Max Power 2

I got to my first game in New York this year (it might be the only Major League game I get to in New York, but it won’t be the only professional baseball game in New York).  For Christmas, my brothers gave my dad and me tickets for Dodgers-Mets at Citi Field for the middle game of a three-game series.  I might have gone to more than one (which would have been good since the Dodgers swept), but I was satisfied with just one because Clayton Kershaw was pitching.  I was not expecting that after he went on the DL after one start when he came back from the DL at the end of May.  That second DL stint was for the same injury as last year when he missed five weeks.  He didn’t miss as much time this year.  At some point it was announced that he would either pitch in Citi Field or he would pitch a rehab start with the Oklahoma City Dodgers.  Then they said he would pitch for Oklahoma City in Omaha.  Then they changed their minds at the last minute because the forecast was not looking good for his rehab start in Omaha.  It wasn’t looking good for New York either.  As it turned out, he could have pitched in either city.  And it was pretty much a rehab start anyway because the Mets are pretty much a minor league team at this point.

Jacob deGrom was starting for the Mets.  I was expecting that.  He’s had a great year so far, but the Dodgers were able to get to him.  Max Muncy hit a home run in the first inning to put the Dodgers up 1-0.  I hadn’t heard of this guy before this season.  He’s been awesome.  He wasn’t doing much at first, but the Dodgers got their season turned around when he started hitting.  And the turn around pretty much started in Washington.  Here are Muncy’s numbers before the game I went to in Washington:  73 plate appearances, .238/.329/.460, 3 home runs, 12 RBIs.  Here are his numbers from the game I went to until now:  140 plate appearances, .280/.450/.701, 14 home runs, 23 RBIs.  Kershaw looked really good in the first inning.  He struck out the first two batters and then got a soft ground ball right back to him for the third out.  Kershaw struggled after that, but managed to limit the damage.  He gave up two runs on five hits and one walk over the next two innings.  It was easily the worst start that I’ve seen from Kershaw (I’ll get to his numbers with me in attendance later).  But I would say it was a success.  He made it through three innings without getting hurt.  His velocity has been down this season.  It still wasn’t what we’re used to (I hope it gets back there, but it’s possible that the days of Kershaw throwing 93-95 are over), but it was definitely better than it was in his last start before going on the DL (and it was better in his second start when Kershaw was really good, but the bullpen was terrible).  So he left in position to lose, but the Dodgers got him off the hook.  Chris Taylor pinch hit for Kershaw in the top of the fourth and doubled in two runs.  Caleb Ferguson came in to pitch for Kershaw pitched four great innings.  He allowed three hits and a walk, but he didn’t give up any runs.

It was good to see Clayton Kershaw back on the mound.

So it was a close game going to the eighth.  Then the Dodgers took control.  Cody Bellinger led off with a single.  Yasiel Puig singled, but the ball was misplayed.  It allowed Bellinger to get to third, but Puig was too aggressive and got thrown out at second.  The Mets intentionally walked Yasmani Grandal.  With runners at the corners and one out, my dad called for the squeeze.  And that’s what the Dodgers did.  Kiké Hernandez successfully laid down the bunt.  The Mets tried to get Bellinger at home, but he was safe.  Chase Utley singled to load the bases.  And then Matt Kemp came up as a pinch hitter and hit a grand slam to make it 8-2.  The Mets hit a meaningless home run in the bottom of the 8th and the Dodgers won 8-3.  It was the 11th straight win for the Dodgers over the Mets.  The six RBIs for pinch hitters was the most in Los Angeles Dodgers history.  Kemp’s grand slam was his seventh with the Dodgers.  It put him one behind Mike Piazza for the most in Los Angeles Dodgers history.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the Dodgers play at 12 different stadiums.  I had never seen them play anywhere other than Shea Stadium until 2009.  Thanks to the MLB Ballpark app, I know that the Dodgers’ record in games I’ve attended at any stadium other than Shea Stadium is 18-15.  I was able to figure out five Dodger games that I went to at Shea Stadium from 1989-2008.  The Dodgers were 1-4 in those games, but there were definitely a lot more than those five games.  They’re 8-6 at Citi Field, 5-3 at Dodger Stadium, 2-0 at Nationals Park, 1-1 at Yankee Stadium, and 2-5 everywhere else (wins at Citizens Bank Park and Petco Park, losses at Fenway Park, AT&T Park, Coors Field, Chase Field, and Comerica Park).

As for food and drink, it was a mixed bag.  Of course, Shake Shack is the best option at Citi Field, but the line is always way too long.  So I didn’t try for that.  I had googled some of the new food options.  I couldn’t find a couple of things that I read about (Italian cheese balls with pepperoni and chicken parm bites).  Lines were an issue.  Besides Shake Shake, I was interested in lobster tacos, but I didn’t want to deal with the line.  I tried getting in line for an Alpine Brat (a brat with melted Raclette cheese).  The line was not long, but it was not moving at all.  I called an audible because the game was about to start and just got a hot dog so that I could be in my seat for the first pitch.  It was no Dodger Dog, but it was $7 cheaper than the Alpine Brat.  The beer selection was pretty good.  I was disappointed that there was no Sam Adams Summer Ale.  Sam Summer and Clayton Kershaw would have been the perfect first day (sort of) of summer vacation.  The only Sam Adams beer that I could find was Sam ‘76, which I’ve had before and I didn’t think it was anything special.  So I went with a Brooklyn Summer Ale.  It’s decent for a summer beer and I guess it was appropriate for watching the Dodgers in New York.  Also I got it from a little New York craft beer stand.  There was no line so it was nice and quick and easy.  After Kershaw left the game, I got some chocolate chip cookie dough from the edible cookie dough stand.  It’s really good.  The bad thing was I had to go down to the lower concourse because the stand on the upper level didn’t have chocolate chip.  Why even have other flavors?  No cookie (and I’m presuming cookie dough as well) beats chocolate chip.

