Hot and Humid Fenway

The last time I went to Fenway Park, the high temperature that day was 27 and the low was 2.  It was in the mid-20s for pretty much the whole day once it warmed up, but it was crazy (by the way, I would use a source that isn't named for these scumbags, but they had the easiest website to use with some quick googling).  Things were a little different on my latest trip to Fenway Park.

I drove up on a Monday morning.  I took the ferry from Orient Point, which was a nice ride.  I was staying with John and Liz at their new house.  John had a Summer Ale and some grilled meat waiting for me when I arrived.  He knows me well.  We didn't have time to do much during the day, so after relaxing for a while, I headed into Boston with John.  During our drive, we were discussing names.  I said how I'm no fan of the British monarchy, but I do like their names.  John's response was something like this:  "In the 11 years that we've been friends, you've made it abundantly clear that you don't like the British monarchy."  Anyway, when we got into Boston, John parked the car and he took me down to the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

John was not all that far from here when the bombing happened two years ago.

After that, we went to Fenway Park.  John has been working there for a few years now (something that he detailed in the only guest blog post here).  John got me in for the Notre Dame hockey game last year, but I hadn't been to a baseball game since he started working at Fenway (my last baseball game there was 2010).  And John is retiring from Fenway after this year.  I really wanted to get to a game while he could get me in.  So we just walked in before the park was open to the public.  John got his friend to give me a wristband that I could use to get on the field for batting practice.  We sat and relaxed for a little while before John had to start working.

Batting practice started shortly after John left to get to work.  I was able to stand in this small area on the warning track behind home plate.  It was pretty much the same part of the field where I was able to stand on a Dodger Stadium tour back in 2011.  So I've now stood on the field at my two favorite ballparks (updated rankings coming soon).  One thing I noticed was that Fenway still has the overhead screen behind home plate.  Shea Stadium and Old Yankee Stadium had that, but I can't think of any other current stadium that has the overhead screen.  Anyway, the Indians were in town so lots of fans were excited to see Terry Francona.  He was signing autographs for kids and he was about two feet away from me.  I kind of felt sorry for him.  He did sign lots of autographs and take some pictures with people, but at some point he's got things to do and he's going to stop before he gets to everybody who wants an autograph or picture.  If I were him, I wouldn't want to say no to anybody, but you kind of have to.

On the field for batting practice

I watched batting practice for a little bit and then walked around the stadium.  I went out to a section in right field that I might have sat in for my first game at Fenway Park back in 1995.  I also went up to the upper level.  Fenway is weird in that the vast majority of seats are on the lower level.  The upper level also isn't that high.  If you're close to home plate, it's a really good view.  But since the supply of those seats is so low, the price is pretty ridiculous.

The view I had for Twins-Red Sox in 1995 was something like this.

I didn't have a ticket so I decided to stay up on the upper level between home plate and first base for as long as I could (intentionally on that side so that I was facing the Green Monster).  I had a lobster roll for $13.50.  It's more than I would usually pay for food at a game, but it was something unique and I didn't have to pay for a ticket, so whatever.  It was good, but not something that I would spend that much money for if I went to games at Fenway with any regularity.  I was able to stay up there for the first two innings before people showed up and took their seats up there.

My view for the first two innings

Fenway didn't have a great beer selection, but they did have Sam Adams Summer Ale.  That's my favorite beer, but I might opt for something else if I'm visiting another ballpark early on in the summer.  I like to try some local beer that I've never had before.  But when I'm in Boston and it's the middle of August and my favorite beer is about to disappear until March, I'm perfectly happy with a Summer Ale on tap.

After being kicked out of my seat early in the game, I walked down to the lower level and found a seat a little bit down the right field line.  I stayed there for about an inning.  After that, I moved closer to home plate and just stood until I met up with John.  After trying a few different spots, I settled on standing directly behind the plate.  The high that day was 90.  It was humid and it didn't get much cooler at night.  There was a good breeze behind the plate.

I watched several innings from here while I waited for John to get done working.  It's a good view, but you can't see a lot of balls hit in the air because of the overhang.

John got done with work after the seventh inning and we took a walk to the Green Monster.  We watched the eighth inning from there and then went home.  It was not a competitive game anyway.

John and me on the Green Monster

Speaking of the game, it was Danny Salazar against Matt Barnes.  Going into this game, I think the Red Sox were 7-0 with me in attendance.  They were definitely 6-0 since 2005 (I know that thanks to my Ballpark app) and they won the game I went to at Fenway in 1995.  I know I didn't go to a game at Yankee Stadium from 2000-2004.  So unless I'm not remembering a Yankee-Red Sox game from the 1990s (or possibly a Mets-Red Sox game), they were 7-0 all time with me in attendance.  They took a 1-0 lead in the third on a home run by Travis Shaw.  But the Indians answered with five in the fourth, one in the fifth, and one in the sixth.  Carlos Santana and Lonnie Chisenhall both had two hits with a home run (three RBIs for Chisenall).  And Dodger fans are not going to believe this, but Hanley Ramirez misplayed a ball in left field.  Salazar pitched seven and only gave up one run.  Both teams scored a run in the ninth after we left for a final score of 8-2.  Attendance was listed at 32,701, but that didn't include me.

