Surprise Doubleheaders

Ever since I finished getting to all the Major League stadiums, I’ve been trying to get to as many minor league stadiums as possible.  I’m once again unfinished with Major League Stadiums since I need to see the A’s in Sacramento and eventually in Las Vegas.  I’m definitely not going to get to every minor league stadium, but I’m trying to get to new ones whenever I can.  I’m especially trying to get to all the ones that are fairly easy to get to.  The state of Maryland has three affiliated minor league teams and I hadn’t been to any of them.  One is on the Delmarva Peninsula and that’s pretty much a foreign country (I’d have to go through the entire state of Delaware instead of just the small part between New Jersey and Maryland).  I’m totally fine not getting to that one, but the other two were much more accessible and I got to them on the same trip.

I hadn’t seen Jon since he married Halie three years ago.  So I was talking to him about going down for a visit and a Chesapeake Baysox game one weekend.  He gave me a weekend that worked for him and the schedule worked out so that the Aberdeen IronBirds were home the same week.  Aberdeen has an Amtrak stop so it was an easy one to get to.  My brother Tom drove down from Pennsylvania and met me in Aberdeen to see the IronBirds (the Orioles’ high-A affiliate) take on the Jersey Shore BlueClaws (Phillies) on Thursday before I went down to visit Jon the following day.

Unbeknownst to Tom and I but knownst to anybody who checked the IronBirds’ Twitter account, the Thursday game turned out to be a doubleheader.  I only found out when I went on their website to buy tickets.  We were hanging out at the hotel watching Seinfeld and I saw that the start time was listed at 4:35 when it had been 7:05.  They got rained out the night before (the forecast for my entire trip was looking a little questionable, but it worked out for the most part).  So I bought tickets and we headed to the stadium.  We got there in the fifth inning.  They only play seven inning double headers in the minors so we ended up seeing pretty much one regular game of baseball as we saw the end of the first game and the entire second game.  In the first game, the BlueClaws scored two runs before we got there and that was all the scoring for the game.  The second game started at 7:05 and it was more eventful.  After the first inning, the IronBirds led 2-1.  The BlueClaws scored four runs in the third on a fielder’s choice, error, sacrifice fly, and a single to go up 5-2.  But the IronBirds came back in the fourth.  Anderson De Los Santos hit the only home run of the game.  Two RBI singles and an RBI triple gave the IronBirds a 7-5 lead.  Both teams scored in the sixth (on a wild pitch and an RBI single).  The BlueClaws scored in the seventh on a sacrifice fly, but that was all they could get and they lost 8-7.  The first game was an hour and 46 minutes and the second game was two hours and 24 minutes.  It was 82° and cloudy.  Attendance was 1,281, but there were a lot less than that when we first got there.  A lot of people probably also didn’t realize it was a doubleheader or they weren’t out of work in time for the first game.

The IronBirds play at Ripken Stadium, which is part of the Ripken Experience baseball facility.  Besides Ripken Stadium, there’s also a field with the same dimensions as Yankee Stadium.  Then there are youth fields which are miniature versions of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Citi Field, Citizens Bank Park, Fenway Park, Memorial Stadium (the former home of the Orioles), Nationals Park, PNC Park, and Wrigley Field.  I was wondering how they chose all of those.  It seems like they leaned heavily on northeastern stadiums.  Dodger Stadium would be a good one to have for a symmetrical stadium, but they’re probably not getting a lot of teams from Southern California to play there so I guess it makes sense to have something like a mini Nationals Park instead of a mini Dodger Stadium.  Anyway, the worst thing about the stadium was the artificial turf.  It was pretty good other than that.  I had a pulled pork sandwich and a Duckpin Pale Ale from Union Craft Brewing in Baltimore.  They were good.  Union Craft Brewing also has an IPA named after Eddie Murray that was available at both stadiums I visited on this trip.  Eddie Murray spent 13 years with the Orioles so that makes sense, but I first remember him as a Dodger.  He was a Dodger only from 1989-1991 (and then again for nine games in 1997, I did not remember that).  I would have had the beer named after him in honor of him leading the Majors in batting average, but not winning the batting title in 1990, but I’m not a big IPA guy (that’s one of my favorite pieces of baseball trivia, he didn’t win the batting title because Willie McGee got traded from the Cardinals to the A’s, but he had enough at bats and a higher batting average during his time in the NL than Eddie Murray did for the season).

We got cheap tickets that were in the second row right behind home plate.  Make baseball fields grass again.

The next day I took the MARC train down to Union Station and then took the Metro to visit Jon in Bethesda.  Jon and Halie now have a son named Rory who is about to turn two years old.  I think both of them told me something like it would take 5-10 minutes for him to warm up to me.  That was pretty much exactly right.  He didn’t say much at first, but then he seemed to enjoy having me around for the weekend.  It was fun to meet him and get to play with him for a couple of days.  We took it easy on Friday night.  After Rory went to bed, Jon and I rewatched the Orange Bowl from my birthday.  It’s probably my favorite Notre Dame game that I can remember.  It really was a great game and the fourth quarter was pretty crazy.  Penn State probably should have won, but James Franklin is their version of Brian Kelly.  He beats lots and lots of teams that aren’t very good, but if you’re a very good team, you’re going to beat Small Game James.  We were a very good team and we beat James Franklin.  I believe Marcus Freeman will lead Notre Dame to a National Championship (hopefully this coming season).  When he does that, the Orange Bowl will move down to number two on the list of my favorite Notre Dame games.