I have at least six baseball games left this year.  Hopefully I'll be able to find some Sam Adams Summer Ale at a couple of them.

This was ridiculously good.

It looks like the next couple of games I’m getting to will be minor league games.  I think I’m going to get to three more Dodger games this year.  Hopefully I’ll get to see Kershaw again.  This was the first time I’ve seen Kershaw pitch since his second start back from the DL in 2016 when he pitched at Yankee Stadium.  Here are Kershaw’s updated numbers with me in attendance:

9 starts, 2 pinch hit appearances (0-1 with a sacrifice bunt)
Dodgers:  10-1 (the loss came in the game where he unsuccessfully pinch hit), Kershaw: 4-0
58.2 innings
1.23 ERA
63 strikeouts
34 hits
11 walks
0.77 WHIP
2 complete game shutouts

Max Power

I was planning on doing a trip to Washington over the summer to visit Jon and go to a Nationals game, but we couldn’t figure out a weekend that worked for both of us.  The solution was to not wait until the summer and see the Dodgers in May.  I also wanted to go to West Virginia.  I was in West Virginia once and didn’t get a beer from West Virginia.  I considered doing a minor league game, but none of the minor league teams in West Virginia are particularly easy to get to.  The solution was to take a second trip to Harpers Ferry.  This was the third different city where I've stayed with Jon on my baseball travels, with Pittsburgh (getting back there for another baseball game might be a thing to do next year) and Baltimore being the other two.

I got in late on Friday night and just went to Jon’s apartment.  He had some beer in his refrigerator from Washington DC (Right Proper Raised by Wolves), so I was able to add that to the list of places I’ve had a beer from. It was a solid end to the night after a long bus ride.  The next morning we were off to Harpers Ferry.  The forecast was questionable, but it all worked out.  It pretty much stopped raining as soon as we got there.  When I went there four years ago, we did a little hike with a park ranger.  That was up above the town.  It was cool, but we didn’t see all the historical stuff down in the town.  There are some little museums and they also have John Brown’s fort.  That’s where he was holed up during the raid until he was captured.  The fort has been moved from the original site, but the original site is marked.  We also walked up to St. Peter’s Catholic Church, which has been there since 1830.  During the Civil War, they flew the Union Jack above the church as a flag of neutrality.  We finished up by stopping at the Potomac Grille.  They had some beer from the Mountain State Brewing Company on tap. I had an Almost Heaven Amber Ale.  It was very good.  My one gripe was that it was served in a frosted glass.  I want the beer to be cold, not the glass.  You give me a cold glass and that’s just creating condensation which waters down the beer.  So the only states I have left to drink a beer from are Indiana, Arkansas, and Alaska.  Indiana and Arkansas should happen this summer.

If I'm going to drink a beer from all 50 states, I might as well drink one from our nation's capital as well.

John Brown's fort

There were a lot of Irish immigrants who went to St. Peter's in the 1800s.  It might have made sense to fly the Irish flag during the Civil War, but Ireland was still controlled by the British at the time.

We headed back to Washington for Dodgers-Nationals.  This was my fourth game at Nationals Park.  The last one was in 2014.  I like Nationals Park, but I have one gripe.  They have the whole nation's capital red, white, and blue theme going on, but then the wall is green.  Why not have a blue wall?  What up with that?  Anyway, we were there for the second game of a split doubleheader.  The Dodgers took the first game 4-1, with Max Muncy driving in two runs.  The second game was pushed back an hour because of the doubleheader.  I was originally hoping to be able to see the end of Game 3 of Celtics-Cavaliers.  Because of the later start, that wasn’t possible.  I didn’t miss much.  It was Rich Hill vs. Max Scherzer.  The Dodgers took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first on an RBI single by Max Muncy.  Rich Hill lasted two pitches because of a blister problem.  He became the first starting pitcher to have no batters faced in a game since 2016.  Who was the pitcher for that game?  Rich Hill.  We got some food while Scott Alexander warmed up.  I had a Half Smoke All the Way from Ben’s Chili Bowl.  It was quite tasty.  There was some light rain during the game, but fortunately we didn’t have to deal with a delay.  The Dodger bullpen was very solid for most of the game.  They had a combined no-hitter through five innings.  Max Muncy homered off of Max Scherzer to give the Dodgers a 2-0 lead.  But the Nationals scored four in the bottom of the sixth to take the lead.  Max Scherzer was very solid, going seven and striking out 13 (he also had an RBI single).  As an aside, I like writing my blog posts, but I often have trouble coming up with titles for my post.  This time it was pretty easy with Muncy and Scherzer:

It was an exciting finish to the game.  With Dodgers trailing 4-2 in the eighth, Cody Bellinger hit a home run to cut the lead to one.  The Nationals led 4-3 going to the ninth, but Matt Kemp hit a pinch hit two-run double to give the Dodgers the lead and Kenley Jansen got his second save of the day as the Dodgers hung on to win 5-4.  According to Dodgers' play-by-play man Joe Davis, it was the 262nd time in Major League history that a team won a game where the bullpen recorded all 27 outs.  That's more rare than a no-hitter.