I was driving home the next day, but I had one thing I wanted to do.  John isn't all that far from Maine so I was planning on taking a drive up there.  John decided to join me and he brought the kids.  On our drive up to Maine, John told Jack where we were going.  Jack asked why and John's answer was, "Because that's what men do.  We cross things off of lists."  So Maine has been crossed off my list.  Jack has been mentioned on the blog before.  I haven't mentioned Teddy, but he was born the day I got a speeding ticket in Missouri last summer.  So we played man to man defense on the kids.  I took Teddy, who was really cool with me.  But believe me, if Teddy was driving hard to the basket, John was going to have bring the help defense to block the shot.  Teddy doesn't talk much yet, but he will ask "What's that?" about anything.  We went to eat a diner in Wells, Maine, which is near Kennebunkport.  The Bushes have been to this diner.  There was a crowd so we had to wait a little while.  We went to a gift shot next door and I was holding Teddy.  He pointed to some shot glasses and asked "What's that?"  So I told him that they were shot glasses.  For breakfast, I had Eggs Benedict served over cod cakes.  Really good.  And people definitely thought John and I were a gay couple with the two kids.  So that was my 44th state.

I feel like I held Teddy in check, but he might have been having an off day.

Breakfast in Maine.  I didn't have clam chowder there.

Thanks again to John and Liz.  I always love getting to Fenway (I plan on being back for the Shamrock Series game in November) and it was great to see John, Liz, and the kids.

I Love LA

The last time I saw Pete and Katie before this trip was in March of 2014.  They had mentioned the possibility of moving out to California.  And then I didn't hear anything about that for a while.  Pete emailed me on my birthday this year and said that was looking more likely.  I was pretty excited.  For a long time, I've been hoping for one of my friends to move to southern California.  Kyle was from southern California, but since graduating college, he's lived in the Northeast.  Southern California would be a great place to visit even if my favorite baseball team didn't play there.  Of course, having the Dodgers play there makes me want to visit more and now I finally have friends to visit out there as well.

My last day in California was a Monday.  Pete had to work so I had the day to myself before the Dodger game at night.  That was not a problem.  I got breakfast and walked around Santa Monica for a bit.  Then I went to Pinkberry.  I knew Pinkberry first from Curb Your Enthusiasm.  The first time I had it was either in Washington DC or California.  There are a couple on Long Island, but they're not anywhere close to me.  So I always like to get it when I'm near one.  They had blueberry yogurt that was fantastic.  I had some more during a layover at the Salt Lake City airport on my way home from Boise.

After that I went down to the Santa Monica Pier and the beach.  The last time I was there was Opening Day in 2013.  That day worked out pretty well for the Dodgers.  (By the way, here's my other post from 2013 and here's my trip last year.)  I walked around the Pier and then went down to the beach.  When I was at the beach, my phone said "No SIM Card installed."  It meant that I couldn't make a call or text anybody.  I had free Wi-Fi from the city of Santa Monica and was able to google what to do.  The easiest solutions were to turn the phone on airplane mode and then back again and turn it off and on again.  Neither of those worked.  So I didn't know what to do.  I was still able to listen to music.  As I put my feet in the Pacific Ocean, "I Love LA" came on.  That was pretty cool.  Then I walked back to Pete's apartment.  Fortunately, he was able to fix my phone by taking out the SIM card and put it back in.  He had to use one of Katie's earrings to do it.

Standing in the Pacific Ocean

Pete got done with work around 2:00 or so and we got our day started.  Katie wasn't joining us since she had to work late.  We took a drive to Hollywood.  Hollywood is one of the least interesting parts of southern California to me.  Celebrities are a little bit like the royal family to me.  Why should I care about them?  At least most celebrities have actually done something to gain fame, but I still don't care about them.  But we saw the Walk of Fame and the Chinese Theater so I can say that I've seen those things.

From there, we went to El Tepeyac, which was featured on Man vs. Food.  I should have watched the episode before my trip, but I didn't even think of it.  I had been to Philippe's in Los Angeles before for French dip sandwiches.  The challenge was spicy food at some Asian place so I had no interest in that.  El Tepeyac was Mexican food so that was appealing to me.  Adam apparently had a five pound burrito there.  Pete and I just asked our waiter what he recommended.  I think he recommended a burrito that had pork, chili, salsa, rice, beans, and guacamole.  We both had it.  Pete had the regular size and I had the mini size.  It was a good call with the mini size.  The regular size wasn't five pounds, but it was more than I would have wanted to eat before the game.  I should do a Man vs. Food post at some point.  I've probably been to about ten places that Adam got to.

I think the name of this burrito was the Original Hollenbeck (the mini).

After that, we went to the stadium.  We were very early.  The gates weren't open yet when we parked the car so we walked around a little bit.  When they finally opened, we tried to enter on the field level.  They wouldn't let us because our seats were on the reserve level.  What up with that?  I think I entered on the field level last year even though I was sitting on the loge level.  One of the cool things about Dodger Stadium is being able to enter on every level of the stadium, but I don't think you should be restricted to only entering on your level.  So anyway, we went up to the reserve level.  We were searching for a way down.  There was a stairway with a woman working at the door and we asked if we could go down.  She said no, but told us where we could go down.  So we started walking down to the field level.  We came to a door and opened it.  It was the press box/suite level.  It was kind of unclear if we were allowed in or not and we had already been thrown out of another Los Angeles sports venue for sneaking in, but we were allowed in.  They use some of the space there now as kind of a Dodger museum.  There was some pretty cool stuff to see there.

