Three States Closer to 50

When I originally thought of taking this trip, I only had St. Louis and Kansas City in mind.  Then I realized it was a good opportunity to get to some states I hadn't been to before.  Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa were all possibilities.  Nebraska and Iowa could possibly be combined with a trip to Minnesota for a Twins game, so I decided to go south and west of Missouri.  I thought about making it a four-night baseball adventure.  I could have started in St. Louis and then gone to minor league games in Little Rock and Tulsa before heading to Kansas City.  That would have meant an extra night staying in a hotel and an extra day of renting a car and more driving.  So I decided to go to a game in Springdale, Arkansas, which is in the northwest part of the state (home of the Northwest Arkansas Naturals, a Double-A affiliate of the Royals).  From there, it's not that long of a trip to Oklahoma.  I could just cross into the state like when I went to Wyoming from Denver.  By the way, check out the map of minor league teams.  This could come in handy at some point in the future.  It only includes the minor leagues affiliated with Major League Baseball.  Here's the list of all professional baseball teams by state.  The only states without any professional baseball teams are Wyoming, Alaska, and Hawaii.  I've already crossed Wyoming off the list.  I definitely want to go to Hawaii at some point.  Alaska is going to be the tough one, but I hope to get there as well.

Anyway, it was a long drive from St. Louis to Springdale, over 300 miles.  Most of the drive was heading southwest across Missouri.  I was less than ten miles from the Arkansas border when I got pulled over for speeding, my first ticket ever.  I definitely wasn't going to get another ticket on this trip, so I kept to the speed limit the rest of the time.  Compared to other cars on the road, that didn't seem slow in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, but in Missouri, I was going slow and getting passed by lots of people.  And that's where I got my speeding ticket.  Lame.

I got to my hotel in Springdale around 5:30.  It was about two miles from Arvest Ballpark, home of the Naturals.  I figured there wasn't too much to see at the stadium and it was a short trip, so I had some time to rest.  Besides cutting a day off of the trip by going to a game in Springdale instead of going to games in Little Rock and Tulsa, another reason for going to Springdale was that Arvest Ballpark was named baseballparks.com's 2008 Ballpark of the Year.  I got to the stadium around 6:45 and checked it out.  It is very nice.  The seats don't extend all the way down the left and right field lines, but there is a 360 degree concourse.  So if you want to walk out to the outfield and watch the game from there, you can.  There is a bullpen cafe in left field, but that wasn't open for this game.  There wasn't much of a food selection, but there's no reason for there to be when the capacity is only 6,500.  It seemed like they put some food items on sale so I bought a bag of peanuts for $1 to go with my hot dog.  They did have a craft beer corner down the right field line.  I had a Sam Adams Boston Lager on tap.  There were only a couple of beers on tap, but there did seem to be a pretty good selection of bottles available.  So Arvest Ballpark had a better beer selection than some Major League stadiums.

The Naturals were playing the Corpus Christi Hooks, an Astros affiliate.  Corpus Christi took a 2-0 lead in the third.  By the end of six, it was 5-0.  Delino DeShields, Jr. hit a home run in the seventh to make it 7-0.  Hopefully the Dodgers don't trade a future Hall of Famer for him.  Corpus Christi held on to win 7-2.  The box score lists the attendance as 2,854.  I was there and there weren't 2,853 other fans there.  I'm going to say there were less than 2,000, perhaps a good deal less than that.  My ticket was for a seat between home plate and the first base dugout about 11 rows up from the field, but I pretty much could have sat wherever I wanted.  Nobody was checking tickets and there were so few fans there.  If I sat in somebody's seat and they showed up, I just could have moved over a few seats to an empty one.  But I did really like the stadium.  If I lived in the area, I would definitely go to a decent number of games.  I've never lived in a minor league area.  I wonder what that would be like.  Some people were wearing Royals stuff and there were some wearing Naturals stuff.  Like I said, I would go to some games, but I can't imagine really caring much about the result.  Is any fan going to be really angry about the Naturals blowing a 4-2 lead late in the game?  I doubt it, but if the Dodgers blow a 4-2 lead late in a game, it probably ruins my night.  The one thing that stood out to me was that everything at the game was sponsored.  Everything.  The PA guy would read an advertisement after foul balls because foul balls were sponsored.  Strikeouts and other things were sponsored also.  I hadn't had much to eat during the day so I was a little hungry so I went to a Sonic right by my hotel and got a shake after the game.  Now that I've actually been to a Sonic, I think I can move it up to number 8 on my fast food power rankings.

My view for the game.  Arvest Ballpark was very nice.

The next day, I was going to the Royals game at night.  I had plenty of time to get there.  So my plan was to at least get to Oklahoma and Kansas.  I drove about 90 minutes to Mickey Mantle's boyhood home in Commerce, Oklahoma.  It was a very old looking house in a small town.  There was a plaque on the door and it looked like you might be able to go in, but I just took a look from the outside.

