Thursday: Minor League
Today I drove down to Tacoma and met up with ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
damienroc for a Tacoma Rainiers minor league baseball game. Whee :)
Well, the drive sucked since I started late and had to stop for gas on the way, so I hit I-5 a little before 5pm, and didn't actually get to Cheney Stadium until like 6:35. Jeff showed up a bit after that; we got tickets ("reserved" seats for $7 that were pretty much as close to the field as about row 20 in section 141 or 142 or so that would cost $35-50 in Safeco) and went in and caught the first inning, where the pitcher (#16, Gustavo Martinez) proceeded to give up 4 runs, walking in one or two of them. He got better after that though.
Part of why we went on Thursday is that it's Dollar night there so hotdogs, small sodas, ice cream bars, and beers, were all $1. So we both went in the second inning and got a bunch of hot dogs and sodas. Hee.
It was kinda cool to see Pat Borders playing :) I kind of wish I'd gotten down earlier in the year to see Ben Davis and Gil Meche and Hiram Bocachica and Justin Leone and Jose Lopez and Bucky Jacobsen and everyone in Tacoma. I did see Luis Ugueto play too, I remember him from the Mariners last year, he ended up pinch-running for Edgar a lot :)
But, Pat Borders, I swear, he's the stuff they make baseball movies out of, if you know what I mean. Old catcher (he's like 41-42 years old) who used to be a world series MVP (1992) and is now working in a minor league team (Rainiers) at the twilight of his career helping younger pitchers (Freddy Garcia, Gil Meche, Travis Blackley, etc) get their acts together. How many movies is that the plot of? Of course you'd never see Pat Borders played by someone like Tom Berenger or Kevin Costner... mostly because those guys don't tend to play characters with a wife and 5 kids and a farm and all that stuff :)
Uh, so anyway, Pat Borders aside, it was a pretty exciting game - they were down 5-0 until the 5th inning when they exploded and caught up to 5-4, tied it the next inning to 5-5, then it became 6-5, but then it became 9-6, and stayed that way. I wish I knew enough of the players to really comment on who did what. Honestly, the whole game kinda reminded me of being in highschool, I kinda wanted to have a marching band instrument or something while sitting in the stands :) The stadium is really kinda old, and there's only the one big scoreboard, rather than the tons of information you're usually swamped with at any major league game. Lots of families and kids running around, lots of foul balls literally hit out of the ballpark into the parking lot.
I didn't bother keeping a scorecard, mostly Jeff and I just sat there chatting the whole game, about baseball and olympics and PP and whatnot; after the game we ended up hanging out in the parking lot talking for another hour or so about PP. Ah well, I never see Jeff anymore anyway since Tacoma's so damn far. So it was good.
Came home, did work on PP, sailed around a bit, now is time for sleep. I still need to write about last week's Turtle Blockade.
damienroc for a Tacoma Rainiers minor league baseball game. Whee :)Well, the drive sucked since I started late and had to stop for gas on the way, so I hit I-5 a little before 5pm, and didn't actually get to Cheney Stadium until like 6:35. Jeff showed up a bit after that; we got tickets ("reserved" seats for $7 that were pretty much as close to the field as about row 20 in section 141 or 142 or so that would cost $35-50 in Safeco) and went in and caught the first inning, where the pitcher (#16, Gustavo Martinez) proceeded to give up 4 runs, walking in one or two of them. He got better after that though.
Part of why we went on Thursday is that it's Dollar night there so hotdogs, small sodas, ice cream bars, and beers, were all $1. So we both went in the second inning and got a bunch of hot dogs and sodas. Hee.
It was kinda cool to see Pat Borders playing :) I kind of wish I'd gotten down earlier in the year to see Ben Davis and Gil Meche and Hiram Bocachica and Justin Leone and Jose Lopez and Bucky Jacobsen and everyone in Tacoma. I did see Luis Ugueto play too, I remember him from the Mariners last year, he ended up pinch-running for Edgar a lot :)
But, Pat Borders, I swear, he's the stuff they make baseball movies out of, if you know what I mean. Old catcher (he's like 41-42 years old) who used to be a world series MVP (1992) and is now working in a minor league team (Rainiers) at the twilight of his career helping younger pitchers (Freddy Garcia, Gil Meche, Travis Blackley, etc) get their acts together. How many movies is that the plot of? Of course you'd never see Pat Borders played by someone like Tom Berenger or Kevin Costner... mostly because those guys don't tend to play characters with a wife and 5 kids and a farm and all that stuff :)
Uh, so anyway, Pat Borders aside, it was a pretty exciting game - they were down 5-0 until the 5th inning when they exploded and caught up to 5-4, tied it the next inning to 5-5, then it became 6-5, but then it became 9-6, and stayed that way. I wish I knew enough of the players to really comment on who did what. Honestly, the whole game kinda reminded me of being in highschool, I kinda wanted to have a marching band instrument or something while sitting in the stands :) The stadium is really kinda old, and there's only the one big scoreboard, rather than the tons of information you're usually swamped with at any major league game. Lots of families and kids running around, lots of foul balls literally hit out of the ballpark into the parking lot.
I didn't bother keeping a scorecard, mostly Jeff and I just sat there chatting the whole game, about baseball and olympics and PP and whatnot; after the game we ended up hanging out in the parking lot talking for another hour or so about PP. Ah well, I never see Jeff anymore anyway since Tacoma's so damn far. So it was good.
Came home, did work on PP, sailed around a bit, now is time for sleep. I still need to write about last week's Turtle Blockade.