Our Nation's Capital

I recently realized that I had never been to the World War II Memorial in Washington DC.  With two brothers who went to college in Washington and having spent a year in a half in college there myself, I had done most of the touristy stuff in Washington.  But the World War II Memorial opened just a few months after I left Georgetown.  So I wanted to see it.  I also wondered why it took so long to be built.  Why were there memorials for the Korean War and the Vietnam War before one for World War II?  Anyway, I finally got there last weekend and of course, I combined it with a baseball game.

The plan was for me to leave straight from work on Friday afternoon and go to the city to get the bus to Washington that night.  The weather forecast the day before was calling for heavy rain late in the day on Friday and I had to walk to the train station and then to the bus.  I didn't feel like walking in heavy rain.  So I rescheduled my bus for the first one in the morning on Saturday.  The problem with that was that the only train that would get me to the city in time left Huntington at 3:47 in the morning.  It was the second time I've ever taken that train.  The last time was when I was going to Boston to see the Celtics in February 2010 and snow cancelled my bus the night before.  Let me tell you, Penn Station at 5:00 in the morning on a Saturday is a very weird place.  But I didn't spend much time there.  At my brother Tom's suggestion, I took a walk to Times Square.  I got there around 5:30.  It was all lit up, but it was mostly empty.  It was a good way to kill time before my bus at 6:30.  I got to my brother Sean's apartment around 11:30.  The game wasn't until 4:10, so I could have taken a later bus, but I wanted to get to the World War II Memorial before the game.

The City that Never Sleeps was pretty much asleep at 5:30 on a Saturday morning.

After lunch, we took the Metro to get to the memorial.  It's very nicely done.  It's right at the end of the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial and across the street from the Washington Monument.  I've often thought about how things would be different if we had lost that war.  This was a very clear case of good versus evil and there was no guarantee that good would win.  Good won because of the resolve of Churchill, the stupidity of Hitler (invading the Soviet Union was a really really dumb idea), and the military might of the United States.  There's not much more I have to say other than including some pictures:

I made this picture a little bigger so you can read it.  The Lincoln Memorial is in the background.

Great quote from General George C. Marshall.  The United States is the greatest country in the history of the world.

1,465 Americans were killed during the D-Day invasion.

I can't imagine what it must have been like to find out we had won the war.  That must have been an amazing feeling.

Each star represents 100 Americans who died during the war.  Over 400,000 Americans gave their lives to save the world from evil.  The Civil War was the only war in US history that was deadlier.  It was almost four times deadlier than World War I, which is the third most deadly war in US history.

From the World War II Memorial, we took the walk to the Lincoln Memorial.  I've been teaching my kids about the Civil War so I figured I'd get a couple of good pictures to show them.  I think the last time I was there might have been in 2002 with one of my favorite teachers in high school, Mr. Klein.  I must have gone there at least once in the 90s when my brothers were in college.  I don't remember going there when I was at Georgetown.  But when I was a senior in high school, we went on a trip to Washington for JSA with Mr. Klein.  We definitely visited some of the memorials one night and I assume the Lincoln Memorial was one of them.  Anyway, I've said that Washington was the greatest American of all time, but I definitely think that Lincoln was the greatest president of all time.  Washington was a great president, but I think his greatest contributions to the country came before he was president.  Lincoln is the Babe Ruth of presidents.  He was the greatest and nobody else is all that close.  He saved the country and ended slavery.  It's a shame he only got to be president for about six weeks out of his four years, one month, and eleven days without the Civil War going on.  He got replaced by one of our worst presidents.  I've thought about how things would have been different if Lincoln had finished his second term.  I think he would be very highly thought of no matter what because of the Civil War, but there's no guarantee that Lincoln would have handled Reconstruction better than his successors handled it.  But it does seem highly likely.  Congress would not have been able to battle Lincoln the way they battled Johnson.  Anyway, the Lincoln Memorial is great.  I kind of wish the Washington Monument was different.  The Lincoln Memorial has a statue of Lincoln.  The Jefferson Memorial has a statue of Jefferson.  The Washington Monument is just a big tall building.  I feel like there should be something more to it.  But one thing that I do like to it is that because it is so tall in a city full of small buildings, you can see it from so many places in the city.  I guess you could argue that you could add more to the Lincoln Memorial, but I wouldn't.  You have the statue in the middle, the Gettysburg Address on the wall on the left, and his second inaugural address on the wall on the right.

The greatest president in the history of the United States

The Gettysburg Address.  Lincoln thought it was a bad speech.  History has proven him wrong.  I absolutely love what Ken Burns has done to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.

The Washington Monument with the Capitol in the background from the Lincoln Memorial

After the Lincoln Memorial, we were on our way to Nationals Park.  It would have been cool to go to the top of the Washington Monument.  I haven't done that since the 90s probably.  But it just reopened and the weather was great, so I assume that would have taken a really long time.  It was my third trip to Nationals Park.  The only current stadiums that I've seen more baseball games in are Citi Field, Dodger Stadium, and Yankee Stadium.  I've seen one more sporting event at Fenway Park (three baseball games and one hockey game).  That brings up two tangents:

1.  One of the reasons that I wanted to make this trip was that I haven't blogged about Nationals Park (my last trip there was in 2010 when the Dodgers beat the Nationals in 13, we got two presidents races out of it).  The only other ballparks that I've been to that I haven't blogged about are Shea Stadium, old Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park (for a baseball game), Wrigley Field, and US Cellular Field.  It's too late on the first two, but I would love to go to another game at Fenway Park and Wrigley Field and blog about those experiences.  I don't need to go to another game at US Cellular Field, but if I was in Chicago and the White Sox were at home, I'd go.  If I could have blogged about my 2009 trip to Boston (day drinking on the Freedom Trail with John and a Red Sox victory over the Orioles), that would have been a great post.  If I could have blogged about my 2009 trip to Wrigley Field with Jon, Dennis, Tim, Kevin, and Joe (a Cubs victory over the Cardinals and then Dennis made us miss our train), that also would have been a great post.  Hopefully I'll get around to seeing baseball games at the two oldest stadiums in the Majors again, but it most likely won't be this year.  I've got too much going on to go to Chicago and Boston is unlikely because John's wife is due with their second child in early August, so I doubt this summer would work for him.