The Dodgers at Los Angeles Coliseum

After checking that out, we still wanted to get down to the field level.  There was an escalator down and we asked the woman working there if we could take it.  She asked why and I said we wanted to walk around the field level.  She told us that we couldn't just walk around, but we could go down there to do something.  So Pete asked if we could buy something down there and then finally we were allowed to go down to the field level.  But it was much more difficult to get there than it should have been.

When we finally got down there, we went to the left field pavilion and watched some Nationals batting practice.  They hit a bunch of home runs one section over from where we were sitting.  We bought beers (so Pete wasn't lying).  I had a Coronado Mermaid's Red Amber Ale.  The Coronado Brewing Company is located in Coronado, California, which is near San Diego.  The beer cost $16.50.  It was at least 20 ounces (it might have been even more than that) and it was good, but I'd rather just have a pint and pay a more reasonable price.  Dodger Stadium still needs work on beer.  Have smaller options, more reasonable prices (bad beer might have been cheap, Dodger Stadium is supposedly cheap in terms of the per ounce price of beer), a wider selection, and craft beer at more spots throughout the stadium.  The first time I went to Dodger Stadium was late August 2011.  I went to two games with my brothers.  We sat in the top deck for the first game and the field level for the second game.  On the field level, they had both Sam Adams Summer Ale and Octoberfest.  I was so excited.  I haven't seen any Sam Adams in four games at Dodger Stadium since.

So after that, we went up to our seats.  We were on the reserve level (the second highest) and one section off from being directly behind the plate.  I got the seats for $16 each.  It's a great view for that price.  I read this article about Dodger Stadium.  My favorite fact is that St. John Paul the Great drew the biggest crowd in Dodger Stadium history.  My next favorite was that the high five was invented there on October 2, 1977.  The other thing that was interesting is that they have grilled Dodger Dogs and steamed Dodger Dogs.  The article says that grilled Dodger Dogs are available right behind home plate on each level.  That didn't seem to be the case.  It was kind of unclear where they had grilled Dodger Dogs and where they had steamed Dodger Dogs.  I think they had the grilled dogs at the Elysian Park Grill, but that's not where we got our Dodger Dogs.  I'll have to try that the next time I get to Dodger Stadium (hopefully next year).

Our view for the game.  I love Dodger Stadium.

The game was not fun.  It was Dodgers against Nationals, Brett Anderson against Gio Gonzalez.  Anderson has had a pretty solid year for a guy who was supposed to be the fifth starter, but this night was not good.  He have up two runs in the second, but was good other than that for the first five.  And then the sixth inning happened.  He gave up five runs without recording an out.  Ian Desmond hit two home runs and drove in three.  Gonzalez pitched eight scoreless innings.  There weren't many bright spots for the Dodgers.  Jose Peraza was making his Major League debut and he had a triple.  Carl Crawford hit a pinch hit three-run homer with two outs in the ninth to prevent the shutout.  The game took two hours and 45 minutes and the crowd was 45,722.  The next two games against the Nationals were great.  The Dodgers won 5-0 and 3-0 behind Greinke and Kershaw.  But I wasn't there for those games.  Oh well.

I've now been to six games at Dodger Stadium.  The Dodgers are 2-0 with me in the top deck, 1-0 with me on the field level, 0-2 with me on the reserve level, and 0-1 with me on the loge level.  I know where I sit has nothing to do with whether the Dodgers win or lose, but Pete, we're sitting in the top deck if I come out to a game next year.

North of the Reagan-Nixon Line

What's the Reagan-Nixon Line?  It's the divide between counties where the Dodgers are the most popular team and counties where the Angels are the most popular team.  The Reagan side (Dodger territory) is to the North and the Nixon side (Angel territory) is to the south, which is appropriate because Reagan was a better president.  I already detailed my time in Anaheim.  For the rest of my California trip, we stayed north of the Reagan-Nixon Line.

On Sunday, Pete and I woke up early and went to mass at St. Monica's in Santa Monica (perhaps my favorite female saint other than Mary).  After that, Pete, Katie, and I headed up to Simi Valley to visit the Reagan Library.  It was my fourth presidential library after trips to the Carter, Truman, and George W. Bush Libraries.  So now I've evened up the political parties of the presidential libraries I've visited, but that probably won't last long.  I do want to get to the Franklin Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park (I was hoping to do that this summer, but it looks like it's not going to happen).  I am planning to go to the John F. Kennedy Library when I go up to Boston for our Shamrock Series game at Fenway Park.  The only other library that I think there's a decent chance that I'll get to in the future would be the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, which is about 13 miles farther away from Pete and Katie's apartment than the Reagan Library is.  If I happened to go to the Notre Dame-Texas game in 2016, I'd probably try to get to the Lyndon Johnson Library.  For the other ones, I don't really know why I'd be in the area (here's the map) so I probably won't ever get to them.

