Well, having been visiting our neighbor to the north last week, I missed most of the ALDS. (In fact, I found out the Red Sox had been swept by loudly asking a room of people if someone with an internet connection would mind looking up the score for me. It was a very anti-climactic end to the Red Sox season.) And now, the AL East is completely out of the ALCS — the first time since 2002 when the Angels took my Twins in five games and proceeded to make Dusty Baker’s son cry by winning the World Series. Honestly, the midwesterner in me is glad to see some variety in the post-season this year. Not that I’m rooting for the midwestern Sox. In fact, I’m rooting for the Angels. So, go Angels. Way to take game 1. (On the other hand, this seems to be the era of ending World Series droughts… so maybe it is Chicago’s time. I just wish it was the Cubs.)
And in the National League… I have no strong favorite. I did fly from Houston to Detroit during Sunday’s 18 inning game with a bunch of Astros fans, so maybe I’ll let their excitement wear off on me. On the other hand, and bear with me because this is a stretch…
When Chicago lost/threw the 1919 World Series (supposedly starting their own curse), it was against the Cincinnati Reds. So wouldn’t it be interesting if their next World Series victory came through a playoffs in which they defeated all red teams (Red Sox, Angels, Cardinals)? But that would require me to root for the White Sox… and I’m not sure I can do that.

I’m not the most domestic person in the world — I’m much closer to being the least domestic. When I cook, it’s usually macaroni and cheese, hotdish, or a frozen dinner. And normally, I would never desert a baseball game to make food. So today was very out of the ordinary for me… and I don’t think it’s going to become ordinary.
As I was pretty much out of food, I went to the grocery store after classes. As I was perusing the foreign cheeses, I noticed a collection of recipe cards with “International Dishes for International Cheeses.” The Emmental and Ham Scalloped Sweet Potatoes (Swiss, apparently) looked the most intriguing, so I took the card, bought the ingredients, and headed home to make a real meal. I opened MLB radio to the Sox-Jays and got to work.
I did okay with reducing the cream. I did okay slicing the ham and sweet potatoes. And then came time to put it all in the baking dish. Here’s an interesting observation: I need a bigger baking dish. My first folly of the night was having reduced cream and garlic spill all over the counter and floor. Nothing makes a kitchen smell stronger than minced garlic all over the place.
After a little clean-up, I stuffed as much of the sweet potatoes, ham, and cheese into the dish as I could, ate the remaining ham and cheese, and dumped the leftover cream-covered raw sweet potatoes into the garbage. I put the dish in the oven and it immediately spilled over and the cream started smoking… and smoking.
In the meantime, the Red Sox were down 4-1 and the Indians and Yankees were winning their respective games. This was no good all around.
I turned off the oven, waited for it to cool, cleaned up the burned crud, and tried again. As I was turning on every fan in the apartment to get rid of the smoke, I ceased listening to the game. Returning to my computer, I noted an IM from Harvey — “Ortiz!!!!!!!!” Whatever I missed while clearing the kitchen had clearly been big. And oh, was it… an 8th inning homer by Big Papi to tie the game up. (Apparently I also missed Manny’s homer in the 6th.) Thank god they didn’t try the bunt tonight.
With the sweet potatoes safely not-smoking in the freshly cleaned oven, I sat down to hear the rest of the game while chatting with Harvey — who is GOING TO THE GAME TOMORROW. I offered him $100 to go in full Yankee gear. He refused (thank goodness). The 9th inning proved exciting as Damon and stole second. Renteria walked, giving the man, the myth, the DH-MVP candidate* a chance to win the game for something like the 150th time. And he didn’t disappoint.
And so, what started out as a rough evening has ended with a Red Sox victory and a tasty sweet potato casserole. Not that I am going to attempt to cook again for a long time.

* I think that under normal circumstances, I would be opposed to the DH winning the MVP. But under normal circumstances, I am also opposed to the wild card team winning the World Series. My values slip a little when it comes to David and the Sox.