We actually spent most of the game watching from a marginally better view.  After we got food, we sat in some open seats in the same section that were a few rows down and closer to home plate.

The next morning I went to the 8:30 mass at St. Joseph’s on Capitol Hill.  I walked over to the Capitol and Supreme Court and took a couple of pictures.  And then I was headed back home.  It was a good trip.  My next baseball game is likely to be my first Citi Field game of the season when the Dodgers come in to town at the end of June.  My next trip will be in July.

Despite my feelings about Congress and the Supreme Court for pretty much my entire lifetime, I do appreciate what these buildings stand for.

A Call for Fewer Calls to the Bullpen

This blog post is long overdue.  The terrible start for the Dodgers has really hurt my desire to finally write this post.  Anyway, the last stop on my Easter vacation trip was San Francisco.  Tom and I were supposed to go to Dodgers-Giants on Friday night after I got in.  That didn’t happen.  The Giants were rained out five times in their first seven years in AT&T Park, but the game we were supposed to go to was the first rain out since 2006.  My tickets were good for the rescheduled game later in the month.  Of course, I wasn’t going to be in San Francisco for that.  So I posted those on Stubhub and bought tickets for Saturday afternoon as soon as the Friday game was rained out

I don’t know why I originally got tickets for Friday night and not Saturday afternoon.  As long as the weather isn’t ridiculously hot, I prefer afternoon games to night games.  I was hoping to go to the Saturday afternoon game and then get back to Tom’s apartment to watch Notre Dame play for the National Championship in hockey.  But the Saturday forecast was a little questionable for early in the day so the game got pushed back from 1:00 to 3:00.  So I avoided twitter and told my college friends not to text me about the game.  The plan was to watch it on my ipad at the airport that night.  And it looked like my plan was going to work, but a TSA guy ruined my plan when he saw my sweatshirt and made a comment about our loss.  I guess if I was going to have a plan like that ruined, it was better for it to happen after a loss than a win.  I didn’t end up watching the game.

Before the game, we went to Ike’s Place.  We went there last summer when Tom was moving in.  I had the Joe Montana sandwich (chicken, bacon, avocado, havarti, and Asian sesame dressing) since Notre Dame was playing for a National Championship that night.  I liked it a lot more than the Adam Richman sandwich that I had last year.  Then we were off to the stadium.  It was my second game at AT&T Park (after going to a second game there, I reaffirm the issues I have with AT&T Park, it's very good, but there are better stadiums).  It was an exciting game.  The Dodgers fell behind 1-0, 3-1, and 4-3.  They kept coming back.  Chase Utley tied it 4-4 with a home run in the 7th.  And the score stayed that way until the 14th when Logan Forsythe gave the Dodgers their first lead of the game with an RBI single.  I was flying home that night, but my flight was so late that it wouldn’t be an issue under normal circumstances.  But 14 innings in 5 hours and 16 minutes wasn’t normal.  We started talking about when to go at some point during extra innings.  I made the call to move down for the top of the 14th and probably leave after that.  After the Dodgers took the lead, we waited to watch Clayton Kershaw pinch hit (he struck out) and he left after that.  It was Kershaw’s fifth career plate appearance as a pinch hitter and the second time I’ve seen him as a pinch hitter.  He’s 0-3 with two sacrifices in his career as a pinch hitter.  The Dodgers had a 5-4 lead and in my mind, that’s how the game ended.

Our view for most of the game

Me and Tom

The hot fudge dispenser was messed up and this was slightly disappointing.

I think this was some Sierra Nevada beer.  Day baseball and outdoor beer is a great combination.

We moved down at the end.  I'm pretty sure that's Clayton Kershaw hitting.

I’ll finish with some thoughts on baseball in general.  The game highlighted some issues I have with baseball.  I love baseball.  I don’t mind long games when they’re good and meaningful because, again, I love baseball.  But the length of regular season games is an issue.  A nine-inning game in June between the Pirates and Marlins doesn’t need to be three hours and 45 minutes.  This game was long because it went 14 innings, but it probably didn’t need to be 5 hours and 16 minutes.

There are a lot of reasons for the length of games constantly increasing.  And there are some possible solutions that might slightly reduce the length of some games.  They did away with the four pitches on the intentional walk.  I didn’t like it because of the very rare time when something interesting happens on one of those pitches.  And you’re saving maybe a minute on something that happens less than once every two games on average (I think).  Then there’s the pitch clock, which is probably coming.  I don’t like the idea of a clock in baseball, but they do it in the minors and I’ve barely noticed it when I’ve been at minor league games, so whatever.  Again, I don’t think it will make a big difference.

Can you cut the number of warm up pitches between innings and shorten commercials?  That’s a legitimate question.  Do pitchers really need as many warm up pitches as they get?  I don’t know.  Can you actually make batters stay in the batter’s box?  There’s no reason why a batter has to step out  and take a little walk after taking a pitch with nobody on base.