Mickey Mantle's boyhood home in Commerce, Oklahoma

After that, I was on my way to Kansas.  My original plan was to go to the Knute Rockne crash site.  To go there, you have to make arrangements with John or Sue Ann Brown.  I spoke to both of them and they seemed like very nice people.  I ended up not going for a variety of reasons.  First of all, it was out of the way.  I had already driven an hour and a half to Mickey Mantle's house.  From there, it would have been about four hours to the crash site and then it would have been at least two hours to where I was staying for the night.  Also, it's not easy to get to.  Apparently there's some driving on dirt roads involved.  I was told by John Brown that the site was inaccessible if it rained and the forecast was a little questionable.  And I didn't really feel like driving a rental car on dirt roads in the middle of nowhere in Kansas.  It would have been great to get there, but I can live with not making it.  I've been where Knute Rockne received his first Communion after converting to Catholicism (I lived in that building).  That's good enough for me.  I did read a good post on NDNation about somebody who did make the trip.  There's a good chance that I'll never be in Kansas again, but if I ever drove across the country or something, I'd try again to get to the crash site. 

I thought about driving all the way to Nebraska, but I really didn't feel like driving that for so I just drove north from Mickey Mantle's house into Kansas on my way to hotel.  I wanted to do something besides just drive through Kansas so I did some googling.  I found out that there's a restaurant in Galena, Kansas that has the truck that inspired the movie Cars outside of it.  I've never seen the movie, but it was pretty much on my way so I stopped there before finishing my trip to the Kansas City area.  I'll cover that in my next post.

This picture will make more sense to me if I ever see Cars.

Gateway to Good Baseball

I embarked on my last baseball trip of the season last Wednesday.  I'll get to at least one more game this year in New York, but no more big trips for baseball.  I was in Missouri for games in St. Louis and Kansas City and some other stuff too.  For now, I'll just cover my trip to St. Louis.

I've written about the Cardinals before.  They really have a great franchise.  Eleven championships, 19 World Series appearances.  In the last ten years, they have seven playoff appearances, 6 NLCS appearances (the 2009 Dodgers were the only team to beat them in the first round), 4 World Series appearances, and 2 championships.  If we go back to 2000, they've made the playoffs 10 out of 14 seasons.  That's the kind of success I want the Dodgers to have.  I have to respect them, but I'm kind of tired of their success (especially since they kept the Dodgers out of the World Series last year).  They also have great fans.  They all show up wearing red and they pretty much sell out every game with an average attendance this season of 43,503 (second only to the Dodgers, 98.9% of their capacity).  So I was eager to see a game in St. Louis.

I got to my hotel around 3:30 or so.  After charging my phone and relaxing for a little bit, I was off to the game.  At least that was the plan.  I didn't plan on going to the Gateway Arch, but it really is impressive.  I was drawn to it as I walked to the stadium.  I walked over and went inside to see if I could go to the top.  The wait was going to be too long since I wanted to get to the stadium fairly early, but there's also the Museum of Westward Expansion inside.  That was free and it wasn't too big so I checked that out.  There was some cool stuff in there about Thomas Jefferson, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

This picture definitely doesn't do justice to how impressive the Gateway Arch is.

From there, I walked to the stadium.  I was hoping to check out the Cardinals Hall of Fame.  I think I read somewhere that it's the biggest baseball museum in the United States outside of Cooperstown.  It's across the street from the stadium.  I went in, but there was this big sports bar inside and it wasn't really clear where the museum was inside the building.  I also didn't really feel like putting up with the huge crowd, so I just gave up on that.  The area outside the stadium is great, though.  There are bars and restaurants and tons of people.  It reminded me a little bit of the area outside of Fenway Park.  There are also seats on top of one or two of the buildings across the street, which is very Wrigley-like.  Near the team store were small statues of several Cardinals.  Rogers Hornsby, Bob Gibson, Stan Musial, Ozzie Smith, and others.  I knew there was a statue of Stan Musial so I saw his and I was a little surprised.  I was expecting something bigger.  Then I kept walking around the stadium and I saw the big Stan Musial statue.  That was cool.  Stan Musial is one of the greatest players of all time and I think he's underrated.  After the steroid era, 475 home runs doesn't sound like a huge number, but when he retired it was 6th all time.  He's still fourth all time in hits.  From 1943-1963, he made the All Star Game every year except 1945.  Why didn't he make it in 1945?  He was serving in the United States Navy.  He's one of the greatest hitters ever and he made my list of favorite Cold War era players.

Stan the Man

The game was a World Series rematch.  I think it was the first time I've ever been to a rematch of the World Series from the year before.  This year is a little different.  According to mlb.com, the Cardinals currently have a 62.7% chance of making the playoffs (34.3% to win the division), but the Red Sox have a 0.0% chance of making the playoffs.  I'd rather not run into the Cardinals in the playoffs, so I was rooting for the Red Sox, but I wore my Coca-Cola shirt to blend in with the Cardinals fans.

As we approached game time, nothing was happening on the field.  The game didn't start on time.  They were waiting for bad weather.  It was a little annoying, but they made the right call.  It started coming down shortly after the scheduled first pitch time of 7:15.  Fortunately, I was pretty much covered by an overhang on the upper level.  The wind blew some of the rain onto my legs, but I was able to just wait out the rain delay in my seat.  The rain delay lasted for an hour and then it didn't rain for the rest of the game.

It was nice to see the tarp coming off the field.

