rosssiler

[rosssiler]

The Not-Sacramento Athletics

My overwhelming feeling sitting in the stands at Sutter Health Park for two games between the Mariners and Athletics in May was sheer disbelief.

It is unbelievable that Major League Baseball allowed the Athletics—a charter franchise of the American League in 1901, with nine World Series championships in their history—to move to a Triple A ballpark in Sacramento.  And not just for one season but for at least three years.

The clubhouses are in center field, there are trees on the berm in right field, and the A’s retired numbers and championship banner look like they were purchased on Amazon.  But this is the Athletics' home until they can move to a new ballpark in Las Vegas.

Whether that stadium will be built and whether it will open as scheduled in 2028 are open questions.  Until then, the A’s are sharing a home in California’s capital with the Pacific Coast League’s Sacramento River Cats, the Giants’ Triple A affiliate.

As long as the A’s are here, I will try to make this an annual trip.  The experience of seeing major league baseball in a minor league stadium is one-of-a-kind.  It’s wild that Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, and MLB’s biggest stars will all play in this park during the A’s stay.

For the May series, we bought tickets in advance but were able to take advantage of the Athletics’ disastrous ticket resale market.  We found seats 15 rows behind home plate for $40 each, probably a third of what they would cost in other cities.

What jumped out most was the A’s haven’t embraced Sacramento at all.  I saw one billboard for the A’s downtown by the Kings arena.  The team is wearing a Sacramento jersey patch this season but there was nothing in the team store with Sacramento on it.

Most critically, the A’s asked to be known as just the “Athletics” this season—not the Sacramento Athletics—and the only Sacramento-related souvenirs I could find were a refillable water bottle and soda cup.

The A’s seemingly will not hedge their bets in Sacramento.  There’s no suggestion that if fans show up and support the team, Sacramento could be a viable alternative if the Las Vegas plans fall through.

Instead, the A’s are on to their fourth city in franchise history, after moving from Philadelphia to Kansas City to Oakland.  The A’s spent 57 seasons in Oakland only to now attempt to follow the NFL’s Raiders to Las Vegas and the dream of a new stadium.

The A’s stopover in Sacramento seems driven by mitigating financial losses more than anything.  They were able to retain a significant percentage of their local TV revenues by moving 85 miles up the road.  And the A’s attendance will improve after they drew 5,000 or fewer fans 18 times last season.

Even though the A’s made significant upgrades—new clubhouses, new lights, new video board, new field—Sutter Health Park is decidedly minor league.  Now 25 years old, the park is not an especially new or nice Triple A stadium.

There’s an enormous “Catch The Excitement” ad board along the third base side for a local casino.  We went for ice cream and ended up getting a giant bowl of vanilla soft serve in a drab gray cardboard bowl.  That was the quality of the concessions (though they did have Pliny on tap).

With the team clubhouses in center field, the reserves and relievers spent the game shuttling back and forth across the outfield between innings. It was hilarious to watch the team walk in two or three at a time before the game and then head back out when it was over.

On the plus side, the views of the Tower Bridge were pretty at sunset.  And we saw two good games, with the Athletics winning 7-6 in 11 innings after Andres Munoz struck out Lawrence Butler, Brent Rooker, and Tyler Soderstrom to escape a bases loaded jam in the 10th.

Julio Rodrigeuz homered the next night and the Mariners scored three runs in the ninth inning to win 5-3, with Cal Raleigh delivering a pinch-hit, two-run single.  Attendance at the two games was 10,257 and 9,615, with a surprising number of Mariners fans in the crowd.

There’s no guarantee how long major league baseball will be in Sacramento but the experience was worth the short flight from Seattle. And, besides, it’s not Las Vegas.

* * *

Sam Blum wrote an excellent story for The Athletic on going to see the Athletics in May.

When the majors and minors collide: Buying a ticket and spending a night with the A’s

By Sam Blum

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — It’s been a while since I’ve walked up to a ticket counter at a Major League Baseball stadium.