On Saturday, we took it easy in the morning and then Jon and I headed to the Wharf in Washington DC for lunch.  Apparently it’s all fairly new restaurants and shops and stuff.  We enjoyed some shrimp cocktail and crabcakes.  Then we headed to Bowie for the game.  Like the game in Aberdeen two nights earlier, this game turned out to be a doubleheader. I saw that right before I went to bed the previous night so it wasn’t as big of a surprise as it was in Aberdeen.  We got there before the gates opened and there was a long line to get in.  I don’t know if it was because there was a pretty tight window between the gates opening and the first game starting or because of the free giveaway.  They were giving out Hawaiian shirts that looked pretty cool.  I would have taken one, but by the time we got in they only had XL and XXL left.  Either option would have been way too big and I never would have worn it so neither of us took a shirt.

It was my second straight minor league game with an Orioles’ affiliate playing a Phillies’ affiliate with the Chesapeake Baysox (the Orioles have the most logical group of minor league teams with the three minor league teams in Maryland and their triple-A team in Norfolk, Virginia) facing the Reading Fighting Phils.  Both teams scored a run on RBI singles in the first.  Reading scored on an RBI double in the second and another RBI single in the sixth.  Chesapeake made it 3-2 on a groundout in the seventh, but that was all they got.  We decided not to stay for the second game and head back to Bethesda to try to watch a collegiate summer league game, but it was rained out. The weather in Bowie was fine, but it rained pretty hard in Bethesda. It had stopped by the time we got there, but I guess they decided to call it with the field all wet.  We missed Chesapeake winning the second game 8-3, but that was fine.  I got to one game and experienced the stadium.  It’s not like I had any rooting interest in the game and it would have been cool to get to another game so I didn’t care about missing the second game.  The game we saw was an hour and 49 minutes.  It was 88°.  It was pretty hot at first with the game starting at 5:05, but it cooled down as it got cloudier.  Attendance was 4,770.  I don’t remember if it was Aberdeen or Bowie, but at one of the stadiums, they did a fifth inning stretch since it was a shortened game with the doubleheaders.

Day baseball is good as long as it’s not too hot and natural grass and dirt are great.

The Chesapeake Baysox definitely have the better stadium that I went to during that trip.  They play in Prince George’s Stadium, which is a terrible name.  Of course, it’s in Prince George’s County, which is also a terrible name.  They should change the name to George County (I was thinking Washington County, but Maryland already has a Washington County) and the stadium to almost anything else.  But the grass field and the bigger crowd made it better than Ripken Stadium.  I also liked the setting. It was kind of isolated.  You drive down this road to the parking lot and then there’s the stadium and then it just looks like a forest behind that.  They had a big green screen behind the center field wall as the batter’s eye.  I was thinking they could just have the trees as the batter’s eye, but that probably wouldn’t work as well early in the season before the leaves have come in.  Their season probably doesn’t go late enough that the leaves are going to be totally changing colors, but it would be a cool location for fall baseball if it did go that long.  The food and beverage was solid.  I had a pit beef sandwich and a Mully’s Blood Orange Blonde from Prince Frederick, Maryland.  The sandwich was good.  And although the brewery is in another place in Maryland with a ridiculous name, the beer was an excellent summer beer.  I wouldn’t take it over Sam Adams Summer Ale, but it was good.

So that was my trip to Maryland.  I got to see Tom for the first time since around Christmas and I got to see Jon and Halie for the first time in three years and meet Rory so that was all fun.  It was my first time in Maryland since before the pandemic.  My next trip had me heading north instead of south so I’ll get to that in my next post.

Before I finish, I had some quick thoughts on the All Star Game.  I’ll give Rob Manfred credit for something.  Having the players in their regular uniforms (and without uniform ads) was beautiful.  Of course, what I’m giving him credit for is just undoing his own stupid decision to have everybody wear the same stupid uniforms for the All Star Game so I’m not really giving him credit.  We also had seven inning doubleheaders in the Majors because of the pandemic and he undid that. I was okay with seven inning doubleheaders in the Majors because of the circumstances, but getting rid of them was a good decision. It would be wonderful if he would undo other more significant stupid decisions like having the DH in the NL (the Dodgers benefit from the DH more than anybody else and I still hate it) and having a runner on second base in extra innings.  And we had our first swing off to decide the All Star Game.  It’s a really stupid way to decide a baseball game.  But with all the stupid things they’ve already done with the All Star Game, whatever.  It was interesting and the game doesn’t mean anything so I can live with it.  But my fear is that Rob Manfred will try to decide real games like this.  I fear that it’s more likely that he’d do that than get rid of the runner on second base in extra innings.  It might be interesting, but it’s not baseball.  Having batting practice pitchers decide games that matter would be unbelievably stupid (except it would be believable with Rob Manfred).  Supporters might compare it to shootouts deciding hockey games.  It’s not that for two reasons.  In hockey, the alternative was having ties.  In baseball the alternative is playing baseball to decide the games.  Also, penalty shots (though rare) are part of hockey games.  Batting practice is not part of baseball games.  Having the swing off to decide meaningful games would be like having a three point contest to decide basketball games or a 50 yard field goal contest to decide football games (I hate college football overtime, but a 50 yard field goal kicking contest would be worse).  So I said I would give Rob Manfred credit for something and then I spent most of this paragraph criticizing him for doing stupid things and worrying that he will do more stupid things.  That sounds about right.

Two Minor League Stadiums, One Major League Game

I started my summer vacation with a couple of games in minor league stadiums, but one of them was a Major League game.  My first stop was Durham to see the Durham Bulls against the Memphis Redbirds.  I didn’t do anything else in Durham.  I was there for my last pre-pandemic sports trip in November 2019 to see Notre Dame beat Duke in football.  I had gotten to a couple of spots that were on Man v. Food so there was nothing else I wanted to do in Durham before the game.  So I just relaxed until the 5:00 Sunday afternoon game.

