Chase Field, Phoenix (Happy Anniversary)

Some people go out for a fancy dinner for their wedding anniversary. We go to the ballpark (although we did have lunch at one of our favorite restaurants).

Today is our 46th anniversary, and we have stayed married lo these many years either because of baseball or in spite of it. Baseball has been a part of birthdays, even birth dates (there’s a photo of a baseball play in our family room explaining why our oldest son was born the day he was).

And sometimes baseball has been a source of contention. I remember one time in the 1990s when Kerry asked, “Why is it that you can remember some baseball game we went to on Labor Day in 1983, but you can’t remember for five minutes that you agreed to take out the trash?”

In retrospect, I think that was a rhetorical question, and I probably shouldn’t have given the answer I did. But it was the highlight of that season, when the Cardinals (we had weekend season tickets at the time) swept a double-header from the Pirates, and came as close to 1st place as they would in the second half of that season.

I hope you appreciate the irony of the fact that I still remember that double-header (and the conversation about it years later), because I’m not sure that Kerry appreciates it.  

Happy anniversary, dear.

The game:

Diamondbacks 5, Rockies 1

This year’s Arizona team is fun to watch. They win more often than they lose, and they have a bunch of exciting young players. One of those, Corbin Carroll, has three hits (including a home run), two runs scored, and two stolen bases in the last two games. But the one I think is worth mentioning is Jake McCarthy. He made his major league debut last season, and was a starting outfielder on Opening Day, but was sent to the minors after getting off to a horrible start. He seemed to get his batting stroke back, so they recently called him back up. In the last two games, he’s only hit the ball out of the infield once in seven plate appearances. But he's very fast, so he turned that into four hits, a walk, two runs scored, two runs driven in, and four stolen bases.  

Incidentally, one of the things that Kerry and I always do at home games is try to guess the attendance. I won tonight, although I did miss the total by 96 out of 11,146, or a little less than 1%. She still has the best for the year, though – she only missed by 15 out of 13,151 at one game, or just over 0.1%.

Phoenix AZ, May 30, 2023

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

George M. Steinbrenner Field, Tampa (MLB #15 - The aftermath of Hurricane Milton)

Image
This is our hurricane trip. For one thing, we are going to Florida and Georgia in April and early May, rather than August or September, because, well, we’ve never been in a hurricane, and don’t see any need to start now. But there are a couple of hurricanes that will be on our minds this trip. After Hurricane Helene devastated the Diamondbacks’ playoff hopes (more about that next week), not to mention the city of Asheville, N.C., and assorted other places during the last week of the regular season in 2024, Hurricane Milton came along about two weeks later and hit St. Petersburg, taking the top off the Rays’ Tropicana Field, cutting the bottom out from under a deal to build a new stadium in St. Pete, and setting in motion a bizarre chain of events that hasn’t come close to playing out yet. That’s why we went to a game tonight with the logo of one team on the banners surrounding the stadium, and that of one of their archrivals on the seats at the end of every aisle (see the pictu...
Read more

LoanDepot Park, Miami (The Bobblehead Museum)

Image
  I love baseball, and there are many things about it that I feel that I understand pretty well. I understand the rules, which can be completely baffling to someone who didn’t grow up with the game. I understand the unwritten rules, like the fact that when a foul ball hits the catcher and he needs a minute to recuperate, the umpire will walk out to the pitcher’s mound to give the pitcher a new ball, then slowly walk back and dust off the plate before play resumes I understand the strategy, at a deeper level every year. I understand the statistics, and which ones are meaningful and which ones aren’t. I understand a lot of the history. One thing I don’t understand, although I am fascinated by it, is the game’s fascination with bobbleheads. Those are the little figurines, about six inches tall, with the likeness of a player, either in an action pose, commemorating some achievement (winning an award, throwing a no-hitter), or in some promotional-appropriate pose (in an outfit app...
Read more

Oracle Park, San Francisco (MLB #8 - From the Ridiculous to the Sublime)

Image
  Of the 40 or more major and minor league stadiums at which I’ve attended games over the years, I’d ranked San Francisco’s Oracle Park as one of the two most beautiful (stay tuned to see which is my other favorite). Particularly during a day game, it is absolutely gorgeous. Sitting in the upper deck behind home plate, you look out over the field to see San Francisco Bay right behind the outfield. It can be a little chilly (under 60 degrees tonight), but you won’t get overheated, and it gets little rain or fog. It's sublime. It replaces a park that had an uncontested reputation as the worst place to play or watch a major league game for the last 40 years of the 20 th Century, Candlestick Park , the Giants’ home from 1960 through 1999. Candlestick was ridiculous. Most notably, it was windy. It was located on a point sticking out into the Pacific Ocean, and in the afternoon and evening, the winds would howl. Horace Stoneham, the owner of the Giants who moved the team from ...
Read more