A Complete Rarity

We had a 2024 World Series rematch at Yankee Stadium this year.  I hadn’t planned on going because ticket prices were ridiculous.  After seeing the Dodgers lose in Los Angeles and not being able to see them at Citi Field because I was going to be in Europe, I wanted to get to a game at Yankee Stadium.  Things all came together perfectly for me to get one of my best baseball experiences of the decade.

I had been paying attention to ticket prices and they were coming down as the series got closer.  It was a weekend series and they had the Sunday night game so I was thinking of going to that game.  The Saturday night game got rained out.  One of the nice things about being a Dodger fan is that they play 100+ games where rain is not a concern at all.  Rain delays are annoying.  I’m willing to tolerate them because baseball should be played outdoors, but it’s great when the Dodgers are playing in Los Angeles or somewhere else out west and rain just isn’t a concern.  But when there is a rain delay, you might not know how long it’s going to last, it might mess up your pitching, and the game might end at a ridiculous hour if it does get played.  But everything worked out with the rain in this series.  They announced the game was postponed well before it was supposed to start so I didn’t have to wait to see if it was going to get played or not.  It was going to be made up the following day as part of a split doubleheader.  I went to the vigil Mass on Saturday so going to the first game of the doubleheader was very possible.  Going to the Sunday night game and getting home really late was not as exciting.  If all things are equal, I would take day baseball over night baseball, but a big variable is the temperature.  If it’s hot during the day, a day baseball game could be rough (especially if you’re sitting in the sun), but a night game is probably fine.  But everything worked out with this game.  It was 76° when the game started and I was in the shade for the whole game.  As an added bonus, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was supposed to start the final game of the series, but with the double header on Sunday, they had him start the afternoon game instead of the night game.  And I was able to get home in time to watch the night game (which turned out to not be as fun as the afternoon game).

The game was on Sunday, July 19.  If you remember back to sports in July, Game 1 of the Dodgers-Yankees doubleheader was clearly the biggest sporting event taking place in the New York City area on July 19.  The only other event that came close was Game 2 of the doubleheader.  Anyway, I took the train to the city and then the subway to Yankee Stadium for the 12:40 game.  It was Cam Schlittler for the Yankees against Yamamoto for the Dodgers.  That’s about as good of a pitching matchup as you could hope for.  Schlittler is probably the favorite to win the AL Cy Young this year.  Yamamoto isn’t going to win the NL Cy Young, but he’s probably going to finish in the top 5.  And after what he’s done in the playoffs the last two years, he’s probably the first pitcher you would take if you had to win one game.  Schlittler struck out the side to start the game.  After two innings, the only one hitter had reached base for either team, but the Dodgers were making Schlittler work while Yamamoto’s pitch count was low.  The Dodgers took a 2-0 lead in the third inning with an RBI double by Shohei Ohtani and an RBI single by Freddie Freeman.  The Yankees got a run on a Trent Grisham home run in the bottom of the fourth.  That was after Yamamoto had gotten the first nine batters out so it ruined my hopes for a perfect game.  Andy Pages got the lead back to two with an RBI double in the fifth and after 98 pitches in four and a third innings, Cam Schlittler was out of the game.  The Dodgers added five runs in the eighth to make it 8-1.

The weather was great, I was in the shade, and I got to enjoy watching the Dodgers win a day baseball game.  The only thing missing was a good beer, but it was Yankee Stadium so I couldn’t find any good beer.

Yamamoto’s pitch count was still good, but with the game no longer in doubt, I thought they might go to somebody else for mop up duty.  Instead they sent Yamamoto back out for the eighth and then something happened that terrified me.  He warmed up and then came back to the dugout.  I was worried that he got hurt.  As it turned out, he just had an issue with his cleats that he needed to take care of.  Jazz Chisholm led off with a fly ball to left center that it looked like Andy Pages would catch, but then he lost it in the sun.  That was followed by a single by Anthony Volpe to score Chisholm.  Then Yamamoto got a double play and a line out to end the inning.  That run was earned, but that’s a tough earned run.  If not for the sun, that’s a fly out, a single, and a double play with no runs scored.  Yamamoto got two fly outs and a strike out in the ninth to finish the game.  The Dodgers won 8-2.  Yamamoto allowed two runs on four hits and no walks (but it should have been one run on three hits).  He had seven strikeouts and threw 102 pitches.  Shohei Ohtani and Tommy Edman both had two hits and two RBIs.  Max Muncy also had two hits.  Freddie Freeman also had two RBIs.  The game lasted three hours and the attendance was 43,305.

I moved down a little bit to watch Yamamoto get the last three outs.

According to Google AI, 15% of starts were complete games the year I was born, but it’s down to 0.6% now.  I was wondering what the last complete game I attended was.  It’s possible that I’ve seen a complete game in a minor league game or a college game, but I strongly doubt that I have.  So my first thought was that the last one I saw was Clayton Kershaw at Citi Field on my father’s birthday in 2015.  I went through the Ballpark app on my phone and confirmed that Kershaw’s complete game in 2015 was the last one I went to.  I also saw Kershaw pitch a complete game on Opening Day in 2013.  I think the only other complete game I went to in the previous decade was a Madison Bumgarner eight-inning complete game loss (because he was on the road) in 2014.  So this was my first complete game in more than a decade.  This was the 62nd Major League game I had attended since Kershaw’s complete game in 2015.  I can remember two other complete games from the pre-blog days.  Orel Hershiser pitched an eight-inning complete game loss in my first ever baseball game in 1989.  Johan Santana pitched a complete game in the last game I went to at Shea Stadium in 2008.  There must be others, but I’ve either forgotten going to the game or even if I did remember going to the game, it would take some work to look up the box score to see if it was a complete game (the Ballpark app makes box scores easily accessible going back to 2008, but not before that).  Will I ever attend a complete game again?  I definitely hope so, but there’s at least a chance that I won’t.  Baseball needs to figure out a way to bring back starting pitching.

I just had a hot dog to eat.  I was thinking that this might be my last Major League game of the season so I wanted to enjoy a hot dog.  As far as I could tell, Yankee Stadium only had yellow mustard and no real mustard.  It’s one thing if you do that in other parts of the country, but that’s unacceptable in New York.  I didn’t have a beer because Yankee Stadium does not have a good beer selection.

This was my first game at Yankee Stadium since Notre Dame beat Army there in November 2024.  It was my first baseball game at Yankee Stadium since July 2024.  And the last time I saw the Dodgers there was September 2016.  I thought that it would be my final Major League baseball game of the season and it might turn out to be.  But after I had to cancel plans to go to a minor league game in August, I want to get to one more game before the season ends.  I don’t like the idea of going to my last baseball game in the middle of July.  So I’m going to try to get to a game in September, but it might not happen.  If this was my last game of the season, it was certainly a good one.  Hopefully I’ll get to some Major League Baseball games next season, but that depends on Rob Manfred not getting the season canceled because of a lockout.  So we’ll see what happens.  But hopefully this season will end the same way the last two seasons ended.  Let’s go Dodgers!