One of the cool things about triple-A baseball is that you might see some players you know from the Majors or prospects on their way to the Majors.  It was a Cardinals affiliate against a Rays affiliate so I didn’t really care about the prospects.  Looking at the box score, I think the only player I knew from the Majors was Ha-Seong Kim from his time with the Padres.  Memphis scored first after Bryan Torres stole third and scored on a throwing error in the fourth.  Then Bryan Torres drove in a run with an RBI double in the sixth to make it 2-0.  But the Bulls took the lead in the bottom of the sixth with home runs by Carson Williams and Tanner Murray to make it 3-2.  They added another run in the eighth on a sacrifice fly and the final score was 4-2.

Like the Dodger game I saw two nights later, the game lasted two hours and 22 minutes.  It was 91°, but it wasn’t too bad.  There were fans above the seats.  The box score says the wind was only 1 mile per hour so those fans must have been doing a good job because it felt like a good breeze.  Attendance was 6,385.  I wondered if the next game I went to would have a bigger crowd.  I had the Carolina Que Dog, which was a hot dog topped with pulled pork.  It was very good.  I had the Lucky’s Lager (an amber lager) from the Fullsteam Brewery in Durham.  It was good.  I liked the Durham Bulls Athletic Park.  The capacity is 10,000 so 6.385 seemed like a good crowd and they were into the game.  They have a blue monster (32 feet high) in left field with a scoreboard that looks just like Fenway Park’s scoreboard.  I thought the scoreboard was a little weird considering that the Bulls are not a Red Sox affiliate.  Make it more Durham Bulls-like and less Red Sox-like.  The only other negative was that the concourse was not open so you can’t see what’s going on when you’re on the concourse.  But I would rate it as a very good minor league stadium.

I had a seat facing the Blue Monster.  It’s not the best picture, but you can kind of see the Fenway Park scoreboard that it has.

The next day I was off to Tampa to see the Rays.  I resisted going to Tropicana Field until 2019.  And now the Rays are the sixth team I’ve seen play in two different home stadiums (besides the Mets and Yankees, I’ve seen the Braves at Turner Field and Truist Park, the Blue Jays at SkyDome and Sahlen Field, and the Rangers at Globe Life Park and Globe Life Field).  Again, there was nothing I had planned other than the game so I just relaxed until it was time for the game.

I saw the Sacramento A’s (they don’t call themselves the Sacramento A’s, but I do) against the Rays.  The A’s might be the next team I see at two different stadiums and the first one I see at three different stadiums.  The starting pitchers combined to pitch six and a third innings.  Sigh.  In fairness, neither one was good (they both gave up four runs).  But baseball desperately needs starting pitchers going deeper into games.  The A’s took a 3-0 lead in the first on a home run by Shea Langeliers.  Brent Rooker had an RBI single in the third to make it 4-0.  The Rays tied it in the fourth on a home run by Junior Caminero and RBI singles by Jonathan Aranda and Jose Caballero.  And then it was tied going into the ninth.  I was definitely rooting for somebody to win in the ninth because I definitely would have left instead of watching stupid Rob Manfred extra innings in a game that I was not emotionally invested in.  Fortunately the A’s scored two on a triple by Lawrence Butler and ended up winning 6-4 in nine innings.  The other notable thing about the game was that the A’s have the other Max Muncy.  He went 1 for 4.

This game lasted two hours and 24 minutes.  It was 82° and the wind was 10 miles per hour, but it felt warmer than the day before in Durham.  I purposely sat in one of the last rows so that I would have an overhang in case of thunderstorms.  Fortunately there was no rain.  I figured where I was sitting had a low chance of getting a foul ball because I thought the angle would be pretty tough between the screen in front of me and the overhang above.  But actually, I came very close to two foul balls.  Somebody who was a row behind me and two seats to my right got hit in the back of the head or neck by a foul ball after it hit the wall behind us.  And then later there was a gentle pop up that was caught by a guy who was one row in front of me and two seats to my left.  Attendance was 10,046.  So it easily beat the attendance in Durham.  It also beat the attendance when I saw the Rays at Tropicana Field in 2019 (9,914).  I don’t remember what I had to eat.  The website lists the concession stands, but it doesn’t have menus.  If I saw a menu, I’d probably remember.  But I think I got something from the Legendary BBQ stand, maybe a pulled pork sandwich or something.  I was hoping for a bigger selection with a more Florida feel like some seafood or alligator or something.  But it felt more like a minor league stadium with the food options.  I had a Florida Special Lager from Coppertail Brewing Company in Tampa.  Despite its name, it was not special.  It wasn’t bad, but there was definitely nothing special about it.

It felt like a minor league/spring training stadium, but it was definitely better than Tropicana Field.  It was outdoors, it had grass, and it was full.  It can’t be the permanent home for the Rays, but Steinbrenner Field beat Tropicana Field easily.  It was also the fourth (or fifth) stadium that I’ve been to with the same dimensions.  It has the same dimensions as Yankee Stadium since it’s the Yankees’ spring training facility.  The current Yankee Stadium has the same dimensions as the Old Yankee Stadium at the end of its time.  Richmond County Bank Ballpark on Staten Island had the same dimensions because it was home to the single-A Staten Island Yankees (that team no longer exists so it’s home to the independent Staten Island FerryHawks now).  And Newman Outdoor Field in Fargo supposedly has the same dimensions because Roger Maris played for the Fargo-Moorhead Twins in the 1950s (although according to Wikipedia, it’s one foot shorter than Yankee Stadium in left center and 32 feet shorter in right center).  I’ll include Steinbrenner Field with the minor league stadiums when I rerank them after this season because it felt more like a minor league stadium than a Major League Stadium, but the Rays are better off playing there than they were in their actual Major League Stadium.

