Mike Brey Used to Coach at Duke

My second attempt to attend a Notre Dame football game this season went much better than the first.  In September, I didn’t make it to Notre Dame for the Virginia game.  For this trip, I had my first experience with the Newark airport.  It wasn’t too bad, but JFK is easily the best of the New York City airports.  My flight was delayed about an hour, but it only arrived a half hour late.  So that was much better than being canceled.

I had this game marked down as a game I wanted to go to.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a true road game.  I’ve seen a bunch of neutral site games.  I’ve seen Navy home games against us in Baltimore in 2008, the Meadowlands in 2010 (that was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had at a Notre Dame game), Dublin in 2012, and Landover in 2014.  I saw a Syracuse home game against us in the Meadowlands in 2014.  I’ve seen Notre Dame home games in the Shamrock Series in Yankee Stadium in 2010 and 2018, Landover in 2011, Jerryworld in 2013, and Fenway Park in 2015.  And I’ve been to bowl games in Miami after the 2012 season and Yankee Stadium in 2013.  But I’ve only been to a few games at another school’s regular home stadium.  My first college football game was at Pittsburgh in 2005 (which is an NFL stadium, not on campus).  We went to Georgia Tech in 2006.  We won both of those (the Pittsburgh game was a lot of fun, Georgia Tech was a win that was closer than it should have been).  The only one I’ve been to since I graduated was Penn State in 2007.  That season was a disaster.  I flew to Cleveland and got picked up by my friends who were on their way to the game from Notre Dame.  Here’s what I remember about that game.  It was Jimmy Clausen’s first start.  Darrin Walls returned an interception for a touchdown.  Trevor Laws was great (I remember Penn State fans sitting near Wilhelm and me commenting about how the PA guy kept calling his name because he was making so many tackles).  What I didn’t remember was that Walls’s touchdown gave us the lead (we lost 31-10, I didn’t remember being up 7-0).  Tom Zbikowski returned a punt for 47 yards.  We had 0 yards rushing as a team (-25 on 10 carries for Clausen and 25 on 16 carries for the rest of the team).  And we won the turnover battle 3-1.

So I’ve been wanting to go to an away game on another school’s campus for a while.  I considered going to Virginia in 2015 at the last minute.  Sean was still living in northern Virginia, but he was not around that weekend.  I think I briefly considered going to the Temple game that year, but that didn’t happen.  I wanted to go to Boston College in 2017, but John’s daughter was due to be born that week.  Last year I had a hotel room near Northwestern, but I canceled it because I didn’t win tickets in the lottery and I couldn’t rope any my friends into going.  This year I wanted to get to Duke.  Tom and Erin are living in the area again so I had a place to stay.  I had never been to Duke so that was something to do.  It was really easy to get tickets.  General admission seats were really cheap.  I’m talking like what I paid per game for student tickets back in 2005 and 2006 cheap.  I could have gotten good seats for like $75, but I just went the cheap route.

This was my view for the first three quarters.

On Saturday, I went out for lunch at Backyard BBQ Pit.  It was on Man vs. Food.  I got the pulled pork with baked beans and mac and cheese.  It was pretty good, but not as good as I was expecting.  I used to work with a guy who made pulled pork and his was at least as good as theirs.  After going back to Tom and Erin’s place for a bit, Tom and I went to campus.

It wasn't quite as good as I was expecting, but I would definitely have it again.

The game day experience is very different at Duke from what I’m used to at Notre Dame.  We got there a little before 3:00.  There weren’t that many people walking around campus.  Also you can easily find tons of information online about all the things to do and see on campus at Notre Dame for game day.  Duke didn’t have much information.  I did see that there was a Duke Basketball Museum that was free and right next to Cameron Indoor Stadium.  What were the hours?  Could you go inside Cameron?  That was all unclear.  Anyway, it’s a small museum and we checked it out quickly.  For some unknown reason, they didn’t have an exhibit on former Duke assistant coach Mike Brey (the only interesting thing about Duke basketball).  I was reminded of the 2014-2015 season.  Duke won the National Championship, but we beat them two out of three times.  We came so close to beating Kentucky and if we had, we were legitimately good enough to win it all.  I asked a guy working there if we could go into Cameron and he said there was practice that was scheduled until 5:00 and they would have tours after that, but practice might go late.  So I had thought about going to Mass near campus (there were 5:00 and 5:30 options at two Catholic churches).  But I had to take advantage of an opportunity to see Cameron (don’t worry, I was back on Long Island in time for a 10:30 Mass at Holy Family on Sunday).  After leaving the museum, we went to see if we could go inside Cameron.  The doors weren’t locked so we walked in.  They were doing tours so we got on line.  But indeed, there was a practice so we didn’t see much.  They just told us about the history or the building and Duke athletics, but we didn’t get to go into the seating area.  And the tour ended at the museum, which we had already seen.  So we went to a hotel on campus.  There was a bar and TVs.  I had a Red Oak Amber from Whitsett, North Carolina, which was pretty good.  We went back to Cameron and got in line for a tour a little after 4:30.  The line was longer so we had to wait a bit.  I think we were the first tour that went in after 5:00.  Volleyball practice was still going on.  We got to the end of the tour and our tour guide held us up for a bit and waited for practice to be over.  So we did get to see inside.  If we didn’t, I was ready to get back on line and do the tour for a third time.  There was a free volleyball game the next day, but I had an early morning flight.  It would be cool to see Notre Dame play Duke in basketball there, but our February game is sold out and the cheapest tickets on Stubhub are almost 20 times more expensive than what I paid for football tickets.  I guess women’s basketball might have been a more realistic option (by the way, Duke has had some success in women’s basketball, but they haven’t won any ACC women’s tournaments since we joined the conference).  Anyway, it’s a really old-looking gym.  Google says that it holds 9,314 people, which is 165 more people than Purcell Pavilion.  But it’s much more tightly packed because Purcell held over 11,000 before renovations.  After that we went back to the hotel bar because it was cold.  Between our two stops at the bar, I saw a decent amount of the LSU-Alabama game.  When it was about 6:45, I headed to the stadium and Tom headed home.

Mike Brey used to work in this building.

Notre Dame beat Duke in volleyball on this court in October.

The lighting isn't great, but that's the best we could do.