Me and the Reagans

I really enjoyed the Bush Library because I remember his entire presidency.  I wasn't alive for Carter's presidency (fortunately) or Truman's presidency.  So I enjoyed going to them (especially Truman's, I am more fascinated by his presidency than most 20th century presidents), but they weren't quite as meaningful.  As for Reagan, I was born during his presidency.  I spent a lot of time in college studying the Cold War and his presidency in particular.  I think there was one semester where I pretty much wrote slightly different versions of the same paper three or four different times.  I don't usually get into politics in the blog, but I have mentioned my admiration of Reagan for his role in winning the Cold War.  The other thing that I greatly admire about Reagan is that his nomination in 1980 changed the Republican Party in a very good way.  Before 1980, neither party took a strong stand against Roe v. Wade.  Reagan was the first pro-life president after that truly appalling/disastrous/ghastly/horrifying decision (there aren't enough words in the thesaurus).  Besides the fact that it allowed the murder of tens of millions of unborn people in the United States, it was complete legal nonsense.  But here are some of my favorite Reagan pro-life quotes:

"There is no cause more important for preserving freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning."

"The real question today is not when human life begins, but what is the value of human life?"

"I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born."

And in the speech that became most well known for correctly identifying the Soviet Union as an evil empire, Reagan said, "Unless and until it can be proven that the unborn child is not a living entity, then its right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must be protected."

I love my country, but I'm a Catholic before I'm an American and it's time to speak up, especially with the evil of Planned Parenthood having been so clearly exposed.  Since Roe v. Wade, this country has tolerated over 58 million abortions.  We're approaching World War II levels of death.  And not only is it allowed, but it's celebrated by some people.  This is clearly the greatest moral issue of our time.  I've had enough with Catholic politicians being "personally opposed to abortion, but unwilling to impose their views on others" or hearing anybody say "I'm pro-choice, not pro-abortion."  "Choice" is a word they use to avoid admitting what they are really supporting, which is the brutal murder of millions of human beings in our own country.  If you're pro-choice, why can't I choose what I want to do with my bottle of whiskey and my car?  Because somebody might die, you say?  And of course, you're right.  But somebody is guaranteed to die in every single abortion.  There are a lot of choices we don't tolerate.  Why do we tolerate a "choice" that results in the destruction of an innocent human life?  Most pro-"choice" politicians in Washington don't even support your right to choose whether or not to have health insurance.  Aren't we all glad that our mothers didn't make the "choice" that is defended by these politicians?  As for being "personally opposed to abortion," would you vote for somebody who was personally opposed to slavery, but unwilling to impose his views on the rest of the country?  That's the way a lot of people were for a long time, but fortunately Lincoln freed the slaves in 1863 (sort of, he does deserve credit for it even if the Emancipation Proclamation didn't really do it, but I won't get into all of that now) rather than saying "I'm personally opposed to slavery, but I'm not going to impose my personal views on the South after the war."

One last thought before I get back to the Reagan Library.  If you look at the second and fourth Reagan quotes above, parts of them are a little contradictory.  The fourth one talks about whether "it can be proven that the unborn child is not a living entity."  The second one is right on though.  In fact, it can be proven that the unborn child is a living entity.  This isn't opinion.  This isn't Catholic belief.  It's a scientific fact.  Future generations will be horrified that such evil was tolerated for so long.  It's time for the United States and the rest of the civilized world to reject the evil slaughter of the unborn.

So after that rant, back to that Sunday in California.  It was a really cool drive.  We drove along the Pacific Coast Highway for a little while.  Because of the curve of the California coastline, we were actually driving west.  Then we turned north and started driving through mountainous terrain.  There were some really cool views.

I'm not going to go through the whole museum, but one thing that's highlighted is the assassination attempt.  And that brings up an interesting story that I don't know if I've ever told on the blog.  When I was at Georgetown, I was taking a business law class.  The professor gave us an assignment that involved going to a federal court and observing what was going on in some of the courtrooms.  So while I was doing this assignment, I randomly picked a courtroom to go into and in that room was John Hinckley.  He was requesting some kind of supervised release.  He's not as famous as John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald, but that's only because Reagan survived.  It was really weird to be in the same room as him.

Every presidential library has a recreation of the Oval Office.  Bush's still ranks as the best because we were allowed to walk around and sit at his desk.  Reagan's was like the other three that I've been to.  You walk in and there's a railing so you can look around, but you can't really walk around.

I didn't notice any jelly beans in the Oval Office.

Probably the coolest thing about the Reagan Library is that it has the old Air Force One.  It was used by seven different presidents, but Reagan used it more than anybody else.  It is really cool.  You can go in and look around, but you're not allowed to take pictures inside.  Apparently the current Air Force One is much bigger.  I was wondering how they got it there, which is explained there.  They flew it somewhere in southern California and then they took off the wings and towed it to the Reagan Library and reassembled it.  It wasn't that far that they had to tow it, but they shut down a highway from 11:00 pm to 5:00 am because they had to move very slowly.  In the Air Force One Pavilion they also had a thing about the Secret Service.  The Secret Service has been around since just after Lincoln's time.  You'd think that it was created in response to the assassination and you'd be wrong.  It was actually created by Lincoln as his last official act as president.  The job of the Secret Service was to go after counterfeiters until the 1900s.  They also had the old Marine One and Reagan's limo from his time as president.

I had to take a panoramic picture to fit the whole plane in.