2.  The Winter Classic will be in Washington in January (hopefully I'll be in New Orleans or Pasadena to see Notre Dame in a playoff game in football), but they haven't announced where it will be played yet.  Nationals Park and FedEx Field seem like the two most likely candidates, but RFK and Camden Yards have been mentioned also.  I guess you could make the case for Camden Yards, but they should just play it in the nation's capital.  That would leave Nationals Park and RFK as possibilities.  RFK is the only one of the four stadiums that I've mentioned that I haven't been to, but I have to imagine that it's not nearly as good as Nationals Park.  So yeah, just put it in Nationals Park.

Back to the game.  We got there fairly early and took a lap around the lower concourse.  After visiting for the third time, I think this ballpark is underrated.  The Nationals don't have much history, but they do give a nod to Washington baseball history with statues of Walter Johnson, Frank Howard, and Josh Gibson in the outfield.

Walter Johnson was the greatest pitcher of all time.

It's a shame Josh Gibson didn't get to play in the Major Leagues.  He was one of the great home run hitters of all time.

The thing that I really liked about Nationals Park is that it executes "the nation's capital" theme very well.  It's red, white, and blue all over the place (they painted the floors on the concourses red for this season).  You have the presidents race.  The concession stands keep the nation's capital theme going (District Drafts, Senators Sausage, South Capitol Grill, etc.)

George Washington before the game

Another good thing about Nationals Park was the concessions.  There were good options all around the stadium.  Somehow, I made it all the way to May 17 without having a Sam Adams Summer Ale on tap.  I was able to solve that problem at Nationals Park.  Sean had a Sam Adams Rebel IPA.  We both had crab grilled cheese.  I would have liked if it was a little more cheesy, but it was still good.

Finally.

Crab grilled cheese

As for the game, we were there to see Sean's favorite squadron, the Ny Mets, take on the Nationals.  It was Bartolo Colon against Gio Gonzalez.  The Mets took control early, scoring five runs in the first three innings.  Juan Lagares hit a home run and took a home run away from Jayson Werth.

We had good seats, up high behind home plate.  We were below the press box, which is ridiculously high at Nationals Park.  The only thing I didn't like was that we were in the first row of the section, which meant we had two bars and glass in front of us that were kind of in the way.  If we were in the second row, they probably wouldn't have been an issue.

I do enjoy the Presidents Race.  The old thing was that Teddy Roosevelt never won.  Apparently that changed on the last game of the 2012 regular season.  He won for the first time that day and won all of their races in the playoffs that year, but the Nationals blew their first round series against the Cardinals.  William Howard Taft is a recent addition to the Presidents Race.  I asked Sean why they picked him and he thought it was because anybody after Taft would be controversial.  That's why I'd go with James K. Polk, our most underrated president.  Anyway, Abraham Lincoln won the race on this day.  Other stadiums have their own races (animated Subway trains, sausages, even power tools or something in Atlanta), but the Presidents Race is the best.

Abraham Lincoln widened his all time lead.

One thing they need to fix at Nationals Park is clock in right field.  There was a clock that had the Nationals' logo and two bats as the hands.  Sean told me it broke and they can't fix it.  They took off the bats so now it's just a Nationals' logo surrounded by 12 stars.  Come on, this is the Major Leagues, you need to be able to fix a clock.  Other than that, I liked Nationals Stadium more than I remembered.  I might have to move it up my rankings (I'll revisit that later in the season because I have another stadium that needs to be reranked and several more stadiums to visit this year).

How hard is it to fix a clock?

Back to the game.  Colon went eight and the Mets held on to beat the Nationals 5-2.  Despite the not very competitive game, it was a great day at the ballpark.  The weather was great.  I wore shorts and long sleeves and was not at all too hot or too cold.  It was my first day game of the season and the stadium was nearly full with a crowd of 41,225.  I wish more games were played during the day, with great weather, and a big crowd.  The next game I went to would check off none of those boxes.

A panoramic shot with the Mets celebrating a victory.  The stadium was still pretty full.  I'll give the Nationals fans some credit for that.

Sean and Apu went home happy.

It was a fun trip to our nation's capital.  I should be back in the fall, hopefully for Notre Dame's eighth win of the football season.

The Only Lottery Worth Playing

I am very much opposed to state lotteries.  The whole purpose of state lotteries is that the state makes money and you don't.  I once worked with a bunch of people that pooled their money to play the lottery.  I abstained.  The state of New York gets enough of my money.  On the other hand, the NBA Draft Lottery is worth playing.  Which team is in better shape right now, the Celtics or the Hornets?  Obviously, the answer is the Celtics.  Neither team had a chance of winning the championship this year.  The Bobcats/Hornets got pounded by the Heat in the first round of the playoffs.  The Celtics didn't make the playoffs, but they have a chance to win the lottery tonight plus they have the Nets' pick (17).  The Hornets have the Trailblazers' pick (24) and possibly the Pistons' pick (if it's outside the top 8), but they don't have their own (the Bulls have their pick, which is 16).  If you're not a championship contender, you want draft picks and cap space (I'll let you make your own joke about the Knicks).  I'm feeling good about the Celtics right now.

I don't remember much about the 1997 lottery.  The Celtics had a 36% chance of winning and getting Tim Duncan.  They ended up with the third pick.  It turned out to be Chauncey Billups and Rick Pitino traded him during his rookie season.  They lesson, as always:  Rick Pitino is a scumbag.

