hooked on Summer Ale.  This wasn't my first rant about how much I love Summer Ale and it won't be the last.

I've missed you, old friend.

4.  The first four days of the NCAA Tournament.  I know, this is cheating.  This marks the real end of winter and the terrible post-Super Bowl period in sports.  I love the Big East Tournament and that's when I'm finally excited about what's going on in sports again, but those games don't really mean anything.  I've taken the Friday that's the second day of the tournament off each of the last four years.  One of my favorite nights was the Thursday night three years ago.  Pete and I went out in Huntington just before he moved back to England.  It was the day after St. Patrick's Day and the day before the weekend, so the town was dead.  But Pete and I had dinner at Canterbury Ales and then we stayed out and watched basketball and drank.  It was a great time.

3.  Opening Day of baseball season.  We're almost there.  Baseball is my favorite sport and after a long offseason (of the four major sports, only football has a longer offseason), baseball is finally back.  Major League Baseball needs to fix Opening Day (I already covered that too), but it's still great.  There's hope for every team.  I'm going to my first Opening Day this year and I'm really excited.  In the words of Joe DiMaggio, "You always get a special kick on Opening Day, no matter how many you go through. You look forward to it like a birthday party when you're a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen."

2.  Christmas.  We celebrate the birth of Jesus, Santa, Rickey Henderson, and Ed Hochuli.  It's the only time that I don't have a problem with cold weather.  After Christmas, I've had enough of winter, but it should be cold for Christmas.  You have Christmas music and lights.  You can enjoy watching the NBA's best teams.  It's a great day.

1.  The Fourth of July.  Back in July I covered how we have our celebration of independence from Great Britain messed up, so I won't get into that again.  The other thing we need to fix is that the Blue Jays should never ever have a home game from July 2 to July 4 (they shouldn't get a home game for Opening Day either).  Despite that, the Fourth of July is a great day.  We celebrate the independence of the greatest country in the history of the world.  It's early summer, the day is long, baseball is going on, and I can drink Summer Ale. There are fireworks.  Joey Chestnut's dominance of Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest is another source of national pride (I don't want to see a Japanese guy winning on the Fourth of July).  There are fireworks.  There are a lot of good things about the Fourth of July.  It's my favorite day of the year.

One Day, Four Basketball Games

My brother Tom texted me two weeks ago saying that the NCAA Tournament was in Philadelphia this year.  My first thought when I got that text was "Oh, that's nice."  Then we started talking about going.  I was planning to take the day off anyway, so there was no reason not to go.  Tom wanted to go to the afternoon games only.  That was fine with me.  Then I could watch the night games on TV.  But then we got Sean in on this plan.  Sean wanted to go to all four games.  Tom wasn't coming for the night session, but I decided to go with Sean all day even though it meant completely sacrificing one of the best TV sports days of the year.  And I had wanted to go to all four games of the Big East Tournament last Thursday.  I wasn't successful in that endeavor, but I made up for it yesterday.  As it turns out, the games we missed weren't too great.  We missed LaSalle upsetting Kansas State, NC State almost coming back against Temple, and Western Kentucky giving Kansas a game.  But we got to see the biggest game of the day in person (unfortunately for Sean).

I got to Philadelphia around 10:40 in the morning yesterday and met Tom and Sean.  We picked up a parking pass and then went to the Wells Fargo Center.  It was fine, but let's just say it's no Madison Square Garden.  I've been in five different NBA arenas and we can safely say that Madison Square Garden is the best of them.  Also, I've said this before and I'll say it again.  I hate these standardized NCAA Tournament courts.  When they were in Boston last year, they should have played on the Cetlics' court.  The Celtics' parquet floor is famous.  If you want to replace the Celtics' logo at midcourt with an NCAA logo, I can live with that, but these standardized courts are stupid (I might hate them even more than I hate the standardized Super Bowl logo).  Anyway, we were all hungry when we got there so we looked for food.  Our options were limited since it was a Friday in Lent and Tom is a hippie vegan.  We all got black bean burgers.  It was a pretty good option for a non-meat option in a basketball arena.  We got our food and got to our seats just in time for the start of the Albany-Duke game.

Friday in Lent.  Black bean burger and water.

