Deathtour~!: Nationals Park, Washington DC

I’m switching things up for my report on tonight’s game. Instead of writing up a summery and throwing all the pictures at the end I’m going for a running commentary of the game and putting the pictures throughout the post.

I got to DC at around 11am and hopped on the metro, heading over to the Navy Yard. I was able to check into my hotel early thankfully as it gave me time to shower, change, send out some mail and take a nap before the game. If there’s one thing I’m not getting enough of on this trip it’s sleep so I’m taking what I can, even at the expense of losing out on sightseeing in one of the most attraction rich cities in the country if only for a few hours. The Navy Yard isn’t exactly near anything as it is, except the stadium which was only 3 blocks from my hotel.

6:00pm - The weather report has been calling for thunderstorms up and down the east coast for the past few days but there was no trace of rain clouds all day. Of course, no sooner than when I head over to the yard does it start to drizzle. By the time I make it to the ticket booth I’m wondering if I’m going to be the victim of a rain out. I try not to think about whether going through the turnstile constitutes a successful stadium visit. I’m without a jacket or sweatshirt. It’s still 80 degrees despite the rain (the fact that that’s possible blows my mind). All I want is a seat with a roof over it so I end up with $65 club level seats.

6:05pm – Once inside the gate I headed for the bleachers to get a look at the field. The tarp was on and there was no sign of a grounds crew which means we could be here all night. As a side note, I’ve never been to a rained out game or a rain delayed game at all that I can recall. At this point I’m just hoping I get to see them remove the tarp from the field. It could be my only entertainment for the night.

6:10pm – I make my customary pass around the lower level concession area. The area behind home plate has a picture mural of the history of Baseball in Washington, DC. Everything from the Negro Leagues to the first two Washington Senator teams is covered.

6:12pm – They also have a series of paintings of many Hall of Famers with no connection to DC at all that are scattered around. My hero Willie is among them.

6:19pm – I made my first food purchase. The New York Times travel section wrote an article about ballpark food. This map lists their best and worst at each stadium. Just to humor the article I tried out the ‘best’ Nationals Park has to offer; a pretzel in the shape of a ‘W’. It’s not bad, but at $6 I was expecting better. And I certainly don’t think it’s the best DC has to offer. I decide to try something else later.

6:24pm - Just to kill time I made a second pass around, this time on the club level. It’s pretty swanky though over crowded at the moment. No one is allowed in their seats right now. As a result everyone is congregating by the bar. From this level I can see the tops of the concession stands in the outfield. I did a double take before realizing that, yes, those are plants on the roof of the concessions. Nationals Park is a green facility.

6:36pm – Still not in my seat and still no announcement as to when or if the game is going to start. I’ve made two circles around the stadium.

7:02pm – Finally in my seat and they’ve announced that the game will start at 8:30pm. That’s an hour and 30 minutes from now. I’m glad I have a program to read. I don’t know what I’d do for 90 minutes otherwise.

7:34pm – About an hour before the new game time and they’re removing the tarp. I was hoping it would come flying up in their faces but no such luck. Hey, maybe they’ll get this thing started early.

8:05pm – The Washington DC gay men’s chorus signs a great version of the National Anthem. Almost as good as the one their SF counterparts performed at a game a couple weeks back. Maybe the anthem only sounds decent when performed by gay chorus groups. Further research needs to be done.

8:21pm – First pitch. I could be here past 11:30. On the bright side the weather is still warm. The events of San Diego will not be repeated.

8:47pm – Willie Harris, batting well below the Mendoza line, hits a bomb to right field to put the Nats up 1-0 in the bottom of the third. We’ve been cruising along at a rapid pace.

9:00pm – Middle of the 4^th already. It’s time for the Presidents Race. Yeah, it’s a complete rip off of Milwaukee’s sausage race but who cares.

9:01pm – The Presidents Race is FIXED~! Boo! About 5 seconds in Washington and Teddy trip Lincoln and give him a beatdown on the warning track allowing Jefferson to run away with the race. In storyline mode Lincoln was undefeated this homestand and the other Presidents weren’t going to allow that to continue. I can’t believe this thing was a work. If I had wanted to watch two dudes dress up in costumes and pretend to fight I’d have stayed in my hotel and watched Raw is the Draft.

9:06pm – Top of the fifth. Lackey and Bergman are pitching like they have a plane to catch.

9:10pm – Angels tied it in the top of the fifth on a sacrifice.

9:19pm – End of 5. That was the longest inning of the game so far. Still, we’re past the halfway point and it hasn’t even been an hour since the first pitch. I don’t know what the quickest 9 inning game in the last 25 years is, but this has to be in contention right now.

9:43pm – Seventh inning stretch and we’re still on pace to end this thing in under 2 hours, just as long as someone breaks the tie.

9:44pm – Willie “I’m still hitting under .200” Harris triples. This is followed by Lo Duca lining a shot to Lackey who attempts to double up Harris but throws it short. It skips down the line and Harris comes in to break the tie.

