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Tagged: Seattle Mariners
Mr. Davis and the Cooks at Safeco Field (8/5/2013)
Who was the first batter at the first MLB game you ever attended? Personally, I have no clue.
But I can tell you that Frank Catalanotto took "strike 1" when Tim watched Gil Meche deliver the first pitch of his first Major League game back on September 12, 2006. And I can tell you that Luke French delivered "strike 1" to Rajai Davis with the first pitch of Kellan's first Major League game back on October 1, 2010.
Our goal has been to meet and get an autograph from each of those guys. And on August 5, 2013, which marked the first full day of our 2013 Seattle vacation, we finally caught up with Rajai Davis. Here is the story of that day.
We had four Mariners games planned for the trips. On our way down to this one, we were happy to have Colleen "Mommy" Cook…
…join us for her first game of the season.
We arrived plenty early and entered through The Pen entrance…
…in left field.
At the outset, Tim hung out with Granpda while Kellan, Colleen and I headed out by the batters' eye:
There were two baseballs in the grass out there and an usher eventually tossed one our way.
Thanks, Usher!
I then split off from Colleen and Kellan and headed over to the LF corner to check out Edgar's Cantina. It's nice, but I'll never really spend any time here for at least a decade or two because kids are not allowed in there (which seems silly to me since people drink alcohol everywhere in the ballpark…and all ballparks). Anyway, here are a couple photos. First, the view to home plate:
The bar:
And through the window looking into the visitors' bullpen:
Someone hit a homerun into the Cantina while I was in there. They put a net over the top of the fans during BP, but the ball still trickled down and made its way into the hands of a fan back toward the bar.
So long, Edgar's, I'll come check you out again once the boys are in college or something.
When they opened the rest of the ballpark, Tim and my dad headed to RF for a bit and Yoervis Medina tossed a ball to Tim.
Thanks, Yoervis!
Colleen, Kellan and I headed to foul territory in LF. We had one major goal for this game: get a special autograph from Rajai Davis. I knew the 3B line would be our best bet to make it happen.
As the Blue Jays took the field, the scene looked a little like this:
The three of us went to the lower "X" on the far right side of the photo. Davis was playing catch with one of his teammates and he was in shallow CF throwing to his partner just behind 3B.
I made a big sign (just like I made for Tim's first batter, Frank Catalanotto) that read:
When I spotted Rajai out in shallow center, I yelled, "RAAAAAAJJJJJJJAAAAAAAAAIIIIIII" at the top of my lungs and held the sign high over my head.
Davis looked over and gave me a nod and a little "hold on a minute" hand gesture.
I knew we were going to succeed in our two three-year old Davisquest.
After taking some fungo'd pop flies in LCF, Rajai made his way over to us (and my dad, who had joined us) took a lot of pictures:
Top Left: I'm showing Rajai the photo of the first pitch of Kellan's first MLB game back on October 1, 2013. The picture was already signed by the M's starting pitcher, Luke French.
Top Right: While a Rueters photographer snapped away, Rajai and I look up to track a ball after hearing the crack of the bat.
Bottom Left: Rajai points at the picture and mumbles (as if half to himself and half to me), "Ah, Oakland A's. Luke French. Yeah…that's a good night for Mr. Davis." After the game, I checked the box score and found that Mr. Davis went 2-3 with an RBI and 2 walks on the night. Nearly everything went wrong that night. The M's lost 9-0. Thankfully, the one thing that went right was that Rajai was retired on the second pitch of the game. So Kellan started his MLB career with the Mariners throwing "strike 1, out 1" on his first two pitches.
Bottom Right: Rajai signs the photo for Kellan.
After signing the photo, Rajai was super cool (and patient) and hung out long enough for my dad to snap a few more photos of us (in which, for some reason, Colleen tried to lean back out of the photo instead of joining us – silly girl):
Here's a close up of Rajai and Kellan (and me since I was holding Kellan):
And here's a photo I found after the game by search google for "Rueters Rajai Davis":
That photo was posted on several sports websites around the world…I'm not sure why, but I won't argue about it.
Finally, check this out:
How many people have a picture of the first pitch of their first MLB game signed by both the pitcher and batter AND photos with both of the players?? Not many, I am sure. In fact, Kellan is the only one I know (we are still trying to track down Tim's first pitcher, Gil Meche).
After our Rajai Davis experience, we headed further down the LF line for a while:
There were so many Blue Jays fans down from Canada that we stood no chance at getting any toss-ups.
Late in BP, Colleen and my dad stayed with the boys in the shady foul territory and I headed out to RF to try my luck at catching a BP homer. It was really sunny out there…
…and I came nowhere near catching any homers.
Check out my dad, Colleen and the boys (you can only see Tim in this photo) hanging out in LF foul territory…
…behind a line of Blue Jays fans. I'm pretty sure that there are more Blue Jays fans at BP at Safeco Field when the Blue Jays visit Seattle than there are at any Blue Jays home game.
On my way back over to foul territory, I stopped by the Mariners bullpen to check out the new setup…
…, which is the result of the M's bringing the fences in for the 2013 season. Last season, there was a tall chain link fence between the bullpen and the fans. Now, it is just a low railings. Much more access and less interference between fans and players. I like it.
Here are a few views of the newly reconfigured LF area:
Lower Right: Edgar's Cantina from the seats next to the LF foul pole.
Lower Left: The hand operated scoreboard is now above Edgar's and set back 10-15 feet from the field – it used to be right above the OF wall.
Upper Right: Tim touching the LF foul pole.
Upper Left: The new standing room area above Edgar's Cantina. This area replaces two sections of seating that used to be in LF.
Next, we headed off to the Kids' Play Area for a bit:
Last season, we concluded that Tim wouldn't be able to go in the play area this season. This season, he was a smidge taller than the height limit, but they still let him in with Kellan – and he still had lots of fun.
While we watched the kids play, my dad posed for a picture with the Rajai Davis sign and…
…then I drew a "Hit It Here" sign on the back of the Rajai sign.
Before the game started, we headed back to the bullpen to watch Hisashi Iwakuma warm up for the game:
And then Tim acted like he was throwing this Pepsi sign on our way to our seats:
We made it to our seats in CF in time for Kuma's first pitch to Jose Reyes:
And that's when I noticed that one of the Blue Jays' BP homers had busted the out-of-town scoreboard above the bullpens:
It was like this the entire game, but was fixed by the next day.
For most of the game, my dad and Tim sat next to each other…
…and Colleen, Kellan and I sat right in front of them, with me on the aisle seat.
The game was a pitchers' dual with R.A. Dickey…
…going pitch-for-pitch with Kuma.
In the bottom of the second inning, Justin Smoak hit an infield Popfly that just missed hitting the international space station…
…and it almost went for a base hit, but for the last minute diving catch by Jays third baseman, Brett Lawrie.
In the second inning, Kellan and I set out on foot for a little adventure. First, we headed out to the SRO area in CF by the Mariners bullpen:
Check out the shadows on "MarinersVision" in those bottom two picts. The sun was streaming into the ballpark from low on the horizon across Puget Sound resulting in a shadow of the lighting fixture clock in LF being cast against the screen.
Next, we headed to the SRO bar area Edgar's Cantina:
I guess, in theory, this is somewhat like the Flag Court in Baltimore or the LF corner in Cleveland, but it is much smaller and is partially covered with an overhang. Not bad though.
Next up, we headed over to the Mariners team store, where Kellan wanted me to buy him a stuffed Mariners Moose thingy (which I meant to buy later in the week, but forgot to do)…
…and then we headed back to our seats. By this point, it was the fourth inning and I had to shake my head at the fact that people were still arriving for the game!
In the bottom of the fifth, it looked like the M's were getting something going. Dustin Ackley led off the inning with a single. After Humberto Quintero flew out, Brad Miller slapped a single…
…of his own. But that's all the M's could muster in the inning. Two more quick pop outs followed and the game went into the sixth inning with a scoreless tie.
Here are some random, mid-game cute pictures of Colleen and Kellan:
We held the "Hit It Here" sign a bunch when the M's were batting. But no one ever hit us with a homerun.
I had forgotten about this, but Mariners home games against the Blue Jays are usually annoyingly crowded. I'm all for tons of fans showing up at Safeco Field. But I'm not for tons of visiting fans showing up. I don't particularly enjoy hearing the crowd at Safeco Field cheer AGAINST the Mariners. I get enough of that phenomenon when we see the M's play road games. When I Seattle, I like the crowd to go crazy IN SUPPORT of my boys in blue. This was the wrong series to attend from that perspective.
Anyway, due to the large'ish crowd (at least large'ish for a Mariners Monday night game), the people running the play area handed out these cards…
…at the beginning of the game. They ran 15 minute shifts throughout the night and Tim and Kellan (accompanied by Colleen) had their chance to play a bit more from 8:40 to 8:55 p.m.
While they were away at the play area, my dad came down a row to sit next to me. Soon, a couple of my high school friends sent me messages that looked like this:
My dad and I made the Mariners broadcast with my "Hit It Here" sign. I think that picture is pretty funny because (1) my dad is smiling like he knows we're on TV, (2) I'm doing something weird with my mouth (maybe I was eating something???), and (3) Kellan's cute little glove looks so tiny on the corner of the chair in front of me (next to my knee). I only wish they would have put us on when Colleen and the boys were all there. Tim would have gotten a kick out of that. Oh, well.
In case you were wondering, he was the Mariners outfield for the game:
Michael "The Beast" Morse, Michael "The Condor" Saunders and Rauuuuuuuuuuuul Ibanez.
And, in case you were wondering again, here is the oddly cool green-based Ken Griffey, Jr. shirt that Tim wore to the game:
So, Justin Smoak led off the bottom of the seventh inning with a massive Smoak-bomb to deeeeeeep RF:
That put the M's up 1-0 with only sixth defensive outs to go and Kuma dealing a gem on the mound. I was feeling quite positive about the prospects for an M's "W".
But it wasn't our night. Kuma gave up a lead off triple to Brett Lawrie in the top of the eighth inning. After retiring Josh Thole, Kuma gave up an RBI single to Jose "Jose, Jose" Reyes. Tie ball game.
Funky Cold Yoervis Medina then came in and recorded the second out of the inning. But then he gave up a single to Jose Bautista, a wild pitch sending Reyes to 3B, and a walk.
By this point, Tim and I were over by the Mariners bullpen…
…watching Oliver Perez warm up:
And just taking photos of the bullpen setup that was still very new to us:
Unfortunately, Perez gave up a 2-RBI line drive single to Mark DeRosa. That put the Jays up 3-1, and that was the final score.
On our way back to our seats we were hopeful for a Mariners comeback (that was not in the cards). We stopped along the way at what I think is one of the most unique spots in any MLB stadium – The Pen's lounge area with open flames:
The boys love that spot. Unfortunately, you cannot see the game whatsoever from there.
The M's gave it their best shot, but couldn't come back. Final score 3-1 Blue Jays.
After the game, we got some family pictures before heading out:
While we prefer Mariners wins, it is always great to be at Safeco Field, and we left this game knowing we had three more opportunities to see the M's win at this beautiful ballpark over the course of the week.
Go Mariners!
2013 C&S Fan Stats
|20 Games
|19 Teams – Mariners, Royals, Phillies, Red Sox, Rays, Orioles, Yankees, Dodgers, Reds, Nationals, Marlins, Pirates, Blue Jays, Twins, Tigers, Mets, Brewers, White Sox, Braves
|32 Ice Cream Helmets – Phillies (jumbo) 4, Phillies (normal) 2, Red Sox 2, Yankees 2, Orioles 4, Nationals 2, Pirates 2, Blue Jays 2, Tigers 6, Mets 2, Reds 4
|93 Baseballs – Mariners 13, Royals 4, Phillies 19, Rays 2, Orioles 7, Dodgers 3, Umpires 7, Reds 9, Nationals 3, Marlins 4, Pirates 1, Blue Jays 2, Twins 3, Tigers 1, Mets 3, Yankees 2, Brewers 2, Red Sox 6, White Sox 3
|11 Stadiums – Safeco Field, Citizens Bank Park, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Camden Yards, Nationals Park, PNC Park, Rogers Centre, Comerica Park, Citi Field, Great American Ball Park
|33 Player+ Photos – Oliver Perez, Lucas Luetge, Hisashi Iwakuma, Carter Capps, Daniel Nava, Alex Wilson, Andrew Bailey, Pedro Ciriaco, Mike Carp 2, Koji Uehara, Will Middlebrooks, Joel Hanrahan, Jonny Gomes, Alfredo Aceves, Clayton Mortensen, Rick Anderson, Tom Gorzelanny, Joe Savery, Jonathan Pettibone, Carlos Ruiz, Charlie Manuel, Justin DeFratus, Ryan Howard, Ben Revere, Larry Anderson, Gary "Sarge" Matthews Sr., Kyle Kendrick, Ryne "HOF 2005" Sandberg, Michael Stutes, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Rowland-Smith, Rajai Davis
|11 Autograph – Hisashi Iwakuma 2 (English & Japanese), Carter Capps, Ryan Hanigan, Jesus Tiamo, Mike Carp 2, Ryan Rowland-Smith 2, Felix Hernandez, Rajai Davis
One More In Cincinnati (7/6/2013)
We woke up at the Millennium Hotel in Cincinnati on the morning of July 6, 2013, ready for some more great Mariners baseball action. Unfortunately, we woke up to a rain soaked city. For a few hours in the morning, I could not imagine the game getting played. I was thinking rain out all the way.
We passed the morning hours by being incredibly lazy in the hotel room:
By the way, Kellan is flexing his muscles to show off the tattoo that he got at the dinosaur place the day before.
Eventually, we decided we needed to run to the parking garage to grab an umbrella. No luck. So the boys, Avi and I trekked around rainy downtown Cincinnati looking for umbrellas. On our walk, we passed by a shiny metal…thingy…that made us look like we were in a house of mirrors:
And then it was off to Skyline Chili for some traditional Cincinnati food:
It was scheduled to be a 4:10 start. We had nothing else to do. So after lunch, we headed over to the ballpark:
It stopped raining on our walk. Still, we were doubtful there would be BP. When we walked into the lobby to the Reds Hall of Fame, we were informed that the early BP tour was cancelled because the teams would not be taking BP. So this was our third Mariners game of the season and third time not getting to see the Mariners take BP. So sad.
We decided to tour the very awesome Reds Hall of Fame. Here are some random shots that explain very little about the first room you enter at the Reds Hall of Fame:
Note the big Ken Griffey, Jr. autograph on the wall. Very nice.