Since ESPN was kind enough to air it, I had the rare pleasure of watching the Red Sox game on TV tonight.
Or maybe I shouldn’t call it a pleasure.
Now, I missed the first three innings while my roommate claimed the TV, so I apparently missed the homerun portion of the game. But I did get to see Ortiz’s pitiful bunt bounce off the plate, right into the hands of Toronto’s catcher. I’m not exactly sure what was going through Francona’s head at that moment. “Hmm… we’re down by five. Our hottest clutch hitter is up. I know, time for a squeeze play!” There’s a brilliant scene in A League of Their Own all about why that’s a bad managerial call.
And given that the Yankees squeaked by Baltimore tonight, the Red Sox are currently stuck being tied for the wild card spot instead of leading the AL East. If Detroit can step it up and beat Chicago tomorrow, that’ll leave two weekend series to decide two division championships and the wild card spot — Good Sox/Yankees in Boston and Bad Sox/Indians in Cleveland. I briefly toyed with driving down to Cleveland on Saturday to catch a Cleveland/Chicago game, but the only remaining tickets are the $95 seats, and I’m not that rich. Besides which, I’m not sure who I’d root for — I’d like to see Cleveland overtake the Central Division, but not at the expense of costing the Red Sox a playoff berth if they can’t overcome the Yankees in the East.
And then comes October…
Edit: Lest my father disowns me… the Twins beat the Royals tonight. But at 15+ games out of the division, it doesn’t much matter. Except, um… go Twins.

Now that (I think) I’m done with my baseball stadium tour for the year, it’s time to give my personal rankings of the six stadiums I visited. And just for fun, I gave “half-point” rankings to the two stadiums I’ve visited in previous seasons.

6. The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome; Minneapolis, MN (Minnesota Twins) — Okay, I know this is the stadium I grew up visiting and I have fond memories of watching Kirby Puckett, Gary Gaetti, and Kent Hrbek win World Series here. Heck, I’ve even imitated Kirby in the outfield my self, leaping into the centerfield wall on a tour in fifth grade. I got to play with my high school’s marching band here during a Gopher football game on “Band Day.” I was there when the roof caved in in the early 80s. I can’t deny the sentimental memories. But it’s an awful baseball stadium. Period. This has nothing to do with my beloved Twins — baseball was just never meant to be played indoors on plastic grass. Thankfully, my father had the sense to take us to Milwaukee every summer, just to be certain that we knew what we were missing.

5.5. Skydome (now Rogers Centre); Toronto, ON (Toronto Bluejays) — I went to a game here in the summer of 1999 during my tour of potential colleges. I don’t remember that much of it — I think David Wells was pitching for the Jays. We were fortunate enough to go on a day in which it started to rain, which meant that we got to see the retractable roof first hand. Still, my aversion to indoor baseball still stands, even it’s only for part of the game. Oh, and there’s a Hard Rock Cafe in the outfield.

5. The Coliseum; Oakland, CA (Oakland Athletics) — It was big and cavernous. And on the day I went, relatively empty. As the name implies, it’s coliseum style and basically a big, high circle of seats around a baseball field. Mostly, it just lacked atmosphere and character. To it’s credit, it was the cheapest game I went to all season. And it had no roof.

4. The Great American Ballpark; Cincinnati, OH (Cincinnati Reds) — There’s a big gap between the bottom three stadiums and the top five. This was a nice solid outdoor park, but nothing in particular stands out about it to bump it into the top four. Except for the fact that it’s the only major league stadium where you can eat Skyline Chili dogs. Mmm… Skyline chili.

3. SBC Park; San Francisco, CA (SF Giants) — This place gets bonus points for being full. There’s something about a large crowd that makes a game that much better. Plus, I liked being able to look out at the boats in McCovey cove, just behind right field.

