"Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over." -Ernest Hemingway

Seattle Mariners

Well, I have so much to say, and I’m not sure where to start. I guess I’ll start with Seattle.

From Seattle Sept 08

Safeco is a beautiful park. I’ll have to rank them so far, but I’d say it’s is up near the top. First thing you should know is that it’s has a top that can close. That’s just cool. Second thing you should know is that this game probably had the biggest crowd of games I’ve seen this season. What? Seattle? Near last place Seattle? Yes. Okay, they were playing the Yankees, but still.

It’s down by the water. In fact, less than one mile from the ferry, which we took across to get to the game. No worries with parking. Third thing. They take care of their field. Taking care of your field is a pet peeve of mine. Brown spots, dirt spots, uneven grass. Those things just shouldn’t happen in MLB. Fourth thing. They’re a total sell out when it comes to food. I don’t mean they sell all their food either. I mean they “jump the shark” or just plain lame in my book. Hear this: You can get sushi at this ballpark. If you read that and thought “cool!” then we cannot be baseball friends. Baseball game food is hotdogs and beer (or coke in my case). Hamburgers are acceptable. Pizza is okay. I’d even give you chicken strips. Of course the snacks as well–peanuts, cracker jack, cotton candy, pretzels, etc…but sushi? They also have fish baskets and other seafood, as well as a whole host of other things that was making my head spin. Let it be know that the folks I was with ordered seafood. I told them I was going to buy “real” baseball food and let them be. Don’t get me wrong. I understand that bringing in the local food is good for the parks and makes it unique. I also understand that Seattle is a seafood hub. But there is a line and Safeco Park crossed it completely.

As for the game itself. It was a good game. Yankees second batter (yes, Derek Jeter) hit a homerun before I even got settled into my seat. The rest of the game was similar. Lots of hits, fair amount of runs scored, and the Seattle Mariners came away with the win. It was a near perfect game day (minus the smell of seafood around me).

Baseball tickets!

I just purchased tickets for my next 3 baseball games (well, after Oakland next weekend). I got my expensive as crap Yankees ticket tonight, as well as Seattle and Mets tickets. Plane tickets are bought, lodging is reserved, so all the major details are taken care of as of now. Just food and transportation.

O Happy Day!

I just bought plane tickets to Seattle and New York for more baseball games! I feel like I’m actually accomplishing something, so I’m really happy. Besides, I’ve never been to New York so I’m super excited to go, even to Yankee Stadium.

And it all started with this grand idea. So, I’m not hitting all 15 stadiums I hoped. But 10 this season ain’t bad. Maybe 11 if I can get back down to Anaheim.

Next year gotta hit Boston for sure! So much baseball, so little time!

This might be one of the best days of my life.

Baseball: Cubs

Wrigley Field.

What can’t you say about Wrigley Field? Wrigley opened in 1914, so it’s about 6 years shy of a century old. Wow. I have plenty of pictures to come, but I’m having trouble uploading tonight. I won’t list out all the pros/cons of Wrigley. It’s a great park. I haven’t been to Fenway yet, but as far as baseball atmosphere goes, Wrigley would be tough to beat. It’s a small park. I love the bleachers on top of the buildings surrounding it. It is old. There is nothing fancy about it. No escalators. It’s not particularly clean. If there was anything I didn’t like about it, I have to say I miss the video screen. They have an old school outfield scoreboard. It’s electronic, but looks like a manual one. However, the scores for the other games going on is manual, which is pretty much awesome. But, like I said, I do miss the big screen replays. What can I say? I’m spoiled. Suffice to say though, the Ivy, the bleachers, the fans, Wrigleyville, and everything else more than makes up for that one thing.

Best ballpark, I’ll buy that. Nicest, not a chance, but who ever said those two things went hand-in-hand.

Baseball: White Sox

So, I’m going to break my trip stuff up into several posts. I’ll do the baseball stuff tonight (Chicago teams anyway). So, we’ll start with US Cellular and the White Sox.

Here are the things I liked about US Cellular:

Heated bathrooms
Easy to get in/out of
View of city if coming in from the El
Great at blocking the wind inside the stadium
Great intro video (here’s a video of it here someone else did. I might have one too).

Here is what I didn’t like:

The food in the place smelled horrible!
Fireworks during the day, pre-game, seemed a waste. You couldn’t see them.
No real view from the park.
Grass was only decent.
Seats were average (and over priced)
It was empty!

Here is the main thing about US Cellular Field. It’s an okay park. It’s not crappy. It’s not that old (about 17 years). It has decent seats. It’s decently clean. But that’s the thing. It’s only decent. There is nothing special about it that stands out to me. It has no character and that is boring.

White Sox won their game against the Twins though. So that was good. After game one, Home Team 1–Visitors 0.

Baseball collectables

I like baseball. No secret there. In less than a month I’m starting my baseball journey for this year. If all goes as planned I will be visiting both Chicago ballparks, Pittsburgh, then later on in the year, Boston, both New York, San Diego, Los Angeles, Anaheim (I refused to call them the LA Angels), Oakland and of course San Francisco. That looks to be 11 ballparks this year–10 of which I’ve never visited.

