Five Games in Four Days

Cold, exhausting, amazing, fun. I did five games in five days last fall and this weekend I was topping it, five games in four days. The weather really got in the way. It was really cold every night game and Citi Field is as cold as Shea used to be. The only game with mild weather was the day game in Washington. The cold was certainly discouraging. I don't know how much that contributed to my exhaustion, but I was definitely exhausted by the fourth day. When I was sitting in the cold at Citi, my 4th stadium in 4 days, I wanted to call it and go someplace warm. But doing that would mean coming back to New York to go to Yankee Stadium. I was there, the game was in a few hours, and I had tickets. That said, I don't know how how anyone can do 30 stadiums in 30 days and enjoy themselves. Sure, if you're doing it for the sake of doing it, I could see trudging on. But I'm doing this for fun, not just to do it.

It was also amazing. Everyone I met at the ballpark was super nice, because everyone is a good person at the ballpark. That's a fact. And they all were envious of my 30 stadium quest. And there's something cool about knowing that the only thing I have to do is get to the next city and the next stadium. I love baseball and enjoyed each ballpark. I loved checking in on my "At The Ballpark" ap. It says I've checked in at 14 stadiums since last summer.

Yes, I know Yankee Stadium is only game 12, but I went to Anaheim Stadium and Citizens Bank Park last June before I started this blog. I loved that I was able to share this portion of the trip with people I care about. My brother and nephews joined me for the Baltimore and Washington games and I met up with old college buddies at Citi and Yankee. They were all part of my quest.

Game 12: April 27, 2014, Angels at Yankees

I travelled thousands of miles and went to five ballparks in four days just to see the Angels, the team down the road, in my last stop. It left me wondering if I could hitch a ride with them after the game.

I wanted to do something that few people will ever do, see two games in different stadiums in the same day. It's not easy to schedule this. Major League Baseball doesn't schedule two teams in the same city at home on the same day very often. I'm not sure why, but it may be a remnant of the old days when they surmised that people decide to go to a game on a particular day and will go to any game that day. So they make sure that all days are covered and figure that if both are home in the same day, attendance will suffer. I don't know if that's the case, but neither venue was near full. This may have more to do with the cold weather than anything else. Regardless, I got on the 7 train around 4 PM and got off the 1 train a little after 5 PM in Washington Heights. So a genuine subway series in both parks is easily doable.

In Washington Heights I met Brad, another old college buddy I hadn't seen in years. I was happy to share the game, and my quest, with him. One thing that makes this special is that I've been able to go to many of the games with a bunch of old friends and family. Brad lives in Washington Heights, a hop, skip, and a big leap from Yankee Stadium. Very convenient.

After relaxing for an hour, we walked to Yankee Stadium. Brad showed me Polo Grounds Towers, the housing project that's on the site of the old Polo Grounds. I had no idea where the Polo Grounds were and that they were so close to Yankee Stadium. >

Brad suggested eating at an authentic New York diner he knew. After four days of stadium food, I decided this'd be a nice break. The food wasn't great, but this was a diner. It was what I expected. I did eat some New York Yankee ice cream and a Yankee pretzel. I didn't really look for beer but what I saw didn't strike me as much. So after that we walked into the stadium. While I was impressed with the atrium at Citi, Yankee attempts to outdo that.

It went beyond inviting and was just overdone. The entryway felt cold, maybe due to the white stone floor and wall. Then we went up to the seats. Yankee Stadium was certainly attractive, but like Citi they enclosed the entire outfield with seats and ads. Comerica, Great American, and Citizens Bank Park give you a nice view of the area beyond the ballpark. Yankee doesn't do that.

Seats at Yankee Stadium are expensive, even on Stubhub, so we were seated higher than I'd like. Tanaka was pitching and we were surrounded by people speaking Japanese. The game was a little slow. After three consecutive dominant pitching performances that resulted in shutouts, this one wasn't nearly as exciting, as the Yankees triumphed 3-2.

Game 11: April 27, 2014, Marlins at Mets

After overnight in Philadelphia I caught a train to New York City and then the 7 train to Citi Field. Unlike the three previous stadiums, I'd never been to Citi Field. I went to college in New York, but back then the Mets played at Shea. Shea was a horrible stadium, so any stadium would be better.

I met up with Steve, a friend from college. He wasn't a big Met fan then, but he is now. Weirdly only one of his sons is a Met fan. The other likes the Yankees. If you can't raise your sons to like your teams, you might as well return them and start over. What do I know? I have no children.

I walked in and was greeted by a giant atrium and a tribute to Jackie Robinson. I must admit I found this impressive. It was very inviting.

