Principal Field, Des Moines (AAA #4 - The view from the park, and other comments)

 I like a ballpark with a view. This picture demonstrates both what's best and what's worst about the view at today's ballpark. 

What's best is the view of the Iowa State Capitol's dome just above the batter's eye in center field. It's more impressive in person, in part because the glint off the gold catches your eye, and in part because you tend to focus up the middle, and the batter, the pitcher, and the dome above them. It's not the Rockies looming in the distance at Coors Field (although it was too cloudy for us to see them this visit), or San Francisco Bay, or the St. Louis Arch, but it's good. 

Though I don't have a picture from the outside of the stadium, I like that, too. It's on the river, in the middle of downtown. Both are attributes I like.

What's worst is only worst in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. I don't think I've ever seen a baseball game as thoroughly monetized as this one. I counted about 60 advertisements between the two foul poles (only counting pairs once, and not counting the logos and URL for the team, the Iowa Cubs, in various places). I'm used to advertisements in stadiums - that's been around as long as there have been professional sports, I think, but here there are two or three layers of billboards. And everything is sponsored - double plays are sponsored by Rotorooter, which unclogs drains like double plays unclog the bases; the first easy fly ball, or "can of corn" in baseball lingo, is sponsored by DeKalb seed company (leading producer of corn seed), and so on. Oh, and Principal Park was once Sec Taylor Stadium, named after a long-time local sportswriter, but almost every stadium has a corporate logo on it now.

After those comments, today's blog doesn't have a single theme, in part because a 12-11 game has so many twists and turns that a single theme isn't appropriate.

Staying in the game:

We should have known it was going to be a long game when the first batter hit a home run on the first pitch. That first batter was Chris Owings, and we were cheering for him because he played for the Diamondbacks for several years. I even caught a foul ball that he hit once. He's played for several other teams, too. In fact, he's played at least a few games in the majors in each of the last 10 seasons. He's 31 now, and probably won't get many more shots. I've talked about the players who are moving up to or through AAA. There are also players going the other direction, like Owings. In the first game we went to, in El Paso, there was a player on each team who had spent 10 years or more in the majors, and had done well in the bigs - Kole Calhoun won a Gold Glove as the American League's best rightfielder one year, and Jose Iglesias was an All-Star shortstop one year. Will any of them play another game in the majors?

Happy Father's Day:

After Owings, the second oldest player today was David Bote, who spent most of five seasons in the majors. Before the game, the many ceremonial first pitches included some of them clearly related to deals with the multitude of corporate sponsors, but also ones by Bote's three children (see picture of him herding them off the field). Bote is 30. It's got to be a hard life for a young family. But Bote did have a good day, baseball-wise. He had two hits, including a game-tying two-run single in the bottom of the 8th inning. 

It looked good, but..."

The Cubs had the bases loaded in a tie game in the bottom of the 9th inning with one out. That's a situation where even a fly ball to medium depth in the outfield will win the game, because the runner at third can tag up and score. So Indianapolis brought one of the outfielders into the infield, to make it harder to get a ground ball through. They also moved the two remaining outfielders in. Of course, one thing you can't defend against is a walk, and the pitcher ran the count full. Then the hitter popped up one up right along the left field line. The leftfielder, who was playing well off the line, sprinted over and made a nice sliding catch right at the line, and the runner from third tagged and scored easily. 

That sliding catch was a mistake. If he could catch it on the run, he'd have a chance to throw the runner out, but there was no way he was going to be able to get up and throw him out. Plus, if he hadn't caught it, it might have gone foul, and it would have still been a full count. I've seen major leaguers mess that play up. If you make a sliding catch, you're going to lose the game, so if you can't get there without the slide, let it bounce and hope it comes down in foul territory.

Was it a good game?

Yes, if you like to see a lot of runs (23), hits (24), walks (13), batters hit by pitches (3), and relief pitchers (9). Amazingly, it took less than 3 hours to play. 

 Showing your colors:

When we're going to games in Phoenix, I always walk around the concourse before the first game of a series, and count how many people are wearing Diamondbacks caps, T-shirts, jerseys, and so one, and how many are wearing gear of the other team. 

In the minors, it's not quite the same. I have yet to see anyone showing the logo of the opponent, although there are usually a couple of people with T-shirts or caps from the opponent's parent team. What I've found more interesting, in my vast sample of four games, is to compare the number of people wearing gear from the hometown team to those wearing the gear of the hometown team's parent club. 

In El Paso and Albuquerque, there was virtually no one wearing San Diego and Denver merchandise, respectively. It may not be surprising, since those teams are quite a ways away from their parent teams' cities (Denver and Albuquerque are 450 miles apart, San Diego and El Paso much farther). 

In Omaha, there were almost as many people with Kansas City Royals gear as with Omaha paraphernalia. Of course, the two cities are less than 200 miles apart, and it's the longest-running affiliation in AAA, since 1969. 

In Des Moines, there were more than five times as many people with Chicago Cubs T-shirts, jerseys, caps, etc., as Iowa Cubs gear, almost the reverse of El Paso and Albuquerque. The cities are farther apart than Omaha and Kansas City (just over 300 miles), but the affiliation has also been running a long time, since 1982 (second only to the Royals and Omaha).