Ringing this entire room there are autographed baseball cards from what appears to be almost everyone who has ever played for the Reds. When you first walk in the door, there are autographed cards from the very beginning of the organization, and it just moves through the years as you walk around the room. Relatively near the end, we found Griff (far right below)…
…there is also a computer on the wall on which you can look up past Reds (middle aboe is the info page for Griff).
Down the hall, Avi found a board for visitors to leave their own autographs. Avi had the bright idea for us to sign in blue sharpie, which stood out in the sea of mostly black ink:
I signed for Kellan since, you know, he was 2 at the time and can't sign his own name. By the way, I've historically worn number 18 so I signed an "18" next to my name like I'm a Big Leaguer. Tim signed his "55," the number he has worn every season of his Little League career to date. Kellan wanted a number of his own and he pulled "6" out of thin air. Avi had no number to add to his signature, which was quite sad. Sorry, Avi.
Down at the end of the hall, I took this picture out of the window:
It looks cool out there. We have to check out that area next time we're in Cincinnati.
Before heading upstairs, we headed into the baseball stadium designed auditorium…
…and watched a cool little video about the history of the Reds.
The stairs and the entire area upstairs was crazy because there were some former Reds signing autographs up there, and a long line of Reds fans started on the stairs and ran all the way to the other end of the building where the payers were signing.
We had to wait for a break in the line to get this picture of the boys…
…with a whole bunch of Joe Morgan's rings.
Upstairs there are some interactive attractions for the kids, including this pitching set up:
Behind home plate you can look through the umpire's face mask and call balls and strikes. On the other side, there is a sensor on the wall that calls actual balls and strikes based on your pitches from the mound.
In another room, there is a little play area for the kids:
There was a crazy kid in there who was hyping Tim and Kellan up, until he hurt himself by falling through a hole in the ceiling/floor – he fell from the upper level of theplay area back down to the lower level.
In other news, check out Avi's cool baseball glove chair.
Here are some other random areas in the upstairs portion of the Reds Hall of Fame:
Avi and Tim celebrated with a bunch of Big Red Machine statues:
Above to the left, that is Tim and Ken Griffey, Sr. (formerly known simply as Ken Griffey during his days with the Reds).
At the far end of the upstairs, we finally found the former Reds who were signing autographs (I still have no clue who they were)…
…and we walked (quickly) through the Hall of Fame gallery.
We walked quickly through the gallery because I noticed out the window that THE GATES WERE OPEN!
I had no clue what was going on. We knew when the gates were supposed to open, and it wasn't supposed to be for another 10-15 minutes…or so we though. So we scurried out of the Hall of Fame and into the ballpark.
When we reached the field…
…there were absolutely no players anywhere to be found. The frustrating thing is that there were a bunch of spike marks all over the warning track. The Mariners had already been out there throwing and we missed seeing them. So, so, so very sad.
We sat around and did absolutely nothing for a long, long time. Actually, not nothing. Avi and Tim talked over how to score a baseball game:
And Kellan took a half hour nap on my shoulders:
Avi eventually went off to explore the ballpark a bit. Tim, Kellan and I headed out to the Mariners bullpen in RF…
…when reclamation project Jeremy Bonderman prepared for his final game as a Mariner (maybe his final game of his career):
See Danny Farquhar (No. 40) in the bullpen in that last picture? He came over and ended up talking to a guy next to us for a while. He signed a few baseballs and tossed them up to the guy. After they finished chatting and Farquhar returned to the bullpen, the guy mentioned that he was Farquhar's little league coach. I thought that was pretty cool.
It was also pretty cool when Jason Phillips came over and tossed us a couple baseballs after Bonderman finished warming up for the game:
Thanks, Jason!
Jason is always a cool dude. It's always great to see him.
Something else cool happened when we were over by the bullpen. Alice Cooper threw out the ceremonial first pitch:
Check out Alice's awesome choice of jersey number! 18! Excellent.
We hung out by the bullpen until just a few minutes before game time. From there, we headed around the batters' eye on our way to our seats in the LF upper deck. Check out these tall guys we passed on our way:
This game started almost exactly like the day before (unfortunately, it didn't end like the previous day's game).
The boys and I went to get some nachos before heading to our seats. We walked around the back side of the nacho stand to watch the first pitch:
Actually, we watched Brad Miller's entire lead-off at bat. He grounded out.
Then we bought our nachos – check 'em out!
Like the day before, when we returned to our seats after watching the first batter of the game, the Mariners were leading 2-0. Endy Chavez had followed Miller with a single, and then Kyle Seager hit a 2-run bomb. Excellent.
Here was our view from the back of section 405:
We had a great time clowning around in the back row:
And, of course, eating some ice cream:
Yes, we ate all of our food at this game out of helmets:
Here's something you don't see everyday from the bleachers of an MLB stadium…
…a coal barge passing by RF.
Here's something else you don't see everyday at an MLB stadium (unless you are me)…
…an ice cream-drip-stained Mariners hat. I've committed to wearing this hat to every MLG game we attend until I have worn it at all 30 MLB ballparks. It has been to 29 of the current ballparks, all but Chase Field. The plan is to get to Chase Field again next season and then retire this trusty old hat.
The actual game action is too sad to track in detail here. This Dustin Ackley double…
…was a highlight. But there were many lowlights. The Mariners got creamed.
But we managed to have lots of fun anyway up high in the LF bleachers:
Check out this huge load of stuff I was carrying:
That's a pretty standard amount of stuff for us. During April games, my backpack is even bigger because I stuff it with jackets and other warm clothes too.
Tim took a ton of pictures during this game. Here are four of them:
Top Left: Endy Chavez taking a pitch.
Top Right: Kendrys Morales taking a big hack.
Bottom Left: Jeremy Bonderman delivering a pitch while Kyle Seager gets ready at the hot corner.
Bottom Right: Mike Zunino hitting a line drive…that was caught for an out.
After each of the Mariners 14 strike outs (11 at the hands of Reds starter Mat Latos), these things shot fire:
Kellan and I went and explored this restaurant down the LF line:
I believe it is called the "Machine Room." It is pretty cool looking for a sports bar, but I'm not sure why you would want to go to a sports bar WHILE YOU ARE AT a Major League game.
Toward the end of the game, we took a walk. On the way out of our section, Kellan wouldn't get down from my shoulders, so here is a picture of only Tim at the front of section 406:
Avi went off looking at stuff. The boys and I headed over to the dinosaur area, but it was closed. So we went to this standing room area…
…, which is behind home plate just slightly off to the 1B side. As you can see from the big 9-screen-in-one-screen above the concourse in that last picture, Danny Farquhar came in to pitch the bottom of the eighth inning for the Mariners, and he gave up four runs. It was ugly.
The silver lining was that the Reds fans felt comfortable with a 13-4 lead heading toward the ninth inning and they took off in droves. We noticed a ton of open seats on the 3B side so we headed over there.
This was our view in the top of the ninth:
When the game ended, home plate umpire Alan Porter walked right below us into the umpires' tunnel. He paid no attention to us or any of the other fans.
We headed down to the other side of the dugout. As the Mariners relievers headed toward the dugout, I snapped this picture:
As you can see, Tom Wilhelmsen is in the process of swinging his arm back to underhand a baseball to Tim. I didn't notice this at all when I was taking the picture. I snapped the picture and then lowered my camera to find a ball flying right at us. Tim snatched it up with no problem.
Thanks, Tom!
We got a final group shot before heading back to the hotel and our car:
Then we drove until around midnight…
…and stopped at a hotel in Triadelphia, West Virginia, where they had this cool pancake machine at the free breakfast the next morning:
Before driving the rest of the way home the following morning, we stopped at Cabela's to look at some live fish and stuff animals:
We had the most fun with the big bad bears:
It was another great weekend of baseball and another excellent road trip with Avi.
2013 C&S Fan Stats
|16 Games
|17 Teams – Mariners, Royals, Phillies, Red Sox, Rays, Orioles, Yankees, Dodgers, Reds, Nationals, Marlins, Pirates, Blue Jays, Twins, Tigers, Mets, Brewers
|30 Ice Cream Helmets – Phillies (jumbo) 2, Phillies (normal) 2, Red Sox 2, Yankees 2, Orioles 4, Nationals 2, Pirates 2, Blue Jays 2, Tigers 6, Mets 2, Reds 4
|76 Baseballs – Mariners 11, Royals 4, Phillies 11, Rays 2, Orioles 7, Dodgers 1, Umpires 7, Reds 9, Nationals 1, Marlins 4, Pirates 1, Blue Jays 2, Twins 3, Tigers 1, Mets 3, Yankees 2, Brewers 2, Red Sox 6
|10 Stadiums – Citizens Bank Park 2, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Camden Yards, Nationals Park, PNC Park, Rogers Centre, Comerica Park, Citi Field, Great American Ball Park
|32 Player+ Photos – Oliver Perez, Lucas Luetge, Hisashi Iwakuma, Carter Capps, Daniel Nava, Alex Wilson, Andrew Bailey, Pedro Ciriaco, Mike Carp 2, Koji Uehara, Will Middlebrooks, Joel Hanrahan, Jonny Gomes, Alfredo Aceves, Clayton Mortensen, Rick Anderson, Tom Gorzelanny, Joe Savery, Jonathan Pettibone, Carlos Ruiz, Charlie Manuel, Justin DeFratus, Ryan Howard, Ben Revere, Larry Anderson, Gary "Sarge" Matthews Sr., Kyle Kendrick, Ryne "HOF 2005" Sandberg, Michael Stutes, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Rowland-Smith
|10 Autograph – Hisashi Iwakuma 2 (English & Japanese), Carter Capps, Ryan Hanigan, Jesus Tiamo, Mike Carp 2, Ryan Rowland-Smith 2, Felix Hernandez
Avi and the Cooks Meet The Mariners in Cincinnati (7/5/2013)
For months, we had been looking forward to the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Our Mariners were scheduled to take on the Reds at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. The original plan was that my folks would come out for the series and my wife would join us too. But through a series of plan squashing issues, neither my folks nor Colleen could end up making the trip. My folks were out weeks in advance, but Colleen was going to join us right up until July 3rd. We picked out our hotels and bought our game tickets with her input…but then something more important came up that she had to attend to and had to drop out.
On very short notice, we were happy to have Avi Miller…
…join our traveling roadtrip caravan.
The plan was to see the M's in Cincinnati on July 5-6. We headed to Pittsburgh around 11:00 a.m. on the Fourth. There was a big "Regatta" party-thingy going on in Pittsburgh. We started out by playing some catch in the park:
We cooled off in this big fountain:
We watched a pretty cool BMX show:
For the record, that guy jumping above is traveling from left to right…and Avi wasn't impressed until the very end when the last two bikers did back flips.
Next, we met up with famous Pittsburgh couple, Matt Peaslee and Erin Wozniak, and watched a boat race on the river. This guy captaining the No. 10 boat easily won the race:
Next, it was off to Moe's for dinner:
And then we finished off the night with some fireworks:
The next morning, July 5, 2013, we were off to Cincinnati. Neither Kellan nor Avi had ever been to Great American Ball Park (or Cincinnati in general). While both of them loved the ballpark, Avi contained his enthusiasm while Kellan couldn't even stand still for a quick picture:
Oh, by the way, this game marked Kellan's 50th MLB game and Great American Ball Park his 16th MLB stadium.
The Reds have an extra early BP "tour." You pay some extra cash at the Reds Hall of Fame (which is an awesome Hall of Fame that you should definitely check out), and you get in to BP super-duper early. You also get a pass into the Reds HOF and a cool Ted Kluzinsky statue.
After buying our tickets, the boys posed for some pictures with Reds Mickey Mouse…
…and Reds Statute of Liberty.
Just outside the Reds HOF, we found this excellent statue of Johnny Bench:
(Note: Tim is using a brochure as a catcher's mitt in that picture).
Around 4:21'ish, our BP tour guide took us inside the stadium…
…and told us what would happen once we went out to the field. Essentially, for the first half hour we would be confined to right field. Then the first base line would open up for us (and I think all Reds season tickets holders. At that point, we could stay in RF or we could head down to the Reds dugout in search of autographs. Eventually, the gates would open to the general public and we would be able to go anywhere.
When we headed out to RF, Joe Saunders was throwing a bullpen session:
We watched Saunders while Avi went off to watch BP. After Saunders wrapped up his throwing session, Saunders flipped his warm up ball up to Tim between the narrow gap between the seats and the net over the top of the bullpen.
Thanks, Joe!
For the rest of Reds BP, we hung out here:
You can't tell in that picture, but we were in a little partial row pressed up against the batters' eye. Spots like that are always ideal for us because the natural barrier on one side helps keep Kellan from trying to wander away.
Reds BP was interesting. As far as I could tell, they hit a grand total of two homeruns. I might have missed some…but who knows. I truly only saw two homeruns the entire time. Meanwhile, all of the Reds were wearing BP pullovers and I had no clue who most of them were…
…but then I saw a familiar face, Mariners bullpen catcher Jason Phillips. I hadn't seen him in the bullpen when Saunders was throwing. He must have been hiding in the corner. We exchanged our customary tip of the caps as he walked across the field with Saunders.
Eventually, I recognized two Reds in the outfield. First, I noticed Shin-Soo Choo shagging balls in CF. When Choo made a catch on a sinking liner in CF, I called out an extended "CHOOOOOOOO!" He turned around and fired the ball to me. About thirty second later, he shagged another ball and it tossed it to Tim.
Double thanks, Shin-Soo!
The boys posed with their Choo-Balls and the Great American Ball Park sign for the MyGameBalls.com photo scavenger hunt:
Nearby in RCF, MyGameBalls.com 2013 top ten snagger Rocco Sinisi was toiling away and doing his thing. Rocco is the MyGameBalls.com career leader for Great American Ball Park and a photo with him was good for scavenger hunt bonus points. Although we'd been chatting a bit off and on during BP, we decided to get a photo with Rocco early in BP just in case we forgot to or didn't get a chance to do so later. So here is our first attempt at the Rocco/GABP bonus photo:
Over the past several years, I haven't really followed but have admired Aroldis Chapman from afar. He seems like a good guy and, heck, he throws balls at crazy fast speeds.
Amongst the sea of unrecognizable Reds in the outfield, I eventually noticed that Chapman was hanging out in straightaway right field. When I spotted Chapman way over there in RF, I shouted out a loud, "AROOOOOOLDIS!" This prompted Aroldis to look over and exchange waves with us.