After checking all of that out, we stopped for lunch.  The Reagan Library was the first presidential library that I've been to that had it's own pub.  Well, sort of, anyway.  They had a little place set up that looked like a pub.  You could buy pre-made sandwiches and there was a refrigerator with beer (and maybe wine too, but wine is stupid).  Actually, it's possible that the other libraries I've visited served alcohol also.  I didn't eat at any of them, so I guess I wouldn't know.

It would have been really cool to have a beer here, but I was doing plenty of drinking on this trip so I decided not to.

All the stuff on the Cold War was really good.  There was a big thing on the Berlin Wall and they have a piece of the Berlin Wall outside.  There was a good exhibit on Reagan's meetings with Gorbachev.

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Reagan and Gorbachev

The last thing we checked out inside was a temporary exhibit on football (between that and the presidents and baseball exhibit at the Bush Library, I really lucked out with the timing of my visits).  Of course, Reagan played George Gipp in Knute Rockne, All American.  Notre Dame won the National Championship during the last year of Reagan's presidency.  So there was a lot of Notre Dame stuff.  There was also a lot of USC and UCLA stuff to cater to the California audience.  There was stuff from professional football as well.  I don't know if this was just a good coincidence or if it was intentional, but there was a display about properly inflated footballs.  There were supposed to be a properly inflated football and an under-inflated football attached to that display to feel the difference, but sadly the under-inflated football was missing.  I bought a Win One for the Gipper shirt at the gift shop.

The football was given to Reagan by Notre Dame's 1988 National Championship team.

Our last stop was outside to check out the piece of the Berlin Wall and Reagan's burial site.  I had really been looking forward to visiting the Reagan Library and it lived up to my expectations.  I was going to cover my last day in California in this post also, but it's gone on long enough, so I'll save that for later.

Here lies the man who defeated communism without firing a shot.  You probably can't read the quote on the wall in the back, but it's a good one:  "I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each and every life."  Rest in Peace, Ronald Reagan.

Not Los Angeles Baseball

A couple weeks back I was in southern California visiting Pete and Katie.  The first thing Pete and I did was get kicked out of Los Angeles Coliseum.  After that, we went back to his apartment in Santa Monica which is really nice.  Then we went to In-N-Out Burger.  I've covered fast food burgers before.  I thought I had it settled in my mind after going to Shake Shack at Kennedy Airport two years ago, but now I'm not so sure.  I had Shake Shack again last month.  It's really close between In-N-Out, Shake Shack, and Five Guys.  I think I would give Five Guys a decisive victory in the fries category.  I think Shake Shack lives up to its name and gets the victory in shakes.  The In-N-Out shake is almost too thick to enjoy.  But I've never had a Five Guys shake.  Googling seemed to indicate that they were testing shakes at certain locations a year ago and there hasn't really been any update on that.  As for burgers, I think In-N-Out is going to give you the best bang for your buck since it's so inexpensive.  Five Guys gives you the most options for your burger.  But Shake Shake might have the best quality burger.  So what's the best fast food burger place?  I don't know.

After that, we went to see the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim play.  Yeah, they're the Anaheim Angles.  But let's think for a minute about how silly the name "Los Angeles Angeles of Anaheim" is.  Is it Los Angeles or is it Anaheim?  It's Anaheim.  Before you point out the New York Giants/Jets, I'll point out that both teams at least originated in New York.  And I know that the Angels did play in Los Angeles for their first five years (one at Wrigley Field and four at Dodger Stadium), but they changed their name when they moved to Anaheim in 1966.  They went from the Los Angeles Angels (which they were legitimately) to the California Angels.  California Angels was a little silly for a team that's at best the third most popular team in the state (certainly behind the Dodgers and Giants), but it wasn't terrible.  Then they were the Anaheim Angels.  Hey, they got it right.  But then they went to this nonsense of Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.  If you drove from the part of the city of Los Angeles that's closest to Anaheim to Angel Stadium of Anaheim (there's a reason it's not Angel Stadium of Los Angeles), you'd have to go 26 miles (for comparison, there's a part of Manhattan that would be about a 7.5 mile drive to MetLife Stadium).  Lastly, if you take the phrase "the Los Angeles Angels" and translated all into English, you'd end up with "the the Angels Angels."  I think we can safely say that the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim is the stupidest name in all of American professional sports.

This big hats are kind of cool.

So how about the stadium and game?  It's surrounded by parking lots so that doesn't help it, but it's not the worst thing in the world.  When you go in and you walk around the lower concourse, you can't see the field.  Boo.  You can see the field from the concourse on the next level, but not on the upper level either.  So Pete, Katie, and I walked around the lower concourse until somebody who worked there directed us to the next level.  The outfield area is decent.  They had a big bar out there, but not a great beer selection (although apparently they have the cheapest beer in baseball on a per ounce basis).  We had a beer and continued walking around that level.  They have the rocks and the waterfall out in the outfield which is nice, but it's nothing all that special.  To eat, I found the short rib grilled cheese on that level which my research indicated was one of the best things to eat at the ballpark.  I would agree that it was very good.  My research also indicated that it had a good beer selection, but as I already mentioned, I didn't think it was all that great.  I had a Boston Lager on the upper level (which I do greatly enjoy), but I like to see a better local selection at the ballpark.  The view beyond the stadium is nothing special.  From where we were sitting, we could see the Stubhub building and the Honda Center (which is a hockey arena that's home to an NHL team that isn't the Los Angeles Kings).