Wallace Wade Stadium opened in 1929.  It holds 40,004, which is slightly more than half of Notre Dame Stadium’s capacity.  It had kind of a minor league baseball feel to it.  It was small and all the concourse and all the concessions were located above the seating area.  It was cool to see a game there, but there was no atmosphere.  It wasn’t loud at all.  Duke fans didn’t seem too excited.  In the general admission seats were I was, there were definitely more Notre Dame fans than Duke fans.  One interesting thing about Wallace Wade Stadium is that the 1942 Rose Bowl was played there.  It was just weeks after Japan’s attack on Oahu and they were worried about an attack on the west coast.  The Rose Bowl was supposed to be Duke against Oregon State so Duke offered to host it.  Duke was undefeated and ranked 2nd, but they were upset by Oregon State (Oregon State’s only Rose Bowl victory).  This game was not particularly exciting.  We won 38-7.  Ian Book ran very well, and threw four touchdown passes, but he only had 181 yards passing on 32 attempts and he threw two interceptions (one was a fourth down where he threw deep and Duke would have been better off just letting fall to the ground because it hurt their field position so whatever).  Brian Kelly continues to take the ball when we win the coin toss which makes no sense whatsoever.  We outgained Duke 469-197 so that was good.  Chris Finke played his best game of the season so that was nice.  We threw the ball downfield a decent amount, but our receivers just don’t get separation on deep routes.  Our hope is Chase Claypool making great catches or getting pass interference calls.  I mean, both of those things did happen in this game (Claypool had five catches for 97 yards and Duke was called for pass interference three times), but it would be nice to just get some guys open down the field.  We could have been in much better position going into halftime.  We were up 21-0, but we couldn’t score again.  A bad punt led to Duke’s touchdown.  After Ian Book's first interception, Duke had the ball at the end of the half with a chance to make it a one-possession game, but they missed a field goal.  If they had scored a touchdown there, they would have had all the momentum, but I felt fine after they missed the field goal.  And then we dominated the second half.  So that was cool.  The stadium really emptied out and I moved to the 50 yard line for the fourth quarter.

This was my view for the fourth quarter.

It was maybe 10% full by the end of the game.

It was quite cold.  The box score lists the temperature at 35°.  The coldest game I’ve ever been to was Syracuse in 2008, when it was 27°.  That game was miserable (more because of our performance than the weather), but Manti Te’o visited from Hawaii and somehow still decided to come to Notre Dame.  The coldest game I had been to since then was Stanford in 2014.  It was October 4, but it was only 41°.  In 2014, Kyle and I saw Notre Dame play hockey at Fenway Park when it was around 25°.  The good news for this game was that there was no wind.  I was pretty good in the first half of this one, but the second half was really cold.  This was the first win that I’ve seen in person without Notre Dame wearing really silly uniforms since Navy in 2014 (my other wins since then are Boston College in 2015 and Syracuse last year).  Notre Dame is now 31-12 with me in attendance and 10-1 since I was at the loss against Oklahoma in 2013.  Who was the loss against?  Duke in 2016.  That season was so stupid.

I finished my day by going to Timeout in Chapel Hill.  It was also on Man vs. Food.  I had the chicken and cheddar biscuit, which was featured on the show.  It was quite good.

This was much bigger than the Chick-fil-A biscuits.

I don’t know when I’ll get to another true away game.  Next year we only play two (Pittsburgh and USC) because we have a bunch of neutral site games.  The USC game is a possibility, but that’s Thanksgiving weekend so traveling across the country is not ideal, but I wouldn’t rule it out.  I would like to see us play USC out there, but it probably depends on what Sean and Catherine are doing for Thanksgiving.  In 2021, we play at Virginia.  That would be a cool place to see a game.  Boston College and North Carolina would be on my list of places to get to (I’m thinking of how easy places are to get to, if I have a place to stay, and how difficult tickets will be to get).

We have three more regular season games.  If we win them all, we have a chance to make the Cotton Bowl or the Orange Bowl, but we’re going to need some teams ahead of us to lose.  My guess is that we won’t move up enough to make one of those (we’d probably have to be in the top ten because two of the twelve spots in the New Years Six are likely to be taken by teams way outside in the top ten with an ACC team other than Clemson in the Orange Bowl as long as Clemson makes the playoff and the Group of Five team taking one Cotton Bowl spot).  Our next options are the Citrus Bowl (we can go there only if a Big Ten team makes the Orange Bowl) or the Camping World Bowl (which should really be our worst case scenario, but might be our most likely scenario right now).  Go Irish!

No Irish

My weekend did not go according to plan.  I was supposed to be at the Notre Dame game against Virginia.  Instead, I found myself picking up my car at school at 10:00 on Friday night.  I was really looking forward to being back at Notre Dame, but I had no control over the situation.

My last football season as a student was 2006.  I had a pretty nice run after that.  Between younger friends, Dennis’s fifth year (back when he was working on Notre Dame degree 2 of 4), and Jon going to law school, I had a place to stay on or near campus for six out of seven years after I graduated (2007-2013).  In those seven years, I got to 12 games on campus (Navy in 2007, Syracuse in 2008, USC and Washington in 2009, Western Michigan in 2010, Air Force and USC in 2011, Michigan and BYU in 2012, and Oklahoma, USC, and Navy in 2013).  In six years since then, I’ve been to two games on campus at Notre Dame.  I saw us have a nice win against Stanford in 2014 and I saw one of the many disasters of the 2016 season (Duke).  So I was pretty excited to get back for the Virginia game, but it was not to be.

My flight was scheduled for 7:30 from LaGuardia.  I despise pretty much everything about LaGuardia.  But I discovered the bus from Woodside.  I took the train from Hicksville to Woodside and you can get a bus to the airport from there.  The bus was ridiculously crowded, but not until the second stop and I got on at the first stop.  So I wouldn’t say it was a particularly pleasant experience, but it was easy.  I got to the airport in plenty of time and had Five Guys.  Getting through security was as easy as I’ve ever done it at LaGuardia.  I got to my gate and there was plenty of room to sit and relax.  This started as the best LaGuardia experience I’ve ever had.  But the 4:30 and 5:30 flights to Chicago had been canceled.  The 6:30 flight was now listed as departing at 8:50.  But my 7:30 flight was allegedly still on time.  I had a similar situation to this when I was flying down to Raleigh to stay with Tom and then go to Charleston.  Eventually that flight got delayed so I didn’t really trust that this flight would be on time.  I had been sitting down for about ten minutes when my flight got changed to 9:20.  I was supposed to be landing a little after 9:00 Central.  Now it was going to be around 11:00 Central.  This wasn’t ideal because I was supposed to be getting a 5:00 bus to get to campus, but whatever.  An hour later, my flight was canceled.  There was no way I was getting to Chicago early enough to get to the game at Notre Dame at 3:30 the next day.  I briefly considered going to Cleveland or Detroit.  My options there were either ridiculously expensive at the last minute and/or I’d be racing to make it to campus for a 3:30 game.  So I gave up.  I took a depressing bus ride back to Woodside.  I took the train back to Hicksville.  And then I walked back to school.  I was back home at about 10:30.  I did watch some of the Dodgers beating up on the Giants so that was fun.  Unlike my very unpleasant experience at LaGuardia when I was flying to North Carolina in 2017, I can’t blame LaGuardia for this one.  It was entirely because of the weather in Chicago.  It just would have been nice if they figured out earlier that my flight wouldn’t be happening.  I wasn’t mad about the whole situation, I was just disappointed.  I missed out on seeing Jon, his family, Kevin, and Notre Dame-Virginia.