See where Aroldis was:
He was way over there. Carter Capps was "way over there" too – way over across the field from this throwing partner out on the LF. Capps was firing seeds across the field. It was impressive.
A little while later, someone hit a grounder through the infield and into somewhat shallow RF. Aroldis sauntered over and grabbed the ball. I called out his name again (you know, we were buddies after that exchange of waves) and he threw the ball all the way from RF to my glove waiting in CF.
Thanks, Aroldis!
Hey, remember those two BP homeruns I mentioned? Jay Bruce…
…hit one of them right to me and I made the catch on the fly. Thanks to Rocco for identifying Bruce for me later in the day based on that last photo.
See that bat laying on the ground in the photo above to the right? When Reds BP ended, we headed around the RF foul pole and toward home plate. On the way, I took a photo (that photo) of a bat (that bat) sitting on the ground in the Mariners' bullpen. I took the photo for the sole purpose of zooming in on the picture to see whose name was on the bat. So click on that photo and check it out: it was Jay Bruce's bat. That's odd.
As we approached the infield, the Reds grounds crew removed the cage and screens from the field. What was this all about? It was very confusing. It was also a bit of a bummer because this was only our second Mariners game of the season and the Mariners didn't take BP before our first game either.
Anyway, we decided to grab some food for the boys and head over to the third base side…
…where the Mariners' position players were stretching. As I took some photos, Tim munched down a hot dog and Kellan worked away on a big soft pretzel:
Funny side note: Kellan ate part of that pretzel while sitting on my shoulders. When he finished, I had to pick big grains of salt out of my hair for the rest of the afternoon.
The lack of BP was actually kind of cool because the Mariners did a modified version of the old fashioned "taking infield and outfield."
While we were watching our M's, a Reds employee with a camera came over and asked if he could take our picture. "Sure," I responded. After he snapped the pic, I asked why he wanted the picture. "It's for the Mariners," he responded. Later in the day, we found out that the Mariners tweeted the picture to over 130,000 people. Here's the M's tweet, and here's another look at it:
After playing catch with Hisashi Iwakuma, Felix Hernandez signed a bunch of autographs:
Tim got him to sign the Jay Bruce homerun ball.
Thanks, King Felix!
I asked Felix why the M's weren't taking BP. He said they had got into Cincinnati around 2:30 in the morning after playing a road game in Texas the previous night and decided not to take BP.
Following the M's warm ups, we got a better photo with Rocco:
And then we wandered around a bit and got some pictures with the Reds piggy bank…
…and a big bobblehead burger guy.
Before the game, the Reds honored Homer Bailey…
…for throwing a no-hitter against the Giants three days earlier.
Here was our view for most of this game, about three rows from the top of section 402:
In the couple of games Tim and I had previously attended at Great American, we'd sat in RF and lower LF. We once visited the upper deck in LF, but never watched game from up there. I'll tell you though, I loved it. For an "upper deck," it's not very high up there and the view is great. Plus, we had a nice view of Kentucky across the river and a great breeze. As an added bonus, at the back of the upper deck, there are covered seats to either shade you from the sun or keep you dry in the rain. The LF upper deck at Great American Ball Park definitely gets my seal of approval.
The pitching match-up was Aaron Harang vs. Mike Leake. I wasn't a big fan of the match-up. But sometimes a struggling pitcher can pull out a better-than-normal performance when facing his old team. That's what I hoped for from Harang.
We dropped our stuff at our seats and watched the first pitch from Leake to Brad Miller:
And then Kellan and I headed down the stairs on our way to get some ice cream for the boys. As we walked down the upper deck stairs, Miller laced the ball down the RF line and coasted in for an easy triple. A great start for the M's!
As Kellan and I ducked into a men's restroom, Nick Franklin stepped to the plate and blasted a 2-run homer. Kellan and I had no clue this had happened. But when we got back to the ice cream place we saw the score – 2-0 Mariners!
When we got back to the seats…
…, Avi informed us about the Franklin homerun.
Harang pitched a scoreless bottom of the first. Then, Michael "The Condor" Saunders hit a leadoff bomb in the top of the second:
Here's one of the reasons I like Brandon Phillips:
Check out that big smile clearly visible from the top of the upper deck in LCF! That's how I like to see guys playing the game, like my favorite player, Ken Griffey, Jr.
In case you were wondering, here was the Mariners outfield for the day:
Michael Saunders in RF, Dustin Ackley in CF and Rauuuuuul Ibanez in LF.
Here's a funny picture with no backstory, just a bunch of funny guys:
And a couple loving brothers:
Tim and Kellan either spend their time trying to annoy one another or hugging and telling each other how much they love the other. Generally, they act like wonderful loving brothers while at baseball games and reserve their annoying each other for play time at home.
Much to my delight, Harang was, indeed, putting a strong performance together against his old squad:
Multiple times before the game and once during the game, I took the boys here…
…for a little kid fun. That table looks like it is covered in sand, but it is really a mixture of different colored bits of rubber chopped up into little grains. There were digging tools and dinosaur skeletons that the kids could dig up. The two big dinosaurs standing behind the boys in the picture above to the left felt real'ish and they moved around every couple minutes. The one on the right also laid eggs. The boys couldn't get enough of this little dinosaur display.
Before the game started we were hanging out in dinosaur area and another guy wearing Mariners gear asked me if he'd seen us at Pittsburgh. We chatted about it and, indeed, he had seen us in Pittsburgh. His name is Greg. He's a NW Mariners fan transplanted to Detroit. We've kept in touch a bit since running into each other several times this weekend. Good guy, and good Mariners fan.
Last time we were in Cincinnati we failed to get a good picture of the batters' eye boat. So, we got this one:
Back up in section 402, the ballpark looked even better as the sun went down:
Avi agreed, this place is beautiful:
Tim and Kellan both took a bunch of pictures during this game and weekend. Here's Kellan's funniest picture:
I should mention that the Mariners took a 4-0 lead in the top of the fourth inning when Michael Saunders hit a sacrifice fly to LF scoring Kyle Seager.
In the top of the fifth inning, Brad Miller made some Great American Ball Park history when he hit his second triple of the game. In over 800 games, it was the first time that a player had hit two triples in a game at GABP. Pretty cool.
In the bottom of the fifth, Shin-Soo Choo hit an RBI-double to put the Reds on the board.
In the bottom of the sixth, the Reds capped the scoring for the day when Joseph Votto blasted a leadoff homerun to CF. That made the score 4-2 Mariners.
Late in the game, we got split up from Avi for a while. When we connected on the phone, he said he was in a SRO area near home plate with Rocco. We decided we should go over there. Thinking (correctly) that we might not make it back to section 402, we got a picture of Tim at the bottom of 402 on our way out (Kellan didn't want to get off my shoulders to get in the picture):
This was our view in the SRO area:
When we arrived at the SRO area, Avi was nowhere to be found. Ends up, we'd left section 402 to meet up with him and he left the SRO area to meet up with him in section 402.
Eventually, we did all meet up at the SRO area. They make you stand at the top of the stairs. Eventually, we move down the stairs at stood at the corner of the cross aisle. The ushers didn't really do anything about it so we stayed there a bit.
Heading into the bottom of the eight, the Mariner brought in Charlie Furbush who blew away Zack Cozart, Joey…
…Votto, and Brandon Phillips, 1-2-3.
When Rocco came by, he headed down the cross aisle toward the outfield. We all followed him and ended up here for the ninth inning:
Check out that guy's Johnny Bench jersey. That's sweet.
Ollie Perez nailed down a great Mariners Win!
We ended up in near-perfect position for a umpire ball, but didn't get one. But when we moved to the other end of the M's dugout, Jaime Navarro tossed this one to Tim:
Avi, the boys and I pulled up some from row seats…
…for the post-game firework show:
The very first fireworks show of Tim's life was at Great American Ball Park and it was awesome. However, since then, we've seen a fireworks show at Progressive Field, and absolutely nothing stacks up to the Indians' fireworks shows. They are incredible But this was a nice show for the boys. They love all fireworks shows.
After fireworks, we got one more picture with Rocco…
…, one more group shot of us four roadtrippers…
…, some mire image shots with these awesome mosaics…
…, and one with this cool thingy inset on the floor of the concourse behind home plate:
And then we headed off to the team store so Avi could buy a bunch of bobbleheads. In the team store, Tim posed with a huge World Series trophy:
Finally, we walked back to our hotel a few blocks away…
…where Kellan hid under a pillow, both boys acted silly for a while, and then we all called it a night.
Go Mariners!
2013 C&S Fan Stats
|15 Games
|17 Teams – Mariners, Royals, Phillies, Red Sox, Rays, Orioles, Yankees, Dodgers, Reds, Nationals, Marlins, Pirates, Blue Jays, Twins, Tigers, Mets, Brewers
|28 Ice Cream Helmets – Phillies (jumbo) 2, Phillies (normal) 2, Red Sox 2, Yankees 2, Orioles 4, Nationals 2, Pirates 2, Blue Jays 2, Tigers 6, Mets 2, Reds 2
|72 Baseballs – Mariners 8, Royals 4, Phillies 11, Rays 2, Orioles 7, Dodgers 1, Umpires 7, Reds 8, Nationals 1, Marlins 4, Pirates 1, Blue Jays 2, Twins 3, Tigers 1, Mets 3, Yankees 2, Brewers 2, Red Sox 6
|10 Stadiums – Citizens Bank Park 2, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Camden Yards, Nationals Park, PNC Park, Rogers Centre, Comerica Park, Citi Field, Great American Ball Park
|32 Player+ Photos – Oliver Perez, Lucas Luetge, Hisashi Iwakuma, Carter Capps, Daniel Nava, Alex Wilson, Andrew Bailey, Pedro Ciriaco, Mike Carp 2, Koji Uehara, Will Middlebrooks, Joel Hanrahan, Jonny Gomes, Alfredo Aceves, Clayton Mortensen, Rick Anderson, Tom Gorzelanny, Joe Savery, Jonathan Pettibone, Carlos Ruiz, Charlie Manuel, Justin DeFratus, Ryan Howard, Ben Revere, Larry Anderson, Gary "Sarge" Matthews Sr., Kyle Kendrick, Ryne "HOF 2005" Sandberg, Michael Stutes, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Rowland-Smith
|10 Autograph – Hisashi Iwakuma 2 (English & Japanese), Carter Capps, Ryan Hanigan, Jesus Tiamo, Mike Carp 2, Ryan Rowland-Smith 2, Felix Hernandez
Felix Day in Pittsburgh (5/8/2013)
For months, we planned to go see our Mariners at PNC Park on Tuesday, May 7, 2013. But then something came up at work and Tim had a Little League game scheduled that evening so our plans were foiled. This was only the second time the M's had ever played in Pittsburgh, and the first time since Tim was born. I really wanted the boys to get to see the M's play at PNC Park. And I just generally really wanted to see a Mariners game. The only other game in the Pittsburgh series was Wednesday, May 8, 2013. It was a *early* day game with a 12:35 start time. We had to do it.
We live 4 hours from Pittsburgh. The early game time meant we needed to leave the night before. So at 8:47 p.m. on May 7th, after my business dinner and the rain out of Tim's Little League game, the boys and I hopped in the car…
…for a late night drive across the Pennsylvania turnpike. The boys fell asleep around Harrisburg, PA, and then I listened to some "Master of Puppets" by Metallica and chatted with my dad on the phone for about 2 hours.
We arrived at our hotel around 1:00 a.m. and had no trouble making it a complete mess by the *following* morning:
After a decent free breakfast at the hotel, we hit the road and made it to PNC Park before 10:00 a.m.
It was #FelixDay and we predicted…
…complete Felix domination.
I knew there would be no BP so I didn't feel compelled to go get in line at the CF gate. So, instead, we walked around to the other side of the stadium and hung out by the autograph collectors where the players arrive for the game:
In that last photo, that's Rauuuuuuuuul Ibanez wearing a stylish suit (NOTE: baseball players shouldn't wear suits) and listening to an mp3 player.
The first person we witnessed arrive at the players/employees entrance was our buddy Jason Phillips. All of the autograph collectors were on the other side of the entrance from us. Jason saw us as he exited his cab, signed one or two autographs, and then told the autograph collectors that he had to go chat with us.
Jason and I shook hands and chatted for a minute or so. He confirmed there would be no BP. He asked if we'd ever been to PNC Park. He told us that he'd *opened* PNC Park with the Mets back in 2001. And then he headed into the ballpark, after showing his official MLB credentials to the people guarding the entrance.
Jason Phillips is a cool guy. It's always good to get to chat with him, and it was nice to begin our 2013 in-person Mariners season with a brief on-the-street chat with him.
After a while, I asked a guard if we could get around the stadium on the river side before the stadium opened. He confirmed we could so we headed toward the river. On our way, the boys posed with the new (in 2012) Bill Mazeroski statue:
Then we walked along the river toward the CF gate:
When we arrived at the CF gate, PNC Park regular Zac Weiss was already there. After setting our bags down in line behind Zac's bag, I took Tim's photo with the Roberto Clemente statue (Kellan was avoiding the camera):
Before the gates opened, Zac busted out a baseball and we all headed out to the Roberto Clemente Bridge to play catch:
I played catch with both Zac (real baseball) and Tim (soft, practice baseball) at the same time, alternating throws between them. I almost threw Tim's baseball into the River!
Zack Hample was in line next to our bags when we finished playing catch. He was there with Neal Stewart from Bigs Seeds and the two of them were on another leg of Zack Hample's BIGS Baseball Adventure.
The CF gates opened at 10:30, but that just let us into the Riverwalk. Zac, Zack, Neal, Tim, Kellan and I all gathered at the inside gate behind the bullpens…but we were stuck. Normally, season ticket holders, such as Zac, can get into the field before regular fans, and they can take guests with them. But the Pirates don't do the early access for day games. So we were stuck on the Riverwalk until 11:00.
We passed the time by posing for some fist bump photos…
…and trying hot sauce seed sample packs that Neal had in his seed satchel. They were tasty.
Thanks, Neal!
I was excited when we saw our first uniformed Mariner of the season:
I think it was Hector Noesi.
Several Mariners joined Hector to play catch down the LF line. Nothing was happening in CF. So the boys and I headed over to LF to see if there was a spot where we could watch the M's playing catch. There wasn't.
