On Target

My Midwest trip ended where it started, the Twin Cities.  Minnesota was the last state that has a Major League team that I hadn't been to.  I had planned on getting there this season and then I found out that Dennis and Courtney were moving to Minnesota.  This worked out very well for me as I stayed with Dennis.  Two years ago, I stayed with Dennis in Atlanta and we saw the Braves.  So Dennis joins Jon as the only people to have me for baseball trips in two different cities.

I drove back to Minnesota from Fargo on Saturday morning and returned my car.  After a stop at Dennis's house, we headed out for some beer and then another Man vs. Food spot, the 5-8 Club.  For beer, we went to the Surly Tap Room, which was huge and incredibly busy.  We were hoping to do a tour, but the one we were hoping for was full and we didn't want to wait for the next one.  So we just sat at the bar and had a beer.  We had a Furious, which is one of Courtney's favorite beers.  It was very good.  As for food, Adam Richman visited Matt's Bar and the 5-8 Club, both of which claim to be the home of the original Juicy Lucy (a burger with cheese inside of it).  When I was in Detroit, I went to two places on Man vs. Food that both were known for their Coney Island dogs.  Since the Juicy Lucy was more filling than the Coney Island dogs, I only did one of the two on this trip.  The 5-8 Club sounded better on the show and it also provided options for what kind of cheese you wanted inside.  I went with blue cheese and Dennis went with pepper jack.  It was quite good, but I'd say the best burger I've had from a Man vs. Food spot was at the Vortex Bar and Grill in Atlanta (which I incorrectly called the Voodoo Bar and Grill in the blog post).

The Juicy Lucy with sweet potato fries.  I probably should have taken a picture after taking a bite so you could see the cheese oozing out.

Dennis and I went to the first of two Twins games on Saturday night.  We got there early and went into the Metropolitan Club, which we had access to because Dennis bought the tickets from a season ticket holder.  We had a beer in there and relaxed before going to our seats.  They were honoring the 1965 Twins, who won the American League pennant.  That team lost to the Dodgers in seven in the World Series.  They had Vin Scully on the board telling the story of the World Series.  Pretty awesome.  Sandy Koufax pitched three games in the series.  In Game 2, he gave up two runs (one earned), but they pinch hit for him in the top of the seventh because the Dodgers were down 2-0.  The pinch hitter?  Don Drysdale.  That's amazing.  Drysdale did hit 29 home runs, 26 doubles, and 7 triples in his career, but he had no hits in 10 career World Series at bats.  Anyway, the Dodgers ended up losing that game 5-1.  In Game 5, Koufax pitched a shutout and allowed four hits and a walk while striking out ten.  The Dodgers won 7-0.  Game 7 was Drysdale's day to pitch, but Walter Alston went with Koufax on two days rest.  He thought that if he needed to make a change, it would be easier for Drysdale to come out of the bullpen than it would be for Koufax.  Yeah, that turned out not to matter.  Koufax pitched another shutout with three hits, three walks, and ten strikeouts.  His ERA for the 1965 World Series was 0.38 and his WHIP was 0.75 (his career World Series ERA was 0.95 and his career World Series WHIP was 0.825 in 57 innings).  I've heard a lot of people say that Koufax wasn't the greatest left-handed pitcher of all time.  That's nonsense.  Sure, his WAR might not be as high as some other guys (I hate that stat), but that's just because he didn't last as long.  I'll take 1961-1966 Sandy Koufax over any pitcher ever.

The Metropolitan Club

Vin Scully is the best.  Andy why don't pictures of scoreboards work?

So anyway, it was Mariners and Twins.  Mike Montgomery against Kyle Gibson.  I had a Kramarczuk's Polish sausage.  It was pretty good.  The game was tied 1-1 after four.  In the top of the sixth, Nelson Cruz hit a steroid ball to put the Mariners on top 2-1.  That's the way the score stayed until the bottom of the ninth.  The Mariners brought in Carson Smith for the save.  The Twins had other ideas.  Miguel Sano led off with a double.  Shane Robinson pinch ran and got to third on a wild pitch.  After an intentional walk to Eddie Rosario, another wild pitch scored Robinson and put the winning run on second base.  With two outs, Rosario stole third and then scored the winning run on a pinch hit single by Kurt Suzuki.  Pretty good game.  Two hours, 45 minutes, and an crowd of 36,901.

Our view for the game

A panoramic shot of Target Field

I found this after the game.  Charles Schulz was born in Minneapolis.