As for the game, I missed an enjoyable second half.  I’m still confused about Notre Dame, most of the teams on our schedule, and most of the currently ranked teams other than like Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, LSU, Auburn, Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma.  I think those teams are all pretty good.  Who else is good?  Who was the best team left on our schedule after the Georgia game?  I think it’s one of Virginia, USC, and Michigan.  I mean, USC probably has the most talent, but they don’t seem like a particularly good football team.  Are we any good?  All we had done was beat two bad teams and lose to a good team.  Our running game had been nonexistent, our second-year starting quarterback has followed the pattern of Brian Kelly second-year starters and regressed, and our pass rush had been disappointing.  We weren’t particularly good in the first half and trailed 17-14 at halftime.  The defensive line dominated the second half.  I thought the pass rush would be the strength of the team and they played like it in the second half with a bunch of sacks and forced turnovers.  They set the offense up for one easy touchdown and scored one of their own.  We ran the ball pretty well (taking out Book’s carries, the rest of the team ran for 168 yards on 28 carries, 6.0 per carry, and four touchdowns).  But Ian Book continued to not be very impressive (6.6 yards per attempt and 0 touchdowns).  The good news was that he didn’t turn the ball over.  I also got Old Fields Barbecue delivered since I missed out on some tailgating.  It came at halftime.  That was a solid decision.

We play Bowling Green next week.  Brian Van Gorder is their defensive coordinator and not surprisingly, they’re giving up 50 points per game against FBS schools.  They’re scoring 9 per game against FBS schools.  That game should be over by the middle of the second quarter.  Then we have USC, a bye week, and then we go to the most evil place on earth to play Michigan.  If we can get through those two games, our November schedule does not look bad.  We’re home for Virginia Tech (2-2), at Duke (3-1, they got smacked by Alabama, beat two pretty horrendous teams, and beat up on Virginia Tech), home for Navy (2-1), home for Boston College (3-2 with losses to Kansas and Wake Forest), and at Stanford (2-3, they seem pretty bad).  I guess Duke is the best team of that group.  I would still say I’m expecting another loss and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s more than one, but with our talent, a well-coached team should probably go 11-1 and certainly no worse than 10-2.

I had a really fun trip to Notre Dame for a stadium tour, basketball game, and hockey game in February 2016.  I was on campus in the summer of 2018 to see Dennis (then working on Notre Dame degree 4 of 4), do a stadium tour, and get to a South Bend Cubs game.  I made a last minute trip to Notre Dame in January for outdoor hockey.  And that’s all fun, but it’s not the same as being there for football.  I definitely hope I get there next year, but my top football priority next year is the game against Wisconsin at Lambeau Field (I still say we should have done one at Lambeau, one at Wisconsin, and one at Notre Dame against them instead of one at Lambeau and one at Soldier Field).  Let’s look at the rest of Notre Dame’s 2020 home schedule:

9/12- Arkansas
9/19- Western Michigan
10/10- Stanford
10/31- Duke
11/7- Clemson
11/21- Louisville

Obviously, Clemson is the highlight.  But it’s going to be the most expensive and it’s almost certainly going to be a night game and it’s in November.  Night games are not ideal when I don’t have a place to stay on campus.  Traffic is going to be really bad leaving because nobody is hanging around after the game.  I can pretty much rule out Western Michigan and Louisville unless a bunch of my friends all plan on going (even then, I wouldn’t really want to go to a game at Notre Dame the Saturday before Thanksgiving).  Maybe Arkansas would be interesting (they haven’t been very good lately, but they’re an SEC team and it’s the first home game and we should be 1-0 after beating Navy in Dublin).  I’ve generally avoided October games lately because of baseball playoffs, but Stanford would be early in the NLCS so I could live with missing games at that point (if the Dodgers win the World Series this year, I’ll be more willing to miss playoff games next year).  But Stanford might be a night game also.  Next year’s World Series will be over before Halloween so the Duke game would be a possibility too.  I guess a lot will depend on what my friends are doing.  If they want to rent a house somewhere near campus, that would make a night game much more appealing.  So I hope I get to the Lambeau Field game and one home game.  Next year’s away schedule isn’t very interesting.  There’s Navy in Dublin (I guess I would be interested in that one if I hadn’t done that in 2012, but I’m mad at Ireland for turning their backs on Catholicism), Wake Forest, Pittsburgh, and Georgia Tech in NFL stadiums (Pittsburgh plays all of its home games in an NFL stadium so that’s fine, but I’ve done that game before, I’d rather play Wake Forest and Georgia Tech on their campuses), and USC.  It would be cool to do a Notre Dame-USC game in Los Angeles and my brother does live out there now, but it’s Thanksgiving weekend and flying home the Sunday after Thanksgiving from LAX doesn’t sound like fun (that might be worth staying an extra day and taking a personal day on Monday).

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself.  I have a big October ahead.  Hopefully 2019 is finally going to be 1955 again for the Dodgers.  And Notre Dame has games with their biggest rival (USC) and their biggest enemy (Michigan is not our rival).  Go Dodgers!  Go Irish!

The Best of the Best

I got to see Clayton Kershaw again.  No, not the Croatian circus clown who travels through Croatia in a wagon led by mules.  I saw the Clayton Kershaw who recently passed Jewish woman Sandy Koufax for the most wins ever by a Dodgers left-handed pitcher.  (If you’re confused by all that, listen to the Ron Burgundy Podcast with Clayton Kershaw.  Thanks John for sending it to me.)

The Dodgers were in town for a weekend series.  I bought tickets a while back for the Friday night game.  Ordinarily I’d wait to see how the rotation lined up so that I could see Kershaw if he was pitching here.  But with the Dodgers coming here in September, I didn’t want to miss football.  Yes, Notre Dame had one of their two easiest opponents of the year, but we’re hopefully playing fourteen games this season.  I didn’t want to miss any.  As it turns out, the Sunday game got moved to the night game.  If Kershaw had pitched on Sunday, I probably would have gone.  That’s a combination of my waning interest in the NFL (between the Jets having their second USC quarterback in a decade and the Patriots cheating and winning all the time, college football is so much more fun) and the NFL’s poor scheduling.  Hold on, I have an NFL rant:

The NFL needs to hire a Vice President of Common Sense for their scheduling.  They just had ten early afternoon games and three late afternoon games.  I’m fine with splitting up the Los Angeles and Bay Area teams, but they easily could have moved at least two of Seattle at Pittsburgh, Arizona at Baltimore, and New England at Miami to the late afternoon and gotten a better split with the afternoon games.  Other than splitting up the Los Angeles and Bay Area teams, why do teams from the Pacific time zone have to play in the early afternoon?  Why not have the Dolphins play their home games in September in the late afternoon when it won’t be so hot?  That’s it for my NFL rant.