So we headed to the kids play area instead:
When the rest of the gates finally opened, Oliver Perez and his partner (who I didn't recognize at the time, but am pretty sure it was Yoervis Medina) had just finished playing catch and the only other pair of M's out there at the time were Hisashi Iwakuma and Lucas Luetge:
Perez and Medina has been doing a little post-throwing running. On their way back toward the dugout, Perez grabbed one of the several baseballs sitting on the ground and walked over and handed it to Tim. I took the opportunity to ask him for a photo:
Thanks, Oliver!
FYI, Kellan was still on my shoulders at the time and didn't want to get down.
When Perez and Medina left, they were replaced along the baseline by Brandon Maurer and Carter Capps.
When Kuma and Luetge finished throwing, Lucas tossed his baseball to Tim and then he posed for pictures with both boys:
Thanks, Lucas!
Meanwhile, Kuma had started signing autographs a little further down the LF line. We ran over there and he was happy to sign his and Lucas's warm up ball in both English and Japanese…
…and to pose for a picture with the boys.
、ミスター岩熊をありがとう! (Thank you, Mr. Iwawkuma!)
Some Mariners had run out to the bullpen, but the only action left in LF was Maurer and Capps playing catch:
When they finished, Carter tossed the baseball to Tim, and then followed the ball so we could autograph it and pose for a picture with Tim:
Thanks, Carter!
With nothing else going on down the LF line, we headed out to LCF near the bullpen. On our we stopped to get a PNC Park bonus picture for the MyGameBalls.com photo scavenger hunt:
Just as we approached the LF seats, a group of about 20 people ran through the seats from LF to LCF and filled almost the entire section right next to the bullpen. That foiled our plan to get a close up look at the action in the bullpen. So we hung back in the shady cross-aisle behind the LF seats and had a nice chat with an usher. She took our only family photo of the day for us:
Tim was spitting his BIGS seeds all over the place and we ended up talking about seeds for some reason. She mentioned that her co-worker gave her some pickle flavored seeds. When she pulled them out, she realized she didn't have the pickle seeds today, she had BIGS Salt & Vinegar seeds:
We still had about 45 minutes until game time and nothing was happening on the field. We ended up meeting up with Zack, Zac, Neal and PNC Park regular Robbie "Scoonz" Sacunas for lunch in the Hall of Fame Club:
We'd never been in, or knew anything about, the Hall of Fame Club so it was great to experience it. As our food was being prepared, Kellan and I walked around and took some pictures of the club:
The Hall of Fame Club is right behind the LF upper bleachers. There are big windows that look at over the field. As Kellan and I walked around, we saw King Felix warming up out the windows:
Zack, Neal and I all tried the new, off-menu novelty meal, the donut burger:
The burger is a bacon cheese burger with a fried egg on a donut bug. I find eggs to be incredibly disgusting so my burger was eggless. I would recommend everyone try the donut burger so you can say you had one. But it doesn't rank near the top of my best burgers list…in fact, if I really had such a list, it would be way down on the list. More than like eating a donut, the weird combination and texture of the burger made it seem like I was eating meat filled french toast.
The boys split a footlong hot dog. Tim smothered his in ketchup and mustard, most of which seemed to find its way onto the front of his mostly white Mariners t-shirt. Luckily, Kellan has no condiments on his half of the hot dog because he ate his dog while sitting on my shoulders.
Before leaving the club, I got this panorama out of the front windows:
When we got back down to the field, King Felix warming up in the bullpen. We headed over there to watch. The bullpen set up is pretty interesting at PNC Park. It's not very good watching a pitcher warm up from the bleachers. Here's what it looked like:
Just before the game started, Felix headed toward the dugout…
…and the members of the Mariners bullpen gave each other a bunch of high fives. See that baseball sitting on the garbage can in the last photo? Jason Phillips ended up tossing it to us (after giving it a thorough rubbing). It was thoroughly dirty and beautiful.
Thanks, Jason!
Here is where we were sitting for first pitch:
Those were our real seats. They were pretty awesome – section 31, row C, seats 1-3. It was a three row section. To our left was the aisle and then LF:
The seats were pretty amazing. They are regularly priced $36/ticket, but I found them on stubhub for $17/ticket. Gotta love below face value tickets!
The tough thing about day games is that Kellan still takes a nap in the afternoon most days. For a night game, I work his nap into the drive to the game. But for a day game, there is no good nap time. At this game, that actually played to our benefit.
When we reached our seats, Kellan was sitting, totally relaxed on my shoulders. I tried to take him down, but he was very fussy. Sometimes he refuses to get off of my shoulders, and this was one of those times. I realized there was no one behind our third seat in. In fact, there was no one behind that seat in the entire section. So I figured there was no one whose view would be blocked if I sat there with Kellan on my shoulders. That's how we started that game.
It didn't take long for an usher to stop by and tell me that Kellan needed to come down off of my shoulders. "No problem," I responded, "it's just that it's his nap time and he's a little cranky and didn't want to get off of my shoulders." When I took him down, he protested by crying, yelling and kicking.
Upon seeing the little tandrum in process, the usher came back and told Kellan that we could move to some other, even better seats in the third inning if Kellan behaved now. Lucky for us, he did.
The M's didn't score in the first. And then King Felix took the mound:
With the dominating King Felix on the hill, I felt pretty safe leaving our seats to go get ice cream in the first inning. My plan actually wasn't too good. The very first Pirates batter of the game, Starling Marte, hit a ground ball right past third base and down the LF line for a double. That happened just as we started to walk up the stairway toward the concourse.
Felix struck out the next batter. But Andrew McCutchen hit an RBI single as we walked through the concourse toward the ice cream place.
After twos innings, the Pirates still led 1-0. The boys were still eating their ice cream helmets when the last out of the second was recorded. I immediately stood up and waved at the usher who had mentioned the seat upgrade in the third. I pointed at the seats and he gave me a confirming thumbs up. And then we moved here (essentially) for the rest of the game:
Is that beautiful or what? Here is what our view looked like from the front row:
That picture above with Tim and Kellan sitting by the ballgirl is actually way out of order (it was just the best picture I got showing our seat location). In the third inning, this…
…is the ballgirl who was sitting right next to us. She was quite nice. While Kellan finished his ice cream…
…I chatted her up a bit. She is a former college softball player. And guess what happened when King Felix induced Andrew McCutchen into hitting a foul ball to the ballgirl in the bottom of the third? Here's a hint:
Yep, she gave it to Tim!
Thanks, Felix, McCutchen and Ballgirl!
These seats were the absolute best seats possible for us. Tim and Kellan do pretty good sitting in the seats when we have my dad or Colleen or some four person with us. But when it's just the three of us, for some reason, they really want to roam around and be on the move a lot. But there was so much room to move in this seating section that we stayed put and I got to watch the entire (awesome) Mariners game! Yes!
One of those in-seating-section activities included playing with the dirt and bugs:
Into the fourth inning (aside from Michael Saunders who kept drawing walks), the Mariners batters, including Kendrys Morales…
…, couldn't find any success against Pirates starter A.J. Burnett.
In addition to showing Tim spitting seeds onto the warning track, this picture sets the scene for what happened next:
Let's examine that photo closer. Upper left corner, the small scoreboard shows the score is 1-0 Pirates in the top of the second with two outs (Morales, above, was the second out of the inning). Also, notice that the Mariners have no hits on the day. Next, Mariners centerfielder Michael Saunders is standing on 3B after drawing a leadoff walk, advancing to 2B on a wild pitch and to 3B on Morales's groundout. Finally, the ribbon board shows that Dustin Ackley is about to step to the plate (he hadn't seen a pitch yet because the count is shown as 0-0).
Five pitches later, Saunders scored the tying run on a Burnett's second wild pitch of the inning! One pitch later, Ackley struck out to end the inning.
So, while being no hit by A.J. Burnett, the Mariners were all tied up 1-1 with the Pirates after 4 innings.
The Mariners finally broke through with their first hit of the game in the top of the fifth inning. With Burnett pitching so well, it was a good thing we had King Felix on the hill…
…throwing a dominating game of his own. In fact, it was as if mother nature was behind Felix and the M's during this game – she even set an all-natural crown worthy of a king right above Felix:
Nothing could stop the Mariners fair and just King Felix.
Well, almost nothing, A.J. Burnett did a competent job of shutting down King Felix at the plate:
But, obviously, hitting isn't Felix's thing.
The boys lost interest in the dirt and bugs and played a little grounders/bouncing balls catch behind our row of seats:
Despite numerous warnings from me only to *roll* the ball, the kids kept bouncing them…
…and, every once in a while, Kellan was throw the ball in the air to Tim. This resulted in two different incidents, one good and one bad.
On the good front, Kellan tossed a ball to Tim that hit the railing behind our handicapped accessible section, rolled along the top of the railing, and then fell right into a cup holder handing from the back side of the railing. When it happened, the entire section behind us erupted in applause for Kellan – they were all apparently watching the boys play catch rather than watching King Felix and A.J. Burnett playing catch with their catchers.
On the bad front, Kellan threw another ball that bounced off of the head of the lady in the black Pirates jersey:
I didn't actually see this happen. However, given the facts that (1) the boys were using a cloth/foam-y-ish ball (that incidentally looks exactly like a ROMLB), (2) Kellan is only 2 and (3) the ball bounced before it hit her, I'll go out on a limb here and say there is zero chance this incident actually hurt the lady. But she was very mad about the situation. I thought we were going to get kicked out of the section and sent back to our regular seats. I immediately put the kids' ball away and sincerely apologized to her and she just glared at me with complete and utter contempt.
We let this incident bother us for about 30 seconds and then we let it go. We have better, fun things on which to focus. Like the pierogies race:
And the shirt cannon/slingshot/toss, which resulted in Kellan coming up with this prize:
And, most importantly, Jesus Montero's go-ahead homer to RCF in the top of the seventh inning:
2-1 Mariners after 7!
Kellan's shirt was tied up with balloons, which the boys used to sling shot seeds on the warning track:
Felix was dominating and he was getting solid defense behind him. In the bottom of the eighth, Clint Barmes hit a shallow fly ball to CF that Michael Saunders grabbed with no problem:
The next batter was pinch hitter Jose Tabata, and he hit a low liner to RF and Endy Chavez made a great play on it. Starling Marte then singled, but was thrown out by Jesus Montero when he tried to swipe 2B. Starling no swiping, Starling no swiping, STARLING NO SWIPING!
At the end of the 8th, we left our wonderful seats, took a bathroom break, walked through a small team store behind home plate, and then found ourselves here for the bottom of the ninth:
FYI, Kellan refused to get off of my shoulders so I crouched on the ground in front of the seat so he wouldn't be too tall for the fans behind us.
Although Felix Hernandez was out in the on deck circle at the end of the top of the ninth, Tom "The Bartender" Wilhelmsen…
…came in for "closing time" in the bottom of the ninth.
Wilhelmsen got a quick ground out by Travis Snider for the first out. He then has a 10 pitch battle with Andrew McCutchen, which included a foul ball that landed two rows in front of us, that ended with a fly out to deep LCF.
Garrett Jones made things more interesting by hitting a 2-out single. But Michael McKenry hit another deep fly ball for the final out of the game.
It was truly a beautiful thing.
During the post-game celebration…
…, Aarong Harang tossed a pearly white baseball to Tim.
Thanks, Aaron!
As the celebration died down and the interviews with the heroes began…
…, Robbie Thompson tossed a muddy (game-rubbed?) baseball to Tim.
Thanks, Robbie!
After the game ended and all the Mariners took off, we met up again with Zack, Robbie and a few other guys where Kellan was too tired and cranky to give another fist bump:
We had noticed the Pirates pig statue earlier in the day and wanted to get a picture with it on our way out of the ballpark. As you can see below on the left, an usher wouldn't let us go over to the pig for a picture and then wouldn't get out of our view when we tired to get a picture with the pig from a distance:
Luckily, he didn't follow us out to block our picture with the Willie Stargell statue.
When we hopped in the car, Kellan fell asleep almost instantly and slept for at least three hours.
All around, this was a near perfect baseball experience. It was awesome seeing our Mariners. It was fun to see them in a new park (for Tim and Kellan). And it was even better to see King Felix bring home the win in a great pitchers' duel.
2013 C&S Fan Stats
|7 Game
|12 Teams – Mariners, Royals, Phillies, Red Sox, Rays, Orioles, Yankees, Dodgers, Reds, Nationals, Marlins, Pirates
|12 Ice Cream Helmet – Phillies (jumbo) 2, Red Sox 2, Yankees 2, Orioles 2, Nationals 2, Pirates 2
|35 Baseballs – Mariners 6, Royals 4, Phillies 9, Rays 2, Orioles 1, Dodgers 1, Umpires 2, Reds 4, Nationals 1, Marlins 4, Pirates 1
|6 Stadium – Citizens Bank Park 2, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Camden Yards, Nationals Park, PNC Park
|14 Player Pictures – Oliver Perez, Lucas Luetge, Hisashi Iwakuma, Carter Capps, Daniel Nava, Alex Wilson, Andrew Bailey, Pedro Ciriaco, Mike Carp, Koji Uehara, Will Middlebrooks, Joel Hanrahan, Jonny Gomes, Alfredo Aceves, Clayton Mortensen
|5 Autograph – Hisashi Iwakuma (English & Japanese), Carter Capps, Ryan Hanigan, Jesus Tiamo
1977 Seattle Mariners Inaugural Series Program
I was at my parents' house in late January. Whenever I'm home, I spend time poking around in the closet of my boyhood bedroom. When I moved out years ago, I left a ton of baseball cards and other baseball stuff in there. It's always fun to go hunting and see what I can find. This time, I found something really cool: The official program of the 1977 Seattle Mariners inaugural series against the California Angels.
When the Mariners played their first ever regular season game on April 6, 1977, I was one year old and living in Southern California. I did not attend this game. Not even close. I'm not entirely sure how I came to own this program. But it is pretty darn cool. So I thought I'd share it here.
Let's take a look page-by-page, starting with the cover:
Now, I should explain that I took all of these pictures with my cellphone camera. So some of them are just fine and others are blurry. Sorry about that. I didn't take my normal camera on this trip. As we take look at the program, I'll make a comment or two when I feel like it, but mostly this entire is just going to be page-after-page-after-page of the program.