It was Shelby Miller for the Cardinals against Joe Kelly for the Red Sox.  The Cardinals had just traded Joe Kelly and Allen Craig to the Red Sox at the trade deadline.  Allen Craig brought out the lineup card for the Red Sox.  Both Kelly and Craig got big ovations from the crowd of 42,733.  They also have a pretty good round of applause to Dustin Pedroia when he made a nice play in the field for the Red Sox.  You wouldn't get that at most stadiums in the majors.  I thought the Cardinals fans lived up to their reputation of being great fans.

Both starters went seven and gave up one run.  Matt Adams drove in Matt Carpenter (I've seen enough of Carpenter as a Dodgers fan) in the first to give the Cardinals the lead.  Xander Bogaerts doubled in Daniel Nava to tie the game in the fourth.  That's the way it stayed until the top of the ninth.  Bogaerts gave the Red Sox the lead with a sacrifice fly off of Trevor Rosenthal and the Red Sox held on to win 2-1.  Recently on the Effectively Wild podcast, Ben and Sam talked about their favorite score for a baseball game.  Ben said 5-4 and Sam seemed to be confused.  I bring this up because I think my favorite score is generally probably 2-1.  If we're talking about the Dodgers, my favorite score would be them winning 3-0 or 4-0.  I like close games (if the Dodgers aren't involved) and good pitching.  And I was rooting for the Red Sox, so I was happy that night.

My view for the game.  You can't see it in this picture, but I had a view of the arch off in the distance.

As for Busch Stadium, I had high expectations.  The area outside the stadium exceeded my expectations.  Inside the stadium, it probably didn't live up to my expectations.  I had a great view with the arch in the background and the field looks nice (I like the arch cut into the outfield grass).  But other than that, it wasn't too impressive.  The lower concourse wasn't particularly nice.  As you walk around, you can't see the field in most places other than the outfield.  The upper concourse is nicer with views of the field from pretty much anywhere.  The food selection was unimpressive.  I just ended up getting a regular hot dog.  The beer selection wasn't great.  Of course, you can easily find lots of bad beer (Budweiser and Bud Light).  It's St. Louis, after all.  But there wasn't a great selection of good beer.  I had a Schlafly Pale Ale.  Schlafly is a St. Louis brewery.  The beer was fine, but nothing special.  Also, the scoreboard was one of the worst I've seen.  There are two big ones, both out in right center.  The one on the right was used mainly as the out of town scoreboard.  That one was pretty nice actually.  But the other one was used for the lineups and the score for the game and it was terrible.  It had very minimal information and a bad display.  At one point, Will Middlebrooks pinch hit for the Red Sox and they couldn't fit his name on the scoreboard.  It said "Will Middlebrook."  That's something I would have expected from Shea Stadium back in the day.  The atmosphere is great around the stadium and even inside the stadium because of great fans, but the inside of the stadium is underwhelming.  With a good inside, it would easily be one of the top five stadiums in baseball.  I'll update my rankings soon.  Busch Stadium is definitely in the upper half of Major League stadiums, but it's not quite as high as I had expected.

Madden, Montana, and Martin, Oh My!

Last month I went to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as part of my trip to Ohio (which was supposed to include Cincinnati and an Indians game with really good seats).  I held off on this post until the Hall of Fame festivities this weekend (half procrastination, half planned).  Back in May, I made it to the Hockey Hall of Fame.  Last summer I got to the Baseball and Basketball Halls of Fame.  So now I have the four major sports covered.

After going to an early mass in Akron, my dad, my brother, my uncle, and I headed to the Hall of Fame in Canton.  It was about a 30 or 40 minute drive from where my uncle lives.  The first thing we saw was an exhibit on the history of the NFL by decade.  Right in the middle of all that was a statue of Jim Thorpe.  The NFL was founded in Canton in 1920.  I knew there were a lot of defunct NFL teams, but I didn't realize how many.  Many of them played in small Midwestern cities (Canton, Kenosha, Muncie, Racine, etc.).  The Providence Steam Roller won the last NFL championship won by a defunct team in 1928.  Of course, my favorite defunct team was the Brooklyn Dodgers.  They lasted from 1930-1944 (they were the Tigers in 1944) and played their home games at Ebbets Field.  They were not very good, with only four seasons about .500.  The New York Yankees only lasted for three years (only two in the NFL).  The 1934 Cincinnati Reds might have been the worst NFL team of all time.  They went 0-8 and scored only one touchdown and one field goal.  Another thing I learned was the two oldest franchises in the NFL are the Bears (I would have guessed that one) and the Cardinals (I would not have guessed that one).  The Bears started in Decatur and the Cardinals started in Chicago.  The Packers came into the NFL a year later.

Jim Thorpe

Most of the stuff to see is on the second floor.  There are displays on the Super Bowl, other professional football leagues, the NFL today, and the busts.  There was some good stuff on the Super Bowl, but that's one exhibit where I would have liked more.  They highlighted the first few Super Bowls and then a few other ones.  They had Eli Manning and David Tyree's helmets from Super Bowl XLII.  It would be nice if they had a display for each Super Bowl (maybe with bigger ones for Super Bowls like III, XXIII, XXV, XXXIV, XLII, etc.).  They do have the Lombardi Trophy that will be awarded to the winner of Super Bowl XLIX.  That was pretty cool, but of course, it's behind glass.  The exhibit on the other leagues was cool.  There was good stuff about the AFL (and Joe Namath's Jets in particular).

Super Bowl XLII was awesome.  Too bad it's not Justin Tuck's jersey.

