Mike Trout returned to Citizens Bank Park. Millville put together a Millville Night at the game. The mayor threw out the first pitch. It was actually Beetle who asked if we would attend this. Sure, why not?

The Millville sections were in the 400 level. I found us four seats in the front row. We were packed in. After the first inning, Fritz and I bailed and moved over a section and back several rows. Good view and comfortable. Beetle and Joey joined us later.

Fun game. The Phillies crushed the Angels. Trout did nothing nor did Ohtani. Lots of home runs. Fun time!

A pitcher’s duel. Six hits aside. I enjoyed this game.

This was the free game on MLB today. It was broadcast on Aplle TV+. I loaded that and it worked well . . . save the announcers. Apparently, they are from MLB Network. There were two women and former baseball player and cheater Chris Young. He added nothing. The play-by-play was handled by one of the women. I have nothing against that, but whoever this women was did not meet my enjoyment.

The play-by-play annoucer for this game did not do a good job at informing the home scorer of what was going on despite him stating that he did. While it was good to update us on a change the official scorer made on a play, there was at least one player who entered the game that he never informed us of. Sheesh . . .

Game started well with Mike Trout crushing a 472′ bomb! It was short-lived. The Rangers tagged Ohtani for a grand slam in the bottom of the second that changed the momentum of the game. The Rangers #9 batter, Jonah Heim, had a career game. Nice job, young man!

The Rangers kept scoring. The Angels did nothing through the middle innings. They used Jaime Barria for four innings in relief. It began rough and I thought a fourth Angels pitcher would be needed to mop up the game. Barria, however, settled down and helped out the team for the balance of this series.

Disappointing Angels loss, but encouraging Rangers win. 🙂

Despite being down on MLB this offseason for the strike, the non-caring for the fans, etc., it’s opening day! 🙂

For the first time in a few years, I do not have the MLB.tv package with T-mobile. Since I didn’t watch a whole lot of games last year, I am going in with the idea of just watching/scoring the free game of the day. We’ll see how that works for me.

Opening Day brought us the very first Cleveland Guardians game. Yeah, not a fan of the nickname. They played the Royals. Making his major league debut was Bobby Witt, Jr. History will mark this day for the young man.

Kansas CIty in early April is rough. It was cold, windy, rainy, sunny, breezy, all within minutes of one another. It does not bode well for my trip on Sunday. 🙁

Both starting pitchers pitched okay. Things were tied one-one when they left. I am not sure what the Guardians bullpen is like, but I was surprised McKenzie was left out there for three innings in relief. It was the third inning that the Royals took advantage of. And it was rookie Bobby Witt, Jr. who crushed the go-ahead RBI double and then scored shortly after on Benintendi’s single. What a nice way to begin your career!

It’s good to be back in the saddle. Loved that the free game was a 4:10 start. I watched, scored, scanned, and uploaded all before dinner. Nice!

Baseball is back!

People have different interests. One of the silent ones is to see a baseball game in every major league park. Tinking that through over the years, it always seemed like it would be simple enough to hop onto a plane to Atlanta and catch a Braves game. Yet, I never did it. Until today.

One of the motivators to make this trip happen is that the Braves had a home game tonight. Had they not, I probably would not have done this.

Wanting to complete the Jasmer Challenge before work started back up since my trip to Kansas City wasn’t going to work out the way I had wanted, I flew down this morning, rented a car, and went out and found Beaver Cache. I had time before the game, so I drove two hours out to South Carolina to find Modoc Stash. Then I drove the two hours back to the ballgame. Timing was absolutely perfet for this run.

As I drove to Tuist Park parking looked like it would be an issue. $50! No! No! No!

These in the city parks can really struggle with parking. Lots of private/permitted lots. Not a whole lot of public parking. I turned and drove down another road. I saw a guy selling spots at a KFC. I couldn’t get his attention. 🙁 I turned the corner. I think it was a Red Lobster next door to the KFC. I pulled in there. Yup, these places make far more off of Braves parking than they do off the food from diners. Squeezed in by the dumpster and I was off.

I knew the game was pretty well sold. The Giants are a first place team and the Braves are doing well. Even so, there were tickets available. I even got an aisle.

The outside of the park was one big party a la Cincinnati. I entered the park in the right field corner. This probably isn’t where I should have given I sat on the third base line down the left field line. We were all funneled to an escalator. It was definitely cow herding.

I sat on the terrace level (second level). I took the narrow concourse around . . . until I could not any longer. It didn’t go through. Well, it did, but one had to go through the private box area. The first guy told me I couldn’t, which was fine. I asked how to get around He pointed me to the elevator right inside. As I approached the elevator, some lady said I couldn’t take it but that I could walk through. Okay. I suspect I could have drank at the bourbon bar at that point, but I really just wanted to get to my seat.

As I got close, I decided to get food prior to the game. I stood in line and purchased two hot dogs and a Coke. The hot dogs were probably the worst I have ever eaten. The rolls were hard and yucky. One of the dogs was very overcooked. A total waste.

Soon enough the game began. The Giants scored early. They played like champions do as they added on throughout the game. The Braves never produced a run. Disappointing for the home team.

Truist Park is beautiful from the seats. There is different seating throughout. It is quite attractive. My seat had a good view of the field. The next section over had its seats even more turned toward the action. Just a good looking building.

But the vibe in the park felt off. Perhaps it’s because the Braves were doing nothing, but there was absolutely no energy. Oh, they did everythign other parks do: fans introducing the line-ups, fun scoreboard graphics, the outfield race, etc. All good stuff, but the energy seemed really off.