It was a different world back in 1977, and the program features several advertisements that I highly doubt would be included if the Mariners debuted in 2013. The first such ad was inside the front cover:
And your 1977 Seattle Mariners:
…and the rest of your 1977 Seattle Mariners:
I like this idea — the compiled 1976 stats of the players who became the 1977 Mariners:
Whoever originally owned this program, gave up on scoring in the seventh inning (weak, original owner. weak!):
Here's a good ad. Back in college, I banked at SeaFirst (which no longer exists) and was very happy with their banking services:
In addition to the first game, I also missed helmet night and ball day (boo, me!):
Seattlites were new to this Major League Baseball stuff, so the M's thought it the fans could use a little (very little) lesson in baseball statistics:
And a lesson in scoring a baseball game:
And a lesson on the controversial Designator Hitter position:
I'm guessing note many of these guys are still around…
…and I wonder if Fred Genzale is the father, uncle, or brother of Henry Genzale who….uh, oh…did Henry Genzale retire? He's been the M's visiting clubhouse manager since (at least) the 1990s (or maybe he was the equipment manager back then). (Note: Henry Genzale also let me serve as the Mariners bat boy for a spring training game back in 1991, which was a completely awesome experience for which I will be enternally gratetful to Mr. Genzale).
Okay – here is hands-down the best advertisement in the program:
Here is an absolutely beautiful sight:
I sure wish I had a 1977 Mariners pocket schedule. But this 1977 Mariners regular season schedule will have to do:
Another ad you wouldn't see in 2013 adorned the back cover of the program:
There you go: Official Mariners history!
Hope you enjoyed it..
Cook & Son's MLB Adventures (Vol. 1)
The offseason and January 1st are for remembering the past and looking forward to the future.
As far as remembering our baseball past goes, here's a video that I made in 2010 that I absolutely love:
I really need to put together Volume 2 soon.
That's all for now. Go Mariners!
Hello, Safeco Field 2012! (8/13/2012)
SAAAAAAAAAAAAAFECO FIELD! Yes! On August 13, 2012, accompanied by my parents, Tim, Kellan and I finally made our way to Safeco Field.
We were in town to visit my folks and brother for the week and we would be taking in three Mariners games including two games against the Rays (but not Felix Hernandez's perfect game, which occurred two days after this game while we were just across downtown Seattle at the Space Needle) and one game against the Twins.
Sadly, these would be our final Mariners games of the season. Coming into this game, our Mariners season record was 2-1. With one win this week, we would assure ourselves of at least a .500 Mariners record. And with 2 or more wins, we would enjoy a *winning* Mariners season. Whatever happened, our 2012 Mariners season would be better than our 1-8 2011 season record. So let's get to it!
Colleen sat this game out. But the boys, my parents and I arrived right around 5:00 p.m., twenty minutes after the CF and "The Pen" gates opened and ten minutes before the whole stadium opened.
Tim and I hustled in from the *Kingdome* parking lot while my folks and Kellan took a more leisurely stroll to the stadium. Tim and I headed into The Pen and grabbed a spot behind the M's bullpen:
Oliver Perez (who is wearing No. 36 in the photo above to the left) quickly fielded a ball right in front of us and lobbed it over the bullpen right to us. If the throw was a couple inches higher it would have hit the screen that protects the out-of-town scoreboard and fallen into the bullpen. Luckily, it didn't and I was able to make the easy grab.
Thanks, Oliver!
All three games at Safeco Field this season, The Pen area was way more crowded than I remember it being last season.
Shortly, we met up with my folks and Kellan and then the rest of the stadium opened. We headed up the stairs behind the visitors' bullpen and made our way down into the seats in foul territory. Right when we arrived in foul territory, the Mariners hurried off the field. It was sad.
Tim and my mom ran off to explore a bit. Kellan and I stood…
…along the foul line waiting for the Rays to finish up their stretching and head out to the field to take BP. My dad hung out with us too:
Eventually, James Shields and Matt Moore started playing catch down the LF line:
Kellan and I headed over to watch them. On Shields' first throw after we arrived, Matt Moore just flat out missed the ball. He put his glove up and it just sailed right by it and into CF. Although it was the simplest and straightest throw possible, I jokingly yelled to Shields, "That's just nasty, James!" He turned around and, with a smile and a shrug, made a little motion a little hand throwing motion to show he agrees that he just has filthy *stuff*
After Moore returned with the baseball, they each made about four more throws and then decided to relocate about 50 feet closer to the OF wall. As Shields started to walk down the LF line, he looked back and saw we were still there. He then bent down and grabbed that baseball that you can see sitting on the ground in the last picture and tossed it to us.
Thanks, James!
By the way, if you go see the Rays and attend BP, keep an eye on James Shields. He's a guy who knows how to have fun during BP. Many teams have a *fun* pitcher like him and, in fact, the Rays have two (Shields and David Price). Shields interacts with fans and runs around like crazy trying to make highlight reel catches. Last season at Camden Yards, we saw Shields make a great catch to pick off a would-be BP homerun into the Orioles bullpen.
Anyway, Kellan and I headed back down the LF line toward the dugout just to see what was going on over there. As we made it to the dugout, Desmond Jennings (shown here getting ready to take his hacks in the cage)…
…ran in from the field and tossed a baseball to us on his way toward the dugout.
Thanks, Desmond!
Next, something bizarre happened:
Tim and my mom were sitting about 30 rows up just past third base. Kellan and I stopped by to chat and see what they'd been up to and then we started walking back out to the LF corner to meet up with my dad. As we were cutting across a row of seats, a Mariners maintenance guy was walking up one of the aisle holding a seatback that he'd just removed from one of the seats right off the field.
As the guy passed by, I jokingly asked if we could get a souvenir Safeco Field seat back. He stopped, looked at the seatback with a quizzical look, and then looked at me, "Well, I was just going to throw it away. You really want it?" Of course, I did! He explained that he had to take it somewhere to find a match to replace it. He said he would be back in a few minutes and would give it to me.
And there you go, our first ever souvenir seatback.
I have a HUGE backpack that I got while in school so I could carry a dangerously heavy and large compilation of text books. I figured this seat back would fit in it. And it almost did. But, no, it didn't. Luckily, my backpack has straps that wrap around the back and clip on the opposite side. I was able to use these straps to strap the seatback onto my backpack.
If you want to get some strange looks, walk around a MLB ballpark with a seatback (that is obviously from that stadium) strapped to your back.
After my mom took that last picture, she and Tim headed off to the kids play area. On their way, they ran into the loveable Mariners Moose:
Last season, my folks and Tim determined that he wouldn't be able to play in the play area this season because he would be too tall. There is a little sign that says you must be under a certain height to play in the play area. Anyway, he was taller than the max height now, but they didn't question it. He played until his heart was content.
Meanwhile, Kellan and I hung out with my dad down the LF line. When we met up with him, Rays bullpen catcher Scott Cursi out-of-the-blue walked up and handed Kellan this baseball:
That is Cursi pictured just above this baseball. This was our third time seeing the Rays play this season and our third baseball from Cursi – one per game.
Thanks, Scott!
That was all of the action down the LF line. We hung out and I took some cute pictures like this:
I kept hoping someone would hit a foul ball into the stands that my dad could catch, but no one hit a single ball into the stands while we were over there.
Eventually, my dad decided to head out to the play area to see Tim and my mom. A few minutes later Kellan and I followed him over there. But before heading into the play area, we checked out the action in CF and I got an awesome picture of Kellan just chilling:
Then it was off to the play area for some playing:
After a whole bunch of playing, we left the play area and the boys tossed some coins into the little fountain:
And then I spotted the Mariners pig:
I'm not sure why the boys look so darn serious in this picture.
We all headed down to The Pen area to watch Blake Beavan…
…warm up for the game.
Eventually, the rest of the relievers made their way out to the Mariners bullpen:
Recently, Shawn Kelley and Lucas Luetge have been joking with each other a lot on Twitter. A day or two before this game a new Twitter account had popped up called "@Luetgeshair" that was providing tweets directly from Lucas Luetge's hair. I had a feeling that Kelley was the mastermind behind @Luetgeshair.
So when Kelley (as well as Stephen Pryor and Josh Kinney) signed the Scott Cursi baseball for Tim…
…, I mentioned @Luetgeshair to Kelley. I asked him if he knew who was behind @Luetgeshair and suggested that I assume it was him. He chuckled and gave a *whaaat…who….meeee?* response that pretty sealed the deal…yep, I'm pretty darn certain that Kelley is @Luetgeshair.
I told Kelley that I was going to send a picture to @Luetgeshair. He was all for it. And here it is:
…and here it is, here.
Beavan doesn't have a great record, but I see good things coming from him. He's had a good bunch of solid outings. We watched him warm up a bit more once he moved to the bullpen:
And then it was both game and dinner time:
Kellan did have his own seat and it was actually pretty packed in RF, at least down in the lower seats, so Kellan spent a lot of the game on my lap. So I spent a lot of time taking picture of him, like this one featuring a cheesy mess on his face:
But Kellan was a bit restless, so I also spent a decent amount of time following him around exploring the concourses:
Here's hands down cutest picture from Kellan's time sitting on my lap during this game:
As for the game itself, everything went smoothly for Beavan in the first two innings. But then came the third inning. The Rays exploded for five hits and four runs and the half inning seemed to last forever. The major damage was done on a 2-run LF upper deck jack by B.J. Upton. The other two runs were scored on a single by Desmond Jennings and a double by Ben Zobrist.
Other than the tough fourth inning, Beavan settled down and pitched sixth other solid innings. The big problem is that the Mariners were doing nothing at the plate.
Anyway, we were in section 109, row 32, seats 1-4. I was holding Kellan in seat 1 and there just wasn't enough room. So at one point, I moved back about five rows and sat in the first seat directly across the aisle. This resulted in Kellan walking-and-down the step…
…over and over again to see me for two seconds and then see grandma and grandpa for two seconds. Eventually both boys spent some time up there with me. And I got this shot of Tim showing off his new autographed baseball:
But Kellan still wanted to roam so we headed over to the Dave Niehaus statue for a picture:
We miss you, Dave!
Next, we headed over to the CF SRO by the end of the Mariners bullpen. Right when we walked up an usher gave Kellan a Mike Jackson baseball card…
…and a minute later another usher gave Tim a Mariners Moose card. Getting cards at the ballpark is always fun.
We grabbed the only open spot on the SRO counter behind the bullpens:
The spot was open because the barrier between the Mariners' and visitors' bullpens completely blocks the view of the infield.
Soon the end spot opened up at the other end of the Mariners bullpen. It was the bottom of the fifth inning and this was our view as Trayvon Robinson led off the inning with a triple:
Eric Thames followed Robinson with a RBI single. Hooray! The Mariners were on the board! The score was 4-1 in favor of the Rays.
Mariners rookie reliever Carter Capps started warming up. Here's a comparative view of my view from above the counter…
…and Kellan's from below the counter.
At one point, Kellan noticed a big "Classic Mariners" picture of Norm Charlton and he ran over to pose with it:
Jamie Moyer was right next to Norm and, you know, he is the winningest Mariners pitcher of all-time and an all-around great guy, so I had Kellan post with his "Classic Mariners" picture too.
It was already getting late in the game and the boys hadn't had any ice cream! So we headed back to our seats to meet up with Tim and my folks. There is an ice cream place in the concourse right by section 109 so we got ice cream on our way back.
I knew that Tim would want chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. And I knew that the lady would give scoop a HUGE helmet full of ice cream so I decided to just get one for the boys to share. It worked out just fine with Tim did eating most of it:
Late in the game, I took the following panorama from our seats in section 109, row 32:
And then all of us headed over toward the 3B dugout. We've only ever got one umpire baseball at Safeco Field. There seemed to be some open seats around the umpires' tunnel so we decided to give it a go.
We watched Shawn Kelley give up a single and then strike out the side in the top of the ninth:
Before the bottom of the ninth inning, Tim, Kellan and I headed down to section 136, row 18:
For some reason, my folks stayed in some seats by the concourse. Kyle Seager led off the bottom of the ninth with a single. With Seager waiting on first base, we had a great view of John Jaso as he and the rest of the Mariners tried to mount a ninth-inning comeback:
This was the third time we'd seen the Rays play in 2012 and they had lost the both of the previous games on walk-off homeruns by the hometeam (Jarrod Saltalamacchia for the Red Sox and Jim Thome for the Phillies) so I had high hopes in the bottom of the ninth.
But it wasn't meant to be. Jaso struck out, Jesus Montero grounded out, and then Trayvon Robins stuck out to end the game.
Getting an umpire ball also was not meant to be.
But, hey, a great post game family photo was mean to be:
And then we headed toward the gates:
On our walk to the car, we discussed how hilarious it was that during the whole game not a single Mariners employee stopped to ask me why I had a Safeco Field seatback strapped to my backpack.
Well, despite the loss, it was a great night and great to be back at Safeco Field sharing some quality time with family and the Mariners.
2012 C&S Fan Stats
|18/16 Games (Tim/Kellan)
|18/17 Teams – Tim – Mariners, Rockies, Phillies, Mets, Marlins, Athletics, Orioles, Nationals, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Twins, Cubs, Cardinals, Royals, Red Sox, Rays, Pirates, Braves; Kellan – Mariners, Rockies, Marlins, Nationals, Athletics, Orioles, Mets, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Twins, Cubs, Cardinals, Royals, Red Sox, Rays, Pirates, Braves
|27 Ice Cream Helmet(s) – Mariners 1, Phillies 2, Orioles 5, Mets 2, Twins 2, Cardinals 3, Royals 2, Rockies 3, Red Sox 2, Pirates 3, Nationals 2
|1 Ice Cream Glove! – Nationals
|99 Baseballs – Mariners 16, Marlins 4, Mets 8, Nationals 4, Phillies 5, Umpires 6, Orioles 13, Athletics 2, Diamondbacks 4, Blue Jays 1, Twins 1, Cubs 7, Cardinals 1, Royals 6, Red Sox 6, Rays 8, Pirates 3, Rockies 2, Braves 1
|17 Commemorative Baseball(s) – Marlins Park, Mets 50th Anniversary 2, Camden Yards 9, Dodger Stadium 4, Fenway Park 1
|11/10 Stadiums – Tim – Safeco Field, Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Camden Yards, Citi Field, Target Field, Busch Stadium, Kauffman Stadium, Coors Field, Fenway Park, PNC Park; Kellan – Safeco Field, Nationals Park, Camden Yards, Citi Field, Target Field, Busch Stadium, Kauffman Stadium, Coors Field, Fenway Park, PNC Park7/1 Mascots Photos – Tim – Mariners Moose, Sluggerrr, Teddy Roosevelt, Abe Lincoln, George Washington, Oriole Bird (2); Kellan – Fredbird
|6/2 Player Photos – Tim – Ricky Bones, Willie Bloomquist, Jeremy Guthrie, Evan Scribner, Stephen Pryor, Shawn Kelley; Kellan – Willie Bloomquist, Stephen Pryor
|2 Batting Gloves – Ronnie Deck
|9 Autographs – Willie Bloomquist 2, Tim Byrdak, Brian Roberts, Munenori Kawasaki, Evan Scribner, Felix Hernandez, Shawn Kelley, Steven Pryor, Josh Kinney
A Fun Day But Tough Mariners Loss in Baltimore (8/6/2012)
August 6, 2012 marked our only Mariners game at Camden Yards of the season. So we had to make the most of it. We arrived in plenty of time, got out tickets, and waited for those gates to open up and let us at our Mariners:
When we made our way into the stadium, the Orioles were hitting and our Mariners were stretching in front of their dugout. So that's where we headed. As we approached the dugout, Stephen Pryor was walking down the line a bit to throw his glove in the grass outside of the *stretch zone* — I asked and he happily agreed to pose for this picture with the boys:
I think Kellan's face in that picture is hilarious. He simply refused to smile at the time. He does that at times.
