In the waning weeks of 2024, Melvin, Norton and I discussed a trip that would combine The Ballpark at America First Square, the Salt Lake Bess' new stadium, and Michael Heizer's City, among other destinations.
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| screen hijack from the New York Times |
Tickets for the 2025 season of City, May 6-November 20, went on sale at noon on January 2 and so begins my 2025 diary.
A January Fortnight
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| as the Met' has it cataloged, "Livingstone, Philadelphia, American League, from the White Border series (T206) for the American Tobacco Company;" Object No. 63.350.246.206.140 or, as I prefer to think of the image, the peripatetic catcher Paddy Livingstone describing the fish that got away |
My first game of the season was the home opener of the Eugene Emeralds' 70th season, which the team won in 10 innings. Major League Baseball has determined, not incorrectly, that PK Park at the University of Oregon doesn't meet its standards. The Ems were unsuccessful in their bid to remain in Eugene and are looking for a new home elsewhere. I posted game coverage with a history of the team's three home fields, all of which were less than ideal.
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| The Emeralds game was an exception, with my Oregon trip made up mostly of family and curiosities, including the Portland Puppet Museum. |
Back on the East Coast, I saw three Mets day games over the next five weeks, starting with the Phillies. The Mets and their division rivals were knotted after four, 2-2, and stayed there for the next five innings. The Phillies' zombie runner scored in the top of the tenth but the Mets followed suit on a Pete Alonso double. Starling Marte, brought in to pinch hit in the ninth, came through in the tenth, bringing Alonso home on a (broken bat?) line drive to center. The April 23 walk-off win was the Mets' seventh straight victory and second consecutive series sweep.
On May Day, the Diamondbacks scored once against each of the Mets' first four pitchers. Kodai Senga lasted just four innings in the 4-2 loss. Ten days later, the Mets broke another 2-2 tie with a four-run eighth inning, powered by Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo home runs. The 6-4 win kept the Mets a half-game ahead of the Phillies and tied with the Detroit Tigers for the second best record (26-15, .643) in Major League Baseball.
Mets Organization Tour
I very much enjoyed watching the Mets' Double- and Triple-A affiliates on the road last year and noticing that the parent club would play a series at Fenway Park, I mapped a slightly longer 2025 itinerary. Over four consecutive days, I saw the High-A Brooklyn Cyclones triumph at home, the Double-A Binghamton Rumble Ponies win on the road, the Mets lose the centerpiece in Boston, and a pummeling of the Triple-A Syracuse Mets by the Rochester Red Wings, the team with the worst record at the time in all of the MiLB. I wrote about the trip at length.
Like all extended itineraries, there was baseball and there were byways. Among the places visited and objects seen was —
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| a glass model of Pelagia noctiluca, part of "Sea Creatures in Glass" at the Harvard Museum of Natural History |
(In another gallery on campus, I saw a "Model of the head of a seven-month-old fetus, with [the] right side of the brain exposed, L. Casciani & Son, Dublin, Ireland, c. 1890," which I photographed beautifully, but out of sympathy for your potentially delicate sensitivities, I choose the Mauve Stinger to share with you.)
Soxes
In a span of not quite two weeks, I saw the Chicago White Sox at Citi Field, the Worcester Red Sox at home, and the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium, the last an annual tradition with sometime fellow traveler, Chris.
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| singular and plural |
The Mets won the Memorial Day game against the White Sox with sacrifice flys in the final two innings. Soto knocked his to left to tie the game and, with the bases loaded, Lindor drove his to right for the walk-off win. The conflation of "America's national pastime" and nationalism will probably always annoy me but I will spare you a diatribe.
Prior to the start of the season, I was jonesing to see the Worcester Red Sox, who were potentially thick with MLB Top 100 prospects; (then) No. 2 Roman Anthony, an outfielder, IF/OF Kristian Campbell (No. 7), and shortstop Marcelo Mayer (12). However, Campbell broke camp with the major league club and Mayer was called up in late-May. I got to see the 21-year-old nicknamed "the Roman Empire" through the generosity of Melvin, who was offered a free ticket by the team.
On June 4, the WooSox batted around in the first inning, scoring seven runs in what would eventually be a 9-1 victory against the Rochester Red Wings. Batting lead-off, Anthony had the unenviable opportunity to make two outs in one inning and he had an 0-for-4 day, with three strikeouts — the last a called strike, challenged and confirmed by ABS. A hold-your-breath fly ball to the left field corner provided a sense of his offensive power.
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| I have now been to Worcester three times. Sigmund Freud only went once, but his visit is commemorated on the Clark University campus. |
Three days after I saw Anthony, he hit a 497-foot grand slam and two days after that, he got the call to report to Fenway. His home run was the longest at any level of affiliated baseball this year and since 2015, only four major leaguers have gone deeper; Nomar Mazara, C.J. Cron, Giancarlo Stanton, and Christian Yelich. Over 57 games at Worcester, Anthony slashed .290/.421/.495 with 10 round-trips.
