Results tagged ‘ i hate big crowds ’
7/28/10 vs. Oakland
It’s getting harder and harder for me to attend weekday games because I can’t always leave work as early as I’d like, and if I can’t make it for all of batting practice part of me doesn’t want to go at all. Call me weird, but that’s how I feel.
As it turns out, I figured out that even if I leave work just 30 minutes early (5:00 instead of 5:30) we can still make it to the ballpark by 5:30 and catch the last 30-40 minutes of the visiting team’s BP. Not bad, but still not as good as getting in 30 minutes earlier than everybody else.
This game was one of the times we got there at around 5:30 and there was a pretty decent crowd in the left centerfield bleachers so we hung back a few rows until some of the younger fans started to wander off and we claimed a couple spots in the corner next to the A’s bullpen.
My first ball of the day came within the first 5 minutes of us being there when a kid muffed a toss up and it landed in the gap. He was about 5-6 feet to my left and I was all over it. I took the ball over to where I was standing previously and handed it to a little boy around 5 years old who was wearing a glove but had not yet gotten a ball. He and his father were very thankful and that made it all worth it.
As I was reeling that ball up, Dirk was getting his one and only ball of the day out of the bullpen so we were both now on the board!
The A’s weren’t hitting many our way today and the ones that were in our direction weren’t even close to hitting the seats. Right field on the other hand was getting peppered with balls, but there’s always SO many kids over there that it’s just not worth it.
At one point a ball had to come to rest on the grass edge of the warning track directly in front of me. The only problem was I completely surrounded by kids, so I knew that if that ball were to reach the seats I would not be the one to snag it.
Well, I was wrong.
There was one pitcher in particular that was having fun with the crowd today during BP. He’s a former Texas Tech Red Raider so I guess he felt like he was “at home” this series. He came over and stood right next to the ball that was right in front of me and wouldn’t pick it up. Every 30 seconds or so he would bend down like he was going to pick it up and once the chorus of “Here!, Here!s” started he would stand back up and leave the ball on the ground. After the first couple of times I caught on to what he was doing but the younger ones weren’t as quick. That’s when I started to think that he would just flip the ball backwards without looking and I figured that would be my one and only shot at it.
I was right.
After about a minute or two of messing with the kids, he leaned over to pick the ball up with his glove and just sort of flung it directly off of the grass. Kind of cool if you ask me because it was going to be a win win for me either way. I would either get to reel in another ball out of the gap or I would just catch it and hand it over to someone. Turns out it was the latter. The ball was about a foot over my head on my left so I reached up with my glove and caught it in the pocket. I didn’t even touch the ball, I just opened my glove and let the boy on my left take it out.
“Who was the pitcher?”, you may be asking. Well, it was none other than Mr. Perfecto himself, Dallas Braden.
Not too shabby if I say so myself.
That would be it for me during batting practice although I can finally say that I outsnagged Dirk! That made it all worth it!
Wednesdays are Dollar Dog nights at the Ballpark in Arlington so after getting our free drink coupons from the designated driver booth we got some dogs and found a place to stuff our faces.
This game was exciting from a baseball fan standpoint but frustrating from a ballhawk standpoint. There were so many people at this game that we couldn’t find a spot to move to like we usually do. Actually, we did find a spot to move to but we did it too early and were asked for our tickets. Oh well. Rules are rules right?
So for a good majority of the game we stood against the wall out in left field. If you haven’t seen it, it looks like this….
If you click on the photo and enlarge it the wall is red and had Lucas Oil on it.
I don’t mind it over there, it has great home run potential, I would just rather be able to sit somewhere out there instead of standing but oh well.
Turns out it didn’t matter anyways since we didn’t have even one close call. As Rangers’ manager Ron Washington says,”that’s the way baseball go!”
The Rangers would go on to lose this game by the score of 3-1. I don’t like watching them lose, especially in person since this is only the 2nd loss I’ve witnessed in 19 games attended this season.
I originally was going to use this game to gain some ground in the myGameBalls.com photo scavenger hunt but after taking about three pictures I realized they weren’t correct, so I will have to try again another day.
Here’s a couple that I got during the game….
…. of Fox Sports Southwest reporter Jim Knox on the left and TV analyst and former MLB player Steve Busby on the right.
Even though my team lost it’s always fun to be at the ballpark. I truly feel at home there.
Time of game: 2 hrs. 40 mins.
Attendance: 38,269
Next Game: Tues. 8/10 vs. the Stankees (I’ll explain why later….)
5/20/10 vs. Baltimore
Well, I actually missed a game entry. I went to the 5/12 game against the A’s, took a few pictures, saw some good baseball, didn’t snag any balls, but had a fun time at the ballpark.
There. That’s got to be the shortest game summary on mlblogs.
I also went to the Thursday 5/20 game against the Orioles. I left work at 5:30 so batting practice wasn’t going to happen, but my friend Dirk and I figured that seeing as there was no promotional giveaway this game, and they were playing the Orioles, the odds were pretty good that the crowd would be pretty small. It was.
Tonight was all about the foul ball.
Even with leaving work much later than I normally do on game day, we still walked through the gate at around 6:15. It was a 7:05 start so we had some time to kill.
We went back into the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame like we did at this game and thankfully there was more stuff to look at this time. They had the second floor open so we went up there to check it out and I took some photos with my phone looking out toward the field….
This next photo is actually an old pic that I wanted to use as an example to show where the above photos were taken from….
If you click on the last photo you’ll have a better look at the two red arrows in right field numbered 1 and 2. The location of the #1 arrow is where I took the first two pictures above. The location of the #2 arrow is where I took the photo looking out to the sports park behind centerfield. It actually looks to be tied into the centerfield offices (the white part of the stadium from left center to right center), but you get to that point through the second level of the hall of fame which I never knew before. After figuring that last part out when we went back out to the field level, Dirk and I started in with the “so this where the “other half” watches the game from” jokes. What can I say, we are easily amused.
Our seats for this game were in the third row of the bleachers in left centerfield, which we only stayed in for an inning or two. They were in this vicinity….
Click the photo and you’ll notice the red arrow just to the left of Green’s Hill, that’s the best visual I can give of where our seats were.
By the end of the second inning we had already moved around to the third base side to go for foul balls. Usually, we will wait until the end of the third at the absolute earliest, but there were just so many empty seats that we had to give it a shot. Thankfully it worked.
We were treated to 35 total hits, 20 by Texas and 15 by Baltimore. The Rangers hit three home runs (1 each by Nelson Cruz, Vladimir Guerrero, and Matt Treanor) on their way to a 13-7 victory. It was a welcome change from the 3-2 and 4-3 games that we have become accustomed to so far this season.
As for the foul balls, they would elude us once again. The closest we came at this game was one that was caught about 10-12 rows in front of us. Oh well, we’ll get one eventually.
That’s about it for this game, nothing else to report. The Cubs are coming in this weekend for a three game set and we are trying to make the Saturday tilt. It’s a 6:05 start with a post-game concert so there’s no telling how crowded it will be. I’ve heard on local talk radio that the ballpark is anticipating 110,000 people over this three game weekend. That comes out to around 37,000 a game. I hope they’re wrong, I really don’t want to fight all that madness.
Time of game: 3hrs. 34mins.
Attendance: 17,304 (That I can handle!)
Next game: Possibly, Sat. 5/22 vs. the Cubs
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