Results tagged ‘ tickets ’
7/27/09 at LaGrave Field
After my last trip to a Cats game, I knew it would only be a matter of time until my next one. Well, this was it, and this time I was accompanied by Dirk and his son, Connor, and my daughter, Sarah.
We arrived at the stadium at around 5:40 and this was the view as we walked from the truck to the ticket window….
Dirk and I each bought 2 general admission tickets for $6 each, and then waited for the gates to open at 6:00. Here’s a couple shots of us by the gate….
When the gates finally opened we split up, Dirk and Connor went to the RF bleachers, and Sarah and I went to the LF berm. Our mission: Easter Eggs. After failing to find any in either spot, we realized that BP did not happen today. Oh, well, that explains it.
It had been raining off and on the past two days, and although it wasn’t raining at that time, there still wasn’t BP.
With that checked off of the to-do list, the next mission: Food.
All of the concession stands at LaGrave are cash only, and guess who only had a debit card? Yep, me.
So, the next 15 minutes or so were spent locating, and trying to use, the only ATM in the place. The only problem was the weather screwed it up. Alternative: Cats Cash. I had to go to the ticket window and purchase $25 worth of fake money in order to buy food for Sarah and I. Oh well, lesson learned. Bring cash to LaGrave Field!
Our pregame meal consisted of a cheeseburger and fries for Sarah, BBQ brisket nachos for me (they weren’t as good as they sound), and 2 Dr. Peppers for $16.50. Is that a lot of money for a minor league stadium?
RE/MAX of Texas realtors was a sponsor of this night’s game, and one of the planned events was to have 4 RE/MAX skydivers fly onto the field prior to the national anthem and deliver the game ball. Here’s a photo of the final jumper with the American flag….
We didn’t have “seats” for this game since we had GA tickets, so we had a few spots to choose from, and we decided on the first base side even with the right fielder.
That spot is cool from a foul ball standpoint and a game watching perspective, although there would be no foul balls hit our way in the 2-1/2 innings we sat there. We were able to witness some awesome defensive plays though.
Both sides of the field have a “party deck” that overlook the baselines. We decided to go up to the deck on the 1B side (since all of the Cats hitters are righties) and this was the view of homeplate….
And here’s one I took of the Fort Worth skyline….
In the bottom of the 3rd inning a ball was fouled off and heading our direction, so I took off after it with Dirk behind me to my left. The ball was tailing out of my reach, but Dirk made a sweet grab on the fly about 5 feet from me!
Here’s Dirk with his freshly snagged gamer….
And here’s a close-up shot I took of the ball a little while later….
Just before I took the photo of Dirk with the ball, the very next pitch after his foul, was another foul ball hit in our direction! The only problem was I was too busy looking at Dirk’s ball (no jokes please!), that I didn’t see it until it was over my head, bouncing off of the concrete deck, and down into the parking lot. NO!!!!
Oh well, that’s what I get for not paying attention.
This was a VERY slow moving game. First pitch was at 7:05 and by 9:30 they were only into the 6th inning. Thankfully, there is a lot of room for the kids to run around on the party deck, so they kept themselves entertained.
Here’s a couple of photos of us from up there….
The rain was a factor for most of the game, but since this was Independent League baseball, and not MLB, there was never an actual “delay”. On a couple occasions, the rain was strong enough to force most of the fans to take shelter in the concourse behind homeplate.
During one of those “gatherings”, a woman with an umbrella covering herself and her son came and stood near me. I didn’t think anything of it at first, until I heard the woman laughing and the son carrying on about something. I turned to look and saw this….
That would be a baby-sized bird on top of the woman’s umbrella. I have to admit, that’s a first for me. It was acutally on there for a minute or so before I asked to take this picture, and even after I took it, the lady left it there to fly off on it’s own, which it did after a few minutes.
You never know what you are going to see at the ballpark!
It had been a while since we ate, so I went and got Sarah a rainbow Snoball (a snow cone in a bowl), and myself some ice cream (no, they don’t use helmets, but plastic cups. Boo!). That would tide us over for the rest of the night.
By the top of the 9th inning the Cats were leading the Grand Prairie Airhogs 9-4 and the rain was not letting up this time, so we started to make our way to the truck. We walked around behind homeplate to go down the stairs and exit there, but I decided to have Dirk stay with the kids there, and I went out into the parking lot to go for foul balls.