Anyway, Dodgers-Mets worked out well for me.  Clayton Keshaw ended up pitching on Friday night.  It was also Catholic Night at Citi Field, which I didn’t realize when I bought the tickets.  My former student Patrick got picked in a lottery to throw out the first pitch.  I had bought the tickets thinking that my dad would go with me, but he was not feeling up to it.  I offered them to four people, but they were all going out of town for the weekend for weddings and family birthdays and stuff like that.  So I just ended up selling the extra ticket.  Even though it was the Dodgers, I would have just sold both of them, but I didn’t want to miss Patrick throwing out the first pitch or Clayton Kershaw throwing many pitches.

As it turned out, I missed Patrick’s pitch.  I took the Long Island Railroad (or the lirr, as another former student called it).  I had to change at Woodside and get a 6:07 train.  I thought I’d be fine.  The train was a little bit delayed, but it wasn’t too bad.  The problem was when I got to Citi Field.  I walked from the train and was right outside the stadium at about 6:25.  The lines to get in at the rotunda where ridiculous.  I’m pretty sure that’s where I’ve entered the stadium for all 22 previous games that I had been to there.  I was hoping that pretty much everybody goes in there and if I tried another gate, the lines would not be so crazy.  I was wrong.  The lines were terrible everywhere.  I probably would have been better off just waiting to get in at the rotunda.  I ended up getting in around 6:55, about five minutes after his pitch.  I felt really bad.  His mother, who I’ll call, um, Mrs. Patrick since I don’t use last names of people I know on the blog, showed me the video.  I had reminded Patrick of Derek Jeter’s advice to George Bush before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series, but his catcher was some girl that he hadn’t met before and she asked him not to throw it too hard so he didn’t, which meant that he bounced it.  If one of the Mets was catching it, he could have fired it in there.  He did get to throw it from the mound, though.  I was thinking they'd make him throw it from the grass in front of the mound.

Anyway, the game got off to a bad start.  Clayton Kershaw gave up a home run to the second batter of the game, J.D. Davis, and I worried that this would be one of those silly 2019 games where everybody is hitting home runs.  Fortunately for Clayton Kershaw’s two biggest fans, me and Patrick’s sister/my former student Briana, that was not the case.  Kershaw mowed down the Mets for the next five innings.  He ran out of gas in the seventh and left with one out and the bases loaded (I thought Roberts left him in for a batter too long).  Joe Kelly allowed one of the inherited runners to score.  So Kershaw’s line was six and a third with two runs on four hits, three walks, and five strikeouts.  He was in line for a win thanks to a four-run fourth (with an RBI singe from former Notre Dame baseball player A.J. Pollack and a three-run home run from Dodgers’ top prospect Gavin Lux) and a three-run seventh (Chris Taylor had a two-run double and Cody Bellinger drove him in with a single).  Edwin Rios added a two-run home run in the eighth and the Dodgers won 9-2.

This was my view for a couple of innings.  This was Kershaw's first pitch.  He got an easy out here.

I only watched a couple of innings from my real seat.  Then I went down to say hello to Patrick, Briana, and Mr. and Mrs. Patrick/Briana.  I didn’t realize that they were sitting with a whole group of people who were there for Catholic Night.  Two more of my former students, Michaela and Fiona were there.  It was good to see all of them.  There were empty seats nearby so I sat with them after talking up on the concourse for a bit.  I only had a hot dog to eat.  It was good, but it was no Dodger Dog.  I opted not to have a beer.  It would have been a little weird to drink in front of former students who are all in the 16-18 range.  If they were 21, I would have offered to buy them a beer.  I did have a victory Summer Ale when I got home.

Briana and Patrick are easily two of the best students I've ever taught and they're even better people.  When I signed Briana's yearbook, I said that she was the Clayton Kershaw of students that I've taught.

I made this for Briana when she graduated.  FanGraphs did most of the work for me, but I had to do a little work to include playoffs.

Patrick is a senior so we talked about the whole process of applying to colleges (Briana is a junior so she’ll be doing it next year).  He’s going to have plenty of good options.  It made me think about what I would do if I was a senior in high school applying to college now.  Back in 2001-2002, I applied to four schools and I really didn’t consider sports at all.  That was a mistake.  For me to have the best possible college experience, sports needed to be part of that.  I wanted to go to Georgetown, but that had nothing to do with the basketball team (they hadn’t been particularly good since Iverson).  And the other schools I applied to were not big time sports schools.  I would also lean strongly toward Catholic schools (three of the four schools I applied to were Catholic, I’ll refrain from making a joke about how they were all Jesuit).  Of course, I ended up at Notre Dame eventually for the two good Charlie Weis years.  If we assume that I’m a high school senior who was a Notre Dame fan, Notre Dame is obviously my first choice.  I think Villanova would be my second choice.  If I want a Catholic school with good sports, they’re the clear second choice (you could argue their basketball team could make it the first choice, but I’ll say Notre Dame’s football/basketball combination plus academics keeps it number one).  After that, I don’t really know where else I’d apply.  I mean, I guess I’d apply to Boston College, maybe.  You know, if I didn’t get into Notre Dame and wanted to go to a school that loses to Notre Dame all the time (yes, I know they used to beat us in football way too often, but we’ve won the last six in football and they can’t beat us in basketball even when we’re bad).  I guess I’d look into the other Catholic schools in the Big East.  St. Joe’s in Philadelphia has had some success in basketball and isn’t too far away.  Gonzaga has a great basketball program, but I couldn’t see going all the way out to the west coast unless I was going to the Los Angeles area.  I wouldn’t have too much interest in other major football schools.  I just can’t picture having any allegiance to a college football team other than Notre Dame.  I mean, I always root for the service academies as long as they’re not playing Notre Dame, but I am clearly not meant for the military.  If I was going to consider any big state schools, they would be Virginia (the campus is great and they’re not completely detestable like Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Florida State, etc.) and UCLA (I could go to Dodger games, I could watch football games in the Rose Bowl, and USC would still be my rival).  Anyway, hopefully Patrick ends up at the right place right away, unlike me.