I was really rooting for Albany.  I always enjoy a good upset and it would have been pretty cool to see Duke lose as a two seed in the first round (hold on, I'll save my rant for the next paragraph) for the second straight year.  Also, three of my former camp employees are current Albany students.  So it would have been awesome for them.  Duke probably had the most fans there of all the teams we saw, but all the neutral fans were rooting for Albany.  Albany put up a good fight.  It never looked like they would win, but they stayed competitive until there were about two minutes left.  It was a respectable performance for a 15 seed, but Duke was just too good.  Seth Curry had 26 and Mason Plumlee had 23 and Duke won by 12.

Our view for the afternoon.

Now it's time for my rant about "the second round" of the NCAA tournament.  When the PA guy said something like "Welcome to the second round of the NCAA tournament," I said to Sean, "How did these teams do in the first round?"  Of course, like 88% of the teams in the tournament, they didn't play in the first round.  The NCAA doesn't want to call the first four games "play-in games," but they should just call it the Opening Round like they did when there was just one play-in game.  It sounds ridiculous to call the Thursday and Friday games "the second round."  All the TV guys clearly hate it, but they have to go by what the NCAA says. Jay Bilas said that they changed it to something that makes no sense.  The NCAA needs to hire somebody as the VP of Common Sense to fix this one.  There are plenty of other things the VP of Common Sense could fix, like not serving alcohol at these games.  I get that you don't want to serve alcohol on campus to college kids, but this wasn't on campus.  There would be nothing wrong with serving beer.  Now I don't really like drinking too much at sporting events.  It's always overpriced and I like to remember what happened at the game.  But it would have been nice to have a beer at some point yesterday.

Back to the games.  Game 2 was a showdown of Old Big East against New Big East, Cincinnati against Creighton.  I was rooting for the new Big East as I always root against the Big East non-Catholic schools (note:  this rule will not apply to Butler) and for the Big East Catholic schools.  Creighton controlled the game.  They led by five at halftime.  They never trailed in the second half, but Cincinnati did make it interesting in the end.  They had a three that would have tied it in the last ten seconds, but it rimmed out.  Creighton made one last free throw and won by four.  Doug McDermott led the way for Creighton with 27 points and 11 rebounds.

New Big East wins.

We had to leave the arena after the second game.  Tom went home and Sean and I had to kill some time.  There was a place nearby that had several bars.  We tried to go over there and get a drink since we couldn't get one in the arena, but it was so crowded between games that we decided that it wasn't happening.  By the time we walked back to the arena, they were letting people in again.

Game 3 was another 2-15 matchup, Florida Gulf Coast and Georgetown.  Of course, Sean is a Georgetown alum.  Although I like seeing an upset, Sean and my loyalty to the Big East Catholic schools were enough for me to root for Georgetown.  All the neutral fans were rooting for Florida Gulf Coast.  Florida Gulf Coast came to play. And the longer Florida Gulf Coast stayed competitive, the more the crowd supported them.  It got to a point where it was like Georgetown was playing a road game.  Florida Gulf Coast led by two at halftime and then put up 54 points in the second half to pull off the upset by a score of 78-68.  Sherwood Brown had 24 points and 9 rebounds, Bernard Thompson had 23 points and 7 rebounds, and Brett Comer had 12 points, 10 assists, and 6 rebounds.  Otto Porter did not have a good game for Georgetown.  Florida Gulf Coast had several big dunks during the game.  But this game illustrated the silliness of college basketball's regular season.  Florida Gulf Coast has now played four games that really mattered this season and they won them all.  During the regular season, they just needed to win enough conference games to be in the top 8 of 10 teams in the Atlantic Sun Conference (which they did easily, they finished second in the conference).  Then they needed to win their conference tournament.  They did that and now they've won their first game of the NCAA Tournament.  Georgetown, on the other hand, just needed to win enough games to get an at large in the NCAA Tournament.  They did that easily, getting a 2 seed.  The game against Florida Gulf Coast was the first one that they played all year that really mattered and they lost.  Sean was definitely upset with Georgetown's performance, but he handled it pretty well.

Post-game handshake.