During the course of the game, there were approximately 6-8 kids out there, and around 16-18 fouls hit out there. Yeah, we were counting.
When I was out there, all the kids were gone, and there were only 2 batters that came up to hit in the 9th. The first flew out to the outfield, and the second swung through strike three, but he thought he tipped it (he was wrong), and proceded to “steal” first base and throw it into the stands on the third base side!
Gotta love minor league baseball!
The next batter came up as the rain came down harder, and on the second pitch, he swung and his bat flew clear into centerfield. The umps called the game after that.
Of course I had to hear all of this from Dirk after the fact, since I was out in the parking lot and didn’t get to see it firsthand. Oh well, if a ball had come into the parking lot, I would have been the only one out there to get it!
Time of game: 3hrs. 1 min. (Game called 1 out early due to rain)
Attendance: 1,886
By the way — I don’t know if this is the same everywhere else, but LaGrave Field has a pretty cool list of former players that have either played for or against the Cats. You can see that list here. (Scroll to the bottom of the page for the list)
7/05/09 vs. Tampa Bay
Well, this is going to be short & sweet, because once again I didn’t have my camera (forgot it).
My friend, Dirk, and I decided to go to this game mainly for the fact that this would be the last home game for the Rangers before the All Star break. So, we cleared it with our wives and we were off. It was such a quick decision that 1: I forgot my camera, and 2: I forgot to print a roster for the Rays.
Oh well, I was soon to find out it wouldn’t matter anyway.
We got to the stadium and bought 2 bleacher tickets for $8.00 each, got to the gate & through the bag check, and to the left field seats at around 5:10 or so. Which normally, is 5 minutes into BP.
Not today.
No cages, no players on the field at all.
WHAT?!?!?!
Granted, it was a little cloudy, but they’ve taken BP in worse conditions before.
I can’t explain it, I don’t know what was up, and quite frankly I didn’t want to know. The night before was a normal, 9 inning game. Tonight was a 7:05 start, and no BP. To say that I was upset would be an understatement.
We roamed around for a little while, and during our wandering we spotted a ball in the visitors’ bullpen. It was about 4-5 feet down, and about 3-4 feet out from the wall. Now, I’ve used the glove trick twice now and haven’t had any problems with security, but I still went and asked the nearest usher if I could go for it. Call me crazy, but better safe than sorry I always say.
The usher gave us his blessing (which I figured he would), and we went for it. I let Dirk go for it, since I can do it whenever I want really. He had to knock the ball about a foot closer first, and when he had it just right I set up the trick and he got it on the 2nd try.
Let me back up a little bit.
Before we went and asked for permission from the usher, we noticed that there seemed to be some sort of extra logo on the ball. Commemorative? Odd stamping? We didn’t know for sure, but that made getting the ball much more of a priority.
Okay, fast-forwarding…
When Dirk raised the glove for the 2nd time, I put my hand underneath it to support the ball when it came in reach. As we lifted the glove over the railing, I pulled the ball out to look at it and almost puked.
It was a Little League ball!
Are you kidding me?!?!
How in the world it got down there, we had no idea, until a guy came over out of nowhere and asked if we would give it to him, because apparently it was “So and So’s” ball and he threw it down there. Dirk hadn’t seen that it was a little league ball, so he said no at first, but upon further inspection we let him have it.
What a downer. I considered (very briefly) counting it in my glove trick totals, but decided against it. It wasn’t an official MLB ball, so it doesn’t count. Although it was pretty cool getting to snag a ball without BP!
We stayed in the bleachers until the end of the 2nd inning, when we couldn’t take those metal seats any longer, and started roaming for a foul ball spot.
There was suprisingly a lot of people in attendance tonight, so it wasn’t easy to find a good spot. So, we spent a couple innings in the upper deck to see if anything cleared out.
At around the 4th or 5th inning we found a spot on the third base side on the 2nd level, and stayed there until the end of the 7th. No balls there.
We used the top of the 8th to go down behind home plate, and a very nice female usher gave us two seats in the back of a section directly behind home. Great spot, great usher!
The final batter of the game, Pat Burrell, fouled his first pitch one section over to our right, and it was a missile! The next pitch was a rocket over by the Rangers’ dugout. I looked at Dirk, and we knew if one was going to come our way, we would have to be quick.