That was probably my last game of the season.  If the Dodgers make it to the World Series and end up playing the Yankees, I’ll look into getting tickets, but I’m not optimistic about the prices being reasonable enough for me to go.  Here are the updated numbers for Kershaw with me in attendance:

10 starts (Citi Field in 2009 and Washington in 2010 before the blog, 2013 in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia, 2015 at Citi Field, 2016 at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium, 2018 at Citi Field, and this game at Citi Field), 2 pinch hit appearances (0-1 with a sacrifice bunt)
Dodgers:  11-1 (the loss came in the game where he unsuccessfully pinch hit)
Kershaw's Win-Loss: 5-0
65 innings
1.25 ERA
68 strikeouts
38 hits
14 walks
0.80 WHIP
2 complete game shutouts

Experimental Baseball

My final minor league game of the season was right here on Long Island.  Adam and I did our annual minor league adventure.  In 2016, we saw the Brooklyn Cyclones on Seinfeld Night.  In 2017, we did the Somerset Patriots.  Last year was the Staten Island Yankees.  And this year, I finally got to see the Long Island Ducks.  This is the 20th season for the Ducks and it’s the first time I’ve been to one of their games.

The Ducks play in the Atlantic League.  They’ve won three Atlantic League championships.  In those three seasons, their combined winning percentage was .474.  What kind of crazy league is this?  The Atlantic League is noteworthy because it is an independent league, but this year they made a deal with Major League Baseball to try some experimental rules.  Let’s go through the changes:

The one that’s gotten the most attention is the automated strike zone.  The home plate umpire wears an earpiece that gives him the call.  I’m totally fine with experimenting with that.  I don’t know if I really trust it.  Are they taking into account the height/stance of each player?  Everybody’s strike zone is different.  You watch Major League games on TV these days and they almost always show the strike zone on the screen.  I trust it when it comes to whether or not it was over the plate, but I don’t usually trust it when it comes to whether it was high or low or not.

There are no more mound visits.  For minor league baseball, that’s cool.  But I think they definitely should be allowed in the Majors.  They’ve limited them for the last two years and my guess is that they’ve gone way down during that time.  And I’m good with that.  But I definitely don’t think they should be completely done away with.  One thing I would change is that you get a free mound visit when there’s a pinch hitter.  I would do away with that.  If you’re limiting mound visits, change the team for all mound visits.

Another change is already coming to the Majors next year:  pitchers have to face a minimum of three batters or pitch until the end of the half inning.  I don’t like it, but it’s already coming to the Majors.  Whatever.

They made the bases bigger.  I guess this is supposed to protect the fielders.  It also makes the bases very slightly closer together.  Whatever.  I probably would just leave it the way it is, but if they changed it and didn’t say anything, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell.

Two infielders have to be on each side of second base.  I like this one.  I want them to encourage putting the ball in play.  Making it easier to get hits on ground balls would do this.  

They moved the mound back two feet.  I don’t like this one at all.  There are already too many home runs in baseball.  This would just make it easier.  And pitchers might try to put something more on their pitches since it’s going to be easier for the hitters and hurt themselves.

They shortened the time between innings.  Even though I have an instinctive knowledge of when a baseball game is coming back from a commercial, I’m on board with this one.

The pitcher has to step off the rubber to attempt a pick off.  This is meant to encourage stealing.  I would like to see more stolen bases in the game, but I also don’t want it to be too easy to steal.  Random note about stolen bases:  if a player started his career this season and then stole an average of 50 bases per season, it would take him 29 seasons to break Rickey Henderson’s career record.

One foul bunt is permitted with two strikes before a strikeout.  I don’t like this one.  Sure, I’d like to see fewer strikeouts and more bunting, but this could mean longer plate appearances in bunting situations.

The check swing rule was supposedly made more batter-friendly.  I don’t really know what that means.  My concern is how would umpires adjust to that?  A check swing happens so quickly and they’ve been trained to call it a certain way.  Now they’d have to change what constitutes a swing.  That seems like it would be pretty tough to adjust to that for the umpires.

And you can now run to first base on any pitch that isn’t caught by the catcher.  This is just silly.  I heard somebody say that it’s no more silly than being able to run when the catcher doesn’t catch the third strike.  I disagree.  There’s logic in that.  To record an out, you have to control the baseball.  The only exception to that is when a batted ball hits a baserunner who isn’t on base.  And in that case, the ball is dead.  If the ball is live, you have to control it to record an out.  If you don’t have control of the ball on a third strike, the batter should be able to run as long as first base isn’t occupied.

Anyway, we got there a little early and checked out the ballpark.  The food selection was nothing special.  I had a hot dog that could have been better.  The beer selection was good.  There was plenty of local beer.  I opted for a Sam Adams Summer Ale because I can easily get Long Island beer whenever I want it and this was probably going to be my last chance to have Summer Ale at a baseball game this season.

It was the Ducks against the High Point Rockers (from North Carolina).  The Ducks took a 1-0 lead in the third inning and the score stayed that way for a while.  But the Rockers tied it in the seventh and scored four runs in the eighth.  T.J. Rivera hit a home run for the Ducks in eighth, but the Ducks couldn’t get any closer.  The final score was 5-2.  The Ducks flashed the lights on and off after the home run.  I’ve seen pyrotechnics for home runs, but I’ve never seen a guy running around the bases in the dark.  Rivera played a total of 106 games with the Mets in 2016 and 2017.  He played 23 games with the Ducks this year.  Two days after we saw him, he signed a minor league contract with the Nationals.

Our view for the game

We didn’t see anything weird in the game with the experimental rules.  Nobody tried to steal first base and nobody bunted foul with two strikes.  It did seem like there was a little delay with the umpire getting the call on the automated strike zone.  It seemed like there were a few times where the catcher reacted to the batter taking strike three before the call was even made.  After the game, we saw fireworks, which were pretty good.  It was August 2 so I guess the Ducks were celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Adam has moved to Pennsylvania so next year our minor league excursion might be for a game in Pennsylvania but that’s to be determined.