Then again, that wasn’t really what I did when asking for the cheapest seat inside Sutter Health Park, about 30 minutes before a game last homestand. Because, after all, this isn’t really a big league ballpark. Even if one of MLB’s 30 clubs calls it home for now.

Natural disasters and a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic caused the Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays to play real games in minor-league ballparks over the years. The A’s are spending at least the next three seasons in Sacramento thanks to an entirely man-made catastrophe, resulting in their sharing this 14,000-seat minor-league park with the San Francisco Giants’ Triple-A affiliate, the River Cats, in a city that has mixed emotions regarding their presence.

Plenty has been written and said about the A’s plan to play here for at least the next three seasons, possibly four, possibly more, as their stopover on the way to a hoped-for ballpark in Las Vegas. But I wanted to take in the minor league ballpark experience for myself. Outside the press box. Without the credential. So for the Los Angeles Angels-A’s game on May 21, I walked up and bought a ticket to sit among people doing the same, all with their own perspectives on the matter.

“I don’t like it, I don’t like that they’re here,” said Vince Rivera, a fan walking the concourse in the now-iconic “Sell” shirt. “I live close, but I don’t like it. I would rather be in Oakland. I would rather make the trek out to Oakland. It doesn’t feel right. It’s a minor league stadium.”

So, yeah, there’s no getting around that fact. From a medical cart malfunction when the New York Mets were in town, to Philadelphia Phillies ace Zack Wheeler calling the mound “terrible,” to A’s manager Mark Kotsay not challenging a potential run-scoring play because he couldn’t see down the left field line, this is not exactly the ideal baseball environment.

At the same time, the atmosphere is lively, and, if you take away the ugly dynamics, actually pretty cool. The lawn is full of people spread out like it’s spring training. Kids run around in the playground attached to the ballpark beyond the right field wall. As the national anthem plays and the first pitch is delivered, the brutal heat settles into a calm and comfortable evening as a breeze drifts in off the adjacent Sacramento River. It is Major League Baseball like you’ve never experienced.

But it’s hard to shake the feeling that it’s not like it should be experienced.

“It offers its own unique set of challenges that we’re trying to embrace and deal with as best we can,” said All-Star designated hitter Brent Rooker. “And kind of make the best of the situation over the next three years.”

It didn’t feel like a ringing endorsement.

Still, just like the fans and the players, I resolved to make the best of it. My “seat” cost $25. But it wasn’t really a seat. It was on the outfield lawn. I quickly realized my mistake: I had no blanket, towel or chair. Holding my chicken tenders, fries and a beer — hey, The Athletic said I could expense it — I stood, unprepared as ever.

As the Angels took an early lead, and the A’s quickly took it back, I walked around the park, people-watching, trying to figure out the makeup of this crowd. Were they locals willing to adopt a franchise that refuses to fully identify with its new city? Were these displaced fans from the Bay Area still supporting their team by making the trek? Were they people like me, just captivated by the novelty?

Sometimes you could tell just by looking. A bright white Athletics jersey? Probably a new fan. A clearly broken-in kelly-green Jerry Blevins uniform? Most likely someone who’s been around the block.

Others, you had to talk to to find out.

I asked one season ticket holder, wearing Sacramento A’s shirts, where he and his son had gotten their gear.

Etsy, they said.

That made sense. While perusing the team store, I noticed that only a few items even have “Sacramento” on them. None refer to the team as the “Sacramento A’s.”

That has been a sore spot for the A’s hosts in Sacramento. The Athletics aren’t using the city’s name during their residency here: Instead of being the Sacramento A’s, they’re simply the A’s. Only a measly jersey patch on the sleeve signifies the Sacramento connection, and it’s matched by a Las Vegas patch on the other shoulder, plus “Visit Las Vegas” outfield advertisements that work hard to balance it all out.

Not coincidentally, the 14,014-person venue has regularly had empty seats. A years-long A’s season ticket holder drives from Napa, 90 minutes away, to every home game and back. Her seat is just to the right of home plate, about five rows up, and costs $170 per game. Similar tickets on the secondary market sell for under $100, depending on the game.