The big issue with the length of games is having long stretches where nothing is going on.  And the biggest reason why that’s happening is because the amount of innings pitched by starters decreases each year and the number of pitching changes increases each year.  The Dodgers had a stretch last year when they had 14 pitchers on the roster (this was before rosters expanded in September).  And they made use of that ridiculously large bullpen.  In this game, the Dodgers used 24 players.  Ten different pitchers pitched (their starter wasn’t all that good, but he wasn’t getting killed either and he only went four and no reliever pitched more than an inning and two-thirds) and two more were used as pinch hitters.  They were on their fifth pitcher and they were out of legitimate pinch hitters in the 8th inning.

So if we can limit pitching changes, we can start to actually deal with this problem.  I’ve heard people suggest only being allowed to change pitchers once in an inning.  I don’t like that.  It’s too drastic of a change to the way the game is played.  But I do have a solution that won’t drastically change the way the game is played.  My original solution was to limit the number of roster spots for pitchers to 11.  If you do that, managers would change the way they use their bullpens.  You’re going to try to get more innings from a starter and try not to be on your fourth reliever by the sixth inning if you only have six relievers to use.

I like my idea to limit roster spots for pitchers.  But the union would probably not go for that change so that’s not going to work.  I’ve found the answer to that.  You expand the rosters to 27 players.  You get 13 pitchers and 14 position players.  However, only 11 pitchers can be active for a game (actually I’d probably prefer 26 man rosters with 12 pitchers and only 11 active, but I can live with one more pitcher spot).  And there would have to be starter/reliever designations for pitchers.  You get five starters and eight relievers, but you could only deactivate relievers.  All five starters would always be active for the game.  So you’d end up with a six-man bullpen for every game.  There would have to be some flexibility.  You could change pitchers between starter and reliever, but I think you’d have to have a rule that you couldn’t be changed from starter to reliever until four days have passed following a start.  There might have to be a rule about listing starters for the next four games or something and then if a guy didn’t make his scheduled start, he’d have to go on the DL or something to prevent teams from activating extra relievers but just listing them as starters.

I think the union would go for this.  You create 60 extra Major League roster spots.  It would be great news for marginal position players.  And it would make managers more hesitant to make pitching changes.  Hopefully it would help deal with another problem in baseball.  Strikeouts are so high right now.  The ball needs to be in play more.  One of the reasons that strikeouts are so high is that pitchers are being coached to go all out because they’re not going to be in the game that long anyway.  That would have to change a little bit.  The next change would be to de-juice the ball.  I mean, the home runs really got ridiculous last year.  Home runs are exciting, but when just about any full time starter is hitting at least 20 home runs, they’re not as exciting anymore.  Fewer strikeouts, fewer home runs, more balls in play, fewer pitching changes, less time when nothing is going on, shorter games.

My Return to Reno

Reno was the last stop before San Francisco for Tom and I last summer as we were driving across the country.  I didn’t expect to ever get back.  But I needed one more stop before heading out to San Francisco on this trip.  It was Triple-A Opening Day (I did Triple-A Opening Day in Albuquerque in 2015) so I checked out some places between Omaha and San Francisco and Reno worked.  They were playing at home and I could take the bus the next day to San Francisco.  It was a cool drive so I didn’t mind doing that again (or so I thought).

I got to Reno early.  I was staying at Circus Circus, which is connected to the Eldorado where Tom and I stayed last summer.  Hotel rooms were ridiculously cheap.  I guess those casinos make their money off of people in other ways.  I just relaxed until the game at 6:35.  I had to respond to one of my former students asking for help on her AP World History project on the Mauryan Empire.  I wouldn't have responded, but this girl is one of my two favorite students ever.  She definitely didn't need my help.  I've told her that she's smarter than me.  Also, I was a history major and I had never even heard of the Mauryan Empire.  If she's taking AP World History (a class that didn't exist at Harborfields until I was too old for it), she knows more about the Mauryan Empire than I do.  But I googled it and sent her some links.  Then I checked out some odds at the sports book and didn't make any bets.  Because, you know, if I want to give away money, there are people who need it a lot more than casinos.  But the Jets had the worst odds to win the Super Bowl.  So that's exciting.  Anyway, the game was the Reno Aces against the Fresno Grizzles.  One of the first things I saw when I got to the stadium was a helicopter landing on the field.  Why?  It was carrying the Aces’ mascot.  They did all the Opening Day ceremony with the introductions of all the players and coaches.  One of the cool things about Triple-A is that you'll definitely recognize some of the names if you're a baseball fan.  Yasmany Tomas hit 31 home runs for the Diamndbacks two years ago, but he was starting this game in left field for the Aces (and he hit a home run in this game).  The Aces also have Socrates Brito, who has played 58 games in the Majors.  As you can imagine, Vin Scully enjoyed that name (check the video below).  The Aces are the Diamondbacks’ affiliate and the Grizzles are the Astros’ affiliate.  The Grizzles were the Giants’ affiliate for a long time so they still had uniforms that had a very Giants feel to them.  The Aces had uniforms that looked like the very silly Diamondbacks uniforms.