The next to last pitch was a screamer a few feet to my right. I was on the aisle, and I’m right-handed, so I had a split second to reach across my body with my glove hand while ranging to my right, only to miss it by what seemed like a foot or less. In all reality it may have been 2 feet, but in the heat of the moment it seemed really close.
The ball shot up the tunnel behind me, and I raced to track it down, but by the time I got to the concourse, someone walking by had already gotten it. That’s the closest I’ve ever come to snagging a foul ball.
The very next pitch was a swinging strike three. Rangers win 5-2 and complete a three game sweep of the Rays to remain tied for the division lead with the Angels.
Time of game: 3 hrs.
Attendance: 22,324
Next game: 7/17 vs. the Twins
6/11/09 vs. Toronto
The Blue Jays were in town for a 4-game series, the first two went to our neighbors from the north, and the third was postponed due to rain (sound familiar anyone?). Although, it was not moved to the next day for a double-header, instead, it was moved to September 1st for a double-header. Oh well, it didn’t matter to me, I just wanted the rain to hold off enough so we could have just one game.
Due to the previous night’s rain-out, they pushed back the start of Kevin Millwood to this evening. Cool! He’s been pitching really well lately, & the Rangers need to stop this 2-game losing streak they’ve started.
I attended this game with my friend Dirk, and my daughter Sarah, and was without my camera once again. I mentioned in a previous entry that I felt naked going to a game without a camera, and after I wrote that, I thought it was a little odd myself, but after my 2nd game without it, I must say I stand by that statement. There’s just too many photo opportunities at a game to be there without one. But I was, and life must go on.
We got a late jump on this game, because I was not able to leave work as early as I needed to in order to make it when the gates opened. It was a 7:05 start, so the 1st and 3rd base gates would open at 5:05. We got to the stadium at around 5:20ish, and made our way to the ticket window, got 3 seats on the 2nd level behind the 3B foul pole (that we never sat in), and went to the nearest gate (home plate). The home plate and centerfield gates open 30 minutes later than 1st & 3rd. We got in line at about 5:25, so we only waited about 5 minutes, but it felt like an eternity. We could hear batting practice going on inside the stadium, so I was getting restless.
The gate finally opened, and after having my bag checked, we raced to the left field seats while the Blue Jays were in the middle of BP.
Thankfully, the Stankees were gone so the crowd was back to normal. The competition in the LF stands for batting practice was minimal, which was good because we would have more room to maneuver. Sarah and I didn’t get any HRs on the fly, but when an unknown pitcher tossed a ball to a little boy next to me, he bobbled and dropped it into the gap between the stands and the field. I was going to attempt the glove trick, until I noticed that the ball was in a precarious position.
A little back story….
In years past, the LF wall was a manual scoreboard, until this past offseason when it was changed to a digital video board, which you can see in some of my previous entries. The board is supported by a secondary wall of fans that are there to keep it from overheating, I assume. The wall of fans has 6-8 inches of dead space underneath it, and that is where the bobbled ball came to rest. (It was a long trip, but we finally made it to the point!)
I leaned over to the boy and told him to go over to the corner of the LF wall and the foul line wall, because that’s where the grounds crew enters the field, and I figured he could tell them that he dropped his ball & then ask them to get it for him. His eyes lit up, and he took off running in that direction, then passed it up & kept on running to the visitors’ dugout!
Ummm, okaaay?!….
So….
I told Sarah the same thing and she went over to the correct spot and gave me gesture to say no one was over there. I held up one finger and mouthed, “hold on”. In just a minute or so, a man appeared, and Sarah pled her case. He walked over, grabbed the ball, and tossed it up to Sarah. Ball # 1 on the day! Yeah baby!
During the Jays’ batting practice, everyone that was in the LF/3B foul line vicinity, was entertained by a specific pitcher….
Scott Downs.
This guy is my new favorite Blue Jay (not that I had a favorite Blue Jay to begin with, but you get the idea).
He was so fun to watch, and so giving with baseballs. If he threw one back to the bucket, the very next ball he got would go somewhere in the crowd. He would scan the crowd and pick out a specific person he wanted to throw one to, then he would go through all of his normal pitching motions. Set up, shaking off signs, wind up , pitch, everything. It was amazing, and if someone caught a ball that he didn’t intend to throw it to, he made them throw the ball back to him, so he could throw it to the person he meant to have it in the first place. Unbelieveable!