“I support the team totally. There’s a lot that’s said, but it’s about (owner John) Fisher. I want to come,” said die-hard fan Joyce Wilson. “… People that are trying to sell, they’re practically having to give them away.”

Therein lies evidence of consternation from potential fans. The demand isn’t matching the supply. A tiny, mostly filled ballpark can mask the issue, make it look like the team is popular. But even my $25 ticket was an overpay. A quick glance on the secondary market that night showed actual seats available for under $20. It’s a small difference that is reflective of a wider issue.

That night it was decently full, with an announced attendance of 10,094, but the home team hadn’t given fans much to be excited about. The Angels jumped on A’s starter J.P. Sears for two runs in each of the second, third and fourth, and by the middle innings the game was getting out of hand. The A’s were facing their eighth straight loss, and it was hard not to feel like their home environment had something to do with it. The clubhouses and batting cages are beyond the outfield wall, and cannot be accessed easily by players. The lack of an upper deck impacts wind and sun patterns. The trappings of the big league lifestyle can only be so replicated.

“The field’s not the best,” said A’s starting pitcher Luis Severino. “The stadium is not the best, or has the accommodations of other stadiums. It’s what we have, we have to be comfortable with what we have. We have a good record on the road versus at home. It’s not easy.

“It’s not what we thought it was going to be, but it’s what we have right now.”

As the game waned, the crowd thinned. It was a long night, and a weeknight, after all. The game went nearly 3 hours and 20 minutes. Only the diehards and the happy Angels fans stuck through until the end. It was in this vacuum that the once-dormant resistance showed itself.

The final season in Oakland was filled with all the vitriol and apathy of a fanbase getting royally screwed over. But on this night, a few “Sell” shirts, and a singular fan yelling “sell the team” twice in between pitches was the only form of protest.

At times, you could almost say the plan worked. It’s not ideal to play in a stadium with a giant River Cats logo atop the ballpark the most visible signage. Some elements of the minor league experience cannot be papered over. But it also just felt like another night at the park.

Then, in the bottom of the eighth inning, the chant started.

“Let’s Go Oakland” filled the humid West Sacramento evening.

I didn’t partake in the chant myself, but I could appreciate the message. I grew up in New York City going to Mets games, loving my team, feeling the loyalty. Heck, I’d spent the first three innings that night following, in pain, as my New York Knicks collapsed in Game 1 of the NBA’s Eastern Conference Finals.

Fandom is a love you embrace, but can’t truly explain. Even in this new city, new park and new existence, fans were still hurting. And being in the thick of it, I could feel it too.

This didn’t seem like it was about the A’s coming back from a three-run deficit. The eventual eighth-straight loss in what would become an 11-game skid was merely a backdrop, secondary to the message.

This was about a fan base that still loves its team, will always love its team, even if it isn’t loved back. The fans feel connected in a way the decision makers that got them to this point have yet to understand.

And in this tiny minor league park, just one person yelling can permeate the stadium and penetrate the television broadcast. This many yelling in unison made for a powerful message.

The A’s left the Coliseum to reset their franchise and get a fresh start. And in that moment, with each passing “Let’s go Oakland” chant, I came to better understand just how far that goal actually is from becoming reality.

[rosssiler]

Samurai Baseball

We visited the shrines and temples of Kyoto, sang karaoke in Shibuya, rode the Shinkansen bullet train, and ate sushi at the Tsukiji fish market.  But the highlight for me of our trip to Japan in April was getting to see two games in the most baseball-loving country I could imagine.

For years, I’d wanted to see Nippon Professional Baseball in person, and we made it happen over spring break.  Japanese baseball has never been more recognized thanks to Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Roki Sasaki, and the energy at the games we went to was off the charts.

Our plan was to see the Hanshin Tigers at historic Koshien Stadium and the Yomiuri Giants—the Yankees of Japan—at Tokyo Dome.  Our game at Koshien was rained out, but we ended up enjoying an unforgettable game with the Chiba Lotte Marines as a result.