Wednesday + 3 + 2 = Monday, so Anthony was not yet with Boston when Chris and I saw the rubber game of a weekend series against the Yankees. Aaron Judge drew first blood, with a two-run shot in the first. He would do the same in the ninth, tying Lou Gehrig for third for multiple home run games as a Yankee. (Gehrig retired at 35 with 43 multi-HR games and Mickey Mantle was 36 when he left baseball, in second at 46. Judge is 33 and seems likely to end up in second, with Babe Ruth's 68 games an untouchable record.)
For the Red Sox, the aforementioned Campbell punched a ball into the short porch to tie the game in the fifth, 2-2, and after a five-run sixth inning, the Sox never trailed again, prevailing 11-7. If you like the long ball, this was a game for you, with the Yankees hitting three and the visitors responding with five. If you like home runs and were rooting for the Red Sox, it was a doubly enjoyable evening, although a lengthy one (game time: 3:22).
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| a young man in the row in front of us at Yankee Stadium |
A Break in the Action
I averaged one game per week during the first 11 weeks of the major league season, including five minor league match-ups, so some metaphorical time on the bench was not unwarranted. The Mets had lost 14 of their previous 18 games when I saw them face the Milwaukee Brewer on July 3.
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| cap tip to the Met s gate personnel, who quickly ushered fans inside |
Severe thunderstorms, with gusts up to 65 mph, crossed Metropolitan New York around 5:45, just as the gates opened at Citi Field. The heaviest rain went almost magically north and south of the ballpark, resulting in only a 37-minute delay to the start of the game and a much appreciated 10-degree drop in temperature. The rubber game of the series was a back-and-forth affair that the Brew Crew won, 3-2.
From Salt Lake to Lake Michigan
After Melvin read my post about our 2,740-mile trip across half of America, he commented, "I'm sorry you found the whole thing to be such a slog." In January, I called a possible SLC to Minneapolis itinerary "extreme" and yet agreed to an even longer variant ending in Chicago. I asked myself, "What were you thinking?," and I know the answer to that question. Lesson learned.
Under the Dog Star
Two-weeks after our marathon trip, I saw the Somerset Patriots host the Rumble Ponies at noon. Seven of the Ponies who took the field are top Mets prospects, with three on the MLB Top 100 list, including starting pitcher Jonah Tong (MLB #44). Prior to the first pitch, the many Mets fans in attendance were giddy with anticipation.
Tong labored but struck out eight in five innings, leaving the game scoreless. Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz, the Yankees' fifth highest prospect, also struck out eight and made it look effortless despite the 85 degree temperature and broiling sun. Worse than the Binghamton loss (3-2) was how it happened; two throwing errors and a balk, all in the seventh inning.
This was scheduled as the first half of a doubleheader, but I didn't make it to the planned Phillies-Orioles game. I was wrung out by the sun and tried to squeeze in too much between the games, including the Northlandz model train layout. |
| as they used to say at Midway Stadium, "Train." |
My next game was instead between the Mets and the Braves. The previous three weeks had been a whipsaw for Mets fans, from euphoria to despair. The Mets swept the Dodgers at home and the Giants in San Francisco, back to back. They were then swept on the road by the Padres, beginning a stretch with just two wins in 15 games, including the 4-3 loss I attended.
Postseason Baseball
Slip away the postseason did, despite promoting prospects who had just been added to the Triple-A roster. The Mets, who had the best record in the MLB on June 12, couldn't even salvage a wild card berth, losing even that on the final day of the season. However, the St. Lucie Mets (Single-A), Brooklyn Cyclones (High-A), and Binghamton Rumble Ponies (Double-A) advanced to postseason play in their respective leagues.
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| the first of 65 pitches thrown by RJ Gordon, the Mets #25 prospect, in Game 1 of the Eastern League championship series |
Not only did the Cyclones and Rumble Ponies compete in the postseason, but I had the pleasure of seeing both teams play in their division and championship series. An earlier post summarized those games in the larger context of the organization's success, or near success as the case may be.
For 54 Hours
I was last in contact with an operator of baseball tours of Cuba in 2016, so it was quite the surprise to receive an email stating that a trip was planned for November — the first since the pandemic — and there was room for a few more people. Fifty-four hours later, another message announced that the tour was canceled.
What had been 17 reservations, with three potential last-minute additions, myself included, had withered to five confirmed participants. The reason for the defections (pun intended) was a higher-than-expected number of cases of dengue fever among travelers returning from Cuba. Nevertheless, the travel advisory from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) remained at Level 1, "Practice Usual Precautions."
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| notably not Level 3 |
Even the CDC advisory for chikungunya fever was "only" Level 2, "Practice Enhanced Precautions," not Level 3, "Reconsider Nonessential Travel," and there is a vaccine for chikungunya, unlike dengue. The tour organizer informed me that most of the potential travelers are in their 70s and 80s and had been advised by their doctors not to go to Cuba. Five games in four stadiums, tours of historic ballparks, visits with current and former players ... I was disappointed but it's not my place, let alone in my power, to convince people that the risk was manageable.
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