It’s not often that I sit this close to the field at a Major League game.

After that, I was off to Los Angeles to finish my first trip of summer vacation.  I’ve already done another trip since then and I head out for another one tomorrow.  But it was a good trip to start summer vacation.

A Day Early in Los Angeles

Going to Los Angeles to see the Dodgers play has become a nearly annual event for me.  I didn’t get to a game in Los Angeles until I was 27 years old (before the blog).  Since my first two games at Dodger Stadium in 2011, the only years that I haven’t gotten out there are 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2022.  I was so happy when Pete moved out there in 2015 because it gave me another reason to go out to Los Angeles.  And then my brother Sean moved out there in 2017.  So I try to get to a game with them and Sean’s college roommate Lorenzo almost every year since Sean moved out there.  Last year I went for the Fourth of July.  This year I went for Canada Day.  Why did I pick July 1?  With the Dodgers’ massive payroll, the appeal of Shohei Ohtani, and the fact that the Dodgers are the reigning World Series champions, ticket prices are crazy this year.  There were a few games during the summer where they weren’t too crazy.  There were some afternoon games.  I like day baseball, but afternoon games in Los Angeles during the summer are a roll of the dice.  The weather might be fine, but it could be high 90s and sunny (the second game my brothers and I went to in 2011 was 97° and we spent much of the game in the shade instead of sitting in our great seats).  There were two night games during my summer vacation where prices weren’t crazy.  July 1 against the White Sox worked better for my brother Sean so that’s what I did.

Usually I blog about my multi-part trips in chronological order, but this was definitely the most fun part of my trip so I’m doing this one first.  But I was a little worried about making it out to Los Angeles.  I had a connecting flight at the Atlanta airport and I was scheduled to have 42 minutes to get from my first flight to my flight to Burbank.  Fortunately my first flight was a little early and by the time I got to my gate for the flight to Burbank, they were already boarding my zone.  So I made it to California on time.  Sean picked me up and we stopped at In-N-Out on the way to his house from the airport.  I feel like I’m not officially in California if I don’t have In-N-Out.  In-N-Out isn’t the best fast food burger (I would take Shake Shack and Five Guys), but it’s good and it has the best value.  Gas prices in California are ridiculous, but In-N-Out is very reasonably priced.

We relaxed for a while and then we headed to Dodger Stadium.  It was Yoshinobu Yamamoto against Shane Smith.  I think it’s fair to say that Yoshinobu Yamamoto has established himself as the best pitcher on the Dodgers.  Of course, that was Clayton Kershaw for a very long time.  I think to be considered the best pitcher on the Dodgers during the Clayton Kershaw era, you have to do it for more than one year.  Like Zack Greinke was arguably better than Kershaw in 2015 (I made the argument that Greinke should have won the Cy Young that year over Jake Arrieta and Kershaw).  Greinke was great, but he was only arguably the best pitcher for one year.  From 2010-2020, the only years when Kershaw wasn’t clearly the best pitcher on the Dodgers were 2015 (Greinke), 2018 (Buehler), and 2019 (Ryu).  And it was very close in 2015 and 2018.  Since 2020, their best pitcher has been changing each season.  It was Buehler in 2021, Urias in 2022, Kershaw in 2023, and now it’s been Yamamoto in 2024 (Glasnow and Stone were there with him in the regular season, but Yamamoto gets the nod because of the postseason) and 2025.  So it was cool to see the Dodgers’ best pitcher, but it would have been even cooler to see Kershaw the next night (I’ll come back to that).

I did not think this was going to happen when I saw them in Los Angeles last year.

I like the Dodgers’s policy of only retiring numbers of Hall of Famers.  I was also very much in favor of making an exception for Fernando Valenzuela.  Fortunately they retired his number while he was still with us.

Yamamoto was excellent.  He went seven innings, gave up three hits, one walk, and one run while striking out eight.  It was the third time he’s gone seven innings.  Going into the game, the only other Dodger who had gone seven innings this year was Kershaw (and then Dustin May did it to finish the series against the White Sox).  Baseball would be better if starters went deeper into games, but going seven is an accomplishment these days.

We sat in Reserve section 1 row M.  I think row B of this section would be my ideal seat at Dodger Stadium.  I’d rather not be in the first row because the railing might be kind of in the way.  This section gives you a great view of the entire field and backdrop and it’s right above where Vin Scully called Dodger games for about five and a half decades.

The game was never in doubt.  Teoscar Hernandez and Andy Pages drove in runs in the first to give the Dodgers the lead.  It was already a good inning and then Michael Conforto drove in two more with a single to give the Dodgers a 4-0 lead after one.  Pages drove in another run in the third.  We talked about going to get some food and beverage after three, but we decided to wait until Shohei Ohtani hit in the fourth inning.  That was a good decision because Ohtani hit a home run to make it 6-1 in the bottom of the fourth.  It was the first Ohtani home run I’ve seen in person.  And there were no more runs after that.  With the game not being very competitive and no runs being scored in the last five innings, it was only two hours and 22 minutes (the second game I had been to in three days that was two hours and 22 minutes).  Attendance was 51,368 and it was 69°.  It looks like the Dodgers are going to get to four million fans for the first time in their history and I got to be one of those fans.  It was also the first Dodger win I have seen at Dodger Stadium since 2021.  I didn’t go in 2022 and I saw them lose a game against the Cubs in 2023 and two games against the Diamondbacks last year.