2. Comerica Park; Detroit, MI (Detroit Tigers) — I like this stadium a lot. It’s also the stadium I saw the most games at (3) this year. There’s a lot of cool bas relief of Tigers around the outside and giant Tiger statues on top of the scoreboard. The bronze statues of legendary Tigers in the outfield gives you a better sense of the history of the team than the usual stickers with numbers on them. I have mixed feelings about the ferris wheel and carousel — they’re designed with baseball and Tigers in mind and add to the atmosphere, but I’m there to see a baseball game and I don’t want to be distracted.

1.5. County Stadium (demolished in 2001); Milwaukee, WI (Milwaukee Brewers) — This is the only stadium I’ve been to that’s no longer around. Sentimentality is probably the reason I rank it so high. It was the stadium that taught me what a baseball game is supposed to feel like. We’d get there early and tailgate, grilling brats and hotdogs in the parking lot — the only stadium I’ve ever done that at.* I watched the Twins beat the Brewers 15-1 while sitting 20 feet from third base. A friend and I stood up to the drunken Brewers fans who dared to jeer our beloved Kirby Puckett. (They only hated him because he got 11 hits in two consecutive games there, which I believe is still a major league record.) While it’s the Brewers stadium, I don’t think I ever saw a game there that wasn’t against the Twins and thus, it became my adopted home stadium. Besides, how can you not a like a stadium where the mascot slides into a giant mug of beer everytime the home team hits a homer? Oh, and the great sausage race (done at the sausage’s own risk).

1. Fenway Park; Boston, MA (Boston Red Sox) — This place smells like baseball. I can’t really explain it. But somehow, when you walk through the doors, you can tell that it’s a place where baseball has been played for over ninety years. It has history and character and charm. It’s small size means that it’s always sold out, always filled with fans. And it’s only ever been baseball — no football, no amusement park rides to remind you to have fun.

Now that I’m starting the school year, I don’t think I have the time for more roadtrips. But next season… perhaps Cleveland, Toronto, Chicago, and maybe Milwaukee.

* Tailgating is also allowed at the Coliseum. But Anand was being adventurous enough by going in the first place and so I didn’t want to push it. Not to mention that we took public transportation there.

Bartlett’s safe in the sixth

This is a bit of a delayed game report, especially given that the really exciting Twins game was Tuesday night’s nailbiter against the White Sox*… but I have pictures, so that ought to make up for it. (Photo credits all go to my father.)

This past weekend was the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the 1965 American League Champion Twins. Sunday was also the 40th anniversary of the day The Beatles played at Met Stadium, former home of the Twins and now site of the Mall of America. In honor of the event (okay, not really), I came home to see a game. Prior to the current Twins face off with the Mariners, we were introduced to the Twins legends of ’65 — Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Mudcat Grant (who took a few steps without his crutches for the crowd), Frank Quilici, and probably some people I’m forgetting. There were three “first” pitches (and that’s a rant for another time — there can only be one first pitch) by some Twins management who were involved with the team in 1965 and then the real game started.

The Mariners struck first in the top of the first with a Raul Ibanez homerun to put Seattle up 1-0. But the Twins struck back immediately with a Joe Mauer triple followed by a LeCroy single. Some fans behind me immediately started talking about Mauer’s chances of hitting for the cycle. When he singled in the fourth, I started thinking that maybe it wasn’t impossible. But it was not to be.

The Twins were down 3-1 going into the bottom of the fifth. They quickly scored two runs off of two doubles, a single, and a sacrifice ground ball hit by Nick Punto. With Shannon Stewart on third, just waiting to be hit home, up stepped Mighty Joe Mauer to the plate, looking for a double or a homerun to continue his quest for the cycle. But the Mariners had other ideas — Joel Pineiro intentionally walked him. And this set the stage for Lew Ford to hit a three run homerun, his second in three days. With managing like that, I thought I was watching the Tigers. Mauer came up to the plate two more times, but the Mariners just kept walking him. Alas, I’ve still never seen a cycle live.