The next morning, Dennis and I went to mass at the Cathedral of St. Paul (named for one of my favorite saints).  Then we had breakfast at Mickey's Diner, which was in the Mighty Ducks movies.  After that, we were off to Target Field again with Courtney's brother, who will be a sophomore at Notre Dame.  Before the game, I had carnitas tacos from Barrio (which I think is a Twin Cities Mexican place).  They were one of the better things I've eaten at a baseball game this year.  Dennis and I did some walking and found a bar out in left field.  We ordered two Summit Summer Ales (from another Minnesota brewery, fine, but of course not as good as Sam Adams).  The interesting thing about that was that Dennis got a new driver's license in Minnesota, only it hadn't arrived yet.  So he had his old Georgia license with holes punched through it and a temporary form.  The bartender told him that he couldn't accept that (Target Field policy).  But he pointed at me and said, "I can sell you two beers."  So I bought both beers and we walked out of the bar and I handed one to Dennis.

This diner was in the Mighty Ducks movies.  It's been too long since I've seen any of them so I didn't remember it.

The game was a pitcher's duel.  Hisashi Iwakuma against Mike Pelfrey.  Pelfrey went eight scoreless.  Then Glen Perkins gave up a steroid ball to Nelson Cruz in the top of the ninth to make it 1-0.  Iwakuma came out for the ninth to try to finish off the shutout.  With one out Brian Dozier, hit a home run to tie the game.  Iwakuma was two outs away from a complete game victory, which would have been his first career complete game (he would later get his first career complete game, which also turned out to be a no-hitter).  Iwakuma lasted eight and two-thirds and only gave up that one run.  Carson Smith came in and finished off the ninth inning.  The Mariners scored three runs in the 11th on a double by Logan Morrison and a single by Austin Jackson.  Wilhelm's cousin Tom (different spellings, I know) allowed a double in the bottom of the ninth, but got the next three guys out to get the save.  It was three hours and 12 minutes (not bad for 11 innings) with a crowd of 30,325.

I took this picture from a bar on the upper level.

Target Field was very good.  One interesting thing about it was how on the upper concourse,  you have two levels like a lot of stadiums do.  But they have these catwalks that connect the upper level so that you can move around and avoid the traffic on the concourse.  I had never seen that before.  The only weird thing was that they weren't all connected to each other and they ended at weird points.  I have a couple of complaints.  First, there's not more in the outfield concourse on the first level.  There actually is more on the second level.  And then, out in left field is the Budweiser Roof Deck (an unfortunate corporate sponsor, but whatever), but you can only go up there if you have a ticket.  That should be open to everybody.  I definitely wouldn't want to watch the whole game from there, but it would be worth checking out an inning from there.  Target Field is one of the better stadiums in the American League.  I have a few more posts to do and then I'll get to my updated stadium rankings.

On Monday, Dennis and I went to the Mall of America.  It was pretty impressive, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't go anywhere near there from Thanksgiving through Christmas.  There's an indoor amusement park with all sorts of rides (including a Splash Mountain type ride, but probably not as big of a drop).  We didn't go on any rides, but we did play mini golf.  I was three strokes down after 11 holes, but I came back to win.  Later in the day we had milkshakes from the ice cream place right by Dennis's house.  Pretty good stuff.  And that was my first trip to Minnesota.  I'll be back soon for the Dennis-Courtney wedding.

I took this picture from the mini golf course.

Kicked Out

I'm going a little out of order here in my blog posts.  I still have to post about Target Field, but this is a quick and easy one.  I got to Los Angeles on Saturday morning.  Pete, Katie, and I were going to the Angel game that night.  So we had time to something during the day.  I have a list of a few southern California things that I haven't done yet that I'd like to do.  There's Disneyland, but we didn't have enough time to make it worth doing on Saturday.  I really want to do a Rose Bowl tour, but apparently they're only offered on the last Friday of the month.  What we did have time for was a Los Angeles Coliseum tour.  I had googled that before and it seemed that they weren't available.  But I googled it again and it seems that they just started doing tours this year.  So Pete picked me up from the airport and we went to the Coliseum.