Nothing will top our 2025 baseball trip.  And if I owned an MLB team, the first thing I would do is try to make it more like Japanese baseball.

* * *

Koshien is the Wrigley Field of Japan and hosts the annual national high school baseball tournament.  It opened in 1924 and is one of only four ballparks remaining where Babe Ruth once played (along with Wrigley, Fenway Park, and Tokyo’s Meiji Jingu Stadium).

Ruth and a team of American stars played at Koshien as part of their historic 1934 tour of Japan, and there’s a plaque of Ruth just outside the stadium.  According to reports, over 500,000 Japanese came out to greet Ruth and the Americans when they arrived in Tokyo to start the tour.

We made it inside Koshien only to wait out an hour-long rain delay before they canceled the game.  Unfortunately, they never pulled the tarp so we couldn’t see the all-dirt infield.  But we walked around the park and got a feel for Koshien and its ivy-covered walls and history.

* * *

I think the rainout happened for a reason because we wouldn’t have gone to Chiba otherwise.  Back in Tokyo, and determined to see two NPB games on the trip, my son and I took a 40-minute ride east to see the Marines at their stadium along Tokyo Bay.

The Marines are a second-tier NPB team (they’re currently last in the Pacific League) but we had an unforgettable night.  We saw Ohtani’s former team (the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters) beat Sasaki’s former team (the Marines) 9-3 behind an eight-run sixth inning.

Even before we made it inside ZOZO Marine Stadium, I realized we were in for something special.  I’ve seen a lot of mascots and dance teams but nothing like Chiba Lotte, who put on a zany pop-punk routine that I still watch whenever I’m a little down.

The Marines stadium feels like Comiskey Park in the 1990s and the blustery conditions didn’t help.  But we had great seats close to home plate and my son got a foul ball in the top of the first inning—the ultimate NPB souvenir among all the hats and jerseys we brought back.

Chiba Lotte felt like the true Japanese baseball experience, with only a handful of other Americans at the game.  And we marveled at the uniqueness.  The managers and umpires bowed before exchanging lineup cards at home plate.  Relief pitchers were driven out in the back of a Mercedes convertible.  Players stayed loose between innings by playing catch outside their dugouts, even while their team was batting.  Ubiquitous beer girls in neon shirts ran around the stadium pouring Asahi and Sapporo.

Most remarkable were the cheering sections.  Even on a Tuesday night in April, the Fighters’ and Marines’ fans chanted non-stop from their respective outfield sections.  Each player had his own cheers, including a fantastic “El Coffee” cheer for Gregory Polanco from the Dominican Republic, who hit a mammoth homer for Chiba Lotte in the second inning.

As loud as the fans were, the cheering sections were also highly respectful, with each team’s fans sitting while the other team was at bat.  The chanting made it feel more like a soccer match than a baseball game.  You realize how lame the wave is at MLB games after watching the fans in Japan cheer all night (and I don’t think the best fans in baseball are in St. Louis any longer).

My son said on the ride back to Tokyo that it was the most fun he’d ever had at a baseball game.  I agreed.  We will always be Chiba Lotte fans thanks to that game.

* * *

Two days later, we went as a family to see the Giants and Yokohama DeNA BayStars at the Tokyo Dome.  It was surreal to be in the Big Egg less than a month after the Dodgers and Cubs opened the MLB season in Japan.  Those games felt so far away on TV … and then we were there in the stands.

Tokyo Dome is home to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, which my son and I visited in the afternoon.  The 2023 World Baseball Classic championship trophy was on display, along with Sadaharu Oh’s 800th home run bat and balls from Ohtani’s first and last NPB games.

Not surprisingly, the Japanese Hall has a great collection of Ichiro and Ohtani jerseys.  And the plaque gallery felt a lot like Cooperstown.  There are even now two foreign players enshrined in the Japanese Hall, with former NPB stars Randy Bass and Alex Ramirez inducted in 2023.