I do remember the 2007 lottery.  The Celtics had a 19.9% chance of winning and an 18.8% chance of getting the second pick.  I was at Yankee Stadium the night of the lottery.  Manny Ramirez hit a steroid ball and the Red Sox beat the Yankees.  Other than that, it was a disappointing night for Boston.  I remember calling my dad and finding out that the Celtics ended up with the fifth pick.  It's interesting to think about how history would have been different if they hadn't ended up with the fifth pick.  Because of the lottery, they ended up trading for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett.  That led to them winning the 2008 NBA Championship and making it to the Finals again in 2010.  They could have ended up getting Kevin Durant.  If that had happened, they definitely don't win in 2008, but maybe they would have won a championship since then.  The worst case would be that they'd still be a championship contender for the next few years.  But if they had gotten the number one pick, they probably would have taken Greg Oden and that probably would have messed up the franchise even more.

Tonight the Celtics have a 10.3% chance of winning the lottery and a 33.4% chance of a top three pick.  Maybe tonight is the night the Celtics get lucky in the lottery after two big disappointments.  Unlike 2007, I'll be watching with my dad.  If David Stern was still the commissioner, the Lakers would win the lottery.  Let's hope things are different now.

NFL Draft Diary

Last year I wrote my first NBA Draft Diary, so I'm bringing back the running diary for the first round of the NFL Draft.  My favorite football squadron, the Ny Jets, pick at 18 and we have three Notre Dame players who could possibly go in the first round.  It should be interesting.  I wore my Jets tie to work today.  This is probably the most excited about the Jets that I'll be all season.  They won't lose a game for a long time.  As soon as that happens, I'll be reminded of how much I despise Rex Ryan.  Unlike last year's NBA Draft, this probably won't be emotionally draining (the draft is usually more emotionally draining for the Jets with the benefit of hindsight).  Anyway, here we go:

8:03- ESPN has Chris Berman, Ray Lewis, Jon Gruden, and Mel Kiper on their coverage.  Berman just wished Mel Kiper a Merry Christmas.  Come on, we all know the NFL Draft is it's own holiday that celebrates the birth of Mel Kiper.  You have to respect a guy whose entire career is based on the NFL Draft.

8:04- Roger Goodell takes the stage.  I have to say, I prefer the days when the draft was just two days, Saturday and Sunday.  It's nice to watch the beginning of the draft and not have to go to work the next day.

8:05- We get a Houston Texans number 1 pick draft montage.  It consists of David Carr and Mario Williams.

8:06- The NFL Network is already in a commercial?  What up with that?  Terrible job out of them in that scenario.

8:07- Mel Kiper is opposed to the Texans taking Johnny Manziel because you can't get the tenth best player with the first pick.  I'm not a Johnny Manziel fan, but if he's the best quarterback in the draft and a franchise quarterback, he's worth the first pick.  A franchise quarterback is worth more than any other player.  But it doesn't matter because they're going to take Clowney.

8:10- NFL Network has Rich Eisen, Marshall Faulk, Steve Mariucci, Michael Irvin, and Mike Mayock.  Come on NFL Network, all you had to do was not have Michael Irvin on there and I'd go with your coverage.  I'll go with Mel Kiper and put up with Ray Lewis rather than no Mel Kiper and having to put up with Michael Irvin.

8:13- Mel says you can find quarterbacks later such as Russell Wilson.  Yes, but if you did that draft over again, Wilson would go second or third (Luck and maybe Griffin would go ahead of him).

8:15- Jadeveon Clowney goes number one.  Can they just show the hit on the Michigan running back (fumble and helmet loss) over and over again?  That was fun.  I have no idea if this pick is right or wrong, but if there's a franchise quarterback in this draft, you'd rather have him than Clowney.  But after a quarterback, a pass rusher is the next most important thing to have in today's NFL.  I'll take a great pass rusher any day over a great corner back.  There's one quarterback to sack and five receivers to cover.  There's nothing an offense can do if they can't block a pass rusher.  If a team has a great corner, you throw to any of the four eligible receivers not being covered by that corner (like Peyton Manning did against the Jets in the AFC Championship Game a few years back).

8:19- Jon Gruden likes the pick.  When will the first pick that he doesn't like be?  My guess is Saturday.

8:25- The Rams take Greg Robinson.  After the quarterback, the left tackle is the next most important position on offense.  The Rams already have a great quarterback a quarterback who makes a lot of money.

8:26- The murderer is talking about playing with Jonathan Ogden.  My friend Pete is not a fan of the murderer either.  Pete was part of a question I just gave on a test.  The question was whether or not he could be president (I gave them Pete's background story).  Most of my kids said no because he lives in England.  The correct answer was no because he's not old enough.

8:28- Adam Schefter makes his first appearance.  ESPN News should just have Frank Caliendo doing the draft as Berman, Gruden, Schefter, and Kiper.  Does he do Kiper?  I know he does all those other guys?

8:31- The Jaguars take Blake Bortles.  Now, I've watched maybe 30 seconds of his college career, but doesn't this just sound like a guy who is destined to be the next Blaine Gabbert?  Jon Gruden likes the pick.  By the way, can't we just move the Jaguars to Los Angeles already?

8:34- We have our first trade.  The Browns trade the pick to the Bills.  The Bills went to the first four Super Bowls that I can remember.  Since then, they lost the Music City Miracle game and that's about it.

8:37- The Bills take Sammy Watkins.  He had better be really good to give up a first round pick next year.  The Bills' pick could very well be in the top ten again next year.

8:41- Gruden thinks the Raiders should take Manziel.  That would rekindle my hatred of the Raiders.  The Raiders signing Justin Tuck has put a damper on that (so has their general crappiness over the last ten years).

8:42- The Raiders tack Khalil Mack.  This is a guy I hadn't heard of until a month ago.

8:45- Jon Gruden actually doesn't seem too excited about this pick.

8:49- The Heat are up by three against Pierce, Garnett, and a bunch of other guys that I don't care about.  Unfortunately, I'd be shocked if anybody other than the Heat won the East.