Shea Stadium must have been so bad for football.

This Lombardi Trophy will be given to the team that wins Super Bowl XLIX.  Hopefully that won't be the Patriots, Seahawks, Raiders, Dolphins, Cowboys, or 49ers.  You can see my reflection in several places in this picture.

We saved the busts for the end.  As John Madden said in his induction speech, "At night, when the fans and visitors all leave, then the workers start to leave, then just one person turns out the light, locks the door, and I believe the busts talk to each other. And I can't wait for that conversation."  The busts look really cool.  They're easily more visually impressive than what the Hockey and Basketball Halls of Fame have.  The Baseball Hall of Fame has really nice plaques, which probably aren't as impressive as the busts, but they have a lot more information.  That's my one complaint with this part of the Hall of Fame.  You get the busts and below them are the name, position, team(s), and years in pro football.  You can go over to these touchscreens and search for a player and get a lot more information, but I wish there was more information right there with the busts.  It was very cool looking through everybody there.  The three that I wanted to see most were John Madden, Joe Montana, and Curtis Martin.  I grew up with Madden and Summerall calling big NFC games and the Madden video games.  Joe Montana was the quarterback on the 1977 National Championship team at Notre Dame and he became the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL.  Curtis Martin was the greatest Jet I ever saw.  He was probably the greatest player ever to play for the Jets.  Sure, everybody thinks of Joe Namath.  I would argue that Namath is the most important player in Jets history, but Curtis Martin was a better football player than Namath was.  Namath's best years were early in his career.  After winning the Super Bowl, he wasn't really the same.  He put up some big numbers in 1969 and 1972, but other than that, he dealt with injuries and/or his numbers really didn't compare to what he did early in his career.  Curtis Martin was incredibly consistent.  His only bad year was the last year of his career (before his last year, he only missed one game in seven seasons with the Jets, that's amazing).

Boom!  Here's a guy that's in the Hall of Fame.

Joe Montana was the best.

The greatest Jet I've ever seen and one of my favorite players of all time.

So besides Madden, Montana, and Martin, there were other players I wanted to see.  Joe Namath, Don Maynard, and Weeb Eubank from the Super Bowl III champions, of course.  Heisman Trophy winner/fellow former St. Edward's Hall resident Paul Hornung, Alan Page, and other Notre Dame alums.  By the way, USC has the most Hall of Famers with 11 and Notre Dame is second with 10.  But one of USC's Hall of Famers is a murderer, so let's call it even.  Then there's the most underrated quarterback in NFL history/my birthday buddy Bart Starr.  Then there's Vince Lombardi, who once practiced at Camp Alvernia.  My former roommate's father is a Hall of Famer (Dwight Stephenson).  Bill Parcells, the coach who turned the Jets around.

Joe Namath led the Jets to victory in the most important Super Bowl ever.

Vince Lombardi, the greatest professional football coach of all time.  Of course, Knute Rockne is the greatest football coach of all.

Murderer/USC alum O.J. Simpson

After the Hall of Fame, my uncle directed us past LeBron James's house and high school back near Akron.  I was driving, so I didn't get pictures.  The house was big, but not gigantic.  It did look like security was very tight.  We ended the day with dinner at Rockne's Pub.  I don't know where it got the name, but I like to think it's named after Knute Rockne.

Now that I've been to the Halls of Fame for the four major professional sports, it's time for my Hall of Fame Power Rankings:

4.  Basketball.  I love basketball, but it's clearly the worst of the four.
3.  Football.  Basketball is way behind the other four.  I have football third, but it's really close to the top two.  As I said, the busts are great, but I'm giving hockey and baseball the slight edge overall.  It is a little difficult to take it seriously without Vinny Testaverde, though.  Just kidding (but not really).
2.  Hockey.  On the one hand, it's not in the United States.  On the other hand, it's the only one located in a big city.  If you're going to go to Canada, Toronto is probably a place you would go.  I can't think of a reason to go to Cooperstown, Canton, or Springfield other than for the Halls of Fame (maybe Cooperstown for other baseball related activities since it's such a baseball town, but it's such a baseball town because the Hall of Fame is there).  It's close between hockey and football.  The fact that you can touch the Stanley Cup is what puts it ahead of football.
1.  Baseball.  The original.  The museum is outstanding.  The Hall of Fame Gallery with all the plaques is the best of any display of Hall of Famers.  As I said, the Football Hall of Fame comes pretty close with the busts, but I'm giving Baseball the edge.  I think I've covered it before, but the first class is five of the greatest players of all time.  The Football Hall of Fame's first class has some really big names to be sure, but it also has some guys I've never heard of.  I guess the biggest difference is that it's easier to learn something at the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Maybe that appeals to me as a teacher.  If you have kids, imagine taking your kids there.  Let's take the year I was born.  If I had a son and he saw Mike McCormack's bust from the Football Hall of Fame's class of 1984 and asked who that was, I would have no idea.  If he saw Rick Ferrell's plaque from the Baseball Hall of Fame's class of 1984, again, I have no idea, but I could just read the plaque.  And Cooperstown is great.  It's just baseball everywhere.  You can't beat that.