I love Dodger Stadium and I wish I could get there more often.  My one complaint is that the food and beverage program could use work.  The food isn’t bad, but the non-Dodger Dog options are really expensive.  Since it was my only game at Dodger Stadium this season, I just had two Dodger Dogs.  But if I was going to other games, I’d want other good options that aren’t ridiculously expensive.  Also, they need real mustard. They just had yellow. I remember they used to have real mustard in the past. The beer selection was decent, but it could be better, there should be more options on tap, and the options should be more clearly displayed.  If you want good beer at Dodger Stadium, the best bet is to go to the loge level.  If you go all the way to the corners on either side, there’s a pretty good selection of craft beer.  They have all the cans displayed, but they should have a monitor displaying what is available.  I got the Andre Ethier Walkoff Blonde.  It’s nothing special, but it’s named for my favorite Dodger who never won a World Series (but he should have because he was on the team when the Astros cheated him out of a championship).  It wasn’t until after I asked for one of those that I realized they had some on tap on the back wall.  I wish they would make craft beer more widely available throughout the stadium and I wish the options were more clearly displayed.

The next day, Clayton Kershaw was going for his 3000th strikeout.  I might have considered extending my trip and going to the game, but ticket prices were crazy.  It was already Yoshinobu Yamamoto bobblehead night and then you add in Kershaw going for 3000 strikeouts.  So it would have been awesome to be at that game, but it was not going to happen.  But I did get to Dodger Stadium that day.  First Sean and I went to Philippe’s, where the French dip sandwich was invented.  We’ve been there several times.  There are a number of different meat options.  The beef is the most popular.  I did some research on the internet and it seemed like lamb is considered by many to be the best option other than beef.  So I decided to try the lamb.  It was good, but I would definitely prefer the beef.  So I’ll keep that in mind for next time.

After Philippe’s, we went back to Dodger Stadium for the stadium tour at 1:00.  I have done the tour before, but I was wondering if they changed anything about the tour with the renovations that they had done to the stadium since the last time I did the tour in 2018.  There really wasn’t anything different about the tour.  The renovations have been to the outfield area (which is very accessible to the public during games so I’ve seen it) and to the clubhouses.  The clubhouses were not part of the tour (there’s a significantly more expensive tour that does include the clubhouse).  I remembered from my last tour that the 1:00 tour when they have a night game gives you a chance of seeing players (Clayton Kershaw, Kenley Jansen, Joc Pederson, and Yasmani Grandal walked right past me on the tour in 2018).  This year we saw Anthony Banda and Blake Snell.  One thing that I learned that I don’t remember hearing before was that Walter O’Malley wanted an apartment in Dodger Stadium.  It would have been at the top of the stadium where the elevator shaft sticks out above the stadium.  That would have been so cool to live in Dodger Stadium and have that view of the field.

The Dodgers only have four World Series trophies because they used to give out bats for the championship.  The Dodgers have won the World Series eight times so my guess is that they gave out a bat and a trophy in 1981 and 1988.

These paintings from the 1955, 1959, 1981, and 1988 World Series were really cool.  I don’t know if the artist is still alive, but it would be nice to add one for the Freddie Freeman grand slam.

We got to walk on the warning track.  We could touch the grass, but not walk on it (but I’ve walked on the grass a few times in the past when they let fans on the field for Friday night fireworks).

These are two fantastic pictures of Tommy Lasorda.

The models of Ebbets Field and Dodger Stadium were cool.  If I could time travel, the first thing I would do would be go back in time and go to a game at Ebbets Field.

My flight home was at 9:20 from Burbank.  Sean got me there very early so that I could hopefully see Clayton Kershaw get his 3000th strikeout from a bar in the airport.  We got to the airport around 6:50.  I got through security by like 6:55 (one of the many reasons why I go to and from Burbank instead of LAX).  I got a ridiculously expensive sandwich and a bottle of water and sat down to watch the game.  It was not looking good. Kershaw has been good for the most part this season, but he was struggling early.  He gave up a run and struggled to get through the first.  The Dodgers scored in the bottom of the first and the bottom of the second to take a 2-1 lead.  But then Kershaw gave up three runs in the third, but he did get his first strikeout.  He needed two more.  Going into the fifth, it wasn’t looking good.  His pitch count was getting high.  His next start was going to be on the road so everybody wanted him to get two more strikeouts.  I didn’t think he was going to do it.  He got the third out in the fifth on a strikeout.  I think if he didn’t get that strikeout, he might have been done. But Dave Roberts sent him back out for the sixth.  That inning started with a groundout.  Then Michael A. Taylor doubled.  He got thrown out trying to steal third, which was good news and bad news.  The good news was that it was two outs and nobody on instead of one out and a runner in scoring position when the Dodgers were already down 4-2.  The bad news was that it was another out that wasn’t a strikeout.  The really bad news was that Max Munch got hurt making the tag.  It looked really bad like he might be done for the season with torn knee ligaments or something, but it turned out to be a bad bone bruise (he said he would be out for about six weeks).  Then Kershaw struck out Vinny Capra on his 100th pitch of the game (his season high).  Getting his 3000th strikeout on his final pitch of the night when it looked like he wasn’t going to get it was really cool.

This was my view for Kershaw’s 3000th strikeout.

Kershaw hugs Will Smith, one of five catchers to catch at least 200 Kershaw strikeouts.