The Tokyo Dome experience was the complete opposite of Chiba Lotte.  We ate at Shake Shack after finishing at the Japanese Hall and rode the Thunder Dolphin roller coaster at the next door amusement park before heading into the stadium.

The Giants merchandise is all Nike and New Era as they were the first NPB team to partner with Fanatics.  There were a shocking number of Americans among the sellout crowd of 41,767.  And the Tokyo Dome felt like the old Metrodome in Minneapolis.  If not for the cheering sections and beer girls, we could have been at an MLB game.

We got to see former Yankees pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, who is finishing his career with the Giants and was bidding for his 200th career win across MLB and NPB.  We bought No. 11 Tanaka jerseys, but the 36-year-old made it through just two innings and gave up seven hits and six runs.

With the Giants down 7-0 after three innings, we sampled some dumplings and enjoyed Big Egg ice cream sandwiches.  Katsuki Azuma struck out 10 in eight shutout innings for Yokohama and former major leaguer Kyle Keller pitched an inning of relief for the Giants in the 9-1 loss.

We’ll see baseball in Japan again someday.  It was too much fun not to go back.  In the meantime, I’m looking forward to watching Ohtani’s homecoming with Samurai Japan in the 2026 World Baseball Classic—and picturing myself back in our seats at Tokyo Dome.

* * *

A handful of other thoughts on the Japanese baseball experience:

You don’t realize how much the pitch clock saved MLB until you go to an NPB game with no clock.  Both games we went to were over three hours long.

You also don’t realize how easy the American ticket-buying experience is until you try to get tickets to an NPB game.  Tickets for Hanshin and Yomiuri were a challenge even going early in the season in April.  We worked for months with a broker but ended up having to buy tickets for Chiba Lotte and Yomiuri off StubHub (which is not recommended) and thankfully did not have any issues.  Even after buying tickets, we still had to print them at a convenience store the day of the games.

I thought the food would be a highlight but it was just a challenge.  Many of the concession stands offer bento boxes or food items that are identified with individual players (an American player might be pictured with the cheeseburger meal).  At Chiba Lotte, we were hungry and enjoyed some delicious rice bowls, but I have no idea what was in them.  The dumplings at Tokyo Dome were good (and it was fun to eat with chopsticks at a baseball game) but nothing really stood out.

NPB teams are allowed to have up to four foreign players on their roster.  Polanco, Franmil Reyes, and Elier Hernandez were the star imports for the Marines, Fighters, and Giants.

We found a baseball card store at a mall in Shibuya and bought some packs of Topps NPB cards, which were pretty cool.

You could see a lot of NPB without venturing much out of Tokyo.  Five of the 12 teams are located within an hour of Tokyo (the Giants, Marines, and BayStars, along with the Tokyo Yakult Swallows and Saitama Seibu Lions).

Ohtani is everywhere.  The first thing you see getting off the plane at Haneda Airport is an Ohtani ad.  He endorses Kose cosmetic products, Seiko watches, Ito En green tea, Secom security services, New Balance, and Hugo Boss.  There were five Ohtani billboards for different companies around Shibuya Scramble.  According to a story in the Japan Times, rice ball sales increased 120 percent when the Family Mart convenience store launched a campaign with Ohtani.

The 7 p.m. NPB games that we went to started at the equivalent of 3 a.m. Pacific.  I’ve been able to watch some Saturday and Sunday afternoon games in Japan on Friday and Saturday night on the West Coast.  There’s a streamer called Dingo TV that broadcasts NPB Pacific League games live.

* * *

I really appreciated the New York Times’ obituary for Shigeo Nagashima, Japan’s Mr. Baseball, when he died in June.  It told a lot about the history of baseball in Japan in this remembrance of one of its biggest stars.

Shigeo Nagashima, ‘Mr. Baseball’ of Postwar Japan, Dies at 89

By Ken Belson

Shigeo Nagashima, Japan’s most celebrated baseball player and a linchpin of the storied Tokyo Yomiuri Giants dynasty of the 1960s and 1970s, died on Tuesday in Tokyo. He was 89.