We walked around the stadium, because Steve knew I'd be blogging about it. I was impressed by a few things. Citi offered free Wifi. I've encountered a few stadiums that do this, but not all. To me, it's a no brainer. They tell you they want you to upload photos to Instagram and Facebook to promote their product. The least they can do it make it easy for you to do. One "upload failed" is all I need to stop. I liked that the atriums were wide. I never felt crowded and wasn't trying to walk through people in line. Citi had a lot of food carts and an area in back that catered to kids.

This little whiffle ball field was similar to the one in San Diego. I think it's smart for teams to have kid friendly activities. The kids might not enjoy the game, but they will enjoy this. This area reminded me of Ashburn Alley in Philadelphia. We had club seats, but I didn't find anything too unique in the food up there. So I opted for local cuisine down here. The sliders were tasty.

They had an ample beer selection, which some stadiums (looking at you, Dodgers) don't, but almost all of the beers were golden lagers, summer ales, or IPAs. I did find a Leffe Brune in bottle and enjoyed it. Our seats had a good view, although I'm not enamored that they choose to cover up the whole outfield with scoreboards and seats.

One of the many problems Shea had was the cold breeze blowing in from Long Island Sound. I suppose they are trying to mitigate that with the outfield barriers, but it was still cold and the wind blowing in makes it harder to hit balls out of Citi Field. That was good news for Dylan Gee. He pitched eight innings and I saw my third shutout in three days.

Game 10: April 26, 2014, Padres at Nationals

An hour car ride down the turnpike brought us to Nationals Park. And it was a beautiful sunny day.

My brother and the kids enjoyed it.

The Nationals do something I've never seen. They resell their game used baseballs during the game and the next day. They were selling a Strasburg strikeout ball for $150! Now I'm sure it'd fetch that on ebay, and I don't mind them making a buck, but it seemed blatantly commercial of them to take advantage of something that fans hope to catch as part of the game experience.

I do wonder if I should've bought one for my game souvenir. I chose the unending soda cup instead. For this game I treated my brother and his kids to club seats. I enjoy the game experience from club seats and the food, a hand carved sandwich, was a lot better than Camden Yards.

The view from section 210 was a good one and the game was a great one. I'd lamented getting Tanner Roark over more well known Nationals pitchers, but Roark was brilliant. He set down the first 16 batters he faced on his way to a 3 hit complete-game shutout.

But really there's one main reason to go to Nationals Park and that's the Presidents' race. It was Abe wire-to-wire.

Game 9: April 25, 2014, Royals at Orioles

I hadn't considered what I'd do if a game were rained out. Yet, as I arrived in Baltimore, that was the dilemma I was faced with. Rain was in the forecast and there was no roof at Oriole Park. I was there. So I'd make the best of it and figure it out later. I stopped in a restaurant in the B & O Warehouse on my way to the Hilton.

The turkey burger as pretty good and the Flying Dog beer was very very good. And the Hilton was right across the street from the stadium. Nothing was going to beat that! I had special guests for this game and the next one, my brother and my nephews. I was so excited to share this with them. Granted, my nephews enjoyed the stadium and amenities more than the game, but the challenge of trying to hit 40 MPH on the radar gun was better than sitting in the cold.

And it was cold. And it was rainy, so much so that the start of the game was delayed by an hour. The rain did eventually let up. So I didn't have the difficult decision of whether the game counted if it was postponed.

I did make the decision to get chicken tenders and fries. That decision was regrettable. The food was horrible. At the least the beer, also a Flying Dog, was very good.

Even the pretzel in the shape of an "O" wasn't much to write home about.

The game did eventually go on and the view from Lower Infield Reserve 49 was a good one. Yordano Ventura, the Royals' prized rookie pitcher, dominated the Orioles and the Royals shut out the home nine. The game was a lot of fun to watch.

The one thing you want to know is whether they still sing "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" in the 7th inning. The answer is yes, they do, and even in the cold weather I got up and danced. No, there's no video on that.

Game 8: April 24, 2014, Yankees at Red Sox

I came to Fenway Park fully expecting to hate it. That didn't happen.

I've preached about getting into a city as early as possible and last night confirmed that. My flight from LAX to Boston was supposed to arrive at 3:15, but it was a little late and the airport shuttle was too. And there was Boston rush hour traffic. So I didn't get to the hotel until 4:30. Since I'd been up so early, I wanted to relax a little bit. I was prepared to leave the hotel a few minutes after 6 PM, even though the front desk told me it'd take only 20 minutes to get to Fenway Park. Well, the shuttle they said would take me to the subway wasn't there. So I walked 20 minutes to the subway. Then I found out that the station stop I was supposed to change trains at was closed. So instead of taking the blue line to the green line, I took the blue line to the orange line to the green line. I didn't arrive at the stadium until a few minutes past 7. By the time I got to my seat, the Yankees had already scored. They did that a lot last night. They won 14-5.