In the 6th, with the Twins up 7-3, Jason Bartlett doubled and scored on a Shannon Stewart single to make the final score 8-3. But the excitement wasn’t quite over. In the bottom of the 7th, the Mariners brought in Clint Nageotte to pitch — and he only got one pitch. Not one at bat — one pitch. He threw the ball at Lew Ford’s head. Ford got out of the way, but that was enough for home plate umpire Ron Darling, who immediately ejected Nageotte. Ford ended the at bat with a new pitcher by flying out to center.

Oh, but I’ve forgotten the best part of the game… since it was the 40th anniversary of the Beatles concert, the between innings music was all Beatles. Beatles and baseball… I was in heaven.

* About that nailbiter… Freddie Garcia of the Evil Sox pitches a one-hitter and Cy Young winner Johan Santana pitches a three-hitter. Guess who won the game? Well, thanks to a Jacque Jones homer in the 8th, it wasn’t Garcia.

In honor of the Red Sox being in town, tonight I made the 45 minute drive to Detroit, despite climbing gas prices, and watched the game at Comerica Park. And while I may have missed last night’s streakers and Schilling’s blown save, I think I definitely made the right choice to go tonight. I sat very close to my seats in the second game of last month’s double header against the Twins, but three rows closer.
Although you might not guess it by the final score, the game was a close one. The Red Sox jumped out early on a homer by Varitek that also scored Ramirez, who had reached base on a walk. Until the sixth inning, the Sox were in that rare position of having more runs (2) than hits (1). Other than Varitek’s homer, Detroit’s starter, Nate Robertson, pitched an outstanding game. The Tigers first scored in the fifth with four hits resulting in two runs to tie it up. In the bottom of the eighth, the Tigers went ahead when Magglio Ordonez hit a sacrifice fly that scored Chris Shelton.
At this point in the game, Robertson was pitching a two hitter (including Varitek’s left field blast), but for reasons unbeknownst to nearly all Tiger fans that called up the post-game show, manager Alan Trammell replaced him in the ninth with Fernando Rodney. “Oh man,” said the guy behind me, “Trammell must want another shot at Schilling if he’s bringing in this guy. He’s the worst pitcher in the league.” The scouting report pleased me, and Rodney didn’t disappoint… the Red Sox fans. After Renteria flied out to left, the namesake of my future son, David “Big Papi” Ortiz, came to the plate and jacked a homerun off Rodney (30th of the year) to tie the game and send it to extra innings.
And what an extra inning! Trammell put in another pitcher, Craig Dingman, and, man, did the Sox ding him. In the 2/3 of the inning that he lasted, he was responsible for 2 earned runs off of a pair of singles by Tony “Who died and made you Mark Bellhorn?” Graffanino and Kevin Youkilis, making his ERA for the game 27.00 (and eventually serving him with the loss). But that ERA was nothing compared to the infinite ERA put up by Jamie “The streakers should be strung up by their toes” Walker. Walker faced four batters and gave up an RBI single to Damon, a single to Renteria, a three run homerun to Ortiz, and a double to Manny Ramirez. When Ortiz hit his 31st roundtripper of the season, bringing the score to 8-3, the stadium started emptying faster than a pitcher of pims at Amrys’s birthday weekend. But even if the fans were done, the Sox weren’t. Just to rub salt in the wound, Varitek hit his second dinger of the night of off the new Tigers pitcher, Franklyn Germán, to bring the score to 10-3. Millar mercifully decided to end the half-inning after that by popping up to the catcher.
But wait… as fruitless as it seemed, the Tigers still had their half of the 10th to battle. And after two quick outs, they actually did rally a bit. After two walks and a single, the bases were loaded for Craig Monroe, who proceeded to hit his first career grand slam to bring the score to 10-7. Suddenly the few remaining Tigers fans left in the stadium woke up… just in time to watch Brandon Inge fly out to Adam “Who the heck is this?” Stern to end the game.
What surprised me most, and perhaps it shouldn’t have, were the number of Sox fans at the game — I’d estimate a third of the 32,129 people in attendance. The guy behind me was a little annoyed by this, although he decided that I was respectable a) because of my scorebook and b) because I was a Twins fan and not an Indians fan. According to him, back when Jacobs Field opened and Cleveland’s games were always sold out, Indians fans used to flock to Detroit in troves when their team came to town. As this was back in the mid-90s when the Tigers were even more horrific than they are now, Cleveland fans would out number Detroit fans. Red Sox fans weren’t quite that numerous, but I had many more allies tonight than I did when the Twins were in town.
And speaking of the Twins… they beat the White Sox tonight 9-4 in 16 innings. And the Yankees lost to Tampa Bay, 4-3, in 11 innings. Today seems to be the day for extra inning games with good outcomes.

