25 Stadiums – Part 3

Let the tournament begin. Game one at Wrigley Field… Built in 1914, just two years after Fenway Park, and named after the chewing gum magnate and then club owner William Wrigley. Its traditional and iconic. Wrigley is known for its ivy covered brick outfield wall, the unusual wind patterns off Lake Michigan, the iconic red marquee over the main entrance, the hand turned scoreboard, and for being the last major league park to have lights installed for play after dark. Its going to be an honour to be there

Stadium: Wrigley Field (41,160 Capacity) – 128th in size in the US

Team: Chicago Cubs (MLB)

The Friendly Confines - The second oldest Major League Baseball Stadium after Fenway Park

25 Stadiums – Part 2

Okay, so first night is gonna be a tough one to survive. Chicago serves up good beer, and theres lots of catching up to do. We got to be at Wrigley field by about midday so there’s definitely time to get one of the local Chicago stadiums in… The nearest to the hotel is Soldier Field. We can pop our head in. Part of me though still wishes it looked like it did in USA 94.. It used to be bigger, and in fact is the smallest NFL stadium in the land

Stadium: Soldier Field (61,500 Capacity) – ranked 68th in size in the US

Team: Chicago Bears (NFL)

The field serves as a memorial to American soldiers who gave their lives

25 Stadiums – Part 1

Chicago is going to be tight when it comes to seeing some stadia but Copey reckons we can break up a hangover with some pre-Wrigley culture. Evanston is just a short drive up the coast but there is a famous old stadium (Built 1926), that plays out in the Big Ten Conference, and is ranked as the 110th biggest stadium in the US. In fact this stadium is not far from the airport. No excuses.

Stadium: Ryan Field (47,130 Capacity)

Team: Northwestern University Wildcats (NCAA)

Dont you just love that boxy thing on the top of the stand?

Blue Jays Home Opener

The Toronto Blue Jays put on a pretty good home opener. Until the bottom of the 9th anyway – more on that later. Not just in Toronto I imagine, but home openers tend to me a roudy affair at the best of times. This is probably my 7th or so go around at the Rogers Centre / Sky Dome, and this had a bit of everything – stuff you want to see and stuff, well, that kinda belongs in UFC crowds. Anyway, lets start at the beginning – the Jays had been using the ‘We’re coming home’ teaser montage for a while on TV – which quite frankly, worked a treat.

2012 Blue Jays

The stadium got pretty packed for around 7pm when the introductions started with honouring Jose Bautista for his stellar efforts last year (i.e. leading the league in Home Runs, Walks and OPS). This gave the crowd plenty of practice with the rally towels (which we are hoping we won’t need that often this year, but if the first 4 games are anything to go by, we’ll need freakin’ new ones by May).

Jose Jose Jose Jose (repeat to fade)

Followed by a few well timed stadium boos for the Boston Red Sox, the home team go their snazzy introductions and there wasn’t a hair not on its end when Lawrie was introduced to the 48 odd thousand fans.

Anthems and Intros

What followed wasn’t to everyones liking – but hey, its the season opener and the kids love this stuff. Oh Cananda!!

Brilliant Stunts!

Around 7.30pm we got started, and were treated to a pitching duel for a couple of innings, before spring training goat Colby Rasmus (looking more and more like Rory Mcllroy / Krusty the Clown on a daily basis) wowed us all with a brilliant diving catch, before legging out a triple in his next at bat – which was cashed in followed by a single from E5 that cashed in Kelly Johnson). 2-0 Jays in the 4th. Sweet. Time for a pic of Chris and myself:

Who is that?? Sigh

There is always one isn’t there! In the fifth, we were treated to a 100 level barney below us, with some handbags at dawn followed by a couple of haymakers between jersey shore fans. A boston fan lobbed a plastic cup of beer at a mouthy JAYS fan which caught him square in the chops. Now I don’t condone any type of stadium aggression in the crowd – but it was a very accurate throw, and some of us are wondering if he would like to try out for the closer role.

A double, single, 3 walks, 2 wild pitches. A blown save and I take the loss. My work here is done.

Sigh. So the Jays led 2-1 in the bottom of the ninth, and Sergio Santos came in to save and thoroughly unsaved the day with a woeful debut. The Jays fans let him have it – not a great home debut for Serg who is now -0-2 in save attempts this year. Oh well. Still early days, but he will want to get back out there sharpish to rectify the spoiler role.