After seeing Kershaw get to 3000, I headed to my gate.  Unfortunately, Kershaw was in line to be the losing pitcher.  The Dodgers had two on and nobody out to start the bottom of the sixth.  It would have been nice to get Kershaw off the hook or perhaps even to give him a chance to be the winning pitcher.  But they didn’t score.  It was still 4-2 when I got on the plane.  I had ESPN on the plane so I was able to watch SportsCenter as they gave updates.  Ohtani and Betts drove in runs in the ninth to tie the game and get Kershaw off the hook.  And they won 5-4 when Freddie Freeman drove in the runner who was on base for no reason in the 10th.

So that was my quick trip to Los Angeles.  I’ll probably go back next year.  It might be combined with a trip to see the A’s play in Sacramento.  Of course, it will depend on schedules and when ticket prices for the Dodgers aren’t too crazy.

Obstruction of Baseball Justice

Weather is always a wildcard when you’re going to baseball games in the Northeast.  When I saw the Dodgers were playing at Citi Field right before Memorial Day, I was hoping for some pretty good weather. As we got close to the game, the forecast was looking questionable, but it looked like it would probably be okay.  It turned out to be the worst possible outcome with the weather.  That was the bad news.  The good news was that I was able to see the Dodgers play without getting Apple TV.  As it would turn out, I would have needed Apple TV to see the end of the game.

I went to the game with my father.  The rain started when we were on our way to the stadium, but it stopped before we got there.  It started again right before the game started.  So we watched the first inning on a TV in the Hudson Club.  But it didn’t last long so we went back to our seats for the second inning.  With the Dodgers threatening in the top of the third, it started again.  It started coming down pretty good and they quickly delayed the game.  We went back to the Hudson Club, but it was much more crowded than the first time we were there and we couldn’t find a place to sit.  The rain stopped pretty quickly so we went back to our seats, but they announced that more rain was expected soon.  During the rain delay, we were pretty much looking for a place we could go to stay dry.  They were showing the Knicks and Pacers on the video board, but we didn’t really get to watch it because we were trying to stay out of the rain.

This was our view for the parts of the game when it wasn’t raining.

This would have been a really good way to spend a rain delay if  we had seats that were somewhere that would have stayed dry.

There were some weird plays in the game.  Right before the rain delay, Michael Conforto and Shohei Ohtani tagged up on a Mookie Betts fly ball that was caught after being bobbled in right center.  The Mets challenged the play.  Watching it live, I thought that Conforto left early because of the bobble.  But when the Mets challenged, I remembered the rule about tagging up.  The runner can leave as soon as a fielder touches the ball.  They don’t have to wait for the catch to be completed.  Like the infield fly rule, the point is to protect the base runners from shenanigans by the team in the field.  Without that rule, an outfield could intentionally bobble a ball and keep doing it while running into the infield to keep the runners from advancing.  The other thing that they could have been reviewing was whether Ohtani beat the tag at second base.  On the replay, it was clear that Conforto left after the ball was first touched and that Ohtani was safe at second.  So the call on the field was correctly confirmed and the Dodgers had runners on second and third going into the rain delay.

After an hour and 38 minutes, they started the game again.  Will Smith and Teoscar Hernandez had RBI singles to give the Dodgers a 3-0 lead.  We got another weird play in the bottom of the fourth.  With the Dodgers leading 3-1, Starling Marte tagged up on a fly ball hit by Pete Alonso.  Teoscar Hernandez made a terrific throw and Marte was out at home.  Except he wasn’t.  The third base umpire called obstruction on Max Muncy.  What did Max Muncy do?  Absolutely nothing.  Apparently, he was obstructing Marte’s view of the ball being caught.  If a fielder is face guarding a runner to prevent him from seeing the ball being caught, then that should be obstruction.  That’s not what Muncy was doing.  He was just standing on the infield.  If the call wasn’t made, the Mets would never have complained.

So that call was ridiculous, but it looked like it wouldn’t matter much because the Dodgers led 5-2 after RBI singles by Max Muncy and Andy Pages in the top of the fifth.  It started raining again and after the Dodgers hit in the top of the sixth, we decided to leave.  It was around 10:45 and we had dealt with enough bad weather for the night.  It looked like we weren’t going to miss much.  The Dodgers still led 5-2 going to the bottom of the ninth.  We listened to Tanner Scott blow the save on the radio in the car.  The Mets scored three runs to tie it at five.  Of course, if they hadn’t gotten the run on that ridiculous obstruction call, three runs wouldn’t have been enough.  But I don’t want to blame the umpire when all you had to do was not blow a three run lead.  The good news was that we missed Rob Manfred extra innings.  I had gotten home, taken a shower, and was in bed by the time the game ended.  I didn’t see the end of the game because it was on Apple TV.  The Dodgers won 7-5 in 13 innings.  Apparently the third base umpire made the same obstruction call on the last run scored by the Dodgers (except it didn’t matter because the throw didn’t even come in to home plate).  So we got the same ridiculous call that is never made from the same umpire twice in the same game.

So after four hours and eight minutes plus a rain delay of an hour and 38 minutes, the Dodgers won the game.  Attendance was 40,449.  I never like to leave a game early, but it was a good choice.  The game didn’t end until almost 1:00 and we definitely weren’t making it that long.  And we had dealt with enough bad weather.  I wore my heavy winter jacket.  I definitely didn’t expect to still need that on May 23.  It was cold, but that wasn’t too bad.  The rain was the much bigger issue.