The Los Angeles Coliseum was used in the 1932 and 1984 Olympics.  It has been the home of USC football since 1923.  It was the site of Notre Dame's victory on November 24, 2012, one of the greatest days of my life (also my favorite game that I didn't go to).  We were ranked number 1 for the first time in my time as a fan and a win would put us in the National Championship Game.  Behind Manti Te'o, Theo Riddick, Louis Nix, KeiVarae Russell, and Kyle Brindza (some bad coaching by Laney didn't hurt either), Notre Dame won 22-13.  I still remember exactly how I reacted when USC's pass on fourth and goal fell incomplete late in the fourth quarter (going for it made no sense since they were down nine).  I yelled "No!  Yes!"  No because the pass was not complete.  And yes because it was awesome.  Unfortunately, the National Championship Game was not fun.  Notre Dame also won three other games when ranked number 1 there (1947, 1966, and 1988).  In those three years, Notre Dame did go on to win the National Championship.  In 1947, it was 38-7 (and USC was ranked 3).  In 1966, it was 51-0 (USC was ranked 10).  And in 1988, in a battle of unbeatens, number 1 Notre Dame defeated number 2 USC by a score of 27-10.  Notre Dame has lost twice there when ranked number 1.  The 1938 team lost 13-0 (it was not coached by one of Notre Dame's legends).  And in 1964, Notre Dame was robbed of a National Championship by some terrible officiating in Ara Parseghian's first season 20-17 (as detailed in Jim Dent's book Resurrection:  The Miracle Season That Saved Notre Dame).  I've said before that USC is Notre Dame's one true rival.  Yes, there are other rivalries, but they're not Notre Dame-USC.  I've heard USC described as our rival, Navy is our friend, and Michigan is our enemy.  That's a good way of putting it.  I have never been to Michigan Stadium and I have no desire to ever set foot in Ann Arbor.  I wanted to go to Los Angeles Coliseum.

Outside the Los Angeles Coliseum

Anyway, the website said that they have tours from Tuesday to Saturday.  There was also a link to buy tickets on Ticketmaster.  But when I clicked on that link, they weren't listing any tours for the Saturday I was there.  Pete and I figured that we could probably just walk up and buy tickets so we drove to the Coliseum and parked.  It turns out that there were no tours because they were setting up for a beer and burger festival.  But the gate was open and nobody stopped us from walking in.  If you look at the picture above, you see those arches and the Olympic rings.  We got on the other side of those arches and were able to look out at the field.  There were plaques of people with Los Angeles connections.  We saw most of those.  Then a woman asked if we were with the festival.  I really wanted to come up with some kind of lie that would let us stay a little longer, but I had nothing.  So after about ten minutes of looking around, we got kicked out.  Oh well.  I didn't get a tour, but I did get to see the inside of the Coliseum and I can now say that I've been kicked out of the stadium of Notre Dame's rival.  It wasn't a bad way to start my trip to Los Angeles.

My favorite pope said mass at Los Angeles Coliseum in 1987.

The field isn't quite ready for the season yet.

One of those National Championships never happened.

A panoramic shot of the Coliseum

Three States Crossed Off

If I was going to Minnesota and Iowa during the summer, I had to cross off a few more states.  So I went to Nebraska and the Dakotas.

After visiting the Field of Dreams, I drove west across the state and stayed in Fort Dodge, Iowa.  Fort Dodge is about 120 miles from the Nebraska border.  I searched for things to do in Nebraska near the border of Iowa and South Dakota.  I didn't come up with much.  I stopped at a McDonald's and had a smoothie.  And then I took a walk to a park that was dedicated to the people who fought in the Gulf War.  It was a cool little park.  I filled up with gas and that was it for Nebraska.

South Sioux City, Nebraska- 50 American flags for people who served in the Gulf War

I drove into South Dakota.  Sioux Falls has an independent league baseball team.  Originally, I was going to see them play.  But that would have meant another night at a hotel and another day of paying for a rental car.  So I decided against that.  I stopped at the Strawbale Winery in Renner, South Dakota.  They offered tastings of 5-6 wines for $5 and you get to keep the glass.  I didn't really care about the glass and I also didn't want to drink all that much since I had about three more hours of driving ahead of me.  So they let me taste two wines for free and I didn't get to keep the glass.  They had different kinds of fruit wines.  I tried the blueberry and the cranberry-jalapeno.  I'm definitely not a wine guy, but they were good.  I was told that the cranberry-jalapeno is their most popular wine now, so I picked up a bottle of that for Dennis and Courtney.  I got back on the road and stopped at a rest stop pretty close to the North Dakota border.  They guy working there asked where I was from.  He was surprised to hear that I was from New York so he gave me a South Dakota pin.

The tasting room at the Strawbale Winery in Renner, South Dakota

After a long day of driving, I made it to Fargo.  I stayed right across the street from the Fargodome, home of a Division I FCS powerhouse.  College Gameday has been to Fargo twice for the North Dakota State Bison.  North Dakota State has won four FCS national championships in a row and they're 8-3 against FBS opponents (five wins against Big Ten and Big 12 schools).  That's pretty crazy.