The last game was San Diego State-Oklahoma.  Oklahoma graduates 47% of their football players.  I assume they don't care about academics for their basketball players either, so I was rooting for San Diego State.  The arena started to clear out.  Not surprisingly, there weren't a lot of San Diego State or Oklahoma fans in Philadelphia.  Sean and I moved to much better seats at halftime.  Oklahoma led by two at halftime.  It was competitive for most of the second half, but San Diego state pulled away at the end behind Jamaal Franklin and his long sleeve t-shirt (21 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists) to win by 15.  Perhaps the best part of this game was that I missed Notre Dame's terrible performance against Iowa State.

Our view for the second half.

My dad went to the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Nassau Coliseum in 1994.  I don't think it's been in the Coliseum since then and it definitely hasn't been in Madison Square Garden (although it's coming next year for the Sweet 16 and Elite 8).  Maybe in the future it will be in the Barclays Center.  So really, I never had the opportunity to go to the tournament until this year.  I wouldn't want to go every year because part of the fun is just sitting at home and being able to watch all the games on TV.  But I'm glad I can say I went once and I would definitely consider going again if I get another chance.  Going to eight basketball games in three different days over the last two weeks was a lot of fun.  I'm really happy that winter is over and it's almost time to move on to baseball, my favorite sport.

Blogging the Big East

Somehow, I think this was only my fourth Big East Tournament in person.  I was there in 2003 and 2005 and then I don't think I made it back again until last year.  Last year I was there for two nights.  This year, I made it to two nights again.  And I plan on going back next year.  I just wish Notre Dame would still be there.  The Big East will be different next year, but it will be in a much healthier position.  It will be all about basketball.  It was good for the conference to have Syracuse, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, and Louisville for basketball, but the football side of things just screwed everything up for the conference.  The Catholic schools put up with a lot of nonsense from the football schools.  They'll be better off without the football schools.  I know the conference won't be quite as strong, but they won't have to worry about it falling apart either.  I'm excited about Butler converting to Catholicism and joining the Big East.

By the way, this is a good time to mention how I root for teams in the NCAA Tournament.  Obviously, I root for Notre Dame first.  Then I root for the other Big East Catholic Schools.  Then I root for BYU (I love Mormons) and Butler.  And I root against the Big East non-Catholic schools, Kentucky, and most of the Big 10.

But back to the Big East Tournament.  I've become pretty talented at finding good deals on Stubhub.  I knew I was going on Wednesday night regardless of who was playing.  Last week, I kept checking Stubhub and the prices were falling.  They had reached $23, which I was willing to pay, but they kept falling, so I decided not to move.  Then I checked and there was a pair for $15 each ($26 each with fees.  Quick tangent:  Stubhub now lists baseball tickets with fees included.  It's great, you actually pay the price they list.  Why don't they do this for all tickets?)  I decided to jump on that.  The prices started going up after that, so I made a good call.  Even at the last minute, I wouldn't have been able to get anything cheaper.

Vin was supposed to join me on Wednesday night, but he got sick and my dad pinch hit for him.  We got to see Villanova-St. John's and Notre Dame-Rutgers.  Three Catholic schools and Rutgers (the team I saw beat Notre Dame in 2005, not good times).  I was rooting for Villanova in the first game mostly because I still needed tickets for Thursday night and I figured they'd be a little cheaper without demand from the local St. John's fans.  What I was really rooting for was a quick game because I didn't want to have to leave the Notre Dame game early.  It got off to a good start.  It took Villanova more than 10 minutes to get called for their first foul.  But the game slowed down late in the first half and second half.  Villanova got out to a big lead early, St. John's came back, but Villanova pulled away late for 66-53 win.  My cousin/fellow Notre Dame alum Kevin was there with his parents, so we met up with them after the first game and watched the second game with them.  Unfortunately, it didn't start until 9:45 or so.  Notre Dame played a very solid first half.  Rutgers came back in the second half a little bit, but Notre Dame held on for the 69-61 win behind Pat Connaughton and Tom Knight.  Thanks to the late start time, my dad and I had to leave with about five minutes left to catch the 11:42 train.  I figured I'd be able to watch them again the next night anyway.