Kershaw Above Replacement

Clayton Kershaw pitched another outstanding game last night.  It got me thinking about the statheads' favorite statistic:  WAR.  Wins Above Replacement.  I hate this stat as it's entirely theoretical.  How many more theoretical wins does a player contribute to his team than a theoretical replacement level player would?  I listen to a few baseball podcasts that I like, but sometimes they'll talk about players and all they'll talk about is WAR.  For example, instead of talking about Ted Williams hitting 38 home runs, driving in 123 runs, and hitting .342 in 1946, they'll say he was a 10.9 win player in in 1946 (his best season according to WAR, but not his best season according to statistics that are based on things that actually happen in baseball games).

The good thing about starting pitchers is that they actually are replaced (although not by a "replacement level player") each day.  So let's compare the Dodgers' record during the last 10 starts for each of their starting pitchers:

Clayton Kershaw:  10-0

Zack Greinke:  4-6

Hyun-Jin Ryu:  6-4

Josh Beckett:  5-5

Dan Haren:  4-6

If they gave a replacement level pitcher ten starts, what should you expect?  Read this if you want to read more about replacement level.  Here's the important line:  "replacement level is now equal to a .294 winning percentage."  Now, the rest of the team would not be replacement level.  The rest of the Dodgers are pretty good, so let's say we'll add about .100 points to the expected winning percentage for the Dodgers with a replacement level starting pitcher.  So let's we can expect the Dodgers to win four out of ten games with a replacement level starter.  So in Kershaw's last ten starts, the Dodgers have won six more games than you would expect with a replacement level starter.  They've won four more games than they have with Hyun-Jin Ryu, five more games than they have with Josh Beckett, and six more games than they have with Zack Greinke and and Dan Haren.  Now, before you tell me that there's more to that than just Clayton Kershaw, I agree, but look at Kershaw's game log.  If you want to throw out his game against the Cardinals (7 innings, 3 earned runs, no decision), I'm fine with that.  Kershaw had something to do with that win, but he definitely wasn't the only reason for it.  But look at his other nine starts.  He's given up five runs in 70 innings in those nine games (0.64 ERA).  We can give Kershaw credit for those nine wins.  Nine wins compared to 6 with Ryu, 5 with Beckett, and 4 with Greinke, Haren, or a theoretical replacement level pitcher.

So in that ten game stretch, let's say Kershaw has contributed five more wins to the Dodgers than a theoretical replacement level pitcher would.  He's made six other starts.  The Dodgers are 3-3 in those starts.  In the three wins, Kershaw was excellent (0.46 ERA, but he didn't go more than 7 in those games).  Let's give him credit for two wins there (the Dodgers only scored more than 3 runs in one of those games and he pitched a total of 19 and two thirds, a little more than two full games).  So that gets him to seven wins above a replacement level pitcher.  The losses are a little more complicated.  In one game, he was terrible (seven runs in one and two thirds).  Let's subtract that from his total.  His other two starts were both 7 innings and 3 earned runs.  The Dodgers scored two and four in those two games.  Those aren't bad performances, but they certainly weren't great either.  The National League average ERA is 3.69.  Kershaw's ERA in those two games was 3.86.  If you have a 3.86 ERA when league average is 3.69, you're probably a little bit below .500.  I'm not going to pin either loss on Kershaw (just like I didn't give him credit for the game the Dodgers won when he pitched 7 and gave up three runs).

Where does that leave us?  Kershaw contributed seven wins above a theoretical replacement level pitcher and he contributed one loss that a theoretical replacement level pitcher wouldn't have (the Dodgers scored seven runs in that game, you should win when you score seven).  So his WAR should be 6.  What do the stats say?  Baseball Reference and ESPN have him at 4.9.  (The idea of decimal numbers here is pretty stupid.  What's 0.9 of a win?  I know, Clayton Kershaw can be partially responsible for a win and Yasiel Puig, Dee Gordon, and Adrian Gonzalez can all contribute to that same win, but for starting pitchers, it's pretty stupid.  Either you were a big reason they won, you were a big reason they lost, or you were just decent and really didn't have much to do with who won or lost.)  4.9 is not that far off from where I have him.  Let's round up and say five, but I definitely think it's too low.  Fangraphs has him at 4.1 (if you're reading this after Kershaw has pitched more games, the numbers are likely to be different).  What?  The Dodgers have only won four more games with Kershaw than they would have with a replacement level player?  No way.  In his last ten starts, he's definitely been five games better than replacement and he definitely wasn't -1 in his first six games.

That illustrates another problem I have with WAR.  You go to different sites and you get different numbers because it's all theoretical.  I can go to any site I want and find out that he has a 1.76 ERA, 0.80 WHIP (ridiculous), 11.3 strikeouts per 9, a .186 batting average against, .217 on base percentage against, and .285 slugging percentage against.  Why are those the same no matter where I look?  Because they're all based on things that actually happened in baseball games and can be calculated exactly.

I'm sure WAR is generally accurate.  Mike Trout and Troy Tulowitzki are really good, but I don't need WAR to tell me that.

KAR (Kershaw Above Replacement) > WAR.