The Fargodome

Anyway, I was there for an independent league baseball game.  It was the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks against the Grand Prairie AirHogs.  This league has teams from Winnipeg to Texas.  How do these teams make money?  There's a lot of travel involved and they're selling maybe 5,000 tickets per game for much lower prices than a Major League team (yes, I know they're paying their players much, much less).  Fargo turned out to be a good spot for a game.  The RedHawks play in Newman Outdoor Field.  They have a Maury Wills Museum because Maury Wills was a coach and then broadcaster with the team in the 1990s.  They museum is just a room full of Maury Wills stuff, but it's pretty cool.  He was the first player ever to steal 100 bases in a season.  Maury Wills is not in the Hall of Fame, but should he be?  My answer is no.  He had a very good career, but it's not the Hall of Very Good.  He made five All Star teams, had over 2,000 hits, and won an MVP (with three other top 10 finishes), but I have 1962 and 1965 as his only no doubt Hall of Fame seasons.  Not good enough.  He did help the Dodgers win three World Series, though (his numbers from the World Series aren't particularly great, except for 1965).  The other interesting thing about Newman Outdoor Field is that the dimensions are supposed to be the same as Yankee Stadium because Roger Maris lived in Fargo for part of his childhood.  There are two problems with that, though.  They only labeled the distances down the lines and in center field (318, 408, and 314).  Those were all correct.  But according to North Dakota State baseball, it's 399 to left center and 365 to right center.  Left center is correct, but right center is 385 at Yankee Stadium.  But the bigger problem is that those weren't the dimensions when Roger Maris played for the Yankees.  According to one of my favorite websites, Yankee Stadium was 301, 457, 461, 407, 296 from left to right from 1952-1976.

Some of the stuff in the Maury Wills Museum

I've been to a few minor league stadiums now and this one was a little different.  The concourse didn't go all the way around the stadium.  With a good crowd (5,031 with a seating capacity of 4,513), the concourse got very crowded.  They did have a good selection of food and beer.  I had a Stone's Throw Scottish Ale from the Fargo Brewing Company.  It's not a beer that I would pick again, but it did have a distinctive flavor, which is a lot more than you can say for bland, mass-produced beers made by Budweiser, Coors, and Miller.  A local Mexican place had a concession stand so I got a burrito from there.  It was probably the first time I've had a burrito at a baseball game.  I got a ticket that was row 11 right behind home plate.  I like sitting behind home plate, but I'm usually sitting much higher up of course.  Being that low, I'd rather not be directly behind home plate.  You kind of get blocked out by the umpire and the catcher.  I think between the dugout and the plate is the ideal spot if you're down that low.

First pitch in Fargo

It was a pretty good game.  It was 4-4 going into the ninth.  Then Grand Prairie strung together a triple, double, another triple, and a reached on an error to score three runs.  They ended up winning 7-4.

So that was Nebraska and the Dakotas.  There's been an independent league baseball team on Long Island since 2000, but it took a trip to Fargo to get me to an independent league baseball game.

Kevin Costner Built It

I just finished a trip where I crossed off one-third of the states I hadn't been to.  It started and ended in Minnesota, but I'll get to that later.  My first stop after flying to Minneapolis was Iowa.  I've used minor league baseball to cross off a few states and Iowa does have five teams.  But the real draw in Iowa was the Field of Dreams.

Surprisingly, I had never seen the movie Field of Dreams until about a week ago.  I figured that if I was going there, I really should watch the movie first.  I remember trying to watch it on a long flight once, but I fell asleep (from being tired, not from boredom).  So I had seen parts of the movie, but never the whole thing.  I bought it on Amazon for $5 and finally watched it.  Really good movie.  My biggest problem was that Shoeless Joe Jackson bats right-handed and throws left-handed in the movie.  He really was the opposite of that.  I didn't really notice that he threw with the wrong hand until I googled it, but I did know that he was hitting the wrong way because I've been watching the Ken Burns Baseball documentary recently.  That documentary also refutes the idea that Jackson wasn't involved in throwing the World Series.  He did hit well, but he fielded terribly.  So Field of Dreams depicts Shoeless Joe Jackson inaccurately, but it still is a very good movie.

My route to the Field of Dreams took me through Charles City, Iowa.  My dad worked at a camp there many years ago so I decided to stop there.  I went to Dairy Queen and called my dad to tell him I was in Charles City.  He told me his address when he lived there so I drove by the house.