My view for the game

It wasn’t much of a game.  The Aces led 7-0 after two.  I left in the sixth with the Aces up 9-1.  I would have stayed for the whole game, but Notre Dame and Michigan were going to the third period in the semifinals of the NCAA hockey tournament tied at 2.  I’ll get to that in a minute.  But what did I think of Greater Nevada Field?  It was very good (attendance was listed at 5,634, but Google says the capacity is 9,013 and it seemed more full than 62.5%).  The crowd was good, there was a pretty good selection of food and beer.  But there were a few issues.  Some of the concession stands had lines that just did not move.  And then there was a taco stand out in the outfield that had no line.  I probably would have gone to that one if it wasn’t hidden out there (I realized this after I ate).  The concessions also need to describe some of the food options.  Like there was a hot dog stand that has a few options.  They do Vs. Dogs.  They’re hot dogs that have a theme related to the city of the opposing team.  But there was no indication of what the Vs. Dog for Fresno was.  I ended up getting the D-Backs Dog.  Again, there was no description.  I googled it and I was led to believe it was something more than it was.  It ended up just being a hot dog with beans on it.  It was fine, but I was looking for something more exciting.  Again, I wish I had gone to the taco stand.  As for the beer, they needed to spread out the good beer a little more.  There was a burger/craft beer stand.  It sounded like there were some good options there, but I couldn’t really tell what they were and the lines were way too long.  I ended up finding this little stand that had no line around the start of the fifth inning.  I got an Occidental Pilsner, which is from Oregon.  It was pretty good, but they need more Nevada beer in there.

So anyway, I drank my beer, watched the Aces get out of a bases loaded jam in the top of the sixth giving up only one run, and then walked back to my hotel for the end of the Notre Dame hockey game.  I got back with about ten minutes left in the third period.  Notre Dame had scored to go up 3-2.  I saw Michigan tie it, which wasn’t fun, but it set up the great finish.  Notre Dame got the puck deep in their own zone with time for one last rush in regulation.  They scored an amazing goal with 5.2 seconds left to win.  We vanquished the forces of evil in hockey.  Sadly, we lost in the championship game to Minnesota Duluth, but it was still a very good season.

I took this picture on the walk back to my hotel.

The next morning I got breakfast at Hash House A Go Go.  Adam went to one of their Las Vegas locations on Man vs. Food.  I got the Healthy Start Scramble.  It was egg whites with tomatoes, onions, and peppers served with fruit.  It was pretty good and I needed to eat something healthy.  After that, I went to take the bus to San Francisco.   The Reno Greyhound station is one the most depressing buildings I’ve ever been in, and it was an omen of bad things to come.  It was cool to be driving through the mountains at a different time of year.  It rained throughout the trip, but many of the mountains were still covered in snow.  There were good views, but the bus was way too hot and it got to San Francisco about two hours late.  I watched some Unsolved Mysteries on Amazon Prime to help me get through that trip.

This is not what Adam Richman had on Man vs. Food.

There were some good views, but this was a rough bus ride.

Anyway, I'll finish with updated minor league/college stadium rankings:

15. Arm & Hammer Park in Trenton
14. Dehler Park in Billings
13. Arvest Ballpark in Springdale
12. Autozone Park in Memphis
11. TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, New Jersey
10. Memorial Stadium in Boise
9. KeySpan Park in Brooklyn
8. Newman Outdoor Field in Fargo
7. Isotopes Park in Albuquerque
6. TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha- It's tough to rank this one because it's known for the College World Series and my expierence was not at all like the College World Series.  If I had gone to the College World Series, it's probably higher, maybe even number 1.
5. Daniel S. Frawley Stadium in Wilmington
4. Greater Nevada Field
3. Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park in Charleston
2. Dunkin Donuts Park in Hartford
1. Regions Field in Birmingham

Peyton Manning's Favorite City

For stop number 2 on my Easter Vacation trip, I went to Omaha, Nebraska.  In 2015, I visited Dennis in Minnesota and knocked out four other states on the trip:  Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota.  I spent the least amount of time in Nebraska (probably about 45 minutes).  I wanted to check out TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha.  That’s where the College World Series is played.  It’s also Creighton’s home field.  So I was going to the Creighton game against Kansas State at night.  But first, I was hoping to knock out a few states that I still had left on the beer list.  Nebraska was obvious.  Iowa is right across the river from Omaha (there was actually a tiny section of Iowa that I passed through going between the airport and my hotel) so I was pretty confident on that one.  I was hoping to get at least one other state.  I did some googling and found the Crescent Moon Ale House, which is the best beer bar in Omaha.  So after getting to my hotel, I took a walk over there.

Before I got to the bar, I stopped on the way on Creighton’s campus.  I haven’t actually spent much time on campus at other Catholic universities with a couple of obvious exceptions.  My first stop at Creighton was St. John’s Church.  A statue outside confirmed that it was named for St. John the Apostle, who was the saint I picked for my confirmation name.  I stopped inside.  It was a nice church.  Not as nice as the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame, but nicer than the church at Georgetown.  After that, I found the St. Ignatius Loyola statue outside the library.  The campus wasn’t all that exciting.  I’ll give Georgetown the overall edge even if Creighton has the nicer church.  Other Catholic universities I’ve been to:  Providence, Boston College, Villanova (all of those were in the mid-90s, I don’t remember them), and St. Thomas in St. Paul (Dennis and Courtney got married in the church there).  I think that’s it.