So, I need some help. People have suggested that I have to either buy something from each ball park to collect, like preferably the same type of thing–a pennant, a bobblehead, something like that–or I need to come up with something to take a picture with in front of the parks. I suppose I could do both. I hadn’t planned to do either, other than pictures from each park. Anyway, if you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them

One Week

One week til the SF Giants’ Home Opener game. This may have happened last year too, but their home opener is the same day as the NCAA Basketball Championship. That officially makes it the best day of the year.

I love baseball. I read a great post today by Walt Mueller about baseball and grace. It actually reminded me of something I was talking about the other day with someone. Maybe I’ll blog about that later. Anyway, here is his post that I liked. For anyone who doesn’t know, Walt Mueller is like the man on Youth Culture and how that fits in with our Christian lives. I heard him speak at Boot Camp in January and he was really good. He is a Phillies baseball fan so, but I won’t hold that against him. What about those Phillies? (Sorry Crystal, I couldn’t resist).

You like how I did that? I did a post that wasn’t about basketball, but still had to mention it, huh? Of course, now you get a post or two about baseball, then I’ll be silent on it probably until my trip, and then again until my next trip, and then again until, just before the playoffs.

Chicago to Pittsburgh

So it’s official. I bought a plane ticket tonight to Chicago for May. So here is the plan:

May 7th: Arrive and probably sleep
May 8th: White Sox game with Jeff
May 9th: Cubs game with Jeff
May 10th: Wander around Chicago before starting the drive to Pittsburgh
May 11th: Visit my brother somewhere around Pittsgurgh (about an hour from there)
May 12th: Pirates game!!!!! (and they are playing good ol’ Atlanta…CRYSTAL)…after game, start driving back to Chicago
May 13th: Get up, finish trip to Chicago, get on a plane, go home

Now I just have to figure out what to do in the evenings in Chicago on the 8th and 9th since the games are mid-day. Anyone have any suggestions?

Maybe Congress should take performance enhancing drugs…

This has bugged me for a while, and since I’ve been inspired to write more lately, I’m going to say it publicly.

Doesn’t Congress and Senator George Mitchell have anything better to do than worry about baseball? As one friend says, “it’s ridiculous that they’re even involved.”

I don’t think I’m the only person who feels this way either.

I guess maybe I could be wrong. I guess maybe I was always taught that our government, our congress, legislators, and President’s job was to look out for the welfare of the country. You know, things like, a thriving economy, peace with other countries, taking care of those who need help, making sure every child has a proper education, and making sure Americans get proper health care, just to name some more obvious ones.

But it seems, at least lately, Senator Mitchell has made baseball his only agenda. Yes, baseball players using and abusing steroids is not good for baseball, but come on, in the grand scheme of things, where does that rank on the priorities of our country? Is there any presidential candidate running on the platform that MLB needs to crackdown on steroid use in baseball? Is that on the list of questions of issues that are important to the people who live in the country? The answer is NO.

So I ask, why are you, Senator Mitchell, wasting my tax dollars on something that I, and most Americans, already know? Shouldn’t MLB be allowed to govern itself? Since using steroids illegally is a crime, shouldn’t law enforcement just be cracking down? I’m just saying, it would be like my city council coming in and investigating our high school sports teams here are drinking too much gatorade, or practicing in the off-season, or even using steroids. That doesn’t happen. If a coach, school official, or police officer suspects that, they’ll do something about it. Not our city council or mayor or anything like that. And if they did, I would still say it was ridiculous.

Sure, maybe MLB should have done a better job of monitoring it. Maybe the coaches and trainers and team mates should have taken some responsibility. Why aren’t you investigating Bud Selig for not doing his job if you care that much? If you have to go in an investigate the coaches and players under him, should that say that he hasn’t been doing his job and should just be fired? My opinion is that he never cared until the government started caring. Why would he? You have records being broken…something that gave baseball it’s first breath of life in I don’t know how many years. And all of that happening under baseball commissioner Bud Selig. Now he’s playing “hard” and cracking down. He should be. He should have been all along because there of course is steroid use in baseball. There still is. And there was even before Congress decided to make it its mission to strip any record-breaking baseball player of their credibility, whether it’s true or not.

Maybe the Babe never used steroids. Maybe he did. Maybe there was something else he used. The fact is, people have been cheating in baseball, and probably every other sport, since the inception of the game. It doesn’t make it right, but it also doesn’t make it a matter of national security either. If Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens took steroids, and you busted them for it, is that going to help my future children have a good education? Is that going to ensure that when they retire, they have social security there (or when I retire for that matter)? Is that going to help ensure my mom gets the medication she needs just so she can get out of bed and get up and move around? Is that going to help find a cure for cancer or Parkinson’s disease? This that going to make sure that we don’t go into another recession during the Bush administration? This that going to bring peace in the middle east and our troops home safely? Reduce crime rate? Get drugs off the streets? Boost our economy?

No. It’s not. You, Senator Mitchell, and anyone else in Congress who helped with this witch hunt, should be ashamed of yourself for wasting not only tax payers dollars, but more importantly, your time. That time that we elected you to be looking our for “our” best interest and the best interest of our country, not the best interest of America’s Pastime.

Video from Barry’s last game

I might have another later, but here are a couple short clips. The first is Barry’s final at bat. The 2nd is a crazy fan on the field.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g1jaGbRcqM[/youtube]

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=iaQ-pqBEutw[/youtube]