Introducing BaseBlog 2.0

The final chapter of  the off-season transition.

You have 19 reasons to see why this season was great if you click on the archives on the right.

Dear Readers-

The season transition continues with the second installment of my three part series.

To start, thank you.

If you're reading this, it means you've taken time out of your day to look at my work. Chances are, this isn't your first visit either.

Season in Review

Part one of a three part series on my transition between seasons.

Lets jump right into it, shall we?

I came out of 2012 with 19 games attended at 7 different ballparks:

Now that the year is officially over, I'd like to examine how I did on my list of goals I compiled before the season.

I thought of these way back in February. I didn't have all my plans together at that time, so it ended up being a very generic, neutral list. Nothing going on during the season influenced me. That's not a bad thing, either. It was almost like someone else thought of them for me, since it wasn't a "write them down as you go" sort of thing.

Game 19 - Fin.

Last season, I didn't come home to see a game in September. The Cubs were bad. This year, they were atrocious.  Why waste my time THIS year? There were three special opportunities that caused me to buy tickets and make this my final game in 2012.

Aside from the game, there was a fourth reason I wanted to be back. I would get to get a taste of the Yuppie life for the first time.

Waveland Avenue Freeze Out

This entry strikes a little bit of an emotional note for me. I highly value happy memories, and this event was bringing one back from my childhood. It also let me have a connection with my dad different than any other.

My parents were never shy to entertain. We had extended family over at our house for one thing or another many, many times as I was growing up. The parties would be all year around, and eventually it would be our turn to host Thanksgiving or Christmas; a cold holiday that often meant frigid temperatures.

Game 18- The End (?)

I had a few days after New York to take a break. I worked my last few days at good ol' RBF, moved some stuff into my apartment at ISU, and waited for school to start. In just one more day, I would be on a train back down to Normal. What else did you expect me to do with my last few hours of summer?

Game 17- Getaway Day

To say this entry will be shorter is an understatement. Fortunately I covered everything BESIDES the second game of the weekend in my first two entries I wrote about this trip.

Since we did the boat tour, we left considerably later for the second game. We didn't pull into the subway station until almost noon.

New York Sightseeing

Last entry, I left off right after my first game at Yankee Stadium; a 1-0 shutout win for Felix Hernandez and the Mariners.

Game 16- Bronx Bombers

Good morning NYC!

Today was finally the day I had been looking forward to for a whole three weeks, which to me, seemed like three months.

New York - Day 1

I couldn't believe I was flying to a different city SOLELY for the purpose of attending baseball games. Having it be Yankee Stadium and New York was just a bonus.

Our flight was scheduled to take off at 1 PM. We would have plenty of time to see some of the city once we landed. Hell, I was excited when we were waiting by our gate at the airport.

I love how you can pass and interact with people from all over the world. There's thousands of people coming and going to hundreds of different places. O'Hare is one of the busiest airports in the world, so that makes it that much more interesting to me.

Game 15- Dog Days

It was finally August, which meant a lot of things. The end of summer, leaving for school, and the Cubs are really making it hard to cheer for them.

This wasn't my ticket. We'll get to that at the end...

I feel pretty bad about saying this, but I didn't even want to go to this game. In 48 hours, I would be on my way to O'Hare to catch my flight to New York. It took a week to let it sink in, then I calmed down. I knew this game would be an enjoyable one. I wasn't super excited since this was one of the most normal games I could go to, but I didn't feel like I wanted to get it over with.

Game 14- The Dark Side

It had to happen sometime. I'm not proud of it, but BaseBlog would not be complete without a visit to US Cellular Field.

Game 13- Quick Turnaround

Two days ago, I was in Milwaukee, getting shut out yet again. It was good to be back home.

I was with Sean for the second game in a row. Luckily, this worked out to where we could make it to BP if we left right after he got off work. It went down to the wire; the time stamp on that picture was 4:54, with just over 10 minutes until the gates opened.

Disco Demolition Night

Instead of wasting my time typing out what happened at Comiskey Park on July 12th, 1979, just watch the video to understand the background story.

Game 12- The Wrong Kind of Streak

I was back in Milwaukee with my dad and the Ehrhardt's, with a little bit of a different schedule than before.