We were safely out of foul ball zone so I could let down my *don't hit my boys* guard. But moments after that picture with Pryor, an Orioles batter ripped a foul ball off of a protective net and it bounced over to the warning track and rolled to a stop just below us. I reached over and grabbed it.
Thank you, very much, Orioles batter and lucky ricochet!
Then we headed above the dugout and watched our guys chat with each other…
…and then go through their stretching routine.
As the stretching began to wind down, I decided we should head down the LF line so we could claim a nice spot (among the 10 fans over there in foul territory) to watch the M's play catch. As we started walking down the line, I saw that Jason Phillips was standing on the foul warning track chatting with some guy (a non-uniformed Mariners employee). As we were walking, Phillips looked up and saw us and he walked over to the bag of baseballs and grabbed one.
Phillips was deep in conversation when we reached Phillips, but he walked over and set the baseball in Tim's glove.
Thanks, Jason!
Since he was deep in conversation, we didn't wait around to chat with Phillips. We just continued down the line. We stopped about one section in from the foul pole and an Oriole immediately hit a baseball foul right behind us. It trickled down the stairs right to us.
With Ichiro no longer on the team, King Felix is by far Tim's new favorite Mariner. At this game, he was sporting his white "Hernandez" t-shirt jersey that the Mariners gave my folks when they were invited to a game in the owners' suite earlier in the season. As all of the players made their way down the line, they stopped about 2-3 sections down from us and gathered around Phillips.
I pointed out Felix to Tim and Tim screamed, "Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, FEEEEELIX!" Felix turned around and said "hi" and waved at Tim. He then looked back-and-forth like he was searching for something. He was. It was the baseball bag. He went over, grabbed a ball, and launched a arching pop fly in Tim's direction. Tim tried to navigate the seats in the first row, but the ball fell one seat short. No catch, but Tim easily picked up the commemorative Orioles Park baseball from the folded seat.
Thanks, Felix!!!
Moments later, Felix started signing autographs. We scooted over to the small gathering of people around Felix. I was holding Kellan but another fan helped guide time right into the thick of the group…
…(you can see his hat just under the arms of the guy in the royal blue shirt) and King Felix stepped back from the group to get an extra good hold on the ball as he put a beautiful signature right on the sweet spot of the baseball he had just tossed to Tim.
Thanks, again, Felix! (And congrats again on the Perfecto!)
On our drive home, Tim was looking at the Felix autograph while chatting on the phone with his mommy and explaining the autograph. He said something hilarious: "Felix's autograph is so cool. It's part signature and part letters! You know how most autographs are just scribbles like a signature? Well, this is both signature and letters!!!" (That's a paraphrase, by the way).
Once the Mariners started playing catch, we stationed ourselves between Oliver Perez and Shawn Kelley:
Perez was playing catch with King Felix while Kelley played catch with Lucas Luetge.
This was some of the coolest *catch watching* in which we have ever participated. Perez, who apparently has a crazy-strong arm, and Felix were playing long toss and Felix just kept scooting back-and-back-and-back. Eventually, Perez threw a homerun over the CF fence and into the batters' eye. The grass in the batters' eye is elevated so Felix was able to see Perez when he went up to retrieve the ball. So Perez and Felix ended up playing catch from the batters' eye to the LF warning track for a minute or two. It was mighty impressive!
When Felix came back into CF it got even more interesting. Felix nearly threw a ball into the seats. Perez had to drift all the way back to the wall and reach up to get the ball. Then, Felix threw a ball about one full section to our right. It was definitely going into the stands. I raced over there and there was zero doubt in my mind that I was going to catch it. The throw was so offline and high that it didn't seem like Perez was even going for it. But then, as I reached up to make the easy catch at head level, Perez came flying in and made a running/jumping catch about one foot in front of my glove!
The whole thing was a ton of fun to watch.
Felix and Perez finished with some shorter harder throwing:
And then Felix came over to the wall and started signing autographs again. Tim really wanted to get his picture with Felix, but there were too many people at this point gathered around trying to get an autograph. So we backed away from the scene…and got rewarded for it. As Felix signed autographs, Perez slowly walked toward the dugout. Tim was just goofing off minding his own business in the front row when Perez walked up behind him and handed over the highly entertaining Perez-King Felix warm up baseball. Awesome!
Thanks, Oliver!
While all of this was going on with Felix and Perez, I had also been communicating a bit with Shawn Kelley. Kelley seems to be a super cool guy, a great dad and a big fan of kids. And if you follow him on Twitter, you'll see he's pretty funny too.
Well, my goal was to get a picture of him with the boys. At times while players warm up, you can make eye contact or get in a word or two without disturbing their process. I used these little breaks in the action to ask Kelley if the boys could get a picture with him after he was done warming up.
It was funny because he kept motioning like, "You want my autograph?" And I would respond, "That would be cool too, but I really want a picture with you."
Then, wouldn't you know it, Kellan fell down and scraped his knee a bit (he does this all the time) right as Kelley wrapped up his throwing. Kelley still thought we were asking for an autograph. But all of our baseballs were put away and I didn't feel like pulling one out. I really just wanted a picture of him and the boys. Because of the sniffling due to the scraped knee, the picture ended up being just Tim and Shawn:
Probably also due to the sniffling from the scraped knees, before leaving Shawn reached out and handed his warm up baseball to Kellan. And it actually did the trick perfectly! Kellan loves when he gets a baseball. His eyes lit up and he yelled, "Baseball!"
And, hey, it was an Orioles Park commemorative (as was the Perez-Felix warm up baseball!)
Double thanks, Shawn! Keep up the good work!
Once all of the pitchers were finished playing catch, we decided to head out to LCF by the bullpens. Blake Beavan was out there and he decided to toss us this:
While out by the bullpen, Kellan and I were hanging out in one row and Tim was sitting right in front of me. We spend most of our BP time in foul territory so we catch very few homerun balls. In fact, I'm pretty sure the last time I caught a BP homerun on the fly at Camden Yards was in 2004 before Tim was born. Well, it is time to reset that clock. Now, it has been since August 6, 2012.
A Mariner took a mighty hack and hit a screaming liner right to me. Here is a reenactment of where I caught it, right above Tim's head:
Yeah, he was busy eating a Nature Valley bar at the time.
That was it for BP. Time to hit the kids' play area. We cut through the cross aisle around home plate and had an usher take our picture on the way:
After a vigorous bouncy house session, Tim and Kellan played on the too high and dangerous play fort…
…and then Tim did some pitching:
As Tim was unleashing his fastball fury, a fan walked by and yelled something like, "Looking good, King Felix!!!"
After the boys did some playing, we headed over to the bullpen to watch Jason Vargas warm up for the game:
He was looking pretty good. And he had just been named A.L. Pitcher of the Month for July. So I was hoping for good things from him in this game.
Once again (this is becoming the norm this season), Tim requested to do the old switcheroo – ice cream first, dinner second. So we did. We grabbed some ice cream helmets and found some seats in (approximately) section 62:
But something was amiss. Kellan wanted nothing to do with his ice cream. Instead, he just wanted to get out of those seats ASAP:
In that picture, he is trying to squeeze by me into the aisle. He screamed throughout the national anthem. I knew we couldn't stay there. Oddly enough, he calmed down the second we left this section.
We moved to some nearby handicapped accessible seats in the cross aisle…
…and, instantly, Kellan's screaming turned to smiles:
But he still didn't want his ice cream. So, as Dustin Ackley led off the game for the Mariners…
…, I took one for the team and ate Kellan's ice cream.
The Mariners failed to score in the first. Then it was Vargas's turn:
Although he gave up two hits (including a double), he also got through the first inning unscathed.
Unfortunately, Chris Tillman kept retiring Mariners batters while Vargas gave up three runs in the bottom of the second. They were the only runs Vargas would give up over eight otherwise strong innings of work. But the Mariners just weren't hitting.
We followed ice cream with a tasty pizza dinner:
I can't remember who the batter was, but one piece of excitement was when one of the Orioles hit a single into LF and his bat traveled almost as far as the baseball. Here is Kyle Seager retrieving the barrel of the bat from shallow LF:
While we were still eating our pizza, the Oriole Bird wandered by on his way to deliver some birthday wishes to several fans. He stopped to pose for a picture with Tim (and his pizza crust):
Kellan kept a watchful eye on the big, scary Bird:
When the Bird wandered by again, after delivering a gift bag to a second birthday celebrating fan, Tim went over to say hi again and the Bird swiped the hat right off of Tim's head…
…and proceeded to munch on it in his big beaked mouth. Tim got a great kick out of the Bird's antics.
In the fifth inning, Camden Yards regular Matt Hersl stopped by to say hi. He also asked me, "is it too early to mention the no hitter?" Indeed, Chris Tillman was throwing a no-no at the time. I quickly responded, "No, Tillman is throwing a no hitter!!!"
That did the trick: Mike Carp came up moments later and rapped the first Mariners hit of the night into LF.
Matt also mentioned that a guy who he described as "Alex from Seattle" was looking for me. I had no clue who that was. But we were soon pleasantly surprised when Alex "Not from Seattle but wearing a Mariners t-shirt" Kopp approached.
We last saw Alex at PNC Park on June 9th (for MyGameBalls.com's Ballhawkfest 2012). Since then, Alex has started his first job out of college. It was great to catch up with Alex for an inning or two…during which Alex had a great (but unsuccessful) chance at catching his first ever game foul ball. Don't worry, the next day he would catch a Nick Markakis game homerun on the fly in the flag court).
Around the sixth inning, we witnessed one of the worst scenes we've ever witnessed at a ball park. It looked sort of like this:
Here's what happened. We ran over to the moon bounce for a second round of bouncing. Some kids were in the bounce so we had to stand in line. I was holding Kellan and getting him ready (taking his shoes off) when they started letting the next group of kids into the moon bounce. Tim ran up and jumped into the moon bounce. Right as I started to approach with Kellan, a 45-ish year old dad with a 4-ish year old son walked up and asked the moon bounce attendants to call for help. The sat down on the corner of the moon bounce mat, about 2 feet in front of us, and the kid's head was bleeding like crazy. You can see the dad in the blue shirt and orange hat on the right side of the photo above, with blood all around them on the ground.
My mom was an ICU nurse and she tells me that head wounds bleed a lot. But, man, I've never seen anything like this. The kid was drenched in blood. My first instinct was to shield Kellan from seeing what was going on. Another Mariners fan was standing right there (in the hot and sweaty evening air) and he freaked out (in a good way). He ripped off his (no doubt sweaty) shirt and tried to give it to the dad to wipe up the kids' blood. The dad was very thankful but declined because he had something of his own to clean up the kid.
I have no clue what happened to the kid. My first thought was that he fell off of the terribly dangerous looking and tall play set, but I didn't see any blood on the ground over there.
All sorts of cops and security people ran over. The dad did a great job comforting his boy and calling for more help.
Meanwhile, Tim was bouncing in the moon bounce and I circled around the side so Kellan wouldn't see too much of what was going on. All of a sudden, a 30-ish year old lady took a backwards dive right onto the cement. Someone yelled that she was having a seizure, but she was not moving at all. My guess is that she passed out from watching the kid with the bloody head. Whatever happened, she wasn't moving at all. She no doubt bashed her head hard of the cement when she fell. Her daughter (shown on the far left sitting on the ground wearing pink) started to totally freak out.
The lady seemed to be with some other people who started to tend to her. They all called for more help and scream out for another ambulance (the dad had already asked for one for the boy).
Just then, they let the kids out of the moon bounce. The bloody kid was practically sitting on Tim's shoes so he had to go right up to the dad and kid to get them. Actually, you can see Tim's hat directly above the dad's orange hat as he is grabbing his shoes. Once he ran over to me and put on his shoes, I got my boys out of there as fast as humanly possible.
There was bad mojo in the air and I wanted none of it. I have no clue why that cop appears to be smiling/laughing for my camera. It was a very serious and unpleasant scene. It might just be a bad picture and he wasn't really smiling. Who knows.
We got out of there and headed back to the cross-aisle:
Soon, we headed behind home plate. The Mariners were still losing 3-0. They did eventually score one run in the 8th inning and they definitely had opportunities to score a second and third run, but they just couldn't do it.
We headed behind the dugout in the cross-aisle to watch the 8th and 9th innings. Interestingly enough, the usher at the top wouldn't let us stand in the cross aisle (that's a new one on me at Camden Yards), instead she *made us* sit in the fancy seats behind the home plate end of the dugout:
Okay, usher. If you insist!
I took a bunch of unimpressive action shots as the Mariners tried unsuccessfully to tie up the score.
Seager hit a 1-out single in the top of the ninth:
At this point, a homerun would have tied up the score.
Mike Carp grounded out sending Seager to 2B:
Casper Wells hit a weak grounder for an infield single:
Now, with two outs, a homerun would have put the Mariners ahead and a gapped would have probably at tied it.
But, as I mentioned, it wasn't to be. Eric Thames (not on this pitch) grounded into a game ending fielder's choice:
That sent out Mariners in-person season record to 2-1. Alas, no undefeated Mariners season for us in 2012.
After the game, an usher took our picture behind the Mariners dugout:
And one our way out of the stadium, I took this panorama from right next to the batters' eye:
Thankfully, our next three games would feature the Mariners at Safeco Field. Hooray!