One kid in particular, a teenager I think, was on the railing on the foul line holding his glove down over the rail to get Downs to throw him one. Downs finally noticed him, and had him hold his glove steady over the railing. He was about 25 yards away, and on about 6 consecutive throws, he hit the wall just inches under the kid’s glove. Then he would walk over to the ball and motion like he messed up, back up and do it again. It was great to watch, of course he ended up giving it to him, but it was good for a few laughs.
I didn’t know his name at first, because his warmup jersey was covering his name and #, and I hate asking for balls and not knowing their name. I won’t do it. Finally, I asked a guy next to me if he knew his name, and thankfully he did. So, when everyone else was yelling, “Scott, Scott, hey pitch!”, I told Sarah to wait until they stopped, then call out “Mr. Downs”.
And she did, and when she called out, he responded with a playfully exasperated sounding “WHAT!!” He turned to face us, and I held up my glove and pointed to Sarah. Then, he proceded to go through his pitch routine and threw the ball right in my glove for ball # 2!
Awesome! What a guy, I fully believe that EVERY team needs a player like Scott Downs. If you ever have the chance to go to a game that the Blue Jays are in, you need to take advantage of it. If for no other reason, than to just see Downs in action during BP. You’re almost guaranteed a ball.
Those 2 balls would be the only ones we got for the rest of the game. Dirk was able to catch a homerun on the fly, so we all did good!
I mentioned earlier that we never sat in our ticketed seats, and we didn’t because the crowd was so small, we just stayed in left field until the top of the 6th, when we moved over into foul territory just foul of the 3B line pole.
We didn’t get close to one homerun or foul ball all night. It was a good game though, that is if you like pitchers duels. The one and only run came off the bat of Marlon Byrd of the Rangers, by way of a sacrifice fly in the second inning. That was it.
Brian & Sarah 2, USA 1, Canada 0.
Here’s a look at the 2 balls we got….
A look at the smudges….
And here’s the extra tickets we found after the game….
Time of game: 2 hrs. 41 minutes
Attendance: 16,073 (That’s more like it!)
Next game: Fri. 6/12 vs. The Dodgers….
5/25/09 vs. the Yankees
I wanted to go to this game for a couple different reasons. First, it was a Monday afternoon game, and I was off work (Memorial Day). Second, the Stankees were coming in for three games, and this one was going to be the easiest to make (I was taking my daughter Sarah, and the other two were going to be on school nights). With all that said, on Fri. 5/22, I bought the two cheapest tickets I could find online ($11.00 for mine and $3.00 for Sarah’s). The seats were in the upper deck straight down the 1st base line, but I really didn’t care ’cause I didn’t plan on staying there for the whole game anyway.
I had heard that the ballpark was going to open at 10:00, with the parking lots opening at 9:00. This kind of surprised me, since the gates normally open 2 hrs. prior to game time, which today would’ve been at 11:00. Were they expecting a big crowd for Memorial Day? Were they expecting a big crowd because of the Stankees? Both? Who knows, all I cared about was the fact that I could be inside the ballpark that much longer!
I figured (or at least I “hoped”) that the Rangers would be taking batting practice today, which is a good thing, because I’ve been to a few games this year where they haven’t. We pulled into the parking lot at around 9:30 or so, and got to the gate as soon as we could. After getting through the bag check, we scanned our tickets and were handed a “Baseball in the Military” magazine (more on this later). We raced to the left field seats and were greeted by this….
That’s what I’m talkin’ about! Beautiful sight!
We were in that spot for the entire BP session for the Rangers, and the closest we came to getting a ball, were the homeruns on the fly that missed us by 20-30 feet. There were more hit to the right field side, but I just hate fighting the crowd over there. Although, today that crowd was everywhere. The closet Stankee fans were out in force. This was my competition during BP….
And this is a look at all the Stankee fans waiting behind the dugout….
Now, as you can probably tell, I’m not real fond of that team from the Bronx, but even I cannot deny the greatness of this guy….
Mariano Rivera.
It’s not his fault that he’s on a team I can’t stand, that guy is a stud!
Here’s one of Sarah eating her favorite snack….Combos!
See the guy to right of #58 in the following pic? He’s another great player….
C.C. Sabathia.
Those are the only photos I took of NY players. I respect Jeter, even though he is a Stankee-lifer, he can play & everyone knows it. A-roid & Mark Deushera? Don’t even get me started on those two wastes of MLB uniforms (as well as MLB money).