Anyway, we went to the first game of the series because Clayton Kershaw was pitching.  This was the 12th game I attended that was started by Kershaw.  I’ve been to every regular season game he’s pitched at Citi Field except for his start there in 2011 (his second career start at Citi Field).  I guess at that point in his career, I didn’t make a point of seeing him whenever I could (he hadn’t won a Cy Young yet).  Besides eight games at Citi Field, I’ve also seen him pitch at Nationals Park (before the blog), Dodger Stadium, Citizens Bank Park, and Yankee Stadium.  The last time I saw him was in 2022.  I remember in that game watching him leave the mound after five good innings and thinking that might be the last time I got to see him pitch.  This time he only pitched two innings.  Going into the game, I was well aware that this could be the last time I got to see him pitch (hopefully not, but it’s a possibility).  I only actually got to watch him pitch one inning that wasn’t on TV since we watched the first inning in the Hudson Club.  And of course, when he came off the field in the second inning, I was just waiting for him to come back out there for the bottom of the third.  Unfortunately, that never happened because of the rain delay.  So I hope I get to see him again, but that might be it.  If I don’t get to see him again, I saw him pitch 72 great innings in person.  Here are his numbers with me in attendance:

12 starts, two pinch hit appearances (0-1 with a sacrifice bunt)

Dodgers:  12-2 (one of the losses was in a game when he only pinch hit)

Kershaw’s Win-Loss Record:  5-0

72 innings

1.25 ERA

75 strikeouts

39 hits

18 walks

0.79 WHIP

2 complete game shutouts

The weather and the obstruction call against Max Muncy were lowlights (so were Rob Manfred extra innings, but I wasn’t there to watch them), but the food and beverage were highlights.  I get to like 1-3 games per year at Citi Field, but I know the one place there to get Sam Adams Summer Ale.  There’s a little cart on the field level just off to the first base side that has Summer Ale.  It’s weird that it’s available there and apparently nowhere else in the stadium.  But that’s the way it’s been for at least the last three years.  It was not Summer Ale weather, but I was definitely going to enjoy my favorite beer while watching my favorite pitcher.  I got one right before the game started.  I didn’t have any food until after the rain delay.  I wanted a non-meat option on a Friday.  There weren’t a whole lot of interesting non-meat options.  Of course there’s pizza, but I’m skeptical of ballpark pizza.  It might be good, it might not be, but even if it’s good, I don’t want to pay stadium prices for a slice of pizza.  The Citi Field website had a lot of information about what was available at the concession stands.  Two non-meat possibilities were mac and cheese and mozzarella sticks.  But the website didn’t have information about the food available in the Hudson Club.  There was a concession stand in there with grilled cheese and tomato soup.  That’s what I got and it was really good.  Unlike my beer selection, it was the perfect choice for the weather.  And after the rain delay, I didn’t have any wait to get my food.  So that worked out pretty well.

It was 59° and raining, but that wasn’t going to stop me from enjoying a Summer Ale.

That might be my only game at Citi Field this year.  Unless I get to another game in New York before the end of June, my next Major League Baseball game will be in Tampa.  Since the Rays are playing outdoors this year, I guess I might have to deal with rain again.  But at least it won’t be cold.

Old Memories and a New Pope

After I graduated from college, I was able to get back on campus regularly.  I had younger friends and friends who went to graduate school and law school for six out of seven years after I graduated so I had a place to stay.  Southwest flew from Islip to Midway and Coach USA had a bus from the airport to campus.  All of that has changed.  Now it’s such a hassle to get to Notre Dame.  My friend Jon was in his last year of law school during the 2013 football season.  Since then, I’ve been to two football games on campus (the last one was now nine years ago).  I wish I could get there more often.  I went last year during Easter vacation and I was planning on going to baseball and softball games and everything was rained out.  I planned a trip there this winter for basketball and hockey, but the forecast was very questionable and I didn’t want to get stranded out there when I was supposed to fly back on a Sunday and go to work the next day so I canceled that.  So I decided to go out during Easter vacation for a baseball game after my trip to Portland.  Once again, the forecast was looking questionable, but this time the weather actually turned out to be fantastic.

Last year I took dreary pictures on campus.  The pictures this year were not dreary.

Pope Francis died the day after Easter and this brought back lots of memories.  The last time a reigning pope died was the Saturday after Easter 20 years ago when I was a student at Notre Dame.  I remember finding out about the death of St. John Paul the Great on ESPN.com.  I went to the vigil Mass in the basilica and it was packed.  He was the best pope of my lifetime and I think that probably won’t change even if I live for another five decades.

I remember the same bunting on the basilica after Pope John Paul II died 20 years ago.

I didn’t get to Mass in the basilica, but I stopped inside.

I had a ridiculously early flight from Portland to Atlanta and then from Atlanta to South Bend.  I got to my hotel near St. Mary’s and then went to Fat Cap Smoked Meats for lunch.  I had a pulled pork sandwich and beans.  It was really good.  Then I took a nap before heading over to campus for a baseball game.

My hotel was just northwest of campus and the baseball stadium is on the southeast corner of campus so I had to walk all across campus to get there.  I took my time and made a couple of stops and got to the game just in time for the first pitch.  We were playing Purdue Fort Wayne.  We scored a run in the first, but then gave up three in the third.  The game started at 5:30 and I was planning on leaving to see the second half of the Celtics-Magic playoff game.  I love Notre Dame, but I don’t care that much about our baseball team.  If it was a regular season game for the Celtics, then I probably would have stayed for the whole baseball game, but I didn’t want to miss an entire playoff game.  So as the baseball game progressed, I decided I would leave after five innings.  We scored four runs in the bottom of the fifth to take a 5-3 lead.  So I got to see more than half the game, I enjoyed a hot dog, and I got to leave with Notre Dame leading (we went on to win 8-6).  It was in the 70s and sunny so it was a good experience.  There are a couple of ways that it could have been better.  First of all, they should play on grass and dirt.  There’s no excuse to play baseball on artificial turf when it’s outdoors.  The last time I got to a Notre Dame sporting event on campus (my only other one since before the pandemic) was an inning of a baseball game when Jon got married three years ago.  I noticed this time that they had changed the turf.  There used to be a shamrock design in the outfield.  That’s not there anymore.  So turf is bad enough to begin with, but they made it even worse.  The other thing that would have made it better would have been beer.  I knew they wouldn’t have beer and I’m not really complaining.  The crowds at the baseball games are pretty small (it’s free admission, but I guess they counted people because the box score listed the attendance for this game as 349) so whatever.  It’s not like they’re going to have a good craft beer program there.  But they did just announce that they’re going to have beer at football, basketball, and hockey games so that’s a long overdue development.