LeBrontown

After our nightmare travel day on Friday, we had planned to spend the next two days in northeast Ohio, but that didn't go entirely according to plan either.  My uncle lives right outside of Akron, so the plan was to stay with him and go to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday and the Indians game on Sunday.  The Indians had day games both days, but the forecast for Sunday was calling for severe thunderstorms.  I really didn't want to go to Ohio for two baseball games and not get to either.  With the good weather on Saturday, I made the decision that morning to go to the game on Saturday and then the Hall of Fame on Sunday.  The bad news was that I had really good tickets for Sunday (I was supposed to have this view, Section 152, row AA in case the link doesn't give you the view that I want it to), but Saturday's tickets were more expensive on Stubhub because it was Kenny Lofton jersey day.  It was actually cheaper to buy tickets directly from the Indians.  So I got some cheap tickets and sold my Sunday tickets on Stubhub.

We picked up my brother Sean at the Cleveland airport around noon and headed to my uncle's condo.  After relaxing there for a bit, we headed to the stadium.  It was a 3:05 or 3:10 game and we got there about a half hour early.  It was the first time I've ever just had my tickets on my phone and it was not as convenient as it should have been.  The guy scanning tickets had a lot of difficulty scanning my phone (I've used my phone for boarding passes on flights a bunch of times and it's always been easier than this was).  Eventually we got into the stadium and took a walk around the lower level.  Lots of people were wearing old LeBron James jerseys.  We heard somebody saying that he was going to wear 32 now, but I just googled it and apparently he still doesn't have a number.

Bob Feller statue right outside the stadium

We got to our seats right as the first pitch was happening.  Early in the game, Sean and I went back down to the lower concourse because the beer options were limited up top.  There was a bar in center, but the best option was this area near home plate that had a few different craft beer stands.  Sean got something from the Great Lakes Brewing Company and I got a Sam Adams Summer Ale (shocking, I know).  After three scoreless innings with Scott Carroll and Zach McAllister (whoever they are) on the mound, Jose Abreu hit his 29th home run of the season to give the White Sox a 2-0 lead.  Eventually the White Sox went up 3-0.  The Indians cut it to 3-2 in the 8th, but that was as close as they got.  In the ninth, Austin Adams came in to pitch for the Indians.  He was making his Major League debut.  They listed his ERA as 0.00 on the scoreboard, but since he hadn't pitched, he had no ERA.  Gordon Beckham doubled to drive in two before Adams had recorded an out, making his ERA infinity, but it was still listed as 0.00 until he recorded an out.  He ended up being charged with three runs in a third of an inning, making his ERA 81.00.  The White Sox held on for the 6-2 win.

Not quite as good as the view I was supposed to have the following day.

Looking at the hourly forecast for Sunday, I figured there was a good chance that they would get the game in, but I didn't want to take the chance.  There was a decent chance of a rain delay with the severe thunderstorms in the forecast, so that wouldn't have been fun.  Even though it would have been nice to have really good seats, I figured it was worth it to take the sure thing in the good weather.  Of course, they did end up playing the game the next day and it was a good one.  The Indians led 1-0 going into the 8th inning, but the White Sox scored two runs to take the lead.  Yan Gomes hit a two run homer in the bottom of the 8th (with Flynn's favorite player on base) and the Indians held on to win 3-2.  So I missed a more exciting game with better seats.  Oh well.

Anyway, Progressive Field reminded me a little bit of Oriole Park at Camden Yards (which was opened two years before Progressive Field).  The way the lower concourse is laid out is very similar.  You only really have a view of the field from the concourse when you're in the outfield.  So there are some similarities between the two stadiums, but Oriole Park is nicer.  I happen to think Oriole Park is overrated so I'm not going to have Progressive Field ranked too high when I redo my rankings, but there are certainly worse stadiums.  I'm sure it is much better than Cleveland Municipal Stadium (my uncle said he saw games there and it was terrible).

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

After the game, my uncle showed us some places in Cleveland.  We drove right over by Lake Erie and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  There were lots of signs around welcoming LeBron James back to town.  Cleveland fans weren't going to get too upset about a loss to the White Sox the day after LeBron James announced he was coming back to town.

My thoughts on LeBron James:  I'm glad he went back to Cleveland.  When he went to Miami, the Heat became my second least favorite team in the NBA (after the Lakers of course).  Now I don't have to despise the Heat anymore (the Knicks are once again my second least favorite team) and there's no reason to despise the Cavaliers.  I'm not going to root for them, but I won't be upset if they win a championship.  So I went from three NBA teams I despise down to two.  The Knicks aren't going to win a championship anytime soon.  I would say the same thing about the Lakers, but I can't rule out the possibility of the NBA rigging things for them to end up with some combination of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Anthony Davis, and/or Stephen Curry in the next few years.

We ended the day with some grilled meat at my uncle's condo.  Baseball, beer, grilled meat.  That's a good summer day.

No Cincinnati

My dad and I had planned an Ohio trip to get to games in Cincinnati and Cleveland as well as the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  The original plan was to fly to one city, rent a car, and fly home from the other city.  It turns out that renting a car is a lot cheaper when you return it to the same location.  So the plan was changed to flying to and from the same city and driving back and forth across the state.

A little background:  the only other time I've ever flown to and from the Cleveland airport was 2007.  I flew there and my friends picked me up to go to the Notre Dame-Penn State game at Penn State.  We lost 31-10.  Evidently, bad things happen when I fly to Cleveland.