Attendance was 5,674 at Bethpage Ballpark.  It was a good crowd.  Capacity is 6,002.  We were a section behind Congressman Peter King, who threw out the first pitch.  I would definitely go to another Ducks game.  Since this was my last minor league game of the season, it’s time to update my minor league stadium rankings:

22. Arm & Hammer Park in Trenton
21. Dehler Park in Billings
20. Arvest Ballpark in Springdale
19. Autozone Park in Memphis
18. TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, New Jersey
17. Memorial Stadium in Boise
16. KeySpan Park in Brooklyn
15. Newman Outdoor Field in Fargo
14. Isotopes Park in Albuquerque
13. TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha
12. Daniel S. Frawley Stadium in Wilmington
11. Greater Nevada Field in Reno
10. NBT Bank Stadium in Syracuse
9. Richmond County Bank Ballpark on Staten Island
8. Dickey-Stephens Park in Little Rock
7. Joseph L. Bruno Stadium in Troy
6. Bethpage Ballpark in Central Islip
5. Four Winds Field in South Bend
4. Frontier Field in Rochester
3. Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park in Charleston
2. Dunkin Donuts Park in Hartford
1. Regions Field in Birmingham

It’s harder to rank the minor league/college stadiums than the Major League stadiums.  I feel pretty strongly about my Major League rankings.  I’ve been to many of them more than once.  Even if I haven’t been, I’ve seen them all many times on TV.  I’ve been to each of these minor league stadium once.  I haven’t included the Potomac Nationals’ stadium because I was there in 2003 and I don’t really remember it.  I’ve been to all the other ones since 2014, which was kind of a long time ago.  I’d try to divide my rankings into tiers.  I feel good about my top three.  They were all really good.  The next tier would go from 4-11.  They were all pretty good, but it’s hard for me to definitely say that Bethpage Ballpark was better than Greater Nevada Field or whatever.  The next tier is probably 12-21.  I can definitely say that Arm & Hammer Park in Trenton was my least favorite minor league stadium that I’ve been to in the last six years.

We’ll see what next year brings as far as minor league stadiums.  I’d like to get to Pawtucket (I was hoping to get there this year, but it didn’t work out).  I’m thinking Easter vacation or early summer for another trip out to Los Angeles.  That could easily be combined with a stop somewhere for minor league baseball (Oklahoma City, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, something along those lines).  I’ve also thought about going out to NBA Summer League in Las Vegas next year.  I’m definitely not solid on that, but if I did, that would be a good time to get to a minor league game there. And hopefully there will be a minor league game in Pennsylvania with Adam next year.

I’ll just finish up with some thoughts on the Dodgers.  It’s been another really fun season.  Hopefully it will finish with the Dodgers winning the final game of the World Series.  Last night, they were down 2-0 against the Blue Jays going to the bottom of the ninth.  Kenta Maeda had their only hit to that point.  And I fully expected them to win.  And then they did.  This weekend they start a series with the Yankees.  It’s the most common World Series matchup of all time and it could happen again this year.  Unfortunately it’s Players Weekend and they’re wearing silly uniforms, much sillier than what they wore for Players Weekend the last two years.  Jack Swarbrick would be proud.  So unfortunately we don’t get to see the Dodgers and Yankees play each other in their classic uniforms.  But it is a big series as it could determine home field advantage in the World Series.  And college football starts tomorrow with Week 0.  Notre Dame doesn’t play until Labor Day, but the good news is that either Florida or Miami will have a loss by the end of the day.  For the next several months I’ll be scheduling my Mass attendance around football and baseball.  The football tomorrow starts at 7:00, but the Dodgers and Yankees play at 4:00.  I like to go to the vigil Mass when I can, but I’m not missing Dodgers-Yankees.  So Sunday Mass it is.  Go Irish!  Go Dodgers!

No Tebow? Why No Tebow? (Also No Hits)

As it turns out, there’s a whole lot of New York north of Westchester Country.  I have spent very little time there.  I’ve been to Cooperstown twice, I went to an American Camp Association conference with Brother Robert in Syracuse, and I took my students on a field trip to Albany once.  And I think that’s about it.  I just spent several days in upstate New York.  This is going to be a long post, so if you don’t want to read the whole thing, I put headings to divide it into sections (go to the section on Troy if you want to read about the no-hitter I saw).

Hyde Park

I started with a trip to the Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library with Bobby and Darryl.  Five years ago, the three of us did our Civil War road trip.  This was just a day trip.  It was my eighth presidential library.  Of the ones I hadn’t been to, Roosevelt’s was easily the closest.  It might be the last one I get to for a while.  Hoover’s is in Iowa and I’m definitely not too interested in going to his.  Eisenhower’s would be cool to see, but I don’t imagine being in Abilene, Kansas, any time soon.  Lyndon Johnson’s is in Austin.  That’s very high on my list of places for Major League Baseball to expand, but if that doesn’t happen, I probably won’t be in Austin unless Notre Dame plays there again (even then, it’s not too likely that I’d go to the game, I didn’t in 2016).  Gerald Ford has two for some reason.  Apparently the library is in Ann Arbor and the museum is in Grand Rapids.  You know how I feel about Michigan, but at least the museum isn’t in Ann Arbor.  George H.W. Bush’s is in College Station.  Notre Dame opens the 2024 season at Texas A&M so that’s at least a possibility, but we’ll see.  Obama’s is going to be in Chicago, but apparently there are already delays in getting that built.  There’s a good chance that Obama’s will be the next one I get to.  That could be combined with a Notre Dame football game or a future trip to Wrigley Field.

Anyway, it was about a two and a half hour drive up to Hyde Park.  We started with a tour of Roosevelt’s home, which was built in the late 1700s.  Our tour guide was a very knowledgeable 87 year old.  We got to see many of the rooms in the house, including where he was born and his adult bedroom.  We saw his stuffed bird collection.  Winston Churchill stayed there when he visited Roosevelt during World War II.  So did some English people who are important for no reason.  I do approve of Roosevelt serving them hot dogs (hopefully they had brown mustard).  Our tour guide explained how Roosevelt moved when he was paralyzed.  Of course, I knew he was paralyzed, but I also knew that he wasn’t totally immobile.  So how did that work?  He wore braces to keep his legs in place and then with his cane on one side and leaning on somebody else on the other side, he could use his upper body strength to pretty much drag his legs to move without a wheelchair.

Franklin Roosevelt's house

The museum was the first presidential library to be opened (Hoover is the first president to have one, but his came later).  Roosevelt’s is the only one whose presidential library opened while he was still president.  You can see the office where he made some of his fireside chats.  The museum was good.  It’s the only one I’ve been to that didn’t have a recreation of the Oval Office, but they did have his desk from the Oval Office (I’m not sure if it was the actual desk or a replica).  The temporary exhibit was on Roosevelt, Churchill, and D-Day so I appreciated that.  I learned a lot about the disagreement among Roosevelt, Churchill, and Roosevelt during the war.  Stalin wanted Roosevelt and Churchill to move quicker in invading Western Europe.  That doesn’t come as much of a surprise since the Germans had invaded the Soviet Union.  As the war progressed, Churchill was more cautious about D-Day.  He wanted to wait longer, but Roosevelt and Stalin pushed for it to happen sooner and they outvoted him 2-1.  That might be the one time that I disagree with Churchill (of course, I have the benefit of hindsight).  They had Roosevelt’s car, which had hand controls that allowed him to drive it.  Another thing I learned was a little bit more about how Prohibition came to an end.  I had some vague knowledge of Roosevelt signing a bill allowing beer to be sold before the 21st Amendment was ratified.  I was wondering if that was unconstitutional because the 18th Amendment prohibited alcohol, right?  It turns out that reading the Constitution is helpful (some members of all three branches of the government might want to try it some time).  The 18th Amendment prohibited “intoxicating liquors.”  The bill Roosevelt signed allowed beer with up to 3.2% alcohol, which was not considered intoxicating.