Then I got to the bar.  I was able to get five states.  I wasn’t looking to get hammered, so it was a good thing that they do flights of four beers (five ounces each).  I had a flight with beers from South Dakota (Crow Peak IPA), Oklahoma (COOP Alpha Hive), Kansas (Defiance Fuzzy Knuckles), and Iowa (West O Blackberry Coco Stout).  The South Dakota one was an IPA that didn’t taste like an IPA.  That was my least favorite.  The others were good.  The Iowa beer had a fruity and chocolatey flavor.  I liked it more as I drank more of it.  Then I had a pint of Prairie Pride Trouble in Dublin (Nebraska) with a burger.  The beer was an Irish red, which I generally like, and the burger had bleu cheese and bacon.  The beer was solid.  The burger was underwhelming.  Not bad, but definitely nothing special.  So with that, I have four states left to get a beer from:  Indiana, Arkansas, West Virginia, and Alaska.  Indiana and Arkansas are happening later this year.  Alaska will happen whenever I get to Alaska (maybe next year).  West Virginia is a tricky one.  I might have to take a trip to Charleston, West Virginia.  They have a minor league team.  I could check that out and get some beer.  If anybody else knows of an easier way that I could get some West Virginia beer, let me know.

South Dakota, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa

It's in a Dogfish Head glass, but it's a Nebraska beer.

I went back to my hotel to rest before the game.  I watched the end of another bad Dodger game (rough start for them, but they should be fine).  And then I took a nap.  I had 36 ounces of beer.  I wasn’t drunk, but it was not a negligible amount of beer.  Between the alcohol and the lack of sleep the previous two nights with flights to get up for, I overslept.  I set an alarm for 6:00 and the game was at 6:35.  The mistake I made was not putting my phone away from the bed so that I would have to get up to turn off the alarm.  I turned off the alarm and went right back to sleep.  I woke up later and found that it was 8:30.  So I panicked a little bit.  I checked the game and it was in the sixth inning.  Fortunately it was a short walk from my hotel.  So I got there with Creighton up 8-0 in the sixth.  Bad job by me, but I was really more interested in checking out the stadium than I was in the game.  I was rooting for Creighton, but if they lost, it’s not like I was going to be upset about it.  Anyway, it was a really tiny crowd.  I expected that.  I would say that at most, there were 200 people there.  When I bought my ticket, it looked like a lot of the seats near home plate were taken.  My guess is that there are a decent number of season ticket holders who didn’t feel like showing up with it being a Wednesday night in April against Kansas State with temperatures in the high 30s.  It was definitely a cool stadium.  It’s a lot bigger than any minor league stadium that I’ve been to.  It’s the biggest college stadium by about 9,000 seats.  Mississippi State has the second biggest.  It’s bigger than the biggest minor league stadium (Buffalo) by about 5,000 seats.

The statue outside the stadium

My view for most of my time at the game

First row behind the dugout

I’m sure TD Ameritrade Park is much different with a big College World Series crowd.  It would be cool to see that.  I had thought about taking a trip to Omaha in the past for the College World Series, but it’s not really convenient with my school schedule.  Anyway, with the tiny crowd there was only one concession stand open and it didn’t have anything exciting.  I didn’t get anything to eat or drink.  It looks like there would have been some interesting options if all the concession stands were open.  Around the concourse, you can see the past champions of the College World Series and some pictures of players.  The two I found interesting were Dave Winfield and Terry Francona.  I took a lap around the stadium.  I watched a half inning from the front row behind the Creighton dugout and the rest from where I was supposed to be sitting behind home plate.  Creighton ended up winning 8-3.

It would be awesome if Notre Dame made it to Omaha.  We’ve only been in the College World Series twice (1957 and 2002).  When I was a student, we finished off our last two appearances of eight straight in the NCAA tournament (I don’t have any memory of that).  Since then, not good.  We made the tournament in 2015, but that’s it.  Notre Dame had some success in the Big East, but we’ve struggled in the ACC.  I would love to see Notre Dame get good at baseball again, but I don’t really expect that to happen any time soon.  Notre Dame has one obvious problem.  I can’t imagine why any baseball player without any particular loyalty to a school growing up would want to play college baseball in the North.  It was cold at that Creighton game.  And with the college season starting when it does, it can be a lot colder than that.  I suspect the reason why a lot of players end up at Notre Dame or Creighton or any other Northern school would be that they didn’t have any scholarship offers from Southern schools.  At least Creighton has the advantage of playing in TD Ameritrade Park.  It’s got to be cooler to play there than in the tiny baseball stadiums that a lot of colleges have.

So I liked TD Ameritrade even if it was a tiny crowd and it was cold.  If I had been there at the start of the game, I don’t think I would have lasted all nine innings with the weather.  Even though it was cold, I picked the right day to be there.  Creighton was supposed to play the day before against Kansas, but it was rained out.  After the Kansas State game, they had a day off and then they were supposed to start a three-game series at home against Butler.  On the off day, they announced that the whole series was cancelled due to the forecast of rain, snow, and cold for all three days of the series.  It turns out that they did play two of the games, but they were moved to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.  So I was fortunate to get to TD Ameritrade Park, even if it was only for a few innings.  The only thing I’m upset about with oversleeping was that I didn’t get to see it before the sun went down.  Oh well.

Baseball and Waffle House

I always try to make use of my Easter vacation to get to some baseball or take some other kind of trip.  Here’s what I’ve done since I started the blog:

2013:  Los Angeles (Part 1 and Part 2) and Milwaukee
2014:  Los Angeles and San Francisco
2015:  Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, and Dallas
2016:  New Orleans and Biloxi
2017:  Trenton

This year I had a few things in mind.  I wanted to get to Atlanta because Suntrust Park opened last year and I hadn’t been there yet.  And I wanted to end in San Francisco because the Dodgers were going to be there and Tom is only living in San Francisco for a few more months.  So I started in Atlanta and ended in San Francisco and I wanted to figure out a stop or two in between (I’ll get to that in other posts).