2012 C&S Fan Stats
|17/15 Games (Tim/Kellan)
|18/17 Teams – Tim – Mariners, Rockies, Phillies, Mets, Marlins, Athletics, Orioles, Nationals, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Twins, Cubs, Cardinals, Royals, Red Sox, Rays, Pirates, Braves; Kellan – Mariners, Rockies, Marlins, Nationals, Athletics, Orioles, Mets, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Twins, Cubs, Cardinals, Royals, Red Sox, Rays, Pirates, Braves
|26 Ice Cream Helmet(s) – Phillies 2, Orioles 5, Mets 2, Twins 2, Cardinals 3, Royals 2, Rockies 3, Red Sox 2, Pirates 3, Nationals 2
|1 Ice Cream Glove! – Nationals
|95 Baseballs – Mariners 15, Marlins 4, Mets 8, Nationals 4, Phillies 5, Umpires 6, Orioles 13, Athletics 2, Diamondbacks 4, Blue Jays 1, Twins 1, Cubs 7, Cardinals 1, Royals 6, Red Sox 6, Rays 6, Pirates 3, Rockies 2, Braves 1
|17 Commemorative Baseball(s) – Marlins Park, Mets 50th Anniversary 2, Camden Yards 9, Dodger Stadium 4, Fenway Park 1
|10/9 Stadiums – Tim – Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Camden Yards, Citi Field, Target Field, Busch Stadium, Kauffman Stadium, Coors Field, Fenway Park, PNC Park; Kellan – Nationals Park, Camden Yards, Citi Field, Target Field, Busch Stadium, Kauffman Stadium, Coors Field, Fenway Park, PNC Park6/1 Mascots Photos – Tim – Sluggerrr, Teddy Roosevelt, Abe Lincoln, George Washington, Oriole Bird (2); Kellan – Fredbird
|6/2 Player Photos – Tim – Ricky Bones, Willie Bloomquist, Jeremy Guthrie, Evan Scribner, Stephen Pryor, Shawn Kelley; Kellan – Willie Bloomquist, Stephen Pryor
|2 Batting Gloves – Ronnie Deck
|6 Autographs – Willie Bloomquist 2, Tim Byrdak, Brian Roberts, Munenori Kawasaki, Evan Scribner, Felix Hernandez
Bonus Picture: Tim likes to pose with the many Orioles signs all over the place at Camden Yards:
A's at O's – Round 2 (7/28/2012)
We usually go to 5-6 games each season at Camden Yards. It is usually the one stadium we visit the most during the course of any season. Yet, in 2012, we somehow made it to the last weekend of July before going back for only our second game of the season at Camden Yards. It took several plans to fall through for this to happen. But on July 28, 2012, we finally made it back!
Just like our first Camden Yards game of 2012, this game featured a showdown between the Oakland Athletics and Baltimore Orioles. It also featured the possibility of reaching two personal milestones. We have had 49 Camden Yards baseballs on our resume for the last several months. Our next baseball at Camden Yards would be our 50th! And, if we could manage to get two baseballs, our second would be our 300 baseball since Tim's first game! We had hit the 100 mark on 9/12/10 at Nationals Park and the 200 mark on 9/12/11 at Camden Yards. So if we did it, it would be the first time we'd hit a hundred mark on a date other than September 12th!
So let's get to the action. Tim collects pictures with fire hydrants and he'd never got one at Camden Yards. On our way to the CF gate, we found two fire hydrants about 20 feet apart…
…just across from the ballpark. I don't know if I've ever seen two fire hydrants so close together before. It is Tim's first 2-hydrant picture!
Before the gates opened, we met up with Avi, homerun catching machine Tim Anderson, and A's superfan Rick Gold. After chatting a few minutes, the gates opened and we all made out way to LF. While the rest of the guys stayed in LF, Tim, Kellan and I swung around to the shady seats in foul territory.
I've never really noticed it before (and somehow didn't get a picture of it), but the front row by the LF foul pole is perfect if you want to watch BP with a little kid. The last seat at the end of the front row is pivoted toward home plate and rests up against the brick wall. The result is that there are 5-6 seats in the front row that open from the aisle and then dead-end into the last seat so we were able to trap Kellan in there He could walk back and forth between a couple seats, but Tim blocked the way to the aisle and the end seat blocked the other way. It was, indeed, perfect.
When we arrived down the LF line, the O's were hitting and a single Athletic was pitching to a catcher along the LF foul line. There were almost no fans in foul territory other than 4-5 people standing behind the A's catcher.
When the A's pitcher wrapped up, he tossed his baseball to one of the people standing behind the catcher. Then he grabbed another ball and threw it to another one of the people standing behind the catcher. Then he walked over there, I assume to sign autographs.
Meanwhile, former-Mariner Chris Tillman sauntered over to grab a ball hit down the line. Avi swooped in to advice, "That's Chris Tillman!" Thanks to Avi's advice, we were able properly to ask Tillman for…
…our life-time (Tim's lifetime, not mine) baseball at Camden Yards!
Thanks, Chris!
Tillman tossed the ball to Tim, but threw it a bit too high. So it went over his head and Tim had to grab it on the bounce/roll.
Kellan was all set to make a play of his own:
With one milestone in the books, we turned our sights toward our 300th lifetime (again, Tim's lifetime, not mine) baseball. It didn't take too long. An Orioles batter laced a liner down the line. It took one hop on the bouncy warning track, I reached high over Tim's head and gloved the ball easily:
In that last picture, can you see the fan sitting closest to us behind my glove. He's wearing shorts, a grey shirt and a green hat. See him? At one point, he wandered over and started chatting with me. He came over seemingly to verify that we were really Mariners fans and ask why a family of Mariners fans was at an Orioles/Athletics game.
Figuring he was a lifelong A's fan, I mentioned something about the Oakland Coliseum, and he surprised me by mentioning that he had "not been there yet." Turns out he wasn't a lifelong A's fan. He was a lifelong Yankees fan, "but my son Evan pitches for the A's."
I was like, "What!? Whose your son?"
Then he pointed over to that group fans that had been standing behind the A's catcher. And there was a Major Leaguer sitting in the front row chatting with his family! Actually, if you look in most of the pictures above, you will find A's pitcher Evan Scribner sitting in the seats.
I asked Evan's dad if Tim could get his picture with Evan because "he's never had his picture with a Major Leaguer in the stands!" Mr. Scribner was all, "Oh, sure! No problem." We walked over and Mr. Scribner made some introductions and then Tim cozied up with Evan for this outstanding picture:
That's Evan's brother sitting next to him in the red hat. I believe they said he's pitching in high school still…although, maybe they said college. But the best part of it in my opinion (well, aside from the simple fact that it is a picture with a Major Leaguer sitting where the fans are supposed to sit) is the big smile beaming from Evan's grandma's face. She looks so thrilled to see some random kid wanting to get his picture with her grandson. Pretty awesome, in my book.
I mentioned to Evan that I was sorry to intrude but we really wanted a picture with a player sitting in the stands. He explained that the on-field usher yelled at him for sitting on the short brick wall and told him he had to sit in the stands if he wanted to sit down. That's pretty hilarious. Evan possibly met up with the strictest usher at Camden Yards, where people are generally allowed to sitting anywhere they want to sit.
Whenever we're at Camden Yards during BP, Tim eventually notices that Avi is in the outfield and decides that he wants to go out there too. I like to stay in foul territory as much as possible where it is less likely that one of the boys will get beaned by a BP hit. But we decided to move just a section or two around the foul pole into fair territory to hang out with Avi.
Turns out it was a good decision. Someone hit a baseball down the line that rolled to a stop below us. Avi let us know that the guy coming to retrieve the baseball was Zach Britton, and Avi's advice turned into this:
Britton flipped the ball up to Tim and he made a great snow cone catch. The picture on the right is Tim's actual reaction as he is turning around to show me that he snow coned it. The picture above to the left shows Britton walking back to his group of BP mates as Tim reenacts his catch.
The way Tim caught the baseball, Avi and I could both see the Camden Yards commemorative logo hanging out of the top of Tim's glove. It was a really clean and nice commemorative baseball.
Thanks, Zach!
Then we quickly had an excuse to head back to foul territory: Yoenis Cespedes was signing autographs along the foul line.
We scurried over there with a baseball and pen in Tim's hands ready for a signature, but it wasn't in the cards. Tim was trailing right behind Yoenis as he made his way toward home plate. It's a bad place to be and it resulted in no Cespedes signature. But, I did get a cool Cespedes-based picture:
After Cespedes stopped signing he grabbed his glove (while I was still in the process of taking close-ups of it) and ran out to LF to work on his fielding. We headed back to our little dead-end front row…
…and watched Cespedes make a circus catch behind his back:
Cespedes had stopped signing autographers essentially at the same time that the teams switched spots on the field. Now the A's were taking BP. All the A's were running around doing there BP-thing, except for Evan Scribner. Scribner literally spent the entire O's and entire A's BP chatting with his family. Except there was one difference, during O's BP the O's relievers were shagging the balls hit down into the LF corner. During A's BP, the A's didn't put anyone in LF. So Scribner jumped out of the crowd and ran over and shagged every single baseball that was hit down the LF line, and he tossed EVERY SINGLE BASEBALL into the crowd. It was pretty amazing.
Here is one of those baseballs…
…and Scribner signing it about 5 minutes after tossing it to Tim.
Sribner tossed this baseball to Tim from probably 30-40 feet away and Tim made a great lunging catch on it. A few minutes later, Scribner ran into the LF corner to retrieve a baseball that hit the foul pole and came to a rest just below it on the LF grass. After he tossed that baseball into the OF seats, he walked back to his family. On his way by, I asked him if he would sign the baseball that he tossed to Tim. He agreed and then a hilarious little conversation occurred wherein Tim enthusiastically told Scribner that he had caught the baseball he was getting signed, and Scribner replied, "I know! I saw it!" and I added in, "He threw it to you, Tim!" And Tim was like, "oh." Maybe you had to be there, but it was pretty funny.
Thanks, Evan!
Soon, we decided to move back 15-20 rows and away from the field so Tim we could take some pictures of the ballpark (and the local birds):
While we were hanging out there, a guy named Mike stopped by and said he recognized us from our blog. It's always cool to meet someone how has enjoyed reading about our baseball adventures.
I asked Tim to try to take a nice picture of me and Kellan and this was the (very frustrating to Tim) result:
He was all set to click his shutter when someone launched a deep homerun over us. I reacted by flinching and following the flight of the ball, and Kellan did whatever that is he is doing there. The whole thing was very dissatisfying to Tim, the aspiring photographer.
When BP wrapped up, we did some wandering. We wandered over to the picnic area behind the bullpens and checked out the new statues:
Then we watched some warm-up action in the bullpens:
And Orioles coach Bill Conrad came over and tossed a ball to me for Kellan:
Kellan was on my shoulders at the time. After I caught it, I put him on the ground and handed him the ball. He walked over to bullpen fence while Conrad did the same. As you can see above, Kellan was holding the baseball in his left hand. Conrad asked if he's left handed. When I said, "no." Conrad told me that I ought to teach him to be left handed.
Next, we decided to head to the play area. But on our way, we took a detour up to the new bar area above the batters' eye. We'd never checked it out up there yet. It is pretty cool:
As you can see in the bottom right picture above, there are two rows of stool seating at the front of the batters' eye bar. I took this panorama from the SRO area directly behind the second row:
After we headed down the stairs from the batters' eye bar, we ducked into the CF seats to watch the first pitch:
And then we walked through the revamped flag court on our way to the play area:
I wanted to get a good action shot from the flag court, but the best I could do was this pitch out to Seth Smith while Jemile Weeks did not try to swipe 2B:
And, finally, much to Tim's relief, we made it to the kids' play area. First up, a picture with the very cool looking Orioles pig:
Tim took a few hacks in one of the cages:
Kellan inspected one of the big Oriole bobbleheads while Tim argued with the bird like he was an umpire:
And then it was time to do some bouncing…
…and playing on the way-too-tall-and-dangerous play fort before heading off to get some ice cream.
A nice usher let us sit in some great handicap accessible seats right behind home plate while the boys ate their ice cream:
This was the view as Bartolo Colon set down the Orioles in order in the bottom of the second inning:
After the boys polished off their ice cream, we headed out to LF for a while. This was our view as we looked at the field:
And this was our view when we looked away from the field:
Of course, those fellas are Baltimore's own Avi Miller and Tim Anderson. Tim told me on the drive down to Baltimore that he was going to take a self-portrait of himself and Avi. Mission accomplished.
The A's started the scoring for the night in the top of the fourth inning on a 2-run blast by Yoenis Cespedes…
…who was stationed just to our right during the bottom half of the innings we spent out in LF.
By Tim's request, we pulled the "old switcheroo" – desert first followed by a late dinner. Ice cream was a success. Now it was time for dinner. We decided on pizza. Avi gave us directions to the closest pizza stand. Once we grabbed our slices, we headed to the back row of the upper deck to eat:
This was our view from up there:
I got a great picture of Cespedes hitting a ball and breaking his bat:
At the time, the score was 3-0 A's. The very next batter was Chris Carter, and he blasted a homerun to LF. We could clearly see Avi and Tim Anderson from up top, and I could tell that Tim gave chase to the homerun and ended up lunging over some seats to make an attempt at it. I couldn't tell if he had gotten the ball or not. He didn't.
Carter's homerun made the score 5-0 A's.
Before leaving the upper deck, I took some funny self-portraits of the three of us:
While we were up in the upper deck (and the A's led 3-0), Chris Carter blasted a homerun to LF. We could clearly see Avi and Tim Anderson from up top, and I could tell that Tim gave chase to the homerun and ended up lunging over some seats to make an attempt at it. I couldn't tell if he had gotten the ball or not. He didn't.
Carter's homerun made the score 5-0 A's.
We decided to head back to the play area before it closed down in the 7th inning. I noticed something cool on the way down the stairs in the RF foul corner:
When we got back to the play area, the boys did a little bit more bouncing in the moon bounce and got a picture with another Orioles bobblehead:
Then we headed back behind home plate and ran into the Oriole Bird:
I tried to get Kellan to pose with the Bird too, but he was too scared of the big smiley Bird.
We were going to hang out in the cross aisle behind home plate for a while. But an usher didn't want us standing there, so she made us sit down in the fancy seats behind home plate.
Okay, I guess so, if you say we must!
The boys had lots of fun clowning around in the seats:
We repositioned again in the 9th inning. And look who was pitching for the A's:
It was Evan Scribner.
He pitched well, except for giving up a homerun to Nick Markakis:
The A's ended up winning the game 6-1.