There was a lot of pre-game pageantry today (as was the case everywhere I’m sure), including a fly-over by three Apache helicopters, and I’m still kicking myself for not taking a photo. I love fly-overs!
Every game I attend, I take stadium photos, and every time I upload them to my computer I notice duplicate angles. So, I almost talked myself out of taking pics this time, but we were going to be sitting in an area I haven’t really been to before, so I took some anyway. Here’s some from the upper deck 1st base side….
I kind of like the look of the stadium from up there, but it’s not the best place for actually watching the game.
We stayed in our seats until the end of the 2nd inning, when we decided to walk around. Not only were our seats way up there, we were also stuck in the middle of a row of about 20 seats. Not cool.
We wandered all the around the park, until we came to the sports park in centerfield. That’s when we got tricked into filling out a casino survey (never set foot in one in my life), just to get Sarah a set of bang sticks. Here she is….
At least she’s happy, that’s all that matters!
We took shelter from the sun in Captain’s Corral, an enclosed concession stand basically, and bought some cheap nachos and a bottle of water.
After wandering, wasting time in the sports park, and hiding from the sun, it was now around the 7th inning, so we found some empty seats behind home plate to go for foul balls and also to look for tickets and stuff after the game.
No foul balls. Didn’t even come close to any really, just the “one section over” usual. The Rangers lost this game 11-1 and only had 4 hits in the game.
Here’s a shot of the tickets we found after the game….
Time of game – 2 hrs. 35 mins.
Attendance – 48,914
Stankee fans – GO HOME!!
Next game 6/11 vs. Toronto….
BY THE WAY – Remember the magazine I mentioned at the top of the entry, “Baseball in the Military”? I hope that Major League Baseball gave this out at every stadium, and that more people took it home at other places than people did here, because it is AWESOME! It’s about 20-25 pages long and has some great stories in it of guys enlisting in the military while playing baseball. If you got one, and haven’t read it, I highly encourage you to do so. You won’t regret it.
5/2/09 vs. Chicago White Sox
This game was a toss up. The weather was horrible almost all week, and it culminated in what turned out to be a VERY bad storm. Batting practice was not meant to be, but we still had to make the decision whether to go or not. By we, I mean my friend Dirk and I. Well, at first it was the two of us, and then it turned into the two of us, my daugher Sarah, his son Ryan and daugher Kaitlyn.
So we decided to go anyway.
As we made our way from the parking lot to the ballpark, it started raining. We went to the box office on the 3rd base side to get our tickets for the night, and made our way to the 3B gate, and it was raining. By the time we got in line at the gate it was 4:35, and there was a fairly long line (well, long by our standards) and it was raining. The promotion for the night was a Nolan Ryan statuette to commemorate the 18th anniversary of his 7th no-hitter. It was a pretty cool figurine, but it brought a lot of people out to the ballpark that may not have been there on an ordinary night.
Here’s what it looks like….
The gates actually opened about 15 minutes early, because it was raining. Not just raining, but absolutely POURING. So, we got an early jump on….. nothing.
See, this is what nothing looks like….
Nice. Did I mention it was raining?
That’s the reason we almost didn’t come. But, it gave us time to wander around, take pictures, and meet up with someone I’ve wanted to meet for a while, Zack Hample.
I know, it looks like I just ran a marathon, but it’s rain. I promise. No really, I mean it!
After some more wandering, we decided to head down to get a good spot on the 3rd base side, and when we got there, we were just in time to see them remove the tarp. The 1st of 3 times that evening. Our grounds crew is OUTSTANDING.
Once the tarp was off the field, some of the White Sox were in left field warming up. And I got the chance to take a picture of Zack in action….
Zack’s the one with the backpack and the White Sox costume.
Actually, I took more pics & followed Zack around for a while (with his permission of course), and if you want to see more of that, you’ll have to check out HIS BLOG.
Anyway, so the game was going good until the end of the 4th, when the skies opened up…again.
By this time it was about 9:30 or so, and we really didn’t want to wait it out, since we had 2 little girls with us, and they needed to get to bed. So we made our way to the parking lot, and I took this rainy/blurry picture before climbing into Dirk’s truck….
Rangers won 9-6 (at around midnight). Actual time of game – 2 hrs. 37 mins. Total rain delayed time – 2 hrs. 27 mins. Attendance – 26,673 (yeah right!).
I know rain serves a purpose, but tonight was just too much for me. Hopefully next time, Mr. Sun will make an appearance.
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