This was my view for the first pitch.

I moved so that I was sitting in the shade after I got a hot dog.  Notre Dame has the bases loaded in this picture.

The good thing about staying northwest of campus was that I had to walk past the Grotto on the way to or from campus.

I had an early afternoon flight the next day so I had some more time on campus in the morning.  I wanted to go to Mass on campus in the basilica, but on weekdays the Masses are at 11:30 in the morning (too early on my first day and too late on my second day) and at 5:15 in the evening (conflicted with the baseball game).  I had two other options on the day I was leaving.  There’s Mass in the basement of the basilica at 6:45 in the morning.  That’s what I was leaning towards at first, but after getting up at a ridiculous hour to go to the airport, I wanted a little more sleep.  So I went with the other option, an 8:00 Mass in the chapel of Stinson-Remick Hall (a building that didn’t exist when I was there).  That worked out very well because the celebrant was Fr. Bill Miscamble, my favorite professor at Notre Dame.  He’s Australian so he has a great accent.  I took US Foreign Policy and Australian History with him (I’m pretty sure I got an A and an A-).  His Australian History class solidified my desire to go to Australia.  I wanted him to be the president of Notre Dame, but he was probably too old to be considered by the time Fr. Jenkins retired (it should have been him instead of Fr. Jenkins when Fr. Malloy retired).  I said hello to him after Mass and then walked around campus for a while.  The last two times I was on campus, it was spring, but the weather was pretty rough.  I got some pretty glorious weather both days that I was there.  So it was a good trip out to Notre Dame.  I hope I’ll get back later this year for a football game and some fantastic fall weather.

I stopped in this chapel my first day on campus so that I would know where it was.  It was full for Mass the next morning.

I hope I’m back to see Touchdown Jesus and lots of touchdowns this fall.

The first time that we got a new pope during my lifetime was when I was a student at Notre Dame.  The second time was during my first year teaching at my current school.  A student told me that the pope resigned and I didn’t believe him.  I checked the internet and of course he was right.  I’m pretty sure Pope Francis was elected on a half day for parent teacher conferences after the kids had left.  I went to the Big East Tournament that night and saw Notre Dame win (it was our last Big East Tournament, I will never stop longing for the days of Notre Dame being in the Big East).  This time, the kids were in school when the pope got elected and they were pretty excited about it.  It’s a couple months after this year’s Big East Tournament, but we got a Big East pope.  How many popes have come from the Big 10 and SEC?  When I heard the name Robert Prevost, I looked him up because it wasn’t somebody who was talked about as a likely choice.  I was surprised that he was American and then I saw he went to Villanova.  If I had to make two predictions about the pope, I would have said that he would not be an American (wrong) and that he would not choose the name Clement XV.  Clement XIV was the pope who suppressed the Jesuits so nobody was going to take Clement XV right after a Jesuit pope.

Having an American pope is pretty exciting.  I went to Popeyes (Pope Yes) to celebrate.  It was my first time having their spicy chicken sandwich.  I remember a few years ago there was a big Chick-Fil-A vs Popeyes debate.  It’s been a while since I had the Chick-Fil-A spicy chicken sandwich, but the one from Popeyes was really good.  There was lots of good stuff on the internet, like the video of Pope Leo XIV being introduced with the 1990s Chicago Bulls music being played.  There was controversy over which baseball team he was a fan of (it turns out he was in attendance to see the White Sox in the World Series in 2005).  Obviously he went to Villanova, but there’s a chance that he was a Notre Dame football fan growing up in Chicago.  And I saw somebody speculate that he’s eaten more hot dogs than the previous 266 popes combined.  That is probably true.  And being from Chicago, Pope Leo XIV would definitely not put ketchup on a hot dog.  I would be in favor of him proclaiming that putting ketchup on a hot dog is a sin.

At his first Mass as pope the next day, Pope Leo XIV started his homily in English.  It was very weird to hear the pope speak English with an American accent.  When I went to the Vatican last summer, I figured Pope Francis would be the only pope I ever saw in person.  But I definitely want to see Pope Leo XIV in person.  Four out of the last five popes have visited the United States (the one who didn’t was John Paul I and he was only pope for 33 days).  So I expect Leo XIV to visit at some point.  I would definitely try to go see him, but I imagine it might be tough to get to see him.  If I can’t see him here, I wouldn’t rule out going back to Rome at some point.  Of all the foreign cities that I’ve been to, I think Rome was my favorite.  London and Sydney are right up there also, but I would go back to Rome before I would go back to London.  Going to Sydney again would be awesome but Australia is just so far away.  So Rome is the non-North American city that I’m most likely to revisit (the Blue Jays have renovated their stadium and Toronto is easy to get to so I might go back to Toronto at some point).  St. John Paul the Great will always be my favorite pope during my lifetime, but Leo XIV is already solidly in second place.  I hope he turns out to be a great pope as well.