An exciting game with a great finish… for the wrong team.
After dragging Breath to a game last night, this time it was Anand’s turn to be taken to a game, and I think he got the better end of the deal. He even asked for the Red Sox game and actively cheered for them. I was so proud — he doesn’t even refer to it as the “hitting box” anymore and used the phrase “He got a piece of it,” in reference to a foul ball without even realizing that that’s a real phrase. He’s learning!
As for the game… Big Papi, always a crowd favorite, started off the game with a home run in the top of the first. Unfortunately, the A’s answered with two runs in the 2nd and a homerun in the 4th inning by Mark Ellis, who hit for the cycle tonight. Wily Mo Pena answered with homerun of his own in the 7th to bring it to 3-2 Oakland, but the A’s gained an insurance run in the 8th on no hits, but two walks and a fielder’s choice.
Going into the 9th and down by two, it was time for some more Big Papi magic, opening up the inning with a double and eventually scoring on a Jason Varitek pinch hit. Wily Mo played the hero’s role again, batting around Coco Crisp who was pinch running for Varitek, to tie up the game and send it into extra innings.
In the top of the 10th with Dustin Pedroia on first, it looked briefly like we were going to get more Big Papi magic as he hit a deep fly ball to center. It caromed off the wall and was a certain double… but then Pedroia tried to score and was out at home, ending the half inning.
Anand seemed legitimately excited through the 10th and then the cold settled into the stadium. His cheers quickly turned from being pro-Red Sox to “Either let him hit a homerun or strike him out — but make progress!” In the bottom of the 11th, Kyle Snyder finally acquiesced to his cries and gave up a walk off homerun to Eric Chavez that ended the game. Fearing the jeers of the Oakland fans, I stuffed my Red Sox hat into my bag as we ran off to catch the BART back to Berkeley.

I made Breath go with me to the Twins/A’s game in the Coliseum in Oakland. Unfortunately, the home team won, based on an error by Jason Bartlett in the third, which directly to three Oakland runs. With the bases loaded and two outs, Bobby Crosby hit a grounder to shortstop. Bartlett actually made a nice play to get to the ball and field it… and promptly threw it into the bullpen behind first base instead of getting the third out of the inning. All three runners on base managed to score and Crosby got to third. Luckily, Santana followed up by striking out Cust to end the inning so there was no more damage. But since the Twins couldn’t get ever get the necessary clutch hit, those three runs made the difference in the ballgame.
Breath seemed to enjoy himself up until about the 7th, when he fell asleep for a half-inning. You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Tomorrow I’m dragging an even more stubborn horse to the A’s/Red Sox game, before flying back to Michigan. (Did I not mention that a primary reason why I agreed to go on this road trip was the excellent timing of Oakland’s baseball schedule?)
One thing I didn’t mention about the Denver game, is that it was the final game in my scorebook… which means that I need to buy a new one. Unfortunately, while I’m surrounded by people who are native to the area, none of them are sports fans and so I’m stuck using the scorecard out of the program. And Oakland doesn’t sell separate scorecards, so I’ll have to buy another program tomorrow, probably identical to the one I bought today. Oh well.

My prediction that I would see lots of homeruns at this game came true, with a total of four, two for each team. Yorvit Torrealba’s 4th inning grand slam for the Rockies and Jim Edmonds’s 7th inning solo shot for St. Louis were both caught by the same family, sitting a few rows ahead of us. In fact, I briefly thought that I might have a chance at Torrealba’s ball. The dad caught the first and one of the sons caught the second. Problem is, the family had three kids total, so I’m betting they still found a way to fight over them. (And the kid who caught the ball was definitely being possessive over it when his little sister tried to look at it.) The final homerun of the night was a two run shot by one of my fantasy players, Brad Hawpe, so I was happy.
But enough about the game and on to the stadium review… Coors Field has the cheapest tickets I’ve seen at any major league ballpark (at least on non-$1 student nights) — $4 to sit in the “Rockpile,” a set of bleachers in deep centerfield. Because I had to agree to buy Amy’s ticket to get her to agree to the game, those are the tickets we bought. However, thanks to some friendly Coors Field attendants and the small crowd, we moved up to the “Pavilion” where the tickets are $17. Not a bad deal at all — thanks Marna and John.
A few of the stadiums I’ve been to have a local delicacy that you can’t get at any other stadium, like Skyline Chili in Cincinnati. However, Coors Field has what is easily the most bizarre food I’ve ever eaten at a ballgame — Rocky Mountain oysters. I asked the guy behind the counter what they tasted like before I decided to order them. “A woman asked me that last week and I told her ‘They don’t taste like your boyfriend’s.'” With a response like that, how could I not get them? The honest answer to my question, in case anyone else ever wants to try some, is that it has the slightly rubbery texture of squid and tastes like… salty deep fried beef.

I finally found baseball fan friends in Michigan! Today, four of us drove to Detroit to catch the battle for the American League Central. Sadly (for me), this battle did not involve the Twins, who are currently floundering in fourth place. But it was still a nice night for a sold out game, even if the home team didn’t win.
We missed the top of the first because of traffic. Now that Comerica sells out, the single lane off-ramp to the stadium isn’t enough to deal with the 20,000+ cars all trying to get to the game at the same time and we didn’t quite make it. Lucky for us, the design of Comerica is such that while standing in the Will Call line, we were able to see the main scoreboard. Thus, I still managed to score the first inning, even though I didn’t actually see either of the two Indians homeruns. Unfortunately for the Tigers fans amongst us, this meant that we sat down at our seats with the home team already down by two. Detroit had a few offensive rallies after that, but they never caught up to Cleveland, who had a few more rallies of their own.
The defensive play of the game goes to Jason Michaels of Cleveland, who stole a three run homer from Craig Monroe in the third by leaping up over the left field wall and making the catch. Had he not jumped quite so high, we’d be talking about a different ball game.
The most-overrated player award goes to Gary Sheffield, who went 0-for-4. On at least two occasions, if he had lived up to his $28 million dollar paycheck and gotten a hit, the Tigers would have scored another run. I find it ironic that his at-bat song is “This is Why I’m Hot” — it should be “Tell Me Why I’m Not.” While Sheffield’s run-in with Chris House back in 2005 resulted in me getting excellent seats in Fenway for two games, that doesn’t mean I like him.