I also did not like how the pitch count was displayed. Admittedly, it was prominent on the outfield board. But when one scores a game, he is facing the action: pitcher to catcher. Most parks display the pictch count on the facade of the second level. What the Braves do is have the runnng pitch count. Well, it is not always evident if the home plate umpire called the pitch a strike or a ball when you aren’t close. The current count is needed for one to keep track. Following on Gameday is useless as they are at least two pitches behind. That meant I had to turn 90° to see when I needed to. If I had sat behind the Braves dugout, this would not have been a problem. 🙂

Game came in just under three hours. Frankly, it was a rather boring game. Not a pitchers duel, but not a whole lot of action either.

Anyhow, I am happy I went. Beautiful park.

This epic midwest vacation is coming to an end. The focal point was Gilby and Fargo, North Dakota. That seems like so long ago. But also entwined in this trip were three baseball games, all in new parks for me. We saw the Twins last Saturday, the Cubs on Tuesday, and the White Sox tonight! We hadn’t seen the home team win yet.

Getting to the park involved riding on the L. Unlike going to the concert the other evening, the train took us right to the field. Unfortunately, we did not get off. 🙁 That meant we went 70-some blocks out of our way and had to wait for another train to bring us back. We missed the first couple innings, thus I did not score the game.

All of this is in South Chicago. Y’know, the place where all the shootings are.

Well, the south side of Chicago
Is the baddest part of town
And if you go down there
You better just beware
Of a man name of Leroy Brown

Jim Croce

But nothing was wrong. Lots of fans piled into the park with us. It was Elvis Night after all.

The vibe at Guaranteed Rate Field was wonderful. The place was nearly full. The crowd was into it. The game was exciting. The White Sox won! We saw lots of Elvises, were treated to an Elvis concert after the game, and a fabulous fireworks display. Lots of fun!

This park was the first new ballpark built in the latest round of parks. My recollection is that Comiskey Park was in such bad shape they had to build a new park. But because it was first, it didn’t get the retro look that came once the Orioles built their park. This stadium has the feel of the concrete jungles that have mostly been replaced. The most apparent example is that the walkways to the seats are raised so that it is tough to see when people pass by from their beer runs. They drink a lot of beer in Chicago. Nevertheless, it was a vibrant park and I very much enjoyed my time here.

Finally!

I have tried to get to Wrigley Field for years. Yes, I could have made it work before now, but I was beholden to a silly idea of the perfect trip. I ept thinking I should be able to drive from New Jersey and see games in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, both parks in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Cincinnati. I could neverr get the loop quite right for me.

Well, I have begun picking them off instead. Even so, originally this trip did not include Wrigley Field. But working through the calendar, I was provided another five days. With that, I was able to squeeze in this game.

Yes!

I was outside the park last year. I envisioned the inside of the park was a bit dumpy, kind of like Fenway was. And it may have been 30 years ago as I keep thinking of Boston’s park. Hardly. While Wrigley has no room for growth as it is nestled firmly in North Chicago, they have made the inside of this park beautiful. I was impressed.

Food and facilities are all in top shape.

We calculated that the percentage of seats filled was higher here than at the Twins game a few days ago. That does not surprise me as this is Chicago.

The Chicago crowd knows baseball. While I am not one who boos, the fans know what is going on during the game and express their feelings. It’s a baseball fans’ park. I saw a couple other guys scoring the game.

I never drink anything when I attend games as I do not want to leave my seat since I score the game. But it was so hot and humid, I purchased the $11 beer to cool off.

The game was good, but the Reds were better and ended up winning the game 7-4.

I am happy to have finally made it to the Friendly Confines. I welcome returning for another game sometime.

When I moved here last year, I changed some things. With no cable, I watched a lot of baseball via MLB.tv. Because of the lack of cable, I never got to watch the Phillies. The only way was to wait 90 minutes after each of their games and watch a replay. That wasn’t going to work.

So, I decided to select another team to follow. I had thought about this before. A few years ago I thought it would be the Oakland A’s, a former Philadelphia team. The problem with the A’s is that they are a west coast game. Home games (and many of their away games) don’t begin untl 10:00 my time. That means the games go to 1:00 or later in the morning. That isn’t something I want to do regularly.

I set criteria for selecting a team:

• not a west coast team
• not a team likely to play the Phillies much; those games will be blacked out

That second criterion seemed to eliminate any National League team and the AL East. That left the AL Central. Looking over the teams, I selected the Twins, a team I have absolutely no previous association with. Thus began the Twins being my team.

My sister and I planned our trip to North Dakota in the offseason. I tossed out that I would like to see some baseball. I mentioned that the Twins were now my team and perhaps we could squeeze in a game while we were in Minneapolis. It turns out they had a connection for tickets, so yes, that would be possible!

Awesome!

Unfortunately, I’ve been so busy this summer, I have not watched as much baseball as I had hoped, but I was still excited to go to Target Field.

It was a hot day. We had geocached all day leading up to the game. Fortunately, our seats were already shaded when we sat down. Target Field is clean and modern. I like it. It is dropped right in the middle of the city.

One thing I noticed about the park is that that the crowd was very subdued. It’s possible that it was because the Twins were being no-hit, but I think Minnesota is just a laid back town.

Patrick Sandoval pitched masterfully for the Angels. This was my type of game. Unfortunately, this pitchers’ duel was not to the liking of the three others I attended the game with. It was the third inning when I noticed the possible no hitter.

There’s not much left on my Life/Bucket List, but there is score a no hitter still to accomplish. This was exciting. To the Twins fans’ credit, in the bottom of the ninth, they understood what was going on and cheered their players on. And it was Brent Rooker, the rookie, who popped a double down the right field line with one out. Even though I lost the no hitter, I was all of a sudden in position to have my team eek out a win in the bottom of the ninth. The crowd was enthusiastic.

A pitching change later, and the Angels walked off with the win.

Nevertheless, I loved this game. Nice park. I’ll be back.