The parking lots opened three hours before the game, but the gates opened an hour and a half later. Hmmm....what could we possibly do with that extra time?

I Created the 'W' Flag

In 1937, the famous manual green scoreboard was brought to Wrigley Field by Mister P.K. Wrigley himself. Flag poles were added on top in 1938. Much like today, the American flag flew at the center, and (at that time) the 8 other National League teams were on the left and right, split by division.

The W flag, as well as the L flag, started in the 1940s. P.K. wanted to let the neighbors and El riders know what the team did that day. He had lights affixed to the board so it could be visible after sundown.

Happy Birthday!

I usually never go out of order with entries, but I'm too excited to not let my loyal readers about this.

Remember when I said St.Louis was the highlight of my baseball life? Well, now it's a close second for just THIS SEASON.

Game 11- Nobody's Perfect

I didn't get a ball. Simple as that. I ruined the surprise already, but big deal. Keep reading if you want. I'll treat this one like a normal game as much as I can, even though this was WAY out of the ordinary for me. In the past few weeks I've gotten over it, but I was very upset for a day or two.

Game 10- Ballhawk's Day Off

This title may confuse some of you.

I was very torn about going to BP for this game. Of course, I wanted baseballs, just like every game. But this game against the Mets carried a little something extra.

Game 9- Back to Back

We got into the hotel pretty late the night before, but the second game was also a 7:10 PM start. This gave us a chance to do some sightseeing. I'll give you one guess where we went.

Yup-the Arch. It was just a short walk from the stadium, and both of us agreed we had to see it.

Game 8- Journey to America's Heartland

For our first plan, Brent was going to make the drive down when we decided to visit Sean and Matt. Over the past year he had made many trips to ISU, and that was pretty much the half way point. It would be a piece of cake. He’d pick me up and we would have a good time catching up en route to Edwardsville.

Before we planned this particular trip, he was the one with the good car. Sadly, the 1995 Silver Ford Taurus didn't make it through the winter. In February, we added a 2006 Cubbie blue Saturn Ion to the Mortenson garage. Since he was nice enough to come with me and embrace my Ballhawking, I volunteered to drive.

Same license plates; the Taurus will never be forgotten 

Planning a BaseBlog Expedition

I started this in hopes it would turn into my entry for my next game, but I had too much to talk about before I actually got there. This is the back story. So read up, and get ready for an awesome next entry.

Brent and I have been talking about going on a road trip somewhere for almost 4 seasons. Obviously, as 17 year olds, we weren’t ready to go somewhere alone that was many hours away. We talked about Cleveland, Minnesota, Cincinnati, and Detroit as the easiest and best possibilities. It would come up at the start of every season, but we didn’t have much motivation to actually plan things out.

Our friends Sean and Matt ended up choosing SIUE as their school. Last fall, Sean graciously invited both me and Brent to come see a Cardinals game at Busch Stadium in St.Louis once they moved into their apartment. After all, the city was basically right next to their school, and they had been to the city for numerous things quite a few times. The main plan was to wait until April and find sometime where it worked for everyone for us to go down. Unfortunately, the Cardinals schedule didn’t cooperate. We had one weekend to go, and it was the last weekend before finals. We would have to put it off until next year.

I desperately searched for another possibility, because I was dying to go.  When I looked into tickets at Busch in 2006 and 2007 when it first opened, the only seats I was offered were in the wheelchair section and cost $75.Obviously, I wasn’t going to buy those. Sean said there were plenty of deals and overall cheap seats since he’s been at school. I was surprised to see an interleague matchup between the Cardinals and White Sox in June. This really caught my attention since the Sox were Brent’s team of choice.

Just for kicks, I looked into tickets on eBay and StubHub for that one Sox series. After looking around for just a little while, I saw that there were plenty of deals to be had, and tons of tickets under $20.

I started to take this plan more seriously. If I was going to go that far and tickets were that affordable, I wanted to go to two games. All three games of the series were night games. That being the case, we would need an extra night in a hotel since I didn’t want to start a 5 hour drive at 11 PM after two exhausting days.