The view from left center

Short rib grilled cheese

The game was Orioles against the Angels.  It was Ubaldo Jimenez against Garrett Richards.  The Orioles scored one run in each of the third, fifth, sixth, eighth, and ninth innings.  And that was all the scoring.  Manny Machado had four hits in five at bats including a home run.  Caleb Joseph had two hits with a home run.  Chris Davis drove in two.  Jimenez pitched eight and give up just two hits and a walk while striking out six.  His ERA for the year was 3.79 after the game.  This was the second time this season I've seen Jimenez pitch.  In those two starts, he's pitched 16 scoreless innings while allowing seven baserunners and and striking out 13.  He should start paying for me to come to his games.

Our view for the game

I've known Pete for a long time.  We met when I was a freshman in high school in 1998.  We worked at camp together for many years.  He's probably my closest friend who is a baseball fan that I had never been to a baseball game with.  I was really excited about Pete and Katie moving to Santa Monica so that I could go visit them and go to Dodger games, but not going to an Angel game until this summer worked out well for me.  It was good to see them and I didn't have to pay for a hotel room to cross Angel Stadium off the list.

Me, Pete, and Katie

So Angel Stadium of Anaheim was the 30th Major League stadium I've been to.  That's an average of one per team, but that's because I've seen the Mets and Yankees each play at two two home stadiums.  Angel Stadium doesn't rank too high.  It reminded me a little bit of Turner Field, which I wasn't a big fan of.  Angel Stadium is better than Turner Field, but it won't be too high on my rankings when I update them soon.

They had a fireworks show that we stayed for.  It was very good.  On the way home, we saw more fireworks shortly after leaving the parking lot.  Katie checked the map on her phone and was pretty confident that they were coming from Disneyland.  I was able to get a lot done on this trip to southern California, but Disneyland was not part of it.  Maybe on my next trip to visit Pete and Katie.

The last time I watched fireworks with Pete and Katie was at their wedding in England.

Cell Phone Shenanigans

I might have gone to my last baseball game of the season (to be determined) and I have a lot of blogging to do.  Before we get to a few games that I've been to in the last couple of weeks, we're going back in time again.  This time we're going back to 2006 to my only trip to US Cellular Field.

It was April 23, 2006.  That's what I have in my Ballpark app anyway.  Here's how I think I figured that out.  I think I remembered that it was White Sox against Twins.  It was a weekend day game (that I am sure about).  The only other possibilities based on the White Sox schedule and the Notre Dame academic calandar would have been the Blue Jays on April 15 and 16 or the Royals on May 7.  I really don't think it was the Blue Jays and I think May 7 would have been too late (finals were probably going on by then).  That gives us April 22 or 23.  April 22 was a night game, so it must have been April 23.  Notre Dame had tickets for students that I think were $5 (maybe $10) and that included a bus to the game.  It was Jon, Kyle, Wilhelm, Tim, Peters, and me.  I think that was all of my friends who attended the game.

What do I remember about the game?  Not much.  We sat up high on the third base side.  The White Sox were the reigning World Series Champions.  Baseball-Reference says it was 65 degrees, the game was two hours and 24 minutes, and it was a crowd of 38,102.  The pitching match up was Jose Contreras (who was off to a very good start to the season apparently) against Carlos Silva.  Contreras pitched eight, gave up two runs, and got the win.  The White Sox hit four home runs, including two by the Uribear.  The White Sox won 7-3.  I don't remember if we ate or drank anything at the game.  I do remember being very underwhelmed by US Cellular Field.  It was just kind of a 1991 version of Shea Stadium.  It was built just before the nice stadiums started being built (Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened a year later).  I might have taken pictures, but I didn't come across any when I was searching a memory card from my old camera for pictures of Shea Stadium and Old Yankee Stadium.

What I do remember a little bit better is what happened on the bus on the way home.  We were sitting in the front and Kyle started playing with the microphone that the bus driver can use to make announcements (I think I was sitting next to Wilhelm in the first row on one side and Kyle was in the first row on the other side, probably next to Jon).  Then I think Kyle called Peters's cell phone.  I haven't mentioned yet that Peters was with a girl that he liked.  He didn't answer and his voicemail message was played over the microphone for the entire bus to hear.  He wasn't happy about the situation.  I'm pretty sure that Peters thought either Tim or I was responsible, but we had nothing to do with it.  He thought Kyle was too nice to do something like that.  He thought wrong.  But please, if anybody who was there reads this and wants to correct me on the details, go for it.

So yeah, that's what I remember about US Cellular Field.  In my last post I mentioned my desire to get back to Wrigley Field.  If I do that, I'll probably try to schedule that trip so that I can get to both Chicago stadiums.  But of course, Wrigley Field would be the priority.  As of right now, US Cellular Field is my least favorite Major League Stadium in the United States that I've been to.  But hey, the White Sox can hope I get to a game in Oakland or Tampa.

We Missed the Train

I've been meaning to do blog posts about the games I attended in Chicago years ago.  We'll start with the Cubs since I remember that one better and Wrigley Field is far superior to US Cellular Field.

