Uncompensated Endorsement

 

L-R: The 2007, 2010 and 2005 editions
of the Baseball Travel Map

Hedberg Map's Baseball Travel Map is an indispensable tool for planning baseball road trips, or finding baseball when traveling for other reasons.  Sure, Minor League Baseball has a Google Map on its website, but it's not remotely the same.

Speaking practically, the Google Map is too small to allow a viewer to scan the breadth of the country, from the San Francisco Giants to the Portland (Maine) Sea Dogs.  (Not to mention, who wants to balance a laptop on their knees while they're on the crapper.)

Less practically, the online map lacks magic.  When I unfold the five panels of the Baseball Travel Map, I see the trips Melvin and I have taken in the past, and I project us into the future, imagining the trips we might take.

So, I was understandably saddened when I learned Hedberg does not plan to publish a 2013 edition of the map, justifiably billed as "Essential information for the roving fan."

Ti-GRRRS!

In memoriam: Louis the Cat

I often go through withdrawal in early-November, missing the baseball that has been a part of my life for the previous six months.  Not this year, however, I think for two reasons.
First, I saw a lot of ball, 29 games, and they were nicely spread out over the course of the season.  Secondly, I saw four play-off games in person, which seemed after the fact to provide a sense of closure.  Those games also made me a Tigers fan, at least for the month of October.

In the span of nine days I saw a pair of games at Comerica Park (above) and a couple more at Yankee Stadium.  I didn't really know what I was doing.  I just bought tickets because I could and it all (for the most part) worked out.  It almost felt like circumstances were being guided by an outside force, but that doesn't happen, does it?

We Saw What We Came to See

My old—as in long-time, although we did discuss being middle-aged—college buddy Lee and I went out to Citi Field with hopes of seeing R.A. Dickey win his 20th game for the New York Mets.  The knuckleballer succeeded in his attempt, despite Jon Rauch giving up a ninth inning, two-run homer that cut the lead to a single run.
Box Score

Thursday's game was the first that Lee had seen at Citi Field, although he once worked on a Dunkin' Donuts television spot there, even getting the opportunity to shag flies in the outfield.  Mets manager Terry Collins says the 15-second commercial took five hours to shoot, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Romney Trails President in Swing States

Still Ahead of Baseball in Local Poll

I stopped by a bar in my neighborhood this evening, looking for supper and ESPN's Sunday night game, the Los Angeles Dodgers at the Cincinnati Reds.  Football was on the television at the far end and on the screen above the door was ... Mitt Romney?  Really?

I have resigned myself to the fact that baseball gets bumped off barroom walls in May and June, second and even third in popularity to the NHL and NBA playoffs.  But I could not get my head wrapped around the idea that my neighbors preferred to watch Romney with the sound off, instead of the not-quite-out-of-wild-card-contention Dodgers, up against the Reds, division champions in the National League Central.

Shame, Shame, Shame

So when Rob and I go to games, we make a point to never leave before the end of the game, no matter what. See, for example, the sad but gripping tale of our epic evening with the Indians. Hell, there was one game where we basically weren't speaking to each other, but we lasted through all of that one, too.

Yet today, because I was feeling a little under the weather and was a bit preoccupied with work, Watson and I left Wrigley in the top of the sixth, with the Cubs down 9–5. That turned out well:

Our streak of not seeing the Cubs win at Wrigley remains unbroken, through no fault of the team. Lesson learned.

Burnt

My buddy Kevin and I saw the Mets on Tuesday, the first trip to Citi Field this season for either of us.  Prior to the game, we had supper at Donovan's Pub, a Woodside, Queens landmark for 45 years that is on the real estate market.  (Photo by wallyg used through Creative Commons license.)

Donovan's is often touted—Time Out in 2004, nymag, chowhound—as serving the best burger in New York City.  Many a Mets fan has stopped by the pub on the way to or from a game but not Kevin or me.  We decided it might be now or never.

Yakety Yak

(Won't Be Back)

With apologies to The Coasters, performers of the 1958 #1 hit, I am referring here to the Yakima Bears, who played their last ever home game last night.  Starting next June, the Northwest League franchise will play in Hillsboro, a suburb of Portland, Oregon.  The team will remain a Diamondbacks' affiliate.

Although the league approached Hillsboro in September 2011, just one year after the Portland Beavers relocated to Tucson, Arizona, I was late to the realization that this would be the Bears last season in Yakima.  I would have liked to have seen the team before they left, like last year's trip to see the Kinston Indians.  I have to start reading Ballpark Digest more regularly.

Home Away from Home

Although there was a scheduled autograph session after the
game, Spinners second baseman Mookie Betts signed everything
put in front of him before heading to the showers.  A classy kid.

The central feature of my August trip was home teams playing somewhere other than their home field.  On August 16 I watched the Scranton-Wilkes Barre Yankees play at McCoy Stadium, their sixth "home" field of a season played entirely on the road while PNC Field is reconstructed.

Two days later I attended the seventh annual "Futures at Fenway," a double-header of Red Sox affiliates.  This year the Lowell Spinners and the Pawtucket Red Sox took the stage at the parent club's historic stadium.  By the fourth day of the road trip, I realized I was more at home away from home.

An Even Less Ambitious Day

(unless you are Lynn and Dave)

 

It's about as far from Pawtucket to Lowell as it was from New London to Pawtucket, but I planned (and accomplished!) even less.  Detouring from I-95 to Brookline, I took short tours of the Museum of Bad Art and the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site.

Later I caught a delightful nap and a game between the Lowell Spinners and the Aberdeen Ironbirds, where an on-field wedding was the most memorable part of the evening.

Rhode Trip

On Thursday morning, I put my mother on the train in New London and headed to Rhode Island.  I had planned a more leisurely day than Melvin and I typically do; the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum of Art—above, Gilded Frost and Jet Chandelier, 2008 by Dale Chihuly (pdf)—and a game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Scranton-Wilkes Barre Yankees, the Triple-A affiliates of the American League East rivals.