I don't want to make it sound like I don't like the Rodeway Inn. It was perfect for me. I didn't have to splurge on an airport shuttle. They did pick me up at the subway station after the game. They even had a computer right as you walk in, so that you can print a boarding pass. Which I did. The room had a flat screen, which I never turned on, and a nice big comfortable bed. It provided everything I needed. Thumbs up to the Rodeway Inn.

Fenway is old and small, two traits I haven't been excited about since I started this quest. Unlike Wrigley, which felt dank, and Dodger, which has no real personality, I did feel something at Fenway.

I didn't go through the whole food selection, because I was running late. The pizza didn't look cookie cutter, although it wasn't very good. Perhaps another choice would've been better.

I broke one of my rules when getting a ticket. I've said that you shouldn't skimp on tickets. If you're spending $300+ round trip airfare and another $120 for a hotel, why buy a ticket that won't give you the best experience? I'll tell you why. I got a bleacher seat for $48. Seats where I wanted to sit started at $130. I'd decided that was too steep. So my view wasn't very good.

And that takes you out of the game a bit. That it was in the 40's and windy also did too. I had a nice heavy jacket, but no gloves. Come on. Who'd think you'd need gloves for a baseball game in late April? It was Tom Brady weather! The bleachers did give me a chance to mingle with the Yankee and Red Sox fans and they were animated with each other. Even as the Yankees were piling on the runs. And the seat did give me a view of Pesky's Pole. I've never seen a foul pole where the outfield curved like that right afterward.

In the 6th inning, I decided that since people had left, I was going to sneak down to a better seat. What's nice about Fenway is that you don't have to take the stairs to go to a lower level. So you don't have to worry about an usher stopping you. Once you get past the usher at the top of the tunnel, you can sit where you want. And I did.

That gave me a great view of the game and the Green Monster too. In fact, sitting down here also gave me a great view of their monster scoreboards, something you won't find at Wrigley.

And I even got a chance to hear them sing "Sweet Caroline" in the 8th inning. So overall, I enjoyed Fenway.

April 21, 2014, Phillies at Dodgers

My review of Dodger Stadium last August was largely negative. And that was before I hit a bunch of modern stadiums later that week. The stadium just doesn't hold up, because it's old and hasn't been updated. I went back last night because my Phillies are in town. So I went with my friend Tracey. Now, the Phillies won 7-0. So how disappointed could I be?

It was the last night of Passover. That meant that I wouldn't drink any beer, although considering their beer selection is awful and the price is really high that wasn't a sacrifice. I thought I'd eat Panda Express. I'd eaten it there before and they even have their logo on the seat cup holders.

I was told that Panda Express was no longer at the Stadium. The choices were slim. I could have a Dodger Dog again.

The other food choices were lame, reminiscent of the type of food available in stadiums before the modern ballparks. I chose a bunless burger. Unlike Comerica, I didn't see them making it. And it wasn't very tasty. Even though the ambience and food/beer selections are poor, the sight lines remain good, it never got too cold, and I actually got out of the parking lot really fast. Anyone who has gone to Dodger Stadium over the years can appreciate that.

April East Coast Trip Update

The trip is coming into focus and it's only two weeks away. Unfortunately, I'll be attending the Thursday night Boston Fenway game by myself. My cousin, who I haven't seen in 30 years, can't make it. I bought my ticket for the bleachers. That's not my preferred seat, but non-bleacher tickets at Fenway are ridiculously expensive. It probably doesn't help that it's the Yankees.

On the 25th, I'll be in Baltimore and I'm going to be joined by my brother and two nephews. I'm excited they'll be part of this quest. We'll be in section 49 on the Lower Infield Reserve level on the third base side. They'll also join me for the Nationals game the next day. We'll be in Infield Club 210. Club seats are always full of amenities and they should be very nice in a new ballpark like this one. This website recommends these club seats, saying they are great spots for getting foul balls.

On Sunday, I'm catching up with two old college buddies in New York City. Yes, that's where I went to college and yes, that was a long time ago. My friend Steve is bringing his kids and has seats in Caesar's Gold. Here's the description:

Located behind home plate on the Excelsior Level, the Caesars Club provides incredible panoramic views of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, the world famous Unisphere and the New York City skyline. Guests won't miss one pitch while enjoying a drink at the 50 ft. long full service bar or lounging on a couch since the club is equipped with twenty-eight 42" flat screen televisions throughout.

Food options throughout the club include the following concessions:
Two Boots Pizza
Daruma of Toyko Sushi
Fresh salads
Carved sandwiches, hot dogs, burgers & sausage from the rotissere and grill stand

I'll be headed over to the Yankees after the game for a nightcap with my friend Brad. Yankees' tickets unsurprisingly were expensive. So we ended up in Grandstand Infield 418. The seats are a bit high but they are just up the first base line. So they should provide a good view.