After that I was back on my way to the Field of Dreams.  It looks just like it did in the movie.  People can visit for free and toss around a ball or even hit a few on the field.  It's pretty awesome.  It made me think of Tom Verducci's Summer Game idea.  It's a baseball version of the NHL Winter Classic.  It would be the only game on the Thursday after the All Star Game and it would be played at a unique location.  The ones he mentioned as possibilities:  the foothills near Mount Rushmore, the mall in Washington DC, the Field of Dreams, Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, the Rose Bowl, Michigan Stadium, TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska.  I love all of those ideas except for Michigan Stadium.  At many of those places you'd be sacrificing a lot of seating.  Apparently the Field of Dreams had celebrity games in 1991 and 1992 with 2,500 fans.  Unfortunately, there are other problems with the Field of Dreams.  The dimensions are tiny.  It's 281 to left, 314 to center, and 262 to right.  Maybe you could put up a huge net that hitters would have to hit it over for a home run.  The other problem (which I think is the easiest to fix) is the field conditions.  The outfield is definitely not level as you approach the corn, but then Houston has that hill.  The grass is way too high, but that can just be mowed.  And the dirt is way too hard.  It would definitely take some work to get the field ready, but I think it could be done.  I really really love Tom Verducci's idea, but I doubt it's ever going to happen.  Even if it did happen, they probably wouldn't use the Field of Dreams.

A panoramic shot from behind home plate

In the movie when asked if it was heaven, Kevin Costner's response was, "No, it's Iowa."  So this visit made me think of how heaven would look if I was in charge of designing it.  I think I would be on Long Island, but be able to walk to Notre Dame and any sporting venue (past and present) and be able to watch games.  I'd definitely want to be able to go to Ebbets Field, the Polo Grounds, Old Yankee Stadium (as in pre-renovation Yankee Stadium).  I'd want to check out Boston Garden as well (I took a tour in the summer of 1995, which was right after the final season of play there).  And I'd be able to have New York pizza from Little Vincent's, Jimmy's, Chef's, John's, or whatever whenever I wanted it.  It would be great.

So that was Iowa.  I'll cover three states in my next post.  Enjoy some more pictures.

Looking in from the pitcher's mound

Looking in from center field

Kyle's brother told me a story about this.  Apparently when Kyle and his brother visited as kids, they were Bart Simpson and the Field of Dreams Guest Register was Moe's Tavern.

A panoramic shot from the bleachers on the first base side

No Line for Shake Shack

After thoroughly enjoying Clayton Kershaw's performance in New York, I was back at Citi Field two days later.  Vin got tickets from work.  I've sat up high for almost every game I've been to at Citi Field.  Once I sat in the Pepsi Porch and once I sat in the Caesars Club.  These seats were in the Delta Club down on the field level between the Dodgers' dugout and home plate.

Our view of the game

We were hoping to see Zack Greinke.  The birth of his son pushed him back from his start on Friday.  Unfortunately for us, he got pushed back to Sunday.  Instead, Zach Lee made his first career start (the other possible title for this post was "The Wrong Zack/h").  Lee was the 28th pick of the draft in 2010, four years after the Dodgers took Clayton Kershaw in the first round.  Matt Harvey was on the mound for the Mets.

We were able to order food from our seats.  There were people taking orders, but I was able to just order on the Ballpark app on my phone.  So I was able to order a Shack Burger from Shake Shack and have it delivered.  Shake Shack is excellent, but the line is always so long at Citi Field.  I'm pretty sure the last time I had Shake Shack was at JFK before I left for England in 2013.  After I ordered, my phone said it would be 10-15 minutes for it to be delivered.  It took 18 minutes, but it was as good as I remembered.  Vin got fries from Box Frites, which I described as being like Huntington's European Republic, but not as good.  Vin agreed with that assessment.  Later in the game, we went into the bar.  There wasn't nearly as good of a beer selection as there should have been, but they did have Sam Adams Summer Ale so it didn't really matter.  But one of my complaints with Citi Field is that they have these bars/clubs that are way too exclusive.  I mentioned in my post about Comerica Park that they had a bar on the upper level that was open to everybody.  I was able to get in and out very quickly.  We were able to get our beers quickly, but there are lots of sections that we could have been sitting in where we wouldn't have had access to some of the bars at Citi Field (and we would have missed out on the perfect summer beer which I didn't see on the upper level on Thursday night).

They really should have another Shake Shack location at Citi Field.  I only got it at this game because I didn't have to wait on line.