Back to last week.  We were supposed to have an 8:30 flight on Friday morning that would get to Cleveland at 10:21.  The plan was to go to the Reds game on Friday night and then we'd drive back north for the Hall of Fame and the Indians the next two days.  Driving from the Cleveland airport to our hotel in Cincinnati was supposed to take about three and a half hours.  So if our flight had been on time, let's say it takes a little while to rent a car and get on the road, we should have gotten to Cincinnati around 3:00.  That's fine for a game at 7:10.  Our flight was about 15 minutes delayed when we got to the airport.  No big deal.  We got on the plane and sitting behind us were a mother and two kids (about one and three) that screamed the whole time.  Not fun.  A little after 9:00, we were ready for takeoff.  The plane accelerated, but quickly slowed down.  The pilot said there was some problem that forced him to abort the takeoff.  We had to go back to the gate to get it checked out.

So we got off the plane and sat and waited.  A little before 11:00, we were told that they were going to take the plane for a test drive and if that was good, we'd leave in about a half hour.  After that, the pilot came in and said the plane was good to go, they just had to finish up some paperwork and then we'd board.  Annoying, but we'd still get to Cincinnati in time.  Five minutes later, he came back in and said they found another problem and we couldn't take off.  United's next flight to Cleveland didn't leave until 2:29.  That would not get us to Cleveland in time to get to Cincinnati for the game.  So I started figuring out what to do.  We had plans already for Saturday and Sunday, so it wasn't like we could go to Cincinnati another day.  Cincinnati was out.  I sold our tickets on Stubhub.  I took a decent loss on the tickets.  Maybe I could have gotten a little more, but I wanted to try to sell them before I got on the plane and had to turn my phone off.  I booked a room for us at the Days Inn by the Cleveland airport.  I tried to get a refund on my room in Cincinnati.  I explained my whole situation on the phone to hotels.com.  Earlier this year, I managed to get a refund for one night at a hotel when my Boston plans got altered because of snow, but they called our hotel and couldn't get a refund.  Of course, we could have still driven to Cincinnati and stayed in the room we had, but that would have made no sense since we weren't going to do anything there and we'd just be driving back the next day.

While we were waiting, it was announced that LeBron James was going back to Cleveland.  It made it an interesting time to be going to Cleveland.  Eventually, we got on the plane for our 2:29 flight.  When we got on the plane, we ended up sitting right in front of the same mother and two kids from before.  They screamed the entire time.  I get that if a one year old is going to be in a bad mood on a plane, there's probably not much you can do.  But the older kid was worse.  We had a long wait to takeoff.  The pilot estimated that we were 15th in line for takeoff.  When we were finally in the air, the mother and father switched spots.  The kids were even worse sitting with the father.  Across the aisle from them was a grandfather with his grandson, who looked to be about one also.  That kid was totally calm the entire flight.  But the two kids right behind us, not so much.  Fortunately, it's not that long of a flight.

We considered going to the Indians game that night, but by the time we got to our hotel and I checked Stubhub, they weren't listing tickets for the game anymore.  We were both tired after a miserable day of traveling anyway.  So we just hung out at the hotel and watched LeBronCenter on ESPN.  I also introduced my dad to Chipotle for dinner since there was one within walking distance of our hotel.  He was a fan.

As I mentioned in my post about Detroit, I had met an Englishman who was a baseball fan who was trying to get to all the stadiums also.  I gave him my email address because we were supposed to be going to the same Reds game.  He emailed me on Friday afternoon to see if I wanted to meet up before the game.  I wrote back and told him a short version of our miserable travel story.  I had the thought that we were going to miss something interesting in the game in Cincinnati.  And we did.  Besides this Billy Hamilton play, the Reds came back late in the game from 5-1 down and won 6-5.

So we wasted a decent amount of money thanks to United Airlines.  When you add up the loss on the tickets, the hotel room in Cincinnati that I couldn't get a refund on, and prepaid parking (which wasn't that expensive, but still we paid for it and got nothing out of it) and subtract the $14 dollars in vouchers United gave us for lunch at the airport, they cost us a total of $123.30.  In fairness, they did save us money on gas since we wouldn't have to do as much driving.  But in reality, they cost me (at least) a good deal more than that since now I still have to get to Cincinnati.  At some point (probably next year), I'll have to pay for a flight, hotel, tickets, etc. for another Reds game since United Airlines prevented me from getting to one this year.

I've already put some thought into getting to Cincinnati next year.  One thought is going to the All Star Game.  I would love to go to an All Star Game, but I'm going to say that's unlikely (after seeing ticket prices for the All Star Game at Citi Field last year, I assume it would be really expensive, even in Cincinnati).  Another thought is going to a Dodger game in Cincinnati.  We might have tried to do that this year, but the Dodgers played a Monday-Thursday series in Cincinnati in the middle of June, so that didn't work.  I could also try to include Cincinnati in another trip, like when I went to Milwaukee on my way home from Los Angeles or when I went to Atlanta after going to Seattle last year.  So I could to to combine Cincinnati with Anaheim, Texas, or Minnesota next year.  The last possibility is combining it with a trip to another place I want to get to.  I want to get to all fifty states.  One idea I have is to fly to New Orleans and drive to Mobile, Alabama for some minor league baseball (that would get me to Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama for the first time).  So possibly, I could combine that with a trip to Cincinnati.

Thanks, United Airlines.

"You could probably buy an entire city block."