So Atlanta was first.  I had been to Atlanta twice before.  I was there in 2006 when Notre Dame opened the season with a win against Georgia Tech.  And I was there in 2013 to see Turner Field when Dennis was living there.  Dennis has moved to Minnesota so I was there on my own this time.  I started by getting lunch at a barbecue place by my hotel.  I had a brisket sandwich with baked beans.  It was good, but I’ve had better.  I tried the barbecue sauces they had and I liked the spicy one better than the sweet one, but I didn’t love either.  Dennis took me to a place that was better back in 2013.  And my former coworker Owen makes some pulled pork with his own barbecue sauce that was better than what I had this time.

After that, I headed to Suntrust Park to take the stadium tour.  It was a pretty good tour.  You go up to the top and then work your way down to the field.  It’s a nice looking ballpark, but I had some issues with it.  It just seemed like there’s way too much other stuff to do other than watch baseball.  You have all these bars and clubs or whatever.  I know all the new stadiums do that, but it seemed like Suntrust Park had more of that than other places.  There was also a rock climbing wall and a zip line in the outfield.  You know where you’re not going to find stuff like that?  Fenway Park, Dodger Stadium, Wrigley Field, Kaufmann Stadium.  You go to those stadiums to watch baseball.  And they’re awesome.  You can have great stadiums without all that stuff.  The other issue I had was Monument Garden.  It’s a garden, it’s out in the open, right?  Nope, it’s hidden down by the home plate area on the lower level.  That’s where the Hank Aaron statue is.  Outside the stadium they have statues of Bobby Cox, Warren Spahn, and Phil Neikro.  Hank Aaron should either be outside the stadium or out in the open in the outfield.  And the other problem I had was something that reminded me of Citi Field that I don’t like.  On every level of the stadium, you walk around the concourse and you can see the field, except from behind home plate.  Hank Aaron’s statue has a closed off bar/club area between it and home plate.  If you didn’t have all those bars and clubs and stuff (or just put them somewhere else), you could get some good looks at the field from right behind home plate.  On the upper level, it’s the press box that’s in the way.  That’s understandable, but they still could have used the space better.  As you walk around on the concourse behind the press box, there’s not much there.  They definitely could have used that space for concessions (I’ll give credit to Citi Field for how they use the top of the rotunda).  Anyway, the tour ended up going down to the field.  It was around 3:00 and some of the players had started working out on the field.  Daniel Murphy (he's on the DL, but he's one of my least favorite players) was down there running around.  Our tour guide said at first that we wouldn’t be able to go on the field because players were there, but then he asked somebody and they said it was cool.  So we got into the Braves’ dugout and on the warning track by the dugout.

Let us never forget that Hank Aaron is the true home run king.

The game was at night.  It was Nationals-Braves.  There was a 12-minute delay.  I noticed that the game wasn't starting on time, but there was no announcement about it.  They didn't say anything over the PA and there was nothing on the Braves' Twitter account about it.  According to the MLB At Bat app, there was a power issue, but I don't know what the problem was because it seemed like all the lights were on and nothing changed by the time they started the game.  Anyway, I was rooting against the Nationals, but they got off to a good start with a 3-0 lead in the top of the first.  But the Braves answered with four in the bottom of the first.  And the Braves kept scoring.  They were up 10-5 after four.  They ended up winning 13-6.  The starters combined for a total of six innings and there were five home runs.  I was going to talk about how this game was illustrative of some troublesome trends in baseball and how I would fix them, but I'll save that for my post about the game I went to in San Francisco.

My view for most of the game

I moved down for the end of the game.

The next morning, I went to Waffle House.  I think the only other time I’ve been to Waffle House was on the trip to the Georgia Tech game in 2006.  I remember being underwhelmed.  The tour guide on the stadium tour pointed out the Waffle House in the stadium and said, “You don’t have to like it, but you have to have it.”  That brings me to my last note about the stadium.  It seemed like there were some good food and beer options (I just had some chips and queso after waiting on a line that didn’t move fast enough), but Waffle House seems weird for a baseball game.  There was Chick-Fil-A, but the one on my level wasn’t open.  It wasn’t a huge crowd, but it was big enough that the Chick-Fil-A should have been open (26,782).  Anyway, when I went to Waffle House the next morning I got a waffle and hash browns with tomatoes and onions.  It was fine, but I don’t feel like I’m missing out on it by living in the North.  Bill Simmons and House went to Waffle House the night before on their trip to Augusta.  I saw some video of it.  House had a lot more to eat than I did.

Waffle House

I went to a game in San Francisco, I'm getting to a game in Los Angeles this June.  I'll get to at least one game at Citi Field.  I might get to Yankee Stadium.  I won't rule out another game in a stadium not too far away, but I don't think any stadiums I get to are going to move in my rankings, so let's rank them now that I've added my 31st stadium.  Some of this is copied and pasted from the last time I ranked the stadiums, some has been updated:

So bad that I don't really care if I get there or not
33.  Tropicana Field- It's one of two stadiums with artificial turf and it's the only one with a roof that doesn't open.
32- O.co Coliseum- From what I hear, it was nice before the Raiders moved back.  They really need to move to San Jose, but the Giants won't let them.  If Tom was staying out in San Francisco, I might get there on a trip to visit him, but he's moving back across the country.