So to recap, the home opener had a little bit of everything – some good ballpark entertainment, some highlight reel action, some dumb moron antics, a blown save and of course, a few cold beers and overpriced food. More of this please in May for the roadtrip. Bring it on baby!!

Clark Kent I am not.

      

   

Stadium Introductions Part 3

The final couple of legs of our trip sees us travel further south (eek!), first up a couple of days in Nashville Tennessee. None of us have been  there before, so despite the absence of a major league baseball team, we are looking forward to the music city experience. A quick google of ‘top things to do in Nashville’ pulls up some interesting options from Trip Advisor. Number 4 is “Wildhorse Saloon” where you can try some line dancing. An idea is floating about to turn certain parts of this trip into ‘An Idiot Abroad’ type thing – perhaps this can make our top ten things for Terrill to try? Other ideas welcome!

Not in the top ten of things to do is to watch the triple A baseball team ‘Nashville Sound’ play at Greer Stadium, but we are going to do that anyway.  Here is a picture of their ‘stadium’:

"Great City, Brutal Stadium" - Blue Jays player JP Arencibia take on Nashville. He is a resident there.

Personally, I like the scoreboard. Very good. That might make the top three in that category. Its possible that the NHL’s Nashville Predators might still be in the playoffs too, which would give us something else to do and an arena to view and more bad food to eat.

 

From Nashville, its off to Atlanta for a couple of days to finish off the trip. Personally, I am a little nervous about our final leg. Don’t ask me why cos I don’t know. Our final MLB game is Atlanta Braves v Miami Marlins (former Florida Marlins, now they have gone all Latino), played at Turner Field. Last year Atlanta, with 27 games to play in the season, were 10.5 games ahead of St Louis for the race for the NL Wild Card position. They tanked, and lost this spot to St Louis on the last day of the season, one of the most dramatic September collapses in baseball history. Chuckle. St Louis went on to win the World Series. That sucks eh? Nice digs though:

 

Not a bad little gaff eh?

 

Hank Aaron played for the Braves, one of the most decorated players in history. Only Barry Bonds has hit more home runs. Hammering Hank is one of the true gentleman of baseball. Atlanta were lucky to have him. On the other end of the spectrum, John Rocker played for Atlanta too – he wasn’t a very nice man. When asked whether he wanted to play in New York, he said (amongst other things)  “Imagine having to take the 7 Train to the ballpark looking like you’re riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair”. Nice! And that was the printable part of the interview. He was popular with the locals though:

 

This man is not representative of the people of Atlanta.

Stadium Introductions Part 2…

After spending two days lounging about with the Royals, tea and scones etc, we embark on quite the travel day to Indianpolis. I’m just guessing here, but I believe it will be Terrill’s turn to drive the 475 miles to Indy. Just a stab in the dark. We will be visiting the Indianapolis Colts football stadium, Lucas Oil Stadium. which will be talked about under a different post, but our baseball adventure continues with our second triple A event – the Indianapolis Indians, who play at Victory Field.

The Indians win it the Indians win it oh my god the Indians win it.

This is one of the minor league affiliates of the Pittsburgh Pirates and they will be playing the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, one of the Philadelphia Phillies farm teams. I think thats our hotel at the back of the stadium. According to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America, this is the best minor league ballpark in the US. We will be the judge of that though. Tickets are cheap and the Captain Morgan Cove is $30 per person, which includes a $10 food voucher. Again, on a hunch, I reckon Terrill will be all over that bad boy. Lets hope that the Indians play better than their MLB pro team – the Pirates have had a losing season for 19 consecutive years – the longest streak in ‘pro sports’. This really just means baseball, ice hockey, basketball and american football. Obviously Football, Rugby, Cricket etc are not considered ‘pro’ by our Yank brothers. Ingrates. Its all George III’s fault I tell you.

From Indianapolis, we travel a hundred miles (Goffy driving I reckon) or so to Louisville, Kentucky. Never been to Kentucky, but apparently elder gentleman are indeed gentlemen. I was in Vegas a few years back, and some poor fellow who was crammed into an elevator drew the wrath from an elderly woman for not waiting for her to leave the elevator before him, despite the fact she was three deep back and he wasn’t. “You can tell he’s not from Kentucky” she complained, loudly, as she was ushered off by her husband. Double down my lady. The Louisville Bats (clever eh?), our third triple A experience, play at ‘Slugger Field’, which might very well be my favourite ballpark name yet. The Bats are the a minor league affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds, who we get to see the next day.