8:50- Um, sure, Berman, when Arthur Blank speaks, I listen.

8:51- The Falcons take Jake Matthews.  I don't have any thoughts about this pick.

8:59- Tampa Bay takes Mike Evans.  I like this dude.  Whenever I watched Texas A&M, he just caught everything.

9:02- The Browns give up a fifth round pick to move up one spot.  The Vikings get an extra fifth round pick.  I like this move for the Vikings.  I assume they'll get the player they would have taken at eight with the ninth pick and they get an extra pick out of it.  This is kind of like a trade I would have made in Madden back in the day.  I was all about accumulating draft picks.

9:04- The Browns take Justin Gilbert.  The crowd is surprised.  Mel Kiper doesn't like the pick.  Were the Browns really worried about somebody else jumping ahead of them by one pick to take this guy?  Weird move.

9:08- Pierce, Garnett, and a bunch of other guys are down by just two in the fourth quarter.

9:11- The Vikings take Anthony Barr.  I was impressed with him whenever I saw him.

9:13- Barry Sanders will announce the next pick for the Lions.  Barry Sanders was on Madden 25 last year.  He says that fans will vote for the cover of Madden 15 for this coming season.  Um, EA Sports has an interesting numbering system.

9:14- The Lions take Eric Ebron.  He's one of these tight ends that's really a wide receiver.

9:16- Jon Gruden explains that a tight end plays tight on the end of the line.  It sounds silly, but he's right.

9:18- Pierce, Garnett, and the other guys are down by ten now.  Nuts.

9:22- The Titans take Taylor Lewan.  BOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

9:23- The Giants are on the clock.  There's been some talk about them taking Zack Martin.  I'd love to see them take a Notre Dame guy after they lost my favorite player in the NFL (Justin Tuck).

9:28- Jon Gruden likes Zack Martin.  So do I.  The pick is in for the Giants.

9:29- The Giants take Odell Beckham.  Nuts.  We're starting to get lots of shots of Johnny Manziel as his slide continues.  Please let him go to the Cowboys.  That would be fun.

9:38- The Rams take Aaron Donald.  I heard a lot about this guy, but he wasn't very impressive against Notre Dame last year.  Now let us never speak of that game again.

9:44- The Bears take Kyle Fuller.  He's Jon Gruden's favorite corner in the draft.

9:47- The Steelers take Ryan Shazier.  The Dallas Cowboys are on the clock.

9:51- Jon Gruden says Jerry Jones likes filling that big stadium.  It's the NFL and they're the Cowboys.  All they have to do is show up and they'll fill the stadium.  The pick is in and Manziel is not on the phone.  Maybe it's not him.

9:53- Nuts, Zack Martin goes to the Cowboys.  I had the easy "What could possibly go wrong?" joke ready for the Cowboys taking Manziel.  I don't like the Cowboys and now they've taken Notre Dame's best offensive lineman in a long time.  But for Martin, I'm sure this is almost as exciting as when he was named the MVP of the Pinstripe Bowl.

9:57- We get the quarterbacks slipping in the draft montage, which really could have been longer.  They only showed Aaron Rodgers and Geno Smith.  Look at the 2005 Draft.  Twenty-three guys went before Rodgers.  One of the things I'm happiest about as a Jet fan is that the Jets weren't one of the teams that drafted somebody else over Rodgers (pretty sad that's one of the things I'm happiest about as a Jet fan).  Their first pick was Mike Nugent in the second round, a reaction to Herman Edwards putting Doug Brien in a bad position in the playoffs in Pittsburgh a few months before the draft.  There were some good players taken before Rodgers, but lots of teams wish they could have a do over in that draft.  He should have been the number one pick.  Anyway, the point is that if Manziel is really a franchise quarterback, a lot of teams have made bad decisions tonight.

10:04- The Ravens took C.J. Mosley.  The Jets are on the clock.  I want them to take a wide receiver.  They signed Eric Decker, but they need more.  Decker is a nice player, but how many yards will he lose by going from Peyton Manning to Michael Vick/Geno Smith?  I'm going to say 250-400.  He had 612 the year before Manning got to Denver and then 1,064 and 1,288 with Manning.  I'm sure Decker got better, but Peyton Manning had a lot to do with the increase in yards.

10:05- No bad Jets draft pick montage?  We also haven't had the thing where ESPN knows who the pick is and Berman just happens to predict it correctly right before it's announced yet.

10:09- The Jets take Calvin Pryor.  I don't know much about this guy.  Their safeties have been pretty crappy for a while, so let's hope he can play.  You're not going to believe this, but Jon Gruden likes the pick.  I'm just happy they didn't take Marqise Lee.  I finally got rid of Mark Sanchez, I didn't want another USC guy.  But that might have been different.  The quarterback is the face of the franchise.  And Marqise Lee might actually be a good player.  It wouldn't have been as painful to root for him.

10:12- After one quarter, the Spurs lead the Blazers by three.  The Heat won earlier.  That series is over.

10:18- The Dolphins take Ja'Wuan James.  "Juwan" was not a good enough spelling for his parents.

10:23- In an obscure sport known as "baseball," the Dodgers and Giants are scoreless in the bottom of the first.  I mean, I love football, but ESPN sometimes acts like the other sports don't exist.

10:25- The Saints traded up and they take Brandin Cooks.  He's a wide receiver from Oregon State who wore number 7.  Number 8 on Oregon State is also a wide receiver and he is very tastefully named.

10:30- On the MLB Extra Innings package, the Dodger broadcast is on the same channel as the Orioles-Rays game, which hasn't ended yet.  So I'm stuck with the Giant broadcast on another channel until the Orioles-Rays game ends.  Lame.

10:34- The Packers take Ha'Sean Clinton-Dix.  I refuse to call him by his nickname.