It was my first year teaching and I was on Easter vacation.  I went out to visit some friends at Notre Dame for the Blue-Gold Game and a game at Wrigley Field.  The game was Friday, April 17, 2009.  We took the train from South Bend to Chicago.  It was Jon, Dennis, Tim, Kevin, Joe, and me.  Before the game we went to some bar in Wrigleyville.  I don't remember which one it was and I tried googling "Wrigleyville bars" and I can't figure out which one it was.  We had some food and beer there.  I don't remember if we ate or drank anything at the game.  The weather was warm.  It was about 70 degrees, but we were sitting in the second to last row of the stadium and the wind made it feel pretty cold.

Outside the stadium

The six of us at the game

Anyway, it was an afternoon game, Cardinals vs. Cubs.  P.J. Walters against Carlos Zambrano.  Neither fared too well.  Walters lasted four and gave up three runs.  Zambrano somehow managed to pitch seven innings and give up seven runs.  The Cardinals led 7-5 going to the bottom of the seventh.  The Cubs scored one in the bottom of the seventh and then Alfonso Soriano hit a two-run home run off of Chris Perez in the bottom of the eighth to give the Cubs an 8-7 lead.  Carlos Marmol came in for the ninth and promptly walked and hit the first two batters.  But the Cubs held on after a strikeout and a double play.  I remember there was some stupid song they played when they won.  Soriano's home run was the only one hit by the Cubs.  Ryan Ludwick hit two home runs and some guy named Brian Barden also hit one for the Cardinals.  Appropriately enough, Aaron Heilman was the winning pitcher (he was 15-0 with a 1.74 ERA in his senior season at Notre Dame, 43-7 and 2.49 for his college career).

Our view for the game

After the game we went down by the field and hung out for a little bit.  I remember that there were lots of birds that were feasting on all the stuff left by fans.

Looking out toward center field

After we left Wrigley Field, we walked around Chicago for a bit.  I think we tried to go to Geno's East for dinner (which would later be featured on Man vs. Food), but the wait was too long (I would later get there with my brothers on a trip out to Notre Dame for a football game in 2010).  So I think we ended up getting sandwiches at a Potbelly.  Before we got our train, we wanted to stop and pick up some beer for the ride.  And that caused us to miss our train.  Dennis was not happy about it.  Looking back, it's a pretty good story.  While we waited for the next train, we took a walk down to Lake Michigan.  The next train didn't go all the way to South Bend so I think Jon got his friend Tony to pick us up wherever we ended up.

I had a whole Facebook album with pictures that had captions about how angry Dennis was.  The caption for this one was "Now Dennis appreciates the humor."

I really want to get back to Wrigley.  It was early in the season so the ivy hadn't grown in yet on the walls.  It would be cool to get to a game later in the season.  They're in the process of a multi-year renovation of Wrigley.  I would say I'd wait until that's done, but that's not going to be until 2019.  So maybe I'll get out there next summer.  We'll see.

The only stadium that you can really compare Wrigley Field to is Fenway Park.  I like Fenway better.  The Green Monster is a cool feature.  But the biggest difference is the atmosphere.  I've seen the Red Sox play at Fenway three times (1995, 2009, and 2010).  Now, the Red Sox have always been good when I've seen them.  I'm going up there in a couple of days and they're not good this year.  So we'll see what that's like.  But from my experience, the crowd at Fenway really cares about what's going on in the game.  They sell out pretty much every game and the crowd really wants the Red Sox to win.  But with the Cubs being so bad for most of the last century plus (what's amazing is that Wrigley Field hadn't even been built yet when the Cubs last won the World Series), it's more about just going to the ballpark for their fans.  The people at Wrigley Field aren't as invested in the Cubs winning.  It's hard to blame them.

Montana, Idaho, and Oregon, Oh My!

I just got back from a trip out west the other day.  I had been planning on taking a trip to see Pete and Katie since they moved out to Los Angeles.  As I've been doing lately, I combined that with trips to places I've never been before.

I took in two minor league games and with those, I've seen minor league baseball at every level this year.  I went to a Triple-A game in Albuquerque.  I went to a Double-A game in Birmingham.  I even went to an independent league game in Fargo.  Before making my way to southern California, I went to a Rookie League game in Billings, Montana.  After my trip to California, I went to a Single-A game in Boise.  Actually, I still haven't been to every level.  Single-A has Short Season, regular A, and Advanced levels.  And I think there are different levels of Rookie ball also.

So let's start with Billings.  With a population of around 110,000, it's the largest city in Montana.  I got there too early to check into my hotel room so I walked about a mile from my hotel to Uberbrew.  I had a soup, salad, and a pint of their Golden Ticket.  It was all good.  After that, I went back to my hotel and took a nap since I had gotten up at 3:15 in the morning for my flight at 6:10.  Then I went to the game.  It was the Ogden Raptors against the Billings Mustangs.  The Raptors are an affiliate of the Dodgers so it was the first time I've seen a Dodgers' affiliate play.  Unfortunately, I didn't know any of the players.  I would have at least heard of some of the prospects and/or former Major Leaguers if it was a Double-A or a Triple-A team.  Anyway, the Mustangs play at Dehler Park, which is pretty small.  Capacity is 3,071, but apparently attendance was 3,391.  There was a lot of standing room, so it is possible.  One interesting thing about the stadium was that the screen extended farther than I've seen it in most places.  They had it over the dugouts rather than just behind home plate.  The stadium had a pretty cool location.  The Billings airport is up on top of a cliff and you have to drive down into the city.  From the stadium, you look out toward that cliff.  I didn't have anything to drink since I went to Uberbrew earlier in the day, but I did have the Stang Burger, which is a grilled burger with brisket on top.  It was really good.  As for the game, the Raptors won 5-0.  Ivan Vieitez pitched five shutout innings and gave up two hits and a walk.  Logan Landon had two doubles in five at bats.  Matt Jones hit a home run.  If any of those guys ever do anything with the Dodgers, I can say I saw them play Rookie ball.