Hats for Bats. Keep Bats warm. Gracias.

The Bats will be playing the ‘Norfolk Tides’ from Virginia, who are the senior farm team of the woeful Pittsburgh Pirateseque Baltimore Orioles. This could be a slugfest. Quite a nice setting for the game? As long as its not pissing it down I guess. That would truly suck hairy plums.

 

From here, we head North East a hundred miles or so to Cincinnati, Ohio, for a solitary day and night to see the Cincinnati Reds take on the MLB owned (booo) Washington Nationals, the former Montreal Expos (booooooo). The Reds play at the ‘Great American Ball Park’ – even if they do say so themselves. Rather self congratulary don’t you think? The Reds used to be called the Cincinnati Red Stockings apparently – more on team historys later on. Joey Votto plays for the Reds. He’s a Toronto lad – and we (me and the Blue Jays) want him to play for us. I will be cheering for him. Anyway, the ballpark – not a bad little diamond is it?

Now THATS a stadium baby!

 

Joey Votto - Completely photo shopped and probably illegal...

 Still, he looks good with a blue bird on his lid. Assuming we get on ok with the locals, our next stop is admittedly a bit of trek away – about 300 miles or so (Copus driving), to the home of the 2011 World (ahem) Series Champs – the St Louis Cardinals. A new era for the Cards, seeing as though their best player fled town to join the LA Angels, by settling for a mere $240M and other fringe benefits (see next post – its must read bull crap). And  successful manager Tony LaRussa has retired. Never short of a quote – here are his thoughts on Moneyball (when asked about why he put Lance Berkman at first base):

“It’s my tribute to Moneyball. I’m not a big Moneyball fan. I have this little place, don’t have a big place. So what we do is we take the square footage between the right field line and center field and the square footage and from left field to center field, divide that by pi and we multiply it by bulls***, and then we pick the dugout. The field that’s closest to the dugout and that’s where Lance plays.” Multiply it by bullshit. Quality. Anyway, I digress.

St Louis play at Busch Stadium and when we seem them, they will be playing the Atlanta Braves. Again, not a bad gaff is it?

Decent View

 

 

 

Stadium Introductions Part 1

Part of our job (ahem!) during the baseball roadtrip will be to admire (and smirk quite possibly) and review the stadiums  that host such esteemed franchises as the Atlanta Braves, Chicago Cubs and errr..The Louisville Bats. We will be looking first and foremost for great baseball. But also some of the finer things about watching live sport – such as stadium lay out, the scoreboard, the quality of the footlong hot horse dogs we will be ramming down our throats, cost of a pint of the finest local ales etc etc. We will then post our reviews as we go.

As in introduction to the said establishments that we will be visiting, here are the nine works of stadium art that we will have the pleasure of experiencing in May. First up, Wrigley Field.

Famous for not winning a World Series since....1902 or something. Will there be ivy on the walls in May?

 

 Admittedly not a great picture where you can admire the true beauty of Wrigley Field, still gets the juices flowing eh? After seeing the Cubbies, we will be taking in our first triple A game in Des Moines Iowa (birth place of Bill Bryson no doubt), to see Chicago’s minor league affiliate ‘Iowa Cubs’ in action. Behold…Principal Field.

Grass roots stuff. Its right on the river too. Sweet.

 

We know our triple A experience will be slightly more – um how shall I put it – ‘basic’ than our major league experiences – but hey, its still baseball. Bit like going to see Southend play in League two after watching a Utd game at Old Trafford. Got to support the grass roots stuff eh? Plus some of the games top prospects play at triple A level. Along with the journeymen, rehabbers and load of pie throwers too. We shall see. Regardless, a stop off in Des Moines should be fun. And we will be ranking their street meat too!

 Next up is Kansas, where we will be taking in not one but TWO MLB games featuring the home town favourites Kansas City Royals. First up, they take on the Bronx Bombers, the hated New York Yankees and on day two, the equally hated Boston Red Sox. More on that later. Kansas play at Kauffman Stadium, and boy – its a beauty.

This stadium deserves a better team. Time to step up Royals.

Apparently, along with Dodgers Stadium, this is one of the best examples of modernist stadium design. We’ll go with that for now til we get there. The 2012 allstar game will be held here in July – so I am sure we will find plenty of Tat to spend our pennies on.