Roosevelt gave a few fireside chats from this office.

Roosevelt's Oval Office desk

Roosevelt's car

I've been to the grave sites of Washington, Roosevelt, Truman, Nixon, and Reagan.

The Roosevelts and me

I liked the museum a lot, but I think if the museum had been built later on and if it wasn’t the first presidential library, it would have been built much bigger.  There were rooms in the basement where they just had stuff in storage.  There were windows to look in and you could press buttons to turn on lights, but they didn’t have the stuff out on display (like Roosevelt’s model ship collection).  I still think Reagan had the best presidential library I’ve been to, but I’d put Roosevelt’s high on my list.  It’s on the same level as Truman’s and Bush’s.  Below that I’d have Nixon.  Then I’d put Kennedy’s and Carter’s on the same level.  And then Clinton’s was the worst.

Syracuse

I had a day off and then I was taking the train back upstate.  My first stop was Syracuse.  I met Jon, his brother, and his father there.  They were stopping off on their way to Cooperstown.  We met at a cool Irish bar.  They were all drinking Kilkenny, which is hard to find in the US.  I had Kilkenny in Ireland and it was tempting, but I went with Summer Ale because it’s not going to be around much longer.  Then we went to Dinosaur BBQ.  It was on Man vs. Food with Adam Richman, but I was there before it was on the show when I went in 2007 with Brother Robert.  I don’t really remember what I had back then.  I knew it was supposed to be good, but it’s not like I was making a point of going there back then.  Also I was really sick on that trip.  This time, I had the same thing as Adam, the Pork-sket.  It was really good.  For sides, I asked for beans and a salad (there were definitely more interesting options, but I figured I should have something somewhat healthy).  The waitress asked if I was going to eat the salad.  My response was that I ordered it so yeah, I was going to eat it.  But it seems that she didn’t believe me.  When she brought out our food, she didn’t bring the salad.  So we asked for it and I ate it even though Jon and his brother offered me $10 to not eat it out of spite.  (Speaking of barbecue, I finally tried Old Fields Barbecue in Huntington.  It's really good.  I need to go back there soon).

This was really good.

Then we were off to see the Syracuse Mets at NBT Bank Stadium.  Much to our chagrin, Tim Tebow was not in the lineup (check the Seinfeld clip below for the inspiration for the title of this post).  Apparently he’s hurt, but his numbers are terrible anyway.  I would have wanted to see him.  The Mets went up 6-0 after three and won 8-4 against the Toledo Mud Hens (a Tigers affiliate).  After Dinosaur, I definitely wasn’t up for eating anything at the game, but it was Craft Beer Friday.  For $20, we got our ticket plus a voucher for two craft beers.  That’s a very good deal.  I was curious what the selection would be like.  The selection was excellent.  There were a few options on tap and then a wide selection in cans (probably more than you’d find at most Major League Parks).  I had a Bell’s Oberon in a can.  For my second one, I figured I should have something local.  I had an Eastwood Belgian Pale on tap.  It wasn’t bad, but it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting from something named Belgian Pale.  It was a big ballpark for a minor league park.  There was a second deck.  Capacity is 11,071, making it the 53rd biggest baseball stadium in the US.  Attendance was 5,855.  I couldn’t tell you about the food selection, but the beer selection was the best I’ve seen in the minors.  But the stadium was lacking character, as Jon put it.  I’m going to rank it pretty high because of the great beer selection, but if you could put that beer selection into some other stadiums that I’ve been to, then you’d really have something.

Our view for the Syracuse Mets

The following morning, I went to Mother’s Cupboard for breakfast, which is where Adam had his challenge on Man vs. Food.  His challenge was a frittata.  It had eggs, sausage, pepperoni, peppers, potatoes, and broccoli.  I had the quarter-size frittata (they recommend the half on the menu because the challenge is the full one and you’re not going to finish it).  The quarter-size was still a lot of food, but I did finish it.  Afterwards, I was pretty full.  I had taken Lyft to get there, but I felt like burning some calories and saving some money so I walked nearly five miles back to my hotel.  I was interested in the other Man vs. Food spot, Heid’s of Liverpool (a hot dog place).  I would have gone there if I had gotten in early the day before.  And I actually could have fit it in before leaving Syracuse, but I was still too full and I figured I could get hot dogs on my next stop.

This was good, but Dinosaur was the eating highlight of the trip.

Rochester

My next stop was the third biggest city in New York, Rochester.  That’s as far west as I’ve gone in the state.  There was a spot on Man vs. Food Nation that Adam visited that’s known for garbage plates.  There are all sorts of combinations you can have.  You start with a base of home fries, French fries, macaroni salad, or baked beans (or any combination of more than one of those things).  Then you have your choice of red hot dogs (regular hot dogs), white hot dogs, hamburger, cheeseburger, chicken, Italian sausage, fish, egg, ham, grilled cheese, or any combination of more than one of those things.  And you top it off with mustard, onions, and hot sauce (it’s like a meat sauce that’s popular in Rochester).  I was definitely not hungry enough for all of that so I just ordered a white hot with mustard and sauce.  I wanted to see what the white hot dog was like since that seems to be an upstate New York thing, but it was a little underwhelming.  I’d rather have the regular red hot dog and the sauce wasn’t too exciting.  Before going to my game that night, I went to a vigil mass.  Unbeknownst to me (but most likely knownst to the regular parishioners), this mass was ad orientem (the priest faced the same way as the people).  This was the first time I went to a mass like this.  It was in English, but there was a lot of Latin chanting.  At the sign of peace, there was no shaking of hands with other people.  And there was a communion rail.  So that was an interesting experience.

