109 Degrees of Awesomeness

According to weather.com, the high in Phoenix yesterday was 109.  That's definitely the highest temperature I've ever experienced.  The UV index was 11.  I didn't know it went that high.  I first felt the heat when I got out of the airport on Friday night.  The pilot said it was 100 degrees when we landed around 8:45.  It was weird being outside at night and it being really hot.  And then there was the day yesterday.  I have to say, though, that it was different than a hot day in New York.  When the wind was blowing, it was a hot wind.  But it was kind of a pleasant heat.  I did a little walking outside in Phoenix, and I was only sweating a little bit.  I'd take 109 in Phoenix over 99 in New York (although it's very rare for it to get that hot where I live).


The game was a night game.  I had all day in Phoenix and I had to figure out what to do.  I considered a few possibilities.  First was driving to Four Corners, where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado come together.  I want to get to all 50 states and I could knock out four new ones instead of just one.  And really, when am I ever going to get to New Mexico?  I do think that  I'll probably get to Colorado and Utah in the next few years.  I have to get to Denver for Coors Field and I would love to see Notre Dame play at BYU and we have a couple of games coming up there in the next decade.  My other thought was to go to the Grand Canyon.  "If you go to the Grand Canyon and you don't think about God, there's something wrong with you."  (Sorry, I know there are only like three people who might be reading this that got that one.)  Four Corners was six and a half hours away.  The Grand Canyon was more realistic, but that was still four hours away.  And I feel like you can't be in a rush if you go to the Grand Canyon.


So I had to figure out what to do until the game started at 7:10 MST (for some reason Arizona claims to be in the Mountain time zone right now when it's really on PDT right now).  When in doubt, go to Adam Richman.  I looked up the Phoenix episode of Man v. Food on youtube and decided to go to Alice Cooperstown, which was right by Chase Field.  But first I did a tour of Chase Field.  With the roof open, we started by walking around the concourse.  We got a look at the pool.  It's $3500 per game for 35 people.  That seems like a pretty good deal, but the desire to be in the water is reduced with the roof closed during the game.  After that, we saw a luxury box and the press box.  Then we went down underneath the lower level in the clubhouse area.  We couldn't go in with the Diamondbacks having a home game that day, but we did see Dodgers backup catcher Matt Treanor.  The tour ended with a stop in the Diamondbacks dugout.

When the stadium opened, I was amazed by the idea of a baseball stadium having a pool in it.

After the stadium tour, I went to Alice Cooperstown.  Unlike Primanti Brothers in Pittsburgh, I did not have what Adam Richman had.  He had the Big Unit Dog, a 22-inch hot dog.  That wasn't happening for me.  When I first sat down, there was this loud bell that sounded like a fire alarm.  Nobody seemed concerned about this.  Apparently, they ring it every time they bring out a Big Unit Dog and then everybody who works there yells "Big Unit!"  It happened three or four times while I was there.  Anyway, I had a burger and a Sam Adams.  I hung around and watched most of Cubs-Mets.  Sadly, Jeff Samardzija was the losing pitcher.

There's the regular Big Unit and there's also the Adam Richman Big Unit that's loaded with all sorts of stuff.

I left around four and headed to St. Mary's Basilica for their 5:00 mass (definitely better than having to go at 7:00 tonight after traveling).  I had finished eating long before four, so I was definitely good to receive Communion around 5:50 or so.  St. Mary's is the oldest Catholic Church in Phoenix (dating back to 1881) and was designated as a basilica by Pope John Paul II in 1985.

The oldest Catholic church in Phoenix

After mass, I went back to the stadium for the game.  I took a quick lap around the lower concourse again before going up to my seat.  I was high up, but if I moved one seat to my left, I would have been directly behind home plate.  To me, that's the best seat that you can find at a reasonable price, high up, but right behind home plate.  It was a great view of the field.  The Dodgers started out nicely with a two-run home run by Jerry Hairston in the first, but their triple-A lineup (no Kemp or Ethier) could only score one more run and Chad Billingsly fell apart in the fifth and sixth and the Diamondbacks ended up winning 5-3.

Great view of the field

Overall, I was impressed by Chase Field.  I liked it a lot better than Marlins Park, the only other retractable roof stadium I've been to.  I don't like indoor baseball, but I'm not going to argue with it when it's 107 degrees at the start of the game.  Also, I felt more like I was outdoors than at Marlins Park.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought the roof at Chase Field was higher up.  Also, the stadium just seemed bigger and more like an airplane hangar than a traditional dome.  And it felt like the right temperature for baseball, unlike Marlins Park where the air conditioning made it too cold.  All of those things created more of an illusion of being outdoors.  I do have couple of minor complaints.  After every play, they gave the "scoring decision" on the scoreboard.  I first noticed it when Hairston hit the home run and the scoring decision was "2-run HR."  The scoring decision really isn't necessary on most plays.  Also, they had a strikeout board for the Diamondbacks pitchers.  It was sponsored by some company that has a K as a logo, so that's what they would put up for every strikeout.  But some of the K's should have been backwards (like when Juan Uribe broke his usual habit of striking out swinging and struck out looking instead).  They had all the K's facing the same way.  That's incorrect.  Of the five stadiums I've been to this year, I'd rank Chase Field third.  The big thing that puts Petco and PNC Parks ahead of it is that both of those have great views of the city, but Chase Field really doesn't.  So while the result of the game was disappointing, I did enjoy Chase Field.  This trip brings my total number of current stadiums visited to 13 and states visited to 22.  I'm almost halfway there on both.