The bar in the Delta Club

Anyway, the game was a disaster.  Zach Lee's first inning went like this:  walk, single, single, single, line out, single, single, double play.  He gave up four runs.  Now, one of those singles would have been a double play to end the inning if not for Zach Lee trying unsuccessfully to field a ground ball that was going right to Jimmy Rollins.  If he doesn't touch it, Rollins starts the double play.  Or if he fields it cleanly, he starts the double play.  It would have saved two runs.  You can't blame him, though.  It was a natural reaction that just ended up with the worst possible result.  Lee only lasted four and two thirds and gave up seven.  The Dodgers' bullpen gave up another eight runs in three and a third.  Kelly Johnson hit a home run in his first game as a Met.  Daniel Murphy hit one as well.  Lucas Duda hit two.  Michael Conforto got his first Major League hit.  He added three more (including two doubles), finishing 4 for 4 with an RBI.  Matt Harvey gave up two runs in seven innings and was 2 for 4 with a double and two RBIs.  For the Dodgers, Jimmy Rollins homered in his third straight game.  Joc Pederson hit his first home run in a long time.  And that was all the Dodgers got.  They lost 15-2.  It was the most runs the Mets scored in two years (I think).  Their 21 hits were the most in five years.

So yeah, not a fun game to watch.  But it was good to see Vin for the first time since he got married.  Thanks Vin for the ticket, definitely the best seats I've had at Citi Field.  At least I got to see Kershaw pitch a shutout two nights before.

Vin and me both wearing Brooklyn Dodgers hats

Happy Birthday Dad!

I was going to wait until after the Dodgers-Mets series and just do one blog post on the two games I'm going to, but Clayton Kershaw's performance deserved its own.  Last year, the Dodgers were 0-3 with me in attendance (in Los Angeles, New York, and Detroit).  Not surprisingly, I didn't see Clayton Kershaw pitch.  This was the first Dodger game I went to this year.  With the Dodgers in town for four, that meant there was a good chance of Kershaw pitching, except for the way the schedule worked out.  The first game of the series with the Mets was their seventh game after the All Star Break (with no days off).  If Kershaw pitched the first game after the break, he would have pitched the sixth game and then missed the entire series against the Mets.  And that's what the original plan was.  Then Mattingly decided to give Kershaw one extra day of rest after the All Star Game and he was on track to pitch the first game against the Mets, which happened to be my dad's birthday.  As soon as I was reasonably sure Kershaw would be pitching, I bought tickets on Stubhub.

This was the sixth time I've seen Kershaw pitch in person.  The last time was in Philadelphia in August 2013, which is also the last Dodger win I saw in person.  Check out that link for Kershaw's numbers with me in attendance after that game (I'll update them in this post).

We had a really rough drive into the stadium.  We left at 5:05 and didn't get there until about 6:45.  So there was no time for walking around the stadium or anything, but we were in our seats before the first pitch.  I had time to run and get food for my dad and myself before the game started.  I found a concession stand with no line.  I only had a hot dog since it was National Hot Dog Day.  Speaking of hot dogs, Dave Dameshek (who hosts a great NFL podcast) says that hot dogs are sandwiches and that it's okay to put ketchup on hot dogs.  I vehemently disagree on both counts.  The notion that a hot dog is a sandwich is silly, but he's been saying that we have the right to put ketchup on hot dogs.  And I do agree with that, this is America.  But come on, ketchup on a hot dog?  What is this, amateur hour?  And no yellow mustard either.  As Cosmo Kramer pointed out, that's bush league.  Put some spicy mustard on your hot dog and enjoy.

The Mets had Bartolo Colon on the mound.  Their lineup was horrendous.  Juan Legares was hitting .256 going into the game and nobody in the lineup had a higher average than that.  John Mayberry Jr. (.165/.229/.321 after this game) and Eric Campbell (.176/.299/.277) were their 4 and 5 hitters.  Yikes.  Believe me, the thought of a no-hitter did occur to me before the game even started.  And then the game started.  And Kershaw kept getting guys out.

Our view last night

After the second, I went to get a beer.  I had a Montauk Summer Ale since it appeared that they didn't have any Sam Adams.  It was fine, but nothing special.  I've come to the conclusion that very few breweries do summer beers particularly well.  I feel like you can find lots of good Oktoberfests, but if you want a good summer beer, you have to go with Sam Adams Summer Ale.  I missed one batter and was back in time to see Jimmy Rollins bat.  After spending most of his career with the Phillies, he got a pretty negative reaction from the Met fans.  And then he hit a 420-foot home run to right center to put the Dodgers up 1-0.

Kershaw kept getting guys out and so did Colon.  Through either five or six (I think six), neither team left anybody on base.  The Dodgers got three guys on and hit into three double plays.  I've said that after five, it's appropriate to start getting excited about the possibility of a no-hitter.  You're more than halfway there.  But with Kershaw, I say after three.  In the fifth inning, Kershaw struck out Eric Campbell on a curveball that got away from Yazmani Grandal.  Grandal made a nice play to get the ball and get the out at first.  It was a close play and the Mets thought about challenging it, but the call was right.  Kershaw was perfect through six.  I was definitely thinking about how awesome it would be.  It would be his second no-hitter.  Sandy Koufax threw no-hitters four years in a row.  This would put Kershaw halfway to that mark.  The only conceivable negative would be that Vin Scully wasn't calling it.