His death, in a hospital was attributed to pneumonia, according to a joint statement released by the Giants, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper and Nagashima’s management company.

A star from the moment he signed his first professional contract in 1957, Nagashima instantly made a splash with his powerful bat, speed on the basepaths and catlike reflexes as a third baseman. He notched numerous batting titles and Most Valuable Player Awards, and he was a key member of the Giants’ heralded “V-9” teams, which won nine consecutive Japan Series titles from 1965 to 1973. More than any player of his generation, Nagashima symbolized a country that was feverishly rebuilding after World War II and gaining clout as an economic power. Visiting dignitaries sought his company. His good looks and charisma helped make him an attraction; he was considered Japan’s most eligible bachelor until his wedding in 1965, which was broadcast nationally.

The news media tracked Nagashima’s every move. The fact that he played for the Giants, who were owned by the Yomiuri media empire, amplified his exploits. He wore his success and celebrity so comfortably that he became known as “Mr. Giants,” “Mr. Baseball” or sometimes simply “Mister.”

“No matter what he did or where he went there was a photo of him — attending a reception for the emperor, or coaching a Little League seminar, or appearing at the premiere of the latest Tom Cruise movie,” Robert Whiting, a longtime chronicler of Japanese baseball, wrote about Nagashima in The Japan Times in 2013. “People joked that he was the real head of state.”

None of that celebrity would have been possible had he not excelled as a ballplayer. Along with his teammate Sadaharu Oh, Japan’s home run king, Nagashima was the centerpiece of the country’s most enduring sports dynasty. He hit 444 home runs, had a lifetime batting average of .305, won six batting titles and five times led the league in runs batted in. He was a five-time most valuable player and was chosen as the league’s top third baseman in each of his 17 seasons. He was inducted into Japan’s Baseball Hall of Fame in 1988.

In his first season, 1958, he led the league in home runs and was second in stolen bases and batting average, earning him rookie of the year honors. And then, early in his second season, he made history in the first game attended by a Japanese emperor, Hirohito, and an empress, Nagako. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Nagashima blasted a 2-2 pitch into the left field stands for a game-winning home run, considered one of the most dramatic sports events in Japanese history.

One of Nagashima’s trademarks was his work ethic, a character trait that was particularly celebrated during Japan’s postwar rise. Under the guidance of manager Tetsuharu Kawakami, Nagashima practiced from dawn to dusk, enduring an infamous 1,000-fungo drill, which required him to field ground ball after ground ball. In the off-season, he trained in the mountains, running and swinging the bat to the point of exhaustion. He bought a house by the Tama River in Tokyo so that he could run there, and he added a room to his home where he could practice swinging.

He was often the Giants’ highest-paid player, showered with hefty contracts and bonuses. By the early 1960s, word of his talents had reached the United States. Bill Veeck of the Chicago White Sox tried unsuccessfully to buy Nagashima’s contract, as did Walter O’Malley of the Los Angeles Dodgers, now home to the Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani. (Ohtani offered his condolences on Instagram, posting photos of himself with the aging Nagashima.)

After ending his playing career in 1974 (his number, 3, was retired), Nagashima became the team’s manager at just 38. He was far less successful in that role, at least at first. He pushed his players — some of whom were his former teammates — to work as hard as he did. “Bashing the players this year cultivates spirit,” he told The Japan Times.

In his first season, the Giants finished in last place for the first time. The next two years, they won the Central League pennant but lost the Japan Series. The Giants failed to win their division for the next three years, and Nagashima was let go in 1980. Shigeo Nagashima was born on Feb. 20, 1936, in Sakura, in coastal Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo. His father, Toshi, was a municipal worker, and his mother, Chiyo, was a homemaker. Nagashima grew up rooting for the Hanshin Tigers, the Giants’ archrival. He took up baseball in elementary school, but because of wartime shortages, he made a ball from marbles and cloth and