My view on Wednesday night

On Thursday, I had a half day at work so my plan was to go into the city as soon as possible.  I went in without any tickets for the day.  I was hoping to go to all the games I could (the best case scenario was that I was going to miss the first half of the first game).  I had been checking prices on Stubhub and they were very high with Georgetown and Syracuse playing in the afternoon.  Even at the last minute, tickets never got below $100.  So when I got to the city around 1:30, I took a lap around Madison Square Garden and checked out the scalper market.  There weren't many tickets left and the scalpers were asking way more than I was willing to pay considering the first game was just about over and Notre Dame wasn't playing in the afternoon.  Also, throw in the fact that buying from a scalper isn't exactly as secure as buying from Stubhub and I was going to watch the rest of the afternoon action at a bar.  I went to an Irish bar near Madison Square Garden and ended up watching the Pittsburgh-Syracuse game and talking with two guys.  One was a Syracuse guy and one was a Rutgers guy.  Now, I despise Syracuse.  Between the 2008 football game and Jim Boeheim, I think I have pretty good reasons.  But both guys were good dudes and although I was rooting against Syracuse, I was nice about it.  Syracuse might have led for the entire game, but Pittsburgh made a comeback in the second half and made it interesting in the end.

I had been checking Stubhub all day for the night games.  My brother Tom was buying tickets for the night session and coming up for the games as my Christmas present.  Tom had been nervous in the morning about ticket prices (they were above $90 if I remember correctly), but my advice was to wait and let them drop.  They didn't drop as quickly as I thought they would, but they did drop.  When I saw a pair for $72 each, I thought it was time to make the move.  By the time I had called Tom to suggest we jump on them, they had dropped to $65.  So that worked out well.  I bought them on my phone and picked them up after the Syracuse game and Tom paid me back when he got to the city.  We got a drink and went to Chipotle before the night games started.

We were way up top for the first game of the night, Louisville-Villanova.  Once again, I was rooting for Villanova and a quick game.  This time I was disappointed on both counts as the game dragged on and Louisville won 74-55.  After the game, Tom and I moved from the 400 level to the 100 level.  The Garden had really cleared out the night before after the first game.  This time it didn't clear out as much, but we were able to find seats on the 100 level near midcourt.  The Marquette-Notre Dame game started around 9:40.  Unfortunately, Notre Dame wore ridiculous neon green camoflauge nonsense uniforms.  Why didn't we say no to them like Indiana did?  What's so bad about just wearing blue and gold?  Anyway, this game was the best game of the four that I saw in person.  After a slow start for Notre Dame, it was well played on both sides.  Connaughton had another very good game, Jerian Grant scored 17 points despite shooting 4-15, and Garrick Sherman provided solid offense off the bench.  Tom had a longer trip home than I did and he left at 11:30.  I left just a couple minutes later, but Notre Dame had gone on a solid run and led 59-52 with 3:23 left.  I felt confident that they would hold on to win and they did by a score of 73-65.

Tom and I found this as we were moving to better seats.  It was for Wrestlemania I.  They really should have had a tribute to January 23, 1984 when Hulk Hogan defeated the Iron Sheik at Madison Square Garden to win the WWF World Heavyweight Championship.

This was the view Tom and I had for the Marquette-Notre Dame game.  The bad news is that being this close to Notre Dame's uniforms might have caused permanent eye damage.

And with that, I said my goodbye to the Big East as an a alum of a school that belonged to the conference.  I would have loved to come back the next night for the semifinals, but ticket prices doubled with the wins by Georgetown and Syracuse.  I would have had to pay well over $200 for a ticket.  Combine that with the lack of sleep the previous two nights and I was fine with going home after work, taking a nap, and watching the games on TV.  That nap was extended as I slept through most of the Georgetown-Syracuse game.  I set my alarm so that I would get up, but I just went right back to sleep.  I was that tired.  I did get up for the Louisville-Notre Dame game.  Notre Dame was competitive for most of the game, but Louisville pulled away at the end.

I was really hoping a Catholic school would win, but we're stuck with either Syracuse or Rick Pitino winning this tournament (I guess I'm rooting for Louisville).  Too bad.  Hopefully they'll both lose early in the tournament that really counts.  But I had fun at the Big East Tournament.  It really is the greatest meaningless sporting event of the year.