Pretty Bad
31.  SkyDome- It will always be the SkyDome to me.  I think they want to renovate it.  If they did a good job, I could easily see this one moving up the rankings.
30. US Cellular Field- I remembered it as a boring stadium.  I went back two years ago and it was still a boring stadium.
29.  Marlins Park- It's better than playing in a football stadium like they used to, but it's too weird.
28.  Minute Maid Park- They should have kept the hill in center field.  That was an interesting oddity.  Now it's more boring.
27.  Turner Field- I don't miss this one.  I didn't love SunTrust Park, but it's clearly an upgrade.

Decent
26.  Progressive Field- It's very similar to Oriole Park and Globe Life Park since all three of those were built around the same time.  This is the worst of the three.
25.  Angel Stadium of Anaheim- This was not built around the same time as Oriole Park, Globe Life Park, and Progressive Field, but it's kind of similar.  It's in southern California, so that's nice, but there isn't really much else that's special about it.
24.  Chase Field- The pool is cool, but it's air conditioned which greatly reduces the desire to be in a pool.
23.  Miller Park- This was one place where I was able to get a really good seat (second level, right in front of the press box) for a really cheap price.  I might have ranked this higher if I went to a game during the summer and the roof was open.
22.  Coors Field- A lot of people love Coors Field, but the biggest problem can't be fixed (the altitude).

Admittedly Very Overrated
21.  Shea Stadium- It was a dump and objectively, it's worse than any other stadium I've been to with the possible exception of SkyDome, but it was my home stadium for the first 20 years I went to baseball games.

Solid
20.  Comerica Park- If anything, this is a generous ranking considering it's in Detroit.
19.  Globe Life Park- There was good selection of Texas beer.  I like how the design incorporated some history stadiums, but unfortunately they've gone away from that a little bit.  They probably don't need to get a new stadium, but they are anyway.
18.  SunTrust Park- It's like Citi Field, but not quite as good.

The New York Stadiums
17.  Citi Field- Citi Field is good, but it could be better.  It's second to Shea Stadium in terms of number of games that I've been to.  I could have a much worse stadium to go to.
16.  New Yankee Stadium- I didn't get to a game last year, but the last time I was there I noticed that they've improved the beer selection.  I really wish they had just renovated the old stadium.  But of course, Big Stein would never stand for the Mets getting a new stadium without the Yankees getting one.

Everybody else likes this one more than I do
15.  Oriole Park at Camden Yards- I moved this one ahead of the New York stadiums, but I still maintain that it's overrated by most people.

Strong to Quite Strong
14.  Citizens Bank Park- They have all these little beer stands that have like two beers on tap (different beers at each one).  I wish every stadium was like that.
13.  Nationals Park- I think Nationals Park is very underrated by most people.  However I found one problem that could easily be fixed.  The whole stadium has this Nation's Capital/Red, White, and Blue theme going on.  That makes sense.  But then the outfield wall is green.  Why isn't it blue?
12.  Busch Stadium- I hate the Cardinals more than any team other than the Giants, but I respect their success.  The atmosphere and the area around the stadium are great, but I was expecting more on the inside.
11.  Safeco Field- It's easily the best stadium with a roof.
10.  Target Field- I've been to two games and done the stadium tour there.  It's a very good stadium.  I can't think of anything I would change that could make it better.  Most of the stadiums ahead of it have advantages that couldn't be replicated in Minneapolis.
9.  Great American Ballpark- I originally had it ahead of AT&T Park.  I liked this one a lot, but that was probably my anti-Giants bias showing.

Really Good
8.  AT&T Park- I'll have an update on this one soon.  After doing a tour last summer and getting to a game this year, I moved it up one spot.
7.  Wrigley Field- It's hard to compare it to the modern stadiums, but I think Fenway is clearly better.  The weak beer selection and the difficulty of moving around hurts Wrigley.
6.  Kauffman Stadium- I loved everything about the inside of this stadium.  Being surrounded by parking lots is what is keeping this one from being ranked higher.
5.  Petco Park- It's a really good stadium and it's in San Diego, where the Padres are the only show in town now that the Chargers are gone.  Why aren't the Padres good enough to be worthy of that great stadium?

The Great Stadiums
4.  PNC Park- I wish the Pirates had been able to cash in on their run.  They were good for a while, but couldn't win anything in October.  That's a stadium that deserves a great team.
3.  Old Yankee Stadium- I have it ranked very high, but I really wish I could go back in time to pre-renovation Yankee Stadium.  It might take the number one spot if I could.  Of course, I'd also go to Ebbets Field and I guess I'd even go to a game at the Polo Grounds.
2.  Dodger Stadium- A great setting, a beautiful ballpark, twelve no-hitters, two perfect games, eight World Series, the invention of the high five, Koufax and Kershaw, Pope John Paul II, and The Naked Gun.  There's still room for improvement, but I love Dodger Stadium.  The fact that my favorite team plays there makes be biased, but still, it's great.

1.  Fenway Park- It's such a wonderfully weird ballpark (unintentionally weird, unlike Marlins Park) that couldn't be duplicated anywhere else.  I've been to three different sports there (hockey and football being the other two).  I don't have any plans to go there this year, but if anybody wants to, let me know.  I always love getting to Fenway Park.