9:46pm – Some idiot further down in my section is standing with his cell phone to his ear waving across the stadium to someone who can’t possibly see him. He’s rightfully being harshly heckled by some guys in my row.

9:51pm – End of 7 and the Exodus begins. Because there’s no way the team with the worst record in the National League could blow a 1 run game in the 8^th.

9:55pm – The Nats have gone to the bullpen and the pace has slowed with Saul Rivera on the mound.

10:00pm – And the Nats defense completely falls apart. After a single, Chone Figgens steals second and goes to third on the throw to the center fielder by the catcher. Felipe Lopez boots a groundball hit by Erick Aybar who advances to second because no one hustled to pick up the ball in short right field. Garrett Anderson singles scoring Aybar and it’s 3-2 Angels. Unbelievable.

10:17pm – Top 9. Gary “Don’t call me Junior” Matthews pinch hits. Immediately a “Steroids” chant starts up.

10:21pm – We’re officially 2 hours old and just heading to the bottom of the ninth. Francisco Rodriguez is in to close it out.

10:33pm – Rodriguez strikes out the side despite making it interesting with some deep counts and a walk. Official time of the game is 2 hours, 12 minutes. Thank God. I’m going to get a reasonable amount of sleep tonight. On to Detroit.

HeroesCon in (a few) pictures

For the second year in a row I trekked across the country to Charlotte for HeroesCon, a mid-major in the world of comic conventions. It's a fun event that draws a few names with maybe a surprise announcement and the ocassional costumed attendee but it's mostly about meeting up with friends you haven't seen in a while. And as with any convention, I spent more than I wanted to, though the money was well spent. I found a few books I'm really looking forward to reading and picked up a few things for some people back home. I didn't take any pics during the con but I managed to remember to snap a few shots when we had the group together during our meal breaks.

L to R: Georgie - whose name may or may not actually be Gregory, Nick - who is certainly British, Kyle - whose beard is most definetly sentient.

L to R: Josh - who is absolutely the product of an incestuous relationship, Raph - who could possibly have terrorist connections, Jabsen - who was too short to be photographed.

Another meal with another crew. This time with Jermaine (second from the right) and everyone from his shop. A fine bunch of people. I spent most of Sunday trying to convince Jermaine to come out west. I don't think he's been west of the Mississippi his entire life. And I've come out to NC every year for the last three years. I think we almost convinced him to come to San Diego next year. We'll see.

Julie, Me and Jermaine. I've already mentioned Jermaine. Julie I hadn't seen in two years and I didn't even know she was going to be in Charlotte. It was a nice surprise to see her. In two weeks she's getting her PhD in Psychology. Congrats Julz.

Drinking milk with Kyle and stud artist Greg Horn. Check out Greg's site to see his awesome work. Kyle lent Greg a hand during the weekend and we helped him pack up after the con after which we went out to dinner. We cleaned out Uno's milk supply for the weekend. Greg was ecstatic to find his milk-drinking brethren.

That's it from Charlotte. For the next 4 days it's baseball before I hit the second convention in Chicago.

Lessons in History, part 1 of who knows?

I really need to heed my own advice sometimes or learn from previous experience. A few months ago I took a redeye flight to St. Louis. It was not amongst my favorite plane trips and when it was over I’d vowed not to take another redeye. Now, if I’d been reading my own blog I known not to book myself on an overnight flight to Charlotte, and truthfully, I hesitated before I did, but ultimately the cost/benefit analysis (the cost in this case being a night of sleep and the benefit being 1 less night in a crowded hotel with 4 other geeks) weighed in favor of the benefit side. Huge mistake! Appearently I didn’t learn the lesson of April 2008. So my flight to Charlotte was very much like my flight to St. Louis; long, over-booked, and mostly sleepless. Add to that a medical emergency on the plane and some missing luggage and what you get one epic fail of a plane trip. As of 10am I’m working on 3 hours of bad sleep, without access to a Starbucks and unclean and unshaven. Just a few minutes ago my luggage finally arrived, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice. More later when I’m well rested and less cranky…

Deathtour Insanity~!

At this moment I find myself standing on an event horizon, a few hours away from leaping into a black hole of insanity as the Deathtour takes a galactic leap forward. Of the 30 stadiums on my list to see, I’ve checked off only 7. And those were the easy ones. I didn’t have to leave my home state for 4 games. And I only left my own time zone for 1. In a few hours I will be flying across the country to start a 15 day, 8 city, 8 games + 2 comic conventions tour. In 2 weeks I will be doubling the amount of games I saw in 2 months. It didn’t really hit me until this morning how insane this whole endeavor is. Traveling alone, visiting a different city almost every day, half of which I’ve never been too and having no idea how to get around in them, I don’t know what made me think this was possible. This trip is apropos of the tour’s namesake. You know you’re in trouble when your response to being asked ‘where are you going?’ is to say, ‘Well, let me tell you where I’m not going…” or you exhaust yourself just listing your itinerary. But a lot of the fun of this experiment is the challenge itself. This trip, should I survive it, will bring me to 15 stadiums, the official halfway point of the Tour. If I don’t make it to 30 I can at least hang my hat on that.