At the end of the game, we got in perfect position for an umpire baseball attempt. But the ump turn the other way and gave out all of his baseballs to kids on the other side of the tunnel before heading out of the field area.
We decided to head over to the Orioles dugout and one of the Orioles relievers ended up tossing an commemorative baseball to us. Don't know who it was, but
Thanks, Oriole-guy!
Once all of the action on the field was finished, an usher took a picture of me and the boys before we headed out of the ballpark:
It's always great to spend an afternoon and evening at Camden Yards. Luckily, we'd be back soon. The very next week our Mariners would be stopped through Camden Yards for three games, and we planned to attend one of them.
2012 C&S Fan Stats
|16/14 Games (Tim/Kellan)
|18/17 Teams – Tim – Mariners, Rockies, Phillies, Mets, Marlins, Athletics, Orioles, Nationals, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Twins, Cubs, Cardinals, Royals, Red Sox, Rays, Pirates, Braves; Kellan – Mariners, Rockies, Marlins, Nationals, Athletics, Orioles, Mets, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Twins, Cubs, Cardinals, Royals, Red Sox, Rays, Pirates, Braves
|24 Ice Cream Helmet(s) – Phillies 2, Orioles 3, Mets 2, Twins 2, Cardinals 3, Royals 2, Rockies 3, Red Sox 2, Pirates 3, Nationals 2
|1 Ice Cream Glove! – Nationals
|87 Baseballs – Mariners 9, Marlins 4, Mets 8, Nationals 4, Phillies 5, Umpires 6, Orioles 11, Athletics 2, Diamondbacks 4, Blue Jays 1, Twins 1, Cubs 7, Cardinals 1, Royals 6, Red Sox 6, Rays 6, Pirates 3, Rockies 2, Braves 1
|14 Commemorative Baseball(s) – Marlins Park, Mets 50th Anniversary 2, Camden Yards 6, Dodger Stadium 4, Fenway Park 1
|10/9 Stadiums – Tim – Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Camden Yards, Citi Field, Target Field, Busch Stadium, Kauffman Stadium, Coors Field, Fenway Park, PNC Park; Kellan – Nationals Park, Camden Yards, Citi Field, Target Field, Busch Stadium, Kauffman Stadium, Coors Field, Fenway Park, PNC Park5/1 Mascots Photos – Tim – Sluggerrr, Teddy Roosevelt, Abe Lincoln, George Washington, Oriole Bird; Kellan – Fredbird
|4/1 Player Photos – Tim – Ricky Bones, Willie Bloomquist, Jeremy Guthrie, Evan Scribner; Kellan – Willie Bloomquist
|2 Batting Gloves – Ronnie Deck
|6 Autographs – Willie Bloomquist 2, Tim Byrdak, Brian Roberts, Munenori Kawasaki, Evan Scribner
2012 Cook GFS Game 6 – Mariners vs. Rockies (5/19/12)
On May 19, 2012, we headed back to Coors Field on a grey and drizzly morning for the sixth and final game of the 2012 Cook Grandfather-Father-Son Baseball Roadtrip.
When we headed into the ballpark, it felt like only about 10 other fans joined us. And there was no one on the field. The tarp was out. The batting cage was nowhere to be found. There would be no BP to speak of.
Luckily, we did not have to wait too long for some on field entertainment. Pretty quickly, the Mariners pitching corps popped out of the dugout and headed to the CF grass next to the visitors' bullpen.
As the Mariners pitchers stretched and chatted amongst themselves…
…Kellan and I were the only fans in the front row section. There were a couple fans above us in the bleachers. The only other people in the front row were my dad, Tim, Dan and Emily, and they were chatting amongst themselves over in LF at Dan's seats:
This was our view out in CF:
When the Mariners paired up and started playing catch, the closest Mariners to us were Hisashi Iwakuma (along the warning track in RCF) and Brandon League (in the CF grass):
While the M's played catch on the field, Kellan pushed his stroller around, stomped in puddles, and just hung out and watched the action on the field:
Eventually, League short hopped Kuma with a hard throw. The ball trickled past Kuma and was scooped up by his interpreter. Kuma pulled a second baseball out of his pocket and he and League played catch for a few more minutes.
Once they finished playing catch, League tossed the ball they were using to a guy in the bleachers behind us. League then motioned to Kuma's interpreter for their original warm up ball. He tossed that ball to us, and it was a Dodger Stadium commemorative ball!
Thanks, Brandon!
After getting the baseball from Brandon, Kellan and I stayed put for a few minutes. But when I looked back over to LF, Dan gave a big *come over here* wave. When Kellan and I reached Dan's seats, he introduced me to a guy from mlb.com who said he wanted to interview me about our Roadtrip. He ended up shooting a five minute video interview (during which I felt like I was continually looking off camera to check on Tim and Kellan who were running back-and-forth). I've never seen that video turn up anywhere. But later the same day of the game, the following blurb popped up on MLB.com's Cut4 page:
When the interview wrapped up, the only Mariners still playing catch were Tom Wilhelmson and Charlie Furbush. And they were playing extreme-long-toss – from the LF foul line to the RF warning track.
When they finished up and started to walk off…
…, one of them (I think Furbush) tossed the baseball to my dad…actually, he completely air mailed him, but it stayed in the front row where we were the only fans who could get to it. It was also a Dodger Stadium commemorative baseball, my dad's second!
Once Furbush and Wilhelmson wrapped up their long-toss show, there was absolutely nothing happening on the field. So we just hung out for a bit and watched Felix and Brandon League…
…get in some work in the bullpen.
Eventually, Munenori Kawasaki and Anthony Suzuki (Ichiro's interpreter) started playing two person pepper along the LF line:
Tim, Kellan and I headed over there to watch since nothing else was happening. After playing some pepper, Muni ran some sprints. Check out those fancy shoes he is wearing.
When he wrapped up the running, Muni and Anthony started walking back to the dugout, and all of the fans hanging out down the line were completely silent…except us.
I called out a simple, "Hey, Muni!" He looked over and then did an exaggerated backspin to crow-hop before gentling tossing one of the two baseballs he'd been using to us.
Thanks, Muni!
After he tossed the baseball to us, another fan got brave and asked for an autograph. He ended up coming over and signing a bunch of autographs, including signing the baseball he'd just thrown to us:
I've thought for a while that it would be cool to get a Japan-born Major Leaguer to sign a baseball in Japanese (Iwakuma did this for my dad at spring training). So, as Tim handed the baseball to Muni, I asked if he would sign in Japanese. He responded (essentially), "No Japanese! This is America! Only English!"
No problem, an English Muni-autograph was just fine for us.
Thanks, again, Muni!
My dad was still out in LF and he took this picture of us as we walked back to LF:
Check out all of those fans! Man, it was packed!
It was quiet and peaceful in the stadium. The grounds crew was using the quiet time to tidy up the outfield grass:
We still had a long time until the game was scheduled to start. So we headed over to the Blue Moon Brewery restaurant in the RF foul corner concourse. I had a big, tasty BBQ sandwich…
…but Kellan wouldn't let me simply sit and enjoy it. Instead, while Tim and grandpa hung out at the table, I ate on foot while watching Kellan run up-and-down and up-and-down and up-and-down this ramp:
After lunch, we headed back out to the OF. My took Tim to get some pizza (he didn't want to eat in the Brewery), and Kellan and I checked out the tunnels under the OF bleachers:
We noticed a funny site as the Mariners relievers approached the bullpen before the start of the game:
They had to stop and wait for the band that played the national anthem to finish marching by before they could get to the bullpen.
As the band belted out the national anthem, the boys were ready to get to the baseball:
Rockies pitcher Christian Friedrich's (who is pictured in LF before Tim in the first game picture from our last entry) first pitch to Dustin Ackley was called a ball…
…and we were underway!
I am quite happy to report that this game was all Mariners. And the scoring got underway when Kyle Seager belted a 2-run homerun in the top of the second inning:
With the 2-0 lead in hand, the Mariners never looked back.
Of all the games to which I have taken both boys together, this was by far the easiest because Kellan fell asleep while I was holding him in the first or second inning:
And he just kept on sleeping until THE SIXTH INNING!
For most of that time, Kellan and I sat with Don the Rockpile Ranter and his son, Hunter:
It was great chatting with these guys.
Sadly, I did not get a picture of the "Bring Back Helmer" sign that Hunter periodically held up for the TV cameras. (It looked a whole lot like this).
I hardly took any pictures while sitting there holding Kellan. But I did manage to get a shot of Ichiro out in RF:
And one of Ichiro drilling a line drive toward short stop:
If you click on that picture, you can see the ball just to the left of Ichiro and just barely above his head level. Unfortunately, Tulowitzki made a diving catch on the ball.
But it didn't matter. The Mariners were already piling on the runs. They scored 2 more in the third inning, 1 in the fourth (on a single by Jason Vargas!)…
…, and 4 more in the sixth. That made the score 9-0 Mariners.
Don didn't like the score so much, but I sure did. And Kellan would have too if he was awake.
Eventually, I headed further out toward LCF to see my dad and Tim.
Kellan was still fast asleep, but it was ice cream time for Tim:
Want to see essentially those same exact two pictures again, but this time as one picture? Okay, here you go:
Kellan woke up just in time for Don to catch a Rockies shirt in the T-shirt launch. He ran up into the bleachers to make the grab and he handed the shirt to us on his way back down:
Kellan was mighty satisfied holding it all wrapped up in cellophane. But he was still a little cranky from his nap. When I unwrapped the shirt, Kellan gave me a piece of his mind. Apparently, he wasn't ready to see it unwrapped quite yet.
In the sixth inning, the Rockies brought Eric Young in to play CF as part of a double switch. I took some pictures of the Rockies outfielders, but really I just wanted to show how tiny Eric Young seems to be:
My dad spent most of the game chatting with Rockies regular Robert Harman:
Before this trip, I knew about Robert from the Rockpile Rant and an article Zack Hample wrote about Barry Bonds' final career homerun. Robert was very nice and he and my dad got along swimmingly during the game.
Here are some pictures I took in the tunnel under the bleachers in LCF:
Top left: There is some sort of security office under there, right around the corner from the women's restroom.
Top middle: There was a brief rain shower late in the game. The game wasn't delayed at all, but we hid out for a few minutes in the tunnel where this was our view of the field. We ended up putting our backpacks in the tunnel for the rest of the game to keep dry. It is definitely convenient having your own personal tunnel like this for a game!
Top right: Tim, Emily and Emily's friend played tag in the tunnel. This was just one of the many things they did to entertain themselves in the tunnel. Kellan tried to mix it up with the big kids a bit too.
About 5-10 minutes before the rain, the Rockies scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh inning. The final two runs came on a homerun hit by Wilin Rosario that sailed right over our heads into about the sixth or seventh row of the bleachers behind us. I was hoping it would ricochet back down to us (my Dad had caught a Miguel Olivo BP homer like this the day before and Robert got a Michael Cuddayer game homer like it earlier in the season), but the crowd swallowed it up, never to be seen again by us folks down in the first row.
It was too bad this homerun couldn't have been hit in the eighth inning instead of the seventh, because almost no one was left in the bleachers after the rain…
…and the ball almost certainly would have bounced back down to us.
The Mariners got one run back in the eighth on a passed ball to Kyle Seager that scored Ichiro. That made it 10-3 Mariners, which would hold up to become the final score of the game.
The previous day, I had noticed that Michael Saunders…
…tossed the CF-LF warm up baseball into the crowd in the ninth inning. There were zero fans in the front row out in CF by the batters' eye. So I figured that Kellan and I ought to head over there in the ninth so Saunders would have a target.
It was a solid plan. After finishing his ninth inning warm up tosses with Casper Wells, Saunders turned and threw a strike right to us. Another Dodger Stadium commemorative!
Thanks, Michael!
Sean Kelley and Steve Delabar each pitched a scoreless/hitless inning of relief to cap off the game. Another wonderful Mariners win! That made them 2-0 for us on the season.
After saying our good-byes to Dan and Robert (Don had left during the rain because he feared for his super-nice camera's safety), we got an usher to take our picture:
Then we walked around to home plate…
…and got an usher to retake the family photo the fan had botched the night before:
The key to that picture was that Tim had his foot up on the step above us. He thought this made the picture look very, VERY cool.
Outside the stadium, I got a shot of my three Roadtrip mates outside Coors Field:
And then we headed over to the 15th Street Mall for some dinner.
On our walk back to the hotel, my dad and Tim were locked in battle in a fierce game of "yellow cab" (the objective being to spot as many yellow cabs as possible) when we walked by Coors Field for the final time:
"YELLOW CAB!" (in the foreground) "YELLOW CAB!" (across the street)
The yellow cab battle continued as the fifth installment of the Cook Grandfather-Father-Son Baseball Roadtrip slowly walked down Park Road to our hotel and into the sunset
It was an OUTSTANDING trip.
Let the planning begin for the 2012 GFS Roadtrip!
2012 C&S Fan Stats
|10/9 Games (Tim/Kellan)
|14/13 Teams – Tim – Mariners, Rockies, Phillies, Mets, Marlins, Athletics, Orioles, Nationals, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Twins, Cubs, Cardinals, Royals; Kellan – Mariners, Rockies, Marlins, Nationals, Athletics, Orioles, Mets, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays, Twins, Cubs, Cardinals, Royals
|14 Ice Cream Helmet(s) – Phillies 1, Orioles 1, Mets 2, Twins 2, Cardinals 3, Royals 2, Rockies 3
|51 Baseballs – Mariners 9, Marlins 4, Mets 8, Nationals 1, Phillies 1, Umpires 5, Orioles 6, Athletics 1, Diamondbacks 4, Blue Jays 1, Twins 1, Cubs 7, Cardinals 1, Royals 2
|10 Commemorative Baseball(s) – Marlins Park, Mets 50th Anniversary 2, Camden Yards 3, Dodger Stadium 4
|8/7 Stadiums – Tim – Citizens Bank Park, Nationals Park, Camden Yards, Citi Field, Target Field, Busch Stadium, Kauffman Stadium, Coors Field; Kellan – Nationals Park, Camden Yards, Citi Field, Target Field, Busch Stadium, Kauffman Stadium, Coors Field1/1 Mascots Photos – Tim – Sluggerrr; Kellan – Fredbird
|2/1 Player Photos – Tim – Ricky Bones, Willie Bloomquist; Kellan – Willie Bloomquist
|2 Batting Gloves – Ronnie Deck
|5 Autographs – Willie Bloomquist 2, Tim Byrdak, Brian Roberts, Munenori Kawasaki