Curtis Granderson led off the seventh.  Kershaw got two strikes on him (I was starting to count the strikes he needed to strike every batter out for the rest of the game).  But then Granderson hit a solid single to right field.  On the one replay I saw at the stadium, it looked like a pretty good pitch that was down and out of the zone.  Oh well, he made it interesting.  But now it was suddenly a game since the Dodgers still only had one run.  Wilmer Flores (who killed the Dodgers in Los Angeles earlier this year) singled with one out.  Kershaw got a strikeout and a ground out to get out of his only jam of the game.  In the eighth, Lucas Duda had a lead off single and then Kershaw proceded to pick him off.  And that was all the baserunners he allowed.

Bartolo Colon went eight and only allowed the one run.  He was replaced by Sean Gilmartin in the ninth.  He gave up three straight singles to load the bases without recording an out.  Then Don Mattingly made a move that I disagreed with pretty strongly (and I think a lot of Dodger fans criticize him unfairly).  Andre Ethier was due up.  With a lefty on the mound, he sent up Alex Guerrero to pinch hit.  That only encouraged Terry Collins to take out Gilmartin, who hadn't gotten an out.  He brought in Carlos Torres, a righty.  So then Mattingly pinch hit for Guerrero with Alberto Callaspo, a switch hitter.  It ended up working out just fine as Torres walked Callaspo on four pitches.  But in that situation, you took out one of your best hitters lately for one of your worst hitters lately and encouraged the Mets to make a pitching change.  Let Ethier hit against the guy who hasn't gotten anybody out or the Mets might take him out anyway since he hasn't gotten anybody out and then you have Ethier facing a righty.  I know, I'm criticizing Mattingly for a move that worked out, but sometimes in baseball you do the right thing and it doesn't work or you do the wrong thing and it does work.  Yasiel Puig tacked on another run with a sacrifice fly.

In the bottom of the ninth Clayton Kershaw easily got two ground outs and a strikeout to finish the shutout.  In his two previous starts, he was the first pitcher in at least 100 years to allow no runs and no walks with 10 strikeouts in both starts.  And now he's done it three games in a row.  He also has a scoreless innings streak of 29 now.  He's amazing.  What was also important about Kershaw's performance was that the Dodgers didn't have a starting pitcher for the next three games.  Resting the bullpen was pretty important.  Zack Greinke was supposed to pitch tonight, but his wife had a baby yesterday.  Brandon Beachy's spot in the rotation would be Saturday's starter, but he got sent down to the minors.  And Brett Anderson got hurt in his last start.  So some guy named Ian Thomas is pitching tonight.  Greinke and Anderson could still pitch this weekend, but we'll see.

Kershaw got off to a rough start this season, but since the end of May, he's been as good as ever.  His ERA is almost twice as high as Zack Greinke (who has been absolutely ridiculous).  The Cy Young is Greinke's to win, but if he stumbles, do not count out Kershaw.  That would have seemed crazy on May 21 when his ERA was 4.32.  Looking at the numbers now, he's right in the mix now with Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, Jake Arrieta, Francisco Liriano, and Gerrit Cole after Zack Greinke.

I've now seen Kershaw in person six times:  New York in 2009, Washington in 2010, Los Angeles in 2013 (against the Giants), New York in 2013, Philadelphia in 2013, and New York in 2015.  His numbers in those six games:  43 innings, 4-0 (the Dodgers are 6-0), 44 strikeouts, 0.84 ERA, 0.77 WHIP, 2 complete game shutouts, and 1 home run as a batter.  He's good.

The Best Ballpark in America

I recently blogged about my memories of Old Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium.  That leaves Fenway Park, whatever they call where the White Sox play, and Wrigley Field as the only Major League Stadiums where I've seen baseball games that I haven't blogged about.  Actually, I did blog about Fenway Park once, when I saw Notre Dame play Boston College in hockey there.  I'm planning on blogging about the Chicago stadiums before the end of the summer, but I'm tackling Fenway today since it was 20 years ago today that I went to my first game there.  I've been to three baseball games at Fenway Park.  Let's go through them:

July 21, 1995- My brothers were looking at colleges in Boston and I went on the trip with them.  We did a tour of Boston Garden and we went to the Friday night game at Fenway Park.  The Celtics and Bruins had just finished their last year at Boston Garden.  It was pretty cool to see where Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, John Havlicek, Larry Bird, and a bunch of other Hall of Famers played and won championships for the Celtics.  For the game, we just drove to Fenway and bought tickets at the box office before the game.  I'm pretty sure I remember my dad asking a police officer where we could park and he suggested that we could park our car at the Star Market in a thick Boston accent.  Attendance was 31,124 so there were still some seats available.  I'm pretty sure we sat in fair territory in the Outfield Grandstand.  If you know Fenway, some of the seats in right field are ridiculously far from home plate, but it actually wasn't a bad view because you look out and you have the infield and the Green Monster in your view.  We just sat wherever they had tickets, but for the other two games I've been to since then, I've made a point of sitting on the first base side so that I'd have the Green Monster in my view.  Usually I like to sit high up behind home plate (what I think is the best view for a reasonable price), but at Fenway there aren't many seats high up and they're ridiculously expensive.  As for the game, the Red Sox won 13-5.  I remembered Mo Vaughn hitting a grand slam (which made it easy to look up), but they also had home runs from Troy O'Leary, John Valentin, and Mike Greenwell.  So all of their 1-5 hitters had a home run except for Jose Canseco.  Pat Meares hit a home run for the Twins, but the Red Sox were in control the whole time.  What's weird about this game is that despite the score of 13-5, there was a save.  Zane Smith started and went five and a third.  Joe Hudson pitched the last three and two thirds to get the save.

July 25, 2009- After that game, it took me 13 and a half years to get back to Boston.  I went up there for John's Christmas party in December 2008.  I had such a good time in Boston that I needed to get back to Fenway Park.  So I took an early Saturday bus up and stayed with John.  He took me on a Freedom Trail drinking tour.  I remember we went to a bar where you could drink a cold Sam Adams across the street from a cold Sam Adams (the cemetery where he was buried was across the street from the bar).  I had some New England clam chowder to go with my Sam Adams.  We checked out the cemetery.  I'm pretty sure Paul Revere and some members of Benjamin Franklin's family were buried there as well.  We also saw a memorial for the Irish potato famine and I think the site of the Boston Massacre.  John took my picture next to a statue of Red Auerbach.  For the game, I think it was John, Liz, one of John's friends from Boston, and me.  It was Jon Lester for the Red Sox against Jeremy Guthrie for the Orioles.  The Red Sox led 4-0 after two and enver looked back.  They won 7-2 with home runs by David Ortiz and Adam LaRoche.

Our view for the game in 2009

June 19, 2010- For the first 21 years that I went to baseball games, I never saw the Dodgers play a team other than the Mets.  I changed that in April of 2010 by seeing them beat the Nationals in Washington.  And in June, I went to see them play the Red Sox.  It was two days after the Celtics lost Game 7 of the Finals against the Lakers.  It would have been so much more fun if the Celtics had won that game.  (By the way, that game still hurts.  They Celtics were up by 13 in the second half (I think that was their biggest lead in the second half).  I can't imagine how much it would hurt if the Celtics had lost in 2008.  They need to win another championship before the Lakers do.)  I think it was just John and me for this game.  Manny Ramirez was in Boston for the first time since he was traded to the Dodgers.  It was Tim Wakefield against Vicente Padilla (what's crazy is that Wakefield was on the Red Sox when I first went to Fenway in 1995).  I didn't remember how good of a game this was.  The Red Sox won 5-4, but they never led by more than two.  The Dodgers scored two in the seventh to tie it 4-4.  Maybe I didn't think it was that good of a game because the Dodgers had six hits and five of them came from Manny Ramirez (who hit a home run) and Garret Anderson.  Victor Martinez and Kevin Youkilis hit home runs for the Red Sox.  The Red Sox won it in the bottom of the ninth (I didn't remember that).  Ronald Belisario got two outs, but left with runners on first and second.  Dustin Pedroia hit the game winning single off of Jonathan Broxton (one of my least favorite Dodgers ever).  If I remember correctly, this game also had the two guys that dress up like umpires and sit behind the plate and mimic everything that the home plate umpire does (I've seen them on TV at other places as well).

Our view in 2010

Me and John with the Green Monster in the background after the game.

We have two classic stadiums left.  It's really hard to compare them to the new stadiums because they have nothing in common with the new stadiums other than the sport that's played there.  Fenway and Wrigley are both over 100 years old now.  They both have something that makes them unique (the Green Monster and really weird dimensions for Fenway and the ivy for Wrigley).  I went to Wrigley in 2009.  I did like it, but I give Fenway the edge for the atmosphere.  It's almost always full and the fans really care about what happens.  I might get to a game there in August (not sure yet).  But Notre Dame plays Boston College in football at Fenway in November.  I applied in the lottery and lost, but I still plan on going.  My hotel room is already booked.