That was my friend John's reaction when I told him I was going to Detroit.  It wouldn't have been a good investment.  I wanted to spend as little time as possible in Detroit so I was in and out as quickly as I could be (I took a 6:00 flight the morning after going to the Tigers game).

I went to Detroit on July 8 to see the Dodgers play the Tigers.  It was my third and, most likely, final Dodger game of the year.  I saw them in Los Angeles and New York.  Looking at the Dodgers' schedule, I won't get to another regular season game.  A playoff game is very unlikely since the only teams I could easily see the Dodgers play against are the Mets and Yankees.  I could make a weekend trip to see them play the Phillies, Red Sox, or Nationals in the playoffs.  The Nationals seem to be the only somewhat likely possibility, but even if that happened, I still probably wouldn't go since that would interfere with watching college football.  Going into the game, they were 0-2 with me in attendance this year.  The last season that I didn't see a Dodger win in person was 2008.  Since Clayton Kershaw wasn't starting, it meant that I wouldn't see Kershaw in person this year.

When I got to Detroit, I went to American Coney Island and Lafayette Coney Island just like Adam Richman did in the Detroit episode of Man vs. Food.  They are right next to each other and they are known for their Coney Island dogs which are hot dogs covered in chili, mustard, and onions.  According to Adam Richman, the hot dogs were the same, but all the other ingredients were a little bit different.  He didn't say which one he liked better, but from the way he described them, Lafayette Coney Island sounded better to me.  First I went to American Coney Island and it was good.

Lafayette Coney Island on the left and American Coney Island on the right.  American Coney Island is much bigger.

American Coney Island dog

Then I took a walk down to the Detroit River.  You look south across the river and you see Canada.  I could clearly make out a Canadian flag on the other side.

I was facing south in the US and looking at Canada.  I guess you can do that somewhere in Alaska also (you could at least stand right by the border facing south and Canada would be on your left).

Then I walked back to Lafayette Coney Island and tried their Coney Island dog.  The only ingredient where I noticed a difference was the chili.  Lafayette had a meatier chili which gave Lafayette the edge, but both were good.

Lafayette Coney Island dog.  Lafayette wins the Year of Jim Award for best Coney Island dog in Detroit.

Walking around the city was weird.  John asked if it was like Gotham and I said it had a very Batman Begins Gotham feel to it.  It was weird walking around and nobody was around.  Imagine walking around a city like Philadelphia in the middle of the day and nobody is around.  That's what it was like.  And I feel like I was in some of the nicer parts of the city.

Anyway, I went to the game at night.  I walked around the stadium before going to my seat.  I have a couple of thoughts.  There were rides for kids to go on (like a merry-go-round).  You don't find stuff like that at Fenway Park.  It's a baseball stadium, not an amusement park.  The outfield area was unimpressive.  They had some statues of famous Tigers, which was nice, but I didn't like anything else.  Behind the batter's eye was just like a tunnel.  You walk through and there's nothing there.  On either side of the batter's eye, you can stand along the wall and watch, but the angles are weird.  The walls in left center and right center are parallel to the front of home plate, which makes for a weird angle for watching the game.  Also, as you're walking around the concourse, there's just a lot of stuff that blocks your view of the field from the concourse (especially near home plate).

Ty Cobb was a terrible person, but he was probably one of the five greatest hitters of all time.

One of the rides at Comerica Park.

I had a black bean burger since I wasn't in the mood for anything meaty after the Coney Island dogs.  It was fine.  To drink, I had a Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy.  One thing I liked about Comerica Park was that there was a bar on the upper level.  Citi Field has a bar on the upper level, but you have to be seated in certain sections to get in.  The one in Detroit was open to everybody.  So I walked in, got a beer quickly, and walked out.  My criticism is that they should have had a better selection.  I don't mind a Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy on a nice summer night, but they didn't have a wide variety of craft beers available.

The game got off to a great start.  In the first inning, Adrian Gonzalez drove in two with a double, Matt Kemp singled in Gonzalez, and then Juan Uribe hit a home run to make it 5-0.  But Hyun-Jin Ryu couldn't hold the lead.  He gave it all back in the second inning and after four innings, the Tigers were up 11-5.  Justin Verlander settled in after a terrible first inning.  I think at one point, the Tigers had 16 hits between Dodger hits.  What looked like it was going to be a good game for the Dodgers turned into a blowout for the Tigers.  Late in the game, I was just checking stuff on my phone.  One of the highlights of the game was Don Mattingly getting ejected.  There was some good stuff on Twitter about that.  Somebody mentioned that the umpire told Matting to get rid of his sideburns.  One other thing that was cool (one of the few good things about Detroit) was that it got dark so late.  Since it's so far west and north in the Eastern time zone, it wasn't totally dark until about 9:30 or 9:45.  The final score was 14-5 (making the Dodgers 0-3 all time when Hyun-Jin Ryu pitches and I'm in attendance).

My view of the game.

It was a good crowd of 36,912.  One of the people in the crowd was an Englishman named Rich.  He was three seats away from me and we talked for a little bit at the end of the game.  He became a baseball fan when he was in the US in the late 1990s and now he's trying to get to every stadium.  He's been to about as many as I have.  He started this trip over to the US in Boston and he was finishing it up in the Midwest.  Actually, we were supposed to go to the same game in Cincinnati on Friday so I gave him my email address to try to meet up there.  But that never happened.  I'll save that story for my next post.