Somehow I discovered the hotels around Lambert International Airport were just like O’Hare; plentiful, and of all different price levels. Eventually I landed on a Ramada for $50 a night. Since there were two of us, we would split it. That was more than reasonable.

I went back to eBay, and stumbled on some 100 level bleachers, right behind the Cardinals bullpen for $25. I had a hotel, and specific tickets for the last two games on the 13^th and 14^th. This was coming together more than any other trip I tried to plan so far.

I then confronted two friends at ISU who were huge Cards fans and lived in the St.Louis area. They told me the hotel was okay and the seats were decent. The thing that really solidified this plan was when I found out about the MetroLink, the train that went from the airport to downtown. I could go to Missouri and STILL take the proverbial El to the game! Sure enough, when I looked up stations, there was a place to park and ride only 12 minutes from the hotel. I had every detail outlined in the next couple days.

I pitched this whole thing to Brent, and he jumped right on. After a couple more weeks of making sure everything was good to go, I ordered the tickets and booked the hotel. It was official, and I was pumped.

Game 7- Road Trip

For my first major league game outside of Chicago this year, I headed up to good old Miller Park with Kyra. The first game I saw there was in 2003, and I haven’t stopped going since. This visit would make it my 9th consecutive season I visited.

The Glove Trick

This entry is informational, and also necessary for the next couple game entries (hint hint).

Many fans who have attended BP can relate to this situation:

For whatever reason, a ball has ended up just out of reach. It’s sitting right there for you to take, but there’s no way you can possibly get closer to it. You just have to wait there, staring at a ball that you could have if you had arms that were 20 feet long. Either you give up and walk away,  a player tosses it to someone else or throws it back in, or like the first picture, won’t be retrieved in the near future . Sadly, you’re left without a baseball.

Before I started my Ballhawking career, being in this situation was the worst feeling I could imagine. After reading numerous blogs and seeing videos, I attempted to put a stop to this. I was determined to get my hands on one of these balls. Here's how you can make your own ball retrieving device:

The Day I Became A Cubs Fan

Three months ago, I furiously started typing in the Manchester Hall computer lab after class. BaseBlog was born that day. I wanted this to be my first entry to show you how passionate I was about the Cubs, and the good reasons why I couldn't help but be drawn in. I hit a writers block and started other entries first, but I finally just finished this one. Why did I wait so long? Just so I could get this picture (which relates to the first paragraph) off my Grandma's fridge to show you how God damn cute I was on my first T-Ball team.

Game 6- Walking (Off) on Sunshine

This game was amazing, on so many levels.

Game 5- Here comes the Boom

After the demise of the Flyers, Alexian Field stood dormant for the 2011 season. I’m sure there were college games and high school tournaments, but I didn’t hear about them. It was a baseball-less summer in my small town, and I got used to it. The Flyers weren’t a huge part of my life before they disappeared, so after the initial shock, I was over it.

Luckily, the Village of Schaumburg wanted another team to fill the stadium.  After changing hands a few times, a new stadium lease landed in the hands of Pat Salvi. This guy is also owns the Gary Southshore Railcats, a long time rival of the Flyers in the Northern League. Since he owned both teams, he moved the Schaumburg team to the Frontier League from the American Association so they would never play each other.

During the winter of 2011, the new team had a naming contest. People actually submitted the Mallers (because of Woodfield...yikes) and CubSox (Oh God). Luckily, we came out with the least ridiculous name, the Boomers.

Oh, so like, they hit booming home runs? Not quite.

My First Job

My family moved to Schaumburg in the summer of 1998. It went well from what I can tell; I got used to school and made friends pretty quickly. Our first winter, being a new resident of the town, I asked my dad a question.

Game 4- All of the Lights

This was the nicest weather I had so far this season, and it was still only 60 degrees, and I was still pretty cold, even with a sweatshirt.

Game 3- I love College

To all of you that don’t go to school with me, welcome to ISU.

Charles Radbourn

You hear it all the time, and if you're not a baseball fan it sounds obnoxious and ignorant, but I’m going to say it again; baseball is full of history, and that's what makes it great. The sport was invented and practiced in the mid-1700’s. It may have possibly been earlier with different variations of rules, but you get the point. The game is almost as old as dirt.

Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn played for a few teams between 1880 and 1891, most notably the Boston Beaneaters. He played pitcher and played right field, and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939.

Game 2 - LEFT FIELD SUCKS!

Every man at work needs new equipment from time to time, right?

Game 1 - Hello, Old Friend

First of all, I want to give a big Thank You to Kyra, my fantastic photographer for the day. She put up with my unrealistic expectations and didn’t complain one bit. Without her this whole entry would suck.

However, you can’t expect perfect teamwork on the first outing. There are a lot of good pictures, even some great ones, but also a couple missing that I hoped I would get, and some blurry ones I’m not going to include. This entry is pretty decent, but I hope future entries are even better!

What's a Ballhawk?

I attended my first game of the season on April 7th, but with all the time spent at the game and a busy Easter, I didn't get the chance to write. Most of the stuff and pictures I wanted to include are still at home. However, I feel like this entry needed to come first, so I guess it all worked out. 

One of the many reasons I think baseball is so great is how simple it is to literally bring home a piece of the action. Catching a foul ball is something every fan dreams about. It's the most sought after souvenir in all of sports. An average MLB ball sees only 7 pitches of live game action; at that rate, plenty of balls are left over for fans, right?

Yet most fans come close to taking home this prize only a few times in their life, and very few are actually successful and walk away with one. 

In my first entry (here), I mentioned a guy named Zack Hample. Zack is an avid baseball fan to say the least, and has been attending games since 1990. What makes Zack different is he has caught more balls than any person in Major League stadiums ever.  

First Week Highlights

The first week of the season is already over, and it’s great to have every team playing every day and getting the season into full swing.

• This Opening Week was the best in a while. In their season opener, the Indians and Blue Jays went SIXTEEN innings last Thursday. The Jays rallied for 3 in the 9th to tie it at 4-4, and got 3 more in the top of the 16th to win it 7-4. A brisk 5 hour and 14 minute game was the longest EVER on an Opening Day. It’s not too often you see a marathon like this, and it made it a lot more interesting that it was their first game.

• Jose Valverde blew his first save in 51 regular season chances in the Tigers opener against the Red Sox. He gave up 2 runs and spoiled 8 shutout innings from last year’s AL Cy Young winner Justin Verlander. The blown save cost Verlander a win, but Austin Jackson got the walk off RBI in the bottom of the inning to start off the Tigers season. It’s these first two bullets that make this one of my top Opening Days I can remember.
  
  
  

• Every year, without fail, some team jumps out to sweep the first series and fans and analysts alike are shocked and spend a lot of time asking ‘How?’. I was thinking about this all Easter weekend. (I didn’t happen to check standings or scores until Monday morning). And sure enough, the Rays triumphed, and were undefeated. They swept the Yankees in 3 games, but that's not why this is weird. What makes this interesting is the Red Sox are 0-3 as well, the first time both AL East powers were 0-3 since 1966, and only the second time ever.  It’s not a complete shocker though; the Rays have momentum from their amazing finish from last year, and for once, truly have some great talent. The starting pitching is some of the best in the league, as they built young talent behind David Price. Evan Longoria is leading the offense another year with some even more young, emerging talent in the lineup. As for the Red Sox- they're falling apart. They’re riding the negative wave from their collapse last September. If they didn’t pull one out against the Blue Jays last night, it would be the first time ever they started back to back seasons 0-4. I hope this division stays this interesting all year and the 2 evil empires finally fall.
   
• Ozzie. Ozzie, Ozzie, Ozzie. What the hell? If you haven’t read what first year Marlins manager said:

  "I respect Fidel Castro," Guillén is quoted as saying in an online article. "You know why? Many people have tried to kill Fidel Castro in the last 60 years, yet that [SOB] is still there."

  Guillen is famously known for his…opinionated personality and comments. First of all, something like this is NEVER appropriate. How did this even come up in a pre-game interview? Why was this necessary? I’m dumbfounded he would even go there. He’s said some stupid things before, but this is taking it to a new level. Secondly, YOU’RE MANAGING IN MIAMI NOW. Roughly 25% of the city’s residents are Cuban, and many families were probably somehow effected by Castro’s rule in some way.  Don’t ever praise a dictator and next time pay attention to what city you work in and have some common sense. I feel bad for the people in Miami and Cubans who were offended, but in the end I laughed at his mistake. This is the worst thing he’s said that I can remember. It didn’t even take him a full week of the season, and he’s already apologizing. (And serving a 5 game suspension, I just heard. Nice.)