I’m really excited to visit some cities I’ve never been too before, especially Detroit. When I would rattle off the cities I was traveling too and stopped at Detroit, the reaction from other people was almost universal, a fear, or possibly delight, that I would disappear and never be heard from again with a mix of disbelief that I would even want to go there. When I mentioned that I hadn’t booked a hotel yet, I was told, ‘book a gun while you’re at it.’ There’s a similar apprehension surrounding Comiskey in Chicago’s South Side, mostly from the people living in Chicago. This I don’t understand. I find it impossible to believe that either of these places is that bad. But then, I was born in The City. By my reasoning, if I can handle the Tenderloin and Hunters Point, the South Side and all of Detroit shouldn’t be a problem. And anyone who thinks differently must be some sort of country bumpkin.

Here’s a quick rundown of this trip. June 21^st and 22^nd I’ll be in Charlotte for HeroesCon. No game here but it’s a chance to catch up with some people I haven’t seen in a while. From there I’m taking Amtrak to our nation’s capital. I’ll be at National’s Park the night of the 23^rd. The following morning I’m flying out of Baltimore to Detroit for a game that same night. The next day I’ll be in Cleveland where the Giants are visiting the Indians in a rematch of the 1954 World Series. Thursday morning I go to Chicago for the weekend. After moving from city to city every day it will be nice to stay in one place for 4 nights. Week two finds me in the Twin Cities. Then it’s back to Chicago for a few hours before I catch a train overnight to Cincinnati. Then it’s back to Chicago for a third time before moving on to Milwaukee for the 4^th of July. I finally come back on the 5^th, road weary and desperately missing home.

So, yeah, insane. It’s going to be a lot of fun, if not exhausting. By far this is the most adventurous trip I’ve ever taken or conceived of. I can’t even think of a number two for that list. Nothing comes close. It’s a shame I don’t have anyone to share this experience with but alas I must undertake this trek alone. I hope to keep the blog updated daily with my whereabouts. We’ll see how long that lasts. Until tomorrow, Aloha.

Playing on God's Jukebox: Enjoy the Silence

Reviews: Mr. 3000

Mr. 3000 is a baseball comedy from a few years back starring Bernie Mac as a Prima Donna athlete who quits the game after achieving a milestone in career hits (3000 as the movie title which doubles as his nickname indicates) leaving his team in the middle of a pennant race without their selfish, ego driven star. But his post-baseball life is lacking. His support for the Hall of Fame falls short of enshrinement despite inching closer to induction every year. That is until a statistical error is discovered that erases 3 of his 3000 hits and erodes a third of his Cooperstown support. Because, as we all know, no one with 2,997 hits ever gets induced into the Hall.

Mac decides to come out of retirement at age 47, 9 years after leaving the game that despised him so much, just to reclaim those last 3 hits. This premise is completely absurd, even by sports movie standards which routinely stretch the boundaries of reality in favor of Hollywood storytelling. A ridiculous endeavor as the natural sports world is filled with dramatics. We don’t need every game to come down to the last at-bat/shot/round to create drama, but this idea seems lost in Tinseltown.

Mr. 3000 takes every sports movie cliché and adds to the pile, almost to the point of parody. These are the same characters we’ve seen before, and they’re more bereft of life than ever before. The older star trying to hang on? Check. The young cocky player who reminds the older star of his younger self? Check. The foreign player who hasn’t learned how to properly swear? Check. The movie play-by-play guy who sounds nothing like a real play-by-play guy, which makes me wonder if any writer has ever watched a game on TV before? Check. ESPN segments with real personalities reading lines you’d never actually hear them say? Check.

The movie also suffers from not being funny, a fatal flaw for most movies that rely on joke-telling to carry you through a cookie cutter plot. Bernie Mac is usually a funny guy, but nothing he recites here comes close to generating genuine laughs. And when your biggest and best comedian can’t bring the funny, you’re in trouble. Angela Bassett plays an ESPN reporter who probably would have been fired from her job before the end of the movie in reality.

Paul Sorvino plays Mac’s manager and doesn’t utter a word until the final 10 minutes of the movie. One of the movie’s biggest question marks is how he managed to keep his job for 10 seasons (He’s the manager before Mac’s retirement and is still around when he comes back 9 years later). There’s no way he would have survived 10 seasons when the team was struggling and in last place as they were when Mac made his comeback. Especially in Milwaukee.

Speaking of Milwaukee, where in the blue hell was Bob Uecker? Uecker made a name for himself as radio announcer Harry Doyle in Major League. In real life, Uecker is the play-by-play guy for the Brewers. You can’t tell me he was unavailable for the role here. He would have single handedly salvaged a portion of this mess, or at the very least, turned it into a beautiful disaster.