Starting Thursday, I’ll be off on a whirlwind tour of Canada and upstate New York, with planned stops at Niagara Falls (alone), Rochester (new home of Melissa Cain), Cooperstown (for the Hall of Fame, naturally), and Albany Slingerlands (for Amrys’s birthday shenanigans).
In order to prepare for the Cooperstown visit, I was checking out the Hall of Fame website and wound up browsing the online exhibits, particularly the photo contest. There’s a great shot of a double rainbow at Fenway and of Bill Mueller laying out for a catch. Remember when Dusty Baker’s son ran out to get the bat prior to the end of the play during the 2002 World Series and almost got plowed over? Well, perhaps this will refresh your memory (ESPN article for those who really don’t remember). But my favorite picture is this image of Comiskey as seen through a puddle’s reflection. I love the sepia tones. When I conjure up a mental image of “baseball,” it looks something like that picture.

Me at Comerica

For the second game of the night, I switched sides of the field. It seems that by doing so, I also transferred luck to the visiting team — or maybe it was all the roster changes. The Twins starting pitcher in game 2, Scott Baker, wasn’t even on the roster for the afternoon game, as he had just been called up from AAA. In the meantime, outfielder Michael Ryan was sent down. The Tigers made a similar move between games, calling up their starter, Justin Verlander, while sending down infielder Kevin Hooper. To make things even more confusing, both pitchers were immediately sent back to the minors after the game, while the Twins’ Terry Tiffee and Detroit’s Vic Darenbourg were called up. Both teams had line-up changes involving their catchers as well — Joe Mauer moved to DH while Mike Redmond caught for the Twins, and Pudge Rodriguez, injured in the first game, was replaced by Vance Wilson.

Just prior to the national anthem, the announcer remarked, “Ladies and gentlemen, please rise and gentlemen, remove your caps.” What a gender specific order! Well, being that I am certainly not a gentleman (and some might argue that I’m not much of a lady), I left my cap on.

John McDonald leads off after an 8th inning single

The top and bottom of the first inning were nearly identical — Joe Mauer hit an RBI double to score Nick Punto for the Twins and Magglio Ordonez hit an RBI double to score Curtis Granderson for the Tigers. The matching scorecards continued in the second, with both teams going 1-2-3. In the third, Shannon Stewart’s single kept the Twins from going 1-2-3 the way the Tigers did, but the halves of the scorecard really diverged in the 4th.

After Hunter and Jones singled, Justin Morneau hit an RBI double to start off the inning. Mike Redmond tried to follow in Morneau’s shoes by stretching his two RBI single into a double, but he was tagged out in a 9-3-6-3 rundown. Justin Morneau continued to add runs for the Twins by taking the first pitch of the sixth inning deep, putting the Twins up 5-1. In the meantime, Scott Baker pitched an outstanding game, giving up only five hits over seven innings.