10:39- The Spurs just got an easy basket on a broken play.  Of course they did.  They lead by 18.

10:40- The Browns are back on the clock after trading with the Eagles.  

10:41- "I think they take Johnny.  I do."  The murderer is bringing a lot to the broadcast tonight.

10:42- The Browns take Johnny Manziel.  If he's a franchise quarterback, the Browns have had a great night.  If not, they have a bunch of picks in the rest of this draft and next year also, so missing on a late first round draft pick isn't the end of the world.  My friend Jon and his family are the only Browns fans I know.  Jon's reaction:  "I don't mind it at 22.  He could be awesome."

10:49- Finally, the Orioles-Rays game is over and I can enjoy Vin Scully's call of the Dodgers against the team from Hippie Town.  I might miss some draft picks watching baseball now.

10:52- The Chiefs take Dee Ford.  I have no thoughts.  Josh Beckett is through three without giving up any runs.  He's been much better than I expected so far this season, but he doesn't have a win yet.  Hopefully tonight is the first of many to come.

10:58- The Bengals take Darqueze Dennard.  I remember this guy against Notre Dame.  We couldn't throw against Michigan State, but we got some pass interference calls.  We were the only team good enough to beat Michigan State last year.

11:02- The Draft, Spurs-Blazers, and Dodgers-Giants are all in commercials.  It's the dreaded triple-Urkin.

11:03- We're back to the Draft.  The Chargers take Jason Verrett.  There's been talk of the Chargers as a potential spot for Louis Nix.  If that happened, they'd probably be my second favorite team in the NFL.

11:09- The Eagles take Marcus Smith.  Apparently he was the American Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year.  How did he last this long after winning a prestigious award like that?

11:12- Beckett is through four without allowing a run.  The Dodgers need to score.

11:16- The Cardinals take Deone Bucannon.  I've never heard of this guy.  They need a quarterback considering the guy they have now hasn't been good since 2006.  Yes, I'm biased, but it's true.

11:17- I think Vin Scully just said the Dodgers haven't led the league in stolen bases since 1970.  Dee Gordon might have something to say about that this year.

11:18- The Panthers take Kelvin Benjamin.  The Patriots are next.  Please don't take Louis Nix or Stephon Tuitt.

11:26- The Patriots take Dominique Easley.  Hopefully this won't work out well.  I'm really looking forward to the end of the run for the Patriots.  But this is a good time to remind everybody that the Patriots haven't won a Super Bowl since Charlie Weis left.

11:29- Ryan Vogelsong just doubled to lead off the fifth for the Giants.  I was not saying boo-urns.

11:32- The 49ers take Jimmie Ward.  I'll let you guess Jon Gruden's thoughts on the pick.  I don't like the spelling of his name.

11:37- After giving up a lead off double to the pitcher, Beckett got three ground outs to get out of the fifth unscathed.  Matt Kemp leads off the bottom of the fifth with a single.

11:38- The Broncos take Bradley Roby.  I would love to see the Broncos get back to the Super Bowl and have a very different result this time.  I've become a big Peyton Manning fan (after not being a fan at all for the first half of his career).  Watching the Broncos lose to that scumbag Pete Carroll last year was not fun.

11:40- Speaking of that scumbag, the Seahawks are on the clock.  Just to review, Pete Carroll won a college championship with a professional player on his team and he won an NFL championship with a defense full of guys who used steroids.  Let's not forget this.

11:42- The Seahawks traded the pick to the Vikings.  So for now I don't have to worry about the Seahawks taking Nix or Tuitt (thankfully Golden Tate is finally out of there).

11:43- The Dodgers scored the first run of the game on a sacrifice fly by Drew Butera.

11:45- The Vikings take Teddy Bridgewater.  The Vikings have a lot of Notre Dame guys so I hope Bridgewater helps them win some games.

11:54- The Spurs are up by nine with just over four minutes to play.  I think that's it for me tonight.

Tomorrow would be a good night for another running diary.  We have rounds two and three.  The Rangers are fighting for their lives in Pittsburgh (I'm not optimistic).  The two more competitive series in the NBA will be back in action.  And the Dodgers will be taking on the Giants again.  But it's been a long week.  I'm just going to relax, drink some Sam Adams, and watch everything on TV.  I have to be up in about five and a half hours for work tomorrow.  I'm going to fall asleep while listening to the sweet sound of Vin Scully's voice.  As he would say, GoooOOOOooooOOOOd night everybody!

Hippies. They're Everywhere.

As the wise American philosopher Eric Cartman once said, "Hippies.  They're everywhere.  They wanna save the Earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad."  I thought a lot about the wise words of Cartman as I traveled from Los Angeles to San Francisco.  Before last week, the only time I had ever been in San Francisco was for a layover on my long trip home from Los Angeles in 2011.  Hurricane Irene forced me to stay in Los Angeles two days later.  Even then, the best I could do to get home was to fly from Los Angeles to San Francisco to Las Vegas to New York.  But finally, my quest to get to every Major League Baseball stadium brought me to my least favorite city in the United States (feel free to watch this South Park episode and come back).

I probably should have dressed like this for my day in San Francisco.