• Yu ain’t lookin’ so good, Darvish. (I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw that cheesy headline somewhere on the internet). The Rangers $101 million ($60 million just for the right to talk to the guy) man didn't exactly have the start anyone was expecting. He was mowing guys down in Japan during his first 7 seasons of professional ball; 1249 strikeouts and a 1.99 ERA. The Mariners batters didn't seem to care though. They pounced on Darvish for 4 runs in the first inning, making him throw 42 pitches. The Rangers are lucky they have the best offense in the league, otherwise this would have been a total bust. Darvish calmed down and pitched into the 6th, and the Rangers came back to win 11-5. Some scouts said he’s the best player to ever come out of the far East, but I don’t buy that for a second. What happened to Dice-K? After that failed career, I decided to never listen to the scouts again about Japanese players. The game is played differently over here, and America is home of the best players in the world. The culture adjustment makes it much more stressful too. Imagine yourself in Japan, knowing nothing that’s going on, in addition to all the pressure. This isn’t the home these players are used to, and in my opinion, if they live up to any of the hype past their first few years, they just got really lucky.

I had fun following these stories this first week, and I hope there’s more to come!

Opening Day in Miami

Tomorrow night, the newly named Miami Marlins open their season in their brand new ballpark against the defending World Series champion St.Louis Cardinals.

It’s always exciting to have a new park in the league. Each team gets to see it for the first time this season, then determines the strengths and weaknesses. Eventually there will be a book or report that teams can look at and get a pretty good feel for what type of building they’re playing in.

This new place was a long time coming. For some reason, the Marlins were neglected by the city by having a terrible stadium and virtually no fan support, even though they were the most successful with two World Series titles in their first 10 years of existence.

A New Season, A New Beginning

"Baseball is dull only to dull minds."

-Red Barber

What does summer mean to you?

Beaches? Parties? Not worrying about school? Sleeping in until 3 in the afternoon?

For me, there’s one thing above all else I picture when someone says 'summer'.

The undeniably beautiful confines of Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs. I’ve loved it for 9 and a half years. Every time the calender flips over to January, I'm excited to go back, no matter how last season ended.

Lately though, I’ve been at a crossroads. Let’s be honest, here.

The Cubs suck.

A hundred and three years strong, and not a whole ton to look forward to in 2012. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Cubs, but Theo can’t do it all in one season.

So this year, I’ve decided to stop focusing on the Cubs and immerse myself in all other things in the baseball universe. The main thing I want to do is take you, the reader, to a game with me. Allow me to explain-

A couple years ago, I stumbled on another baseball blog that had some pretty interesting pictures. I found it when I was researching where to sit for my first game in the Bleachers at Wrigley. After clicking around for a little while, I started to read the entries instead of just look at the pictures. The author went into incredible detail about his experience and told you everything you would care to know about the ballpark he was at. I thought it was great; I could see stadiums and go to games without ever actually being there. The author of this blog is none other than Zack Hample, the all-time leader in balls caught at Major League stadiums. To date, he has 5,819 in his collection.

Yea, that’s five thousand, not a typo. Check out his blog here. More on him later.

I thought this was a really cool thing to do. So, for this season, I'm giving it a try. I’m going to take lots of pictures, and put them up here to show you what a typical game is like for me. In 2012, I’m planning on attending 20 games (and that number will only go up from here). Of course, there will be many visits to Wrigley, but also The Cell on the Southside, Miller Park in Milwaukee, Busch Stadium in St. Louis, and quite a few more.

Long story short, I’m pumped for baseball to start. I hope I can create some of my own memories through this, become a better writer, and honestly give you readers something fun to read about the game I love. I’ll post my opinions about current MLB hot topics, other baseball sites/blogs, and basically anything that’s interesting about the game.

Opening Day at Wrigley is only ONE WEEK away!