The final score, as displayed on the Tigers scoreboard

The Tigers tried to mount a rally in the bottom of the 7th, scoring one run on a walk and two singles. With two on and one out, Vance Wilson came to the plate in an at-bat that has been talked about on Detroit sports radio for two days. Wilson is currently batting a meager .145, and the armchair managers around Detroit have been lambasting manager Alan Trammell for leaving him in in such a crucial situation. “Pudge could have caught two innings! Brandon Inge can catch!” they cry. But as a Twins fan, I’m glad Trammell left him in. The first pitch of Wilson’s at bat: 6-4-3, double play, inning over, rally quashed. The Tigers had only one hit in the rest of the game, and the Twins were victorious, 5-2.

This was the first game where I saw someone other than myself keeping score. A young girl and her friend sitting next to me had the scorecard from the program open. Her father, upon seeing my own more elaborate scorebook, told me that he had a standing offer of $5 to his kids if they could ever completely score a game without missing a batter. I let the girl (maybe 12, 13 years old) pick up any batter she missed from my scorebook. But alas, the father decided that that was cheating, as she would have easily missed at least two batters without my help. After the game, someone won a car, and we were treated to a half-hour of fireworks being shot off right behind second base. All in all, a good day.

Joe Mauer on second after his 7th inning double

For the first time this season, I went to a game in which I was actively rooting against the hometeam. Thus, it was quite the disappointment when the hometeam won. Thanks to construction on I-94, which I didn’t know about beforehand, I arrived at the game 10 minutes late, and bought my outfield grandstand tickets from a scalper the box office. I missed the top of the first, although I figured out what I missed from the jumbotron in later innings. Ahh, Lew Ford grounded out to the pitcher in the first — I’ll score it a 1-3. But the seats were decent — 11th row from the field, just behind third base.

The Tigers scored early on three singles in the bottom of the second. Omar Infante got the RBI off a single scoring Magglio Ordonez from second. The game remained a pitchers duel until the top of the 7th. Joe Mauer, former quarterback for the Cretin-Derham Hall football team that clobbered my own Wayzata High School Trojans by some ridiculous score on their way to a state title, led off the seventh with a double. He scored two batters later on a Jacque Jones single.

Bronze statue of legendary Tigers first baseman Hammerin’ Hank Greenberg

The Twins defense looked good at the start of the bottom on the 7th. Juan Castro laid out for diving catch at shortstop to keep Omar Infante from getting on base. (I wasn’t fast enough to snap a picture.) But on the very next pitch, Curtis Granderson homered deep to right field, regaining the Tiger lead. Carlos Silva recovered and struck out Brandon Inge on six pitches to end the inning, but the damage had been done. The Twins never recovered and the final score remained 2-1.

The remaining play of note happened during Jacque Jones’s at bat in the bottom of the ninth. On the first pitch, Jones fouled straight back and the ball glanced off of catcher Pudge Rodriguez’s shoulder. The game stopped while the trainer came out to take a look, but eventually Pudge stayed in the game. However, he was not back in the line-up for the second game of the night, a roster move that may have cost the Tigers the second game.

Since this was the first game of a day-night double header, I had three and a half hours to kill between games. I spent the first hour wandering around the stadium. Like SBC Park in San Francisco, Comerica Park opened in 2000. Both stadiums have large bronze statues of their team’s former great players.

The Tigers merry-go-round – $2 a ride!

In comparison with Fenway, the oldest stadium still in use (1912), both of these newer stadiums come with attractions not directly related to the baseball game taking place on the field. SBC Park has the Coca-Cola Superslide and Little Giants Park, a miniature ballfield for kids to run around in. Comerica has a beer garden, a ferris wheel with carts shaped like baseballs, and a Detroit Tigers merry-go-round. I toyed with the idea of spending $2 on a ride, but I eventually decided against it. After all, I came to see some baseball, not play on an amusement park.

In order to make sure we bought two tickets clean between games, the staff at Comerica required us to leave the stadium and not re-enter until 5:30. I bought my tickets for the second game, wandered around downtown Detroit for a bit, and ate at the first air-conditioned restaurant I could find — the Hard Rock Cafe. After a dinner of chili and a rootbeer float, I returned to Comerica for the second game of the evening…