Anyway, I purposely got an early flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco so that I would have some time to explore the city.  I thought about getting tickets for one of those double decker bus tours.  You can pay for the day and hop on and off as you want.  That's probably what I would have done if not for the crappy weather forecast.  When I got there, it was just cloudy.  So I just started walking around the city.  It was 2.3 miles from my hotel to Fisherman's Wharf.  I figured that wasn't too bad.  What I didn't realize was how hilly San Francisco is.  Some of the hills have steps because they are so steep.  But I made it.  I went to Ghirardelli Square and had a delicious hot fudge sundae.  I took a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge that didn't come out too well because of the weather.  By then, the rain had started.  Considering the weather and having to go up those hills again, I thought about taking a cable car back.  I might have done that, but there was a huge line for the cable cars.  I decided to just walk it.  Early on during the walk back, I checked the route on my phone and realized I was near Lombard Street, the most crooked street in the world.  So I took a little detour to check that out.  The rest of the walk back was rough.  It was a relief to finally get to the top of the hill and realize the rest would be downhill.  But the hills are so steep that even going downhill isn't the easiest.  You use energy fighting momentum and staying upright.  And some of the sidewalks were slippery from the rain.  I almost slipped and fell at one point.  The area around my hotel was actually pretty flat.  So when I made it back to flat ground, I was relieved.  At one point my legs started to tremble after the workout I had just put them through.  I was expecting to be really sore the next day.  I was not as sore as I expected, but the soreness lasted longer than I expected (it took maybe three days for it to go away).  Anyway, simple math says I walked at least 4.6 miles, but that would have been if I walked directly to Fisherman's Wharf and back to my hotel.  I'm thinking I probably did about six miles to and from my hotel in the afternoon and then it was a mile to and from the stadium at night.  Usually I walk three to four miles per day, so I probably did about double that in San Francisco and the amount of marijuana I smelled in San Francisco was infinitely more than what I normally smell in a day.

This was pretty awesome.

This is as close as I got to the Golden Gate Bridge.  Unfortunately, the weather made this picture pretty bad.

Seriously, who thought this was a good idea?

The game was at 7:15.  I got to the park around 6:30.  I walked around the stadium on the outside and then I walked around the lower level before heading up to my seat.  I have to admit, it is an impressive stadium (more on that later).  Like the night before at Dodger Stadium, it was a bobble head night.  But this was for one of the Giants' broadcasters who hit is only home run when he played for the Indians.  I politely declined the bobble head when it was offered to me as I walked in.

I had been worried about the game possibly being rained out, but it only drizzled a little bit during the game.  The MLB At the Ballpark app on my phone says it was 52 degrees for the game.  The app also says that it was 52 degrees last year when I saw the Dodgers beat the Mets at Citi Field.  It says the doubleheader I saw four years ago at Citi Field had temperatures of 51 and 53 degrees.  The app also says the doubleheader was the windiest and this game was the next windiest of the games I just mentioned.  Remembering those games, I was very bundled up.  Perhaps because I was better prepared, the temperature really didn't bother me at all.  The doubleheader four years ago and the game last year at Citi Field definitely felt colder than this game (the doubleheader was by far the worst).  I didn't really notice the wind.  Maybe it was blocked where I was sitting.

As for the game, I was rooting for the Indians, but I was not optimistic with the pitching match up of Carlos Carrasco against Tim Hudson.  The Giants scored two in the bottom of the first.  The Indians got a run in the top of the first on an RBI single by Nick Swisher (our old friend Flynn's favorite player).  But the Giants scored on a Hunter Pence single in the bottom of the third and on a long Michael Morse home run in the bottom of the fourth and they were never really in trouble.  It was a comfortable 5-1 win for the Giants.  So far I've been to two games this year and neither went the way I wanted.  I just hope the Dodgers make the playoffs and 11 games go the way I want them to in October.

My view for the game

I didn't really want to like the stadium, but it's hard no to.  It is a great setting.  I guess it's most comparable to PNC Park in Pittsburgh.  I'm giving PNC Park the edge.  One of the great things about PNC Park is that you pretty much have a really cool view wherever you're sitting.  If you're down low, you can't see the river, but you have the city in the background.  At AT&T Park, you could argue that the best seats are higher up.  Where I was sitting, I had a great view of the bay, but if you're down low, you don't really have a view of anything in the background.

Previously, I had PNC Park as my cutoff for the elite stadiums.  I'm slotting AT&T Park at number seven on my rankings and that's the new cutoff.  I know a lot of people would have it even higher than that (and some would probably rank it as the best in baseball).  So I need some reasons for ranking it that low.  I have Fenway Park, Dodger Stadium, and Old Yankee Stadium as my top three stadiums.  Park of the reason for that is the history.  Fenway Park is where Ted Williams played.  Dodger Stadium is where Sandy Koufax played.  Old Yankee Stadium is where Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter played (Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Mantle didn't play in the version of Yankee Stadium that existed when I was going to games there).  On the other hand, Barroid played in AT&T Park.  So yeah, there's history, but I'm counting it as a negative.  Next, concessions are an issue.  There were some good options, but the lines move way too slowly.  I left my seat to get food after the top of the second.  I didn't get back to my seat until the bottom of the fourth.  Part of that was me walking around and deciding what I wanted (about half of an inning).  But part of it was just lines moving way too slowly.  I had to wait on one line to get a bread bowl of clam chowder (which was good) and then on another line to get a Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen.  I mentioned in my last post how they have little stands in Philadelphia with just good beer.  San Francisco had some good beer options, but at least on the upper level, they were all at concessions stands where people were on line for food and whatever else they were getting.  Another drawback was that while I was on the concourse for two innings getting food and beer, I couldn't see the field.  Sure there were TVs around the concession stands, but I like to be able to see the field from the concourse (you can on the lower level, but not up high).  And then I have a couple of issues with the field.  First of all, there's no pattern cut into the grass.  Come on, I used to cut patterns when I cut the grass on the baseball field at Camp Alvernia in 2004.  The Giants not doing it is just laziness.  I can't think of another stadium that doesn't cut any sort of pattern into the grass.  Also, they have their bullpens on the field.  I think that's really, really stupid.  They easily could have taken out a few seats from the outfield (and probably just put those seats somewhere else if they wanted to) and had the bullpens out of play (that was one of my issues with another elite stadium, Petco Park, but the Padres fixed that before last season).  And finally, AT&T Park is the home of the Giants and full of hippies.  Two big negatives right there.

I know only a few people will get this joke, but I wish this had been outside White Castle after our bar crawl in 2005.