The Rochester Red Wings (a Twins affiliate) play in Frontier Field.  They were taking on the Indianapolis Indians (who are, of course, a Pirates affiliate).  Frontier Field was very good.  I had buffalo mac and cheese, which was solid, but it could have been better.  They had a good beer selection.  I had a Rohrbach Blueberry Ale from a Rochester brewery.  It was between that and the Rohrbach Red Wing Red Ale.  I opted to just go with whatever had the better ratings online so I went with the Blueberry Ale.  I think I probably would have liked the other one better.  If a blueberry ale is done right, it can be great.  If not, it’s nothing special.  That’s how I felt about this beer, nothing special.  Anyway, the Red Wings were down 6-5 going into the bottom of the ninth.  The started they inning with back to back doubles and an error to tie the game and put the winning run on third with nobody out.  The next three batters struck out.  But tell me more about how strikeouts don’t matter for hitters.  I was pretty tired and I didn’t really care about the outcome of a minor league game, so I left after the ninth.  The Indians won in the tenth.  I liked Frontier Field a lot.  Wikipedia has conflicting information about its capacity.  On the list of US stadiums by capacity it says 10,868, but the Frontier Field page says 13,500.  If it’s actually 13,500, that would make it the 39th biggest baseball stadium in the US and the biggest minor league stadium I’ve been to.  Attendance for the game was 7,142.  Frontier Field was good, definitely more character than NBT Bank Stadium.

My view in Rochester

I didn’t really know much about Rochester.  Apparently it’s the largest metropolitan area in the country without a Division I school.  Anchorage is bigger, but I guess metropolitan area would include suburbs, which makes Rochester bigger.  I found two Frederick Douglass statues in Rochester.  He lived much of his life there.  And so did Susan B. Anthony.  You can visit her house.  I just found that out from the little binder of information in my hotel room.  I didn’t have time to actually tour the house, but I walked over to see it before I took my train out of Rochester.

This Frederick Douglass statue was right outside my hotel.

Susan B. Anthony's house

Troy

My last stop was the Albany region.  I was there to see the Tri-City ValleyCats (Astros) take on the Connecticut Tigers (Tigers) in short season Single-A ball.  Tri-City refers to Albany, Schenectady, and Troy.  The ValleyCats play in Joseph L. Bruno Stadium in Troy.  This was much smaller than the two Triple-A stadiums I went to on this trip (capacity is 4,500), but it was very nice.  When I got there, the tarp was on the field, but it wasn’t raining.  It was supposed to be a 5:00 game, but the forecast was questionable from 4:00-8:00.  It did start raining, but it didn’t last long.  The game ended up starting a little after 5:40.  I was in Albany, so I had to have a steamed ham.  I got a steamed pizza ham that was topped with marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni.  It was pretty good.  To drink, I got a Brown’s ValleyCats Ale.  They did have Summer Ale on tap, but I figured I should drink a local beer that I wouldn’t be able to find on Long Island.  This beer did not disappoint.  It was the best beer I had at a game during the trip.  Also, there were no lines so my wait was minimal.  The Tigers got out to a 3-0 lead.  The first run scored on a line drive that went for a double, but it probably would have been caught by the third baseman if the infield hadn’t been in.  The last run scored on a balk.  What was more interesting was that the ValleyCats did not have a hit through six when Connecticut took out their starter, 19-year-old Aussie Jack O’Loughlin.  It would have been cool to see a starter go for a no-hitter, but it’s Single-A ball, I get it.  The closest I’ve ever been to a no-hitter was when in 2007 at Yankee Stadium with John and Liz when Chien-Ming Wang got one out in the eighth before giving up his first hit.  The Tigers brought in different pitchers for the seventh, eighth, and ninth .  With two outs in the eighth, the ValleyCats got a baserunner with an error.  There was no perfect game on the line as there had already been six walks and it was a clear error.  The ball wasn’t hit particularly hard and it went right off the shortstop’s glove.  They got the next guy and the no-hitter went into the ninth.  It was a fairly uneventful ninth.  The first batter struck out looking when he thought he had ball four.  The next batter grounded out to the shortstop and the final batter struck out looking and I saw my first no-hitter in person.  Four pitchers, six walks, no runs, no hits.  I would love to see it happen in the Majors some day and I’d love to see one pitcher do it, but still, it was pretty cool to be there for a no-hitter.  Attendance was 3,533.  This was a very solid minor league stadium.  There was a building beyond the fence down the left field line.  It was marked 430 feet and also 79 Altuves since they're an Astros affiliate.

Ordinarily I would have gone with something different, but I had to get a steamed ham when I was in the Albany region.

My view for the game

Random Thoughts

I was thinking about minor league baseball with this trip.  I came up with the idea of reassigning the Triple-A affiliates.  Actually I came up with the idea of doing all the levels, but as you go lower, the leagues get much more regional.  What are you going to do with three teams in Montana in Rookie ball?  Double-A has no teams west of Texas.  So Triple-A is really the only level where it’s easy to logically assign the teams.  I try to go with the closest Triple-A team whenever possible, but with the way teams are clustered geographically, that gets tough.  In some cases, I just went with the teams they are already affiliated with.  It would make slightly more sense for the Mets and Yankees to switch Syracuse and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, but I’ll just leave that alone because it’s close enough.  But the Nationals having their Triple-A team in Fresno doesn’t make much sense.  Here’s what I came up with (change or same indicates if I’m changing who a team would be affiliated with):

Tacoma- Mariners (same)
Sacramento- A’s (change)
Fresno- Giants (change)
Reno- Dodgers (change)
Las Vegas- Angels (change)
Albuquerque- Diamondbacks (change)
El Paso- Padres (same)
Salt Lake City- Rockies (change)
Round Rock- Rangers (change)
San Antonio- Astros (change)
Oklahoma City- Royals (change)
Omaha- Twins (change)
Iowa- Brewers (change)
Memphis- Cardinals (same)
Indianapolis- White Sox (change)
Louisville- Cubs (change)
Nashville- Reds (change)
Toledo- Detroit (same)
Columbus- Indians (same)
Buffalo- Pirates (change)
New Orleans- Marlins (same)
Gwinnett- Braves (same)
Charlotte- Tampa Bay (change)
Durham- Nationals (change)
Norfolk- Orioles (same)
Rochester- Blue Jays (change)
Pawtucket- Red Sox (same)
Lehigh Valley- Phillies (same)
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre- Yankees (same)
Syracuse- Mets (same)

So I kept 12 teams the same and changed 18.

I have one more minor league game to blog about so I’ll hold off on updating my minor league baseball stadium rankings.  I don't have much baseball left this season, but the Dodgers play at Citi Field in September.  I’ll most likely be there for the Friday night game.  Usually I wait to see if and when Clayton Kershaw is pitching in New York, but it’s a September weekend.  Notre Dame’s game conflicts with the Saturday game (I know it’s New Mexico, but there are only hopefully 14 Notre Dame football games in a season, I have no interest in missing any).  If Kershaw pitches the Sunday game, I’ll consider going.  I’d like to watch the NFL, but we’ll see on that one.  I used to be such a big NFL fan, but the Jets being the Jets plus having two USC quarterbacks in the last decade and the Patriots with their combination of cheating and success have made me lose so much interest in the NFL.  But we are getting to a point where I’m just ready for college football and the Dodgers in the playoffs.  Go Irish!  Go Dodgers!