My view at Dehler Park

Ken Giraffey, Jr. and Derek Cheetah.  Oh minor league baseball.

After Los Angeles, I went to Boise.  My roommate from my last semester at Notre Dame, Nick, is from Boise and he now has a house near the city.  Nick was the unfortunate victim of some drunken freshman stupidity when we lived together, but I won't go into that story.  I got in to Boise around 3:00 in the afternoon and headed to another Man vs. Food spot, Big Jud's, which is right near Boise State.  Adam Richman had a burger with two one-pound patties, bacon, mushrooms, swiss cheese, and blue cheese.  And that wasn't the challenge for his Boise episode.  There was no way I was tackling that so I just had a cheeseburger with blue cheese.  It was very good, but they did something that New Yorkers do not like.  They put mustard on the burger.  No good.  As I said, the burger was very good, but it would have been better without mustard (especially because it was yellow mustard).  Then I took a walk to Boise State.  The football team was practicing on a field next to the stadium.  The stadium has a little museum attached and you can walk out and see the field.  It was pretty cool to see.  By the way, Notre Dame just hired Boise State's offensive coordinator/quarterback coach Mike Sanford for the same job.  He was only at Boise State for one year (he had also been at Stanford on two occasions, Western Kentucky, Yale, and UNLV), but I hope he brings Boise State's winning percentage over the last 17 years (.836) with him.

The blue turf

After that, I went to Nick's house to drop off my stuff and then we were off to the game.  Before the game we stopped at the Crooked Fence Barrelhouse right by the stadium.  I had a Welcome to Idaho Amber (appropriate enough).  It was really good.  At the game, I had a Grand Teton Ale 208.  It was also really good.  Idaho beer, I wasn't prepared for it to be so good.  The average Idaho beer I've had is probably better than any other state.  I love most Sam Adams beers, but even they make some stuff I don't like and I've had other Massachusetts beers that haven't been that good.  I've only had two beers brewed in Idaho (I don't think I've ever had any other than this trip) and both were really good.  While we were at the bar, there was a big dust storm outside.  I had never seen anything like that.  It was very windy during the day.

The game was the Boise Hawks against the Eugene Emeralds.  It was not a well-pitched game.  Eugene won 15-8.  They outhit Boise 22-12.  The teams combined for five home runs.  It was loss number seven of an eight-game losing streak.  Attendance was listed at 3,220, but it didn't seem like that much, especially considering that capacity is 3,452.  According to Weather.com, the high in Boise was 100 on Tuesday.  Before the game, they announced the temperature at game time was 100 (although the stadium isn't actually in Boise).  It was warm, but it really wasn't that bad.  Nick told me that the seats in the first base side are right in the sun until it sets.  Fortunately I just happened to buy seats on the third base side.  And it wasn't humid.  It did remind me a little bit of my trip to Phoenix three years ago.  The Hawks play at Memorial Stadium, which opened in 1989.  It's the oldest minor league stadium that I've been to and it looked like it.  But I actually liked it.  There are three seating areas (and they're actually all behind the screen).  The seats go up a little higher than most minor league stadiums.  We weren't up that high, but I liked our view with a little extra elevation compared to other minor league games that I've been to.  There really is no concourse.  You walk around on the ground and then go up stairs to your seats.  The food options were a little limited (Nick said it was better in years past), but we both had Idaho cheesesteaks.  It was a cheesesteak with hash browns on it.  It was pretty good.  The beer was good.  The other thing that you notice is that the mascot and bat boys wear uniforms that don't match the team's.  Nick said that was because their ownership and affiliation changed recently.  They used to be an affiliate of the Cubs (Jeff Samardzija pitched there).  Now they're affiliated with the Rockies.  So the team wears Rockies colors, but the mascot and bat boys wear their old uniforms, which had green and red in them.

Our view for the Boise Hawks game.  It was good to catch up with Nick.  I think I had only seen him once since I graduated.

I was leaving the next day, but my flight was in the afternoon.  Nick and his wife both leave for work early, but that was fine with me since I wanted to take a drive to Oregon anyway.  I drove about an hour to Ontario, Oregon.  I had strawberry pancakes at a diner there.  They were good.  There's also a museum that I was going to check out, the Four Rivers Cultural Center, but I got there around 9:00 and it didn't open until 10:00.  So that was my trip to Oregon.  I've now been to 43 states.  I just have Maine, Vermont, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alaska, and Hawaii to go.

This was in the diner where I had breakfast.

I found this as I was driving around Ontario, Oregon.  Fortunately, it's not how I got to Oregon.