As George Steinbrenner once said, "From 1973 to 1982 I ate the exact same lunch every day: turkey chili in a bowl made out of bread. Bread bowl, George. You'd eat the chili, then you'd eat the bowl. Nothing more satisfying than looking down after lunch and seeing just a table."

Recently, my friend John wrote about his experiences at Fenway Park as a Yankee fan.  If I lived in San Francisco, I couldn't do what John does.  The biggest difference is that John's love of Boston is clear.  I certainly don't like San Francisco and I would never live there (also John is married to a Red Sox fan, there's no way I could marry a fan of the Giants, Lakers, USC, or Michigan, any of those would be three strikes right away).  So let me finish off with my Least Favorite City Power Rankings (I've already done my favorite cities).  I'm limiting this to American cities.  I'm willing to spend a small amount of time in each of these cities.  Believe me, there are plenty of cities that I'd never even consider going to (particularly in the Middle East because I'd worry that I'd be killed by terrorists).  But here we go, starting with my third least favorite city:

3. Detroit.  I haven't been there yet, but I will be this summer for a Tigers game.  I'm spending as little time there as possible.  This ranking is only based on what I've heard about Detroit.  I'm pretty sure I've never heard a good thing about Detroit.

2.  Las Vegas.  I hate everything this city stands for.  It's a city built on taking advantage of people's stupidity (I was going to say it was built on stealing people's money, but people willingly forfeit their money to casinos).  I was there two years ago and I'd be just fine never going back.

1.  San Francisco.  I'll give the final word to Eric Cartman:  "You don't know San Francisco, Butters.  It was the breeding ground for the hippie movement in the 60s.  There's hard-core liberals, lesbian activists, and die hard modern hippies young and old.  I swore I would never set foot in San Francisco.  God help me.  All right, Butters, I'll be tethered to you through this cord. It's my only lifeline, so make sure it stays taut. If you stop hearing my voice, for the love of Christ, start reeling me in with all your strength."

Improving Dodger Stadium

I took my first trip of baseball season last week during my Easter vacation.  The original plan was go to to San Francisco.  But then I thought about my first trip last year, which started with Opening Day in Los Angeles and finished with a game in Milwaukee.  I left Dodger Stadium last year not knowing when I'd be back again.  But I decided that if I was going to fly across the country, I might as well get to more than one baseball stadium during the trip.  When I realized that going from New York to Los Angeles to San Francisco and back to New York for only about $40 more than a round trip to San Francisco, it was an easy decision to make.

For my first game of the season, I got to Dodger Stadium last week for Dodgers-Phillies, which happens to be the same match up as my last game of the 2013 season.  Unlike last time, the result was not good.  There were some good things.  It was Clayton Kershaw bobble head night, which brought in a crowd of 51,699 on a Thursday night.  Juan Uribe and Adrian Gonzalez hit home runs for the Dodgers.  Dan Haren pitched well for the Dodgers.  But the fielding continues to be poor (Gonzalez made a costly error and he's usually one of their better fielders) and I'm beginning to suspect that Brian Wilson is the mole.  The Dodgers lost the series against the Phillies 3-1.  If they had been up in the series 2-1 going into the game I went to, they would have had a shot at the franchise's 10,000th win, but it turned out they were stuck on 9,998.  Actually there's debate about the count since apparently they won 13 games with an illegal player in 1899.  But if all those wins with Barry Bonds count for the Giants, then I'm cool with counting those 13 wins for the Dodgers.  Anyway, it's not worth blogging in much detail about my game experience at Dodger Stadium when I've done that before (here and here).  Hopefully I'll get back to Dodger Stadium when I go back to California for an Angels game (most likely next year).  I'm going to spend the rest of this post focusing on how Dodger Stadium has improved since Mark Walter, Stan Kasten, and Magic Johnson liberated the franchise from Frank McCourt.

This is definitely the coolest thing I've ever gotten for free at a baseball game.

My view from the loge last week at Dodger Stadium.

I love Dodger Stadium.  I've now gone to five games there (two in 2011, two in 2013, and one in 2014) and two stadium tours (2011 and 2013).  I sat in the loge for this game, which means I've now sat on every level of Dodger Stadium except for the Dugout Club (the seats in front that didn't exist until somewhat recently in Dodger Stadium's history).  I also haven't sat in the Pavilion seats in the outfield, but I've been in the top deck twice (2011 and 2013) and once each on the field level (2011), reserve level (2013), and the the loge (2014).  So I have plenty of experience with Dodger Stadium.  I have it ranked as the second best stadium in baseball (a detailed explanation here and an updated ranking here).  Much has changed since my first visit in 2011.  I loved it when I first got there three years ago and the new ownership group has made it even better.  First, let's go over some of those improvements:

1.  Atmosphere.  The atmosphere is so much better.  Before the new owners took over, the team had stopped trying to contend because Frank McCourt had no money.  Fans stopped coming to games because they hated McCourt so much.  Average attendance dropped by 7,743 fans from 2010 to 2011.  They finished 11th in attendance.  The Dodgers should never be out of the top five in attendance and if they're good, they'll probably be number one since they have the biggest baseball stadium in the world in the second biggest city in the country.  Within two years, the Dodgers were back to number one in attendance and increased their average attendance by 9,980 fans.  Dodger Stadium was dead when I was there in 2011 (entirely McCourt's fault).  Dodger fans have a bad reputation, but I don't think it is deserved.  I've never seen/heard a crowd like the one on Opening Day last year when Kershaw beat the Giants (pretty much by himself).

This is from my second game at Dodger Stadium in 2011.  The official attendance was 35,537.  The actual attendance was nowhere close to that.

2.  Honoring the history of the team.  They added the retired numbers outside the top deck, which was nice.  They added big Cy Young baseballs last year.  This year, they put big World Series rings in right field.

Jackie Robinson's number outside the top deck.  They have all the retired numbers out there.  On the side of the number is a little paragraph about the player or manager.

Clayton Kershaw 2011 Cy Young baseball

This is a nice addition to Dodger Stadium.  They need to add another one of these soon.  Like after this season.

This painting is on the top deck.  I kind of want to have this framed and put in my house.

3.  Scoreboards.  They put in new scoreboards last year.  My brother Sean heard on a tour before last season that Dodger Stadium used to have the world's largest standard definition TV.  Not anymore.  Dodger Stadium doesn't have the biggest scoreboards, but they are now HD and they honor the team's history with their unique hexagonal shape.  Also, I was impressed with the amount of information they had considering they aren't the biggest.

4.  Merchandise availability.  I remember wanting to get a Clayton Kershaw jersey shirt back in 2011.  For some reason, they weren't available on the website (I think they only had Ethier).  I figured I could get one at Dodger Stadium.  When I went there, the entire stadium was sold out of Kershaw shirts.  My next choice was a Matt Kemp shirt.  They had those, but not in my size.  This is what went on when Frank McCourt owned the team.  The team stores throughout the stadium are well stocked now.

5.  More food options.  I'm not going to turn down a Dodger Dog.  They're great and I've only been to Dodger Stadium for five games in my entire life.  But if I was able to go to several games per year, I'd want more options and now they have them.  This season, they added a barbecue restaurant in left field and Tommy Lasorda's Trattoria with Italian food in right field.

I love Dodger Dogs (they do taste different from any other ballpark hot dogs that I've had).  And this beer was fine, but they need more good beer options (hold on, we'll get there).

If I had gone to more than one game this year, I would have gotten something to eat here.

6.  360 degree field level access and outfield improvements.  Dodger Stadium used to have one similarity with Shea Stadium.  If you were in left field and you wanted to get to right field, you had to walk all the way around home plate to the other side of the field.  There wasn't much in the outfield anyway.  Now, you have a lot of stuff out in left and right field as I mentioned and you can just walk around the outfield on the lower level like you can at most of the newer stadiums in baseball.

There are no tickets for these seats above the bullpen, which were just added this year.  You can just sit in them if they're open.  It's not a particularly good look at the field, but it would be cool to stop there before the game and watch the starter warm up.

So they've made some great improvements in a short time.  However, they can still make it better (and I believe they will).  Here are my recommendations:

1.  Honor the history of the team more.  As I mentioned, they have done a better job with this, but they can still do more.  If you take the tour, you can see a lot about the history of the team on the press box/suite level.  I don't think that's accessible to most fans during games.  You also have the World Series trophies (or bats from the old days) and Cy Young Awards and stuff down by the Dugout Club.  I think fans sitting in the Dugout Club are the only ones that can see this stuff during games.  My brother Tom loves the Yankee museum at Yankee Stadium.  The Dodgers could have something like that.  Also, I would build two statues.  Two Dodgers deserve to be honored above all others, Robinson and Koufax.  They have all the retired numbers, but they're all the same (except the blue and white are reversed on Robinson's compared to the other retired numbers).  Next year I would put a statue of Jackie Robinson in left field and I'd put a statue of Sandy Koufax in right field the following year.  Jackie Robinson was the most important player in the history of baseball.  Sandy Koufax was the greatest left-handed pitcher ever and the greatest Dodger ever.  That would also honor the two eras of Dodger history.  Robinson played his whole career in Brooklyn.  Koufax started in Brooklyn, but he wasn't particularly good (9-10 with a 4.00 ERA in three seasons) and all of his great seasons were in Los Angeles.

I showed this picture to my kids this week since John Paul II was canonized on Sunday.  The largest crowd in the history of Dodger Stadium came to see him.  This is on the press box/luxury suite level.

The World Series trophies are near the Dugout Club, which I think you only have access to if on the stadium tour or if you have tickets for the ridiculously expensive Dugout Club seats.

One of Sandy Koufax's Cy Young Awards.  Also near the Dugout Club.

2.  More merchandise for the former players.  This is related to the first one.  I wanted to buy either a Jackie Robinson or Sandy Koufax jersey shirt during my visit last week.  I checked a few of the team stores and couldn't find anything down low in the stadium.  The best team store is on the top deck.  I finally got up there and they did have Mike Piazza, Tommy Lasorda, and Jackie Robinson shirts.  So I got what I was looking for (but I didn't see Koufax), but there should be more of that and it shouldn't be so hard to find.

3.  Beer.  Dodger Stadium needs better beer.  I had a Point the Way IPA (which is apparently a Los Angeles beer) and it was pretty good, but it was hard to find.  I saw it on the top deck and nowhere else.  Maybe I missed it somewhere, but I did look around lots of places and couldn't find much other than the usual stuff (crappy mass-produced American beer and Blue Moon and stuff like that).  Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia gets beer right.  They have the usual stuff at most of the concession stands, but then they have several small stands around the stadium that only have craft beers.  That means good beer is easy to find and you don't have to wait on a long line to get it.

They added these bars in the outfield.  There should be lots of good beers available on tap here.

4.  Dodger Stadium traffic.  It needs to get better.  I can dream.  Traffic after Opening Day last year was horrendous.  We spent more than an hour in the parking lot trying to leave the game.  There's not much that you can do about traffic when you have a weekday afternoon game that's sold out and very exciting (meaning everybody stays for the whole game).  Actually, ownership has done some things to improve traffic.  They've done stuff to encourage carpooling and they added a drop off/pick up spot for the Dodger Stadium Express bus from Union Station.  I actually stayed close enough to the stadium to walk this time, so I really couldn't tell you if it's gotten any better.  The main reason for this problem is that Los Angeles traffic is horrendous all the time.  But like I said, ownership has tried to do things to make this better, but I don't know if there's really any solution.  And it's not their fault, so I won't hold this one against them.

Dodger Stadium is fantastic.  I just want it to keep getting better.  If the Dodgers want to hire me, I'm willing to help.  Actually, I just gave them all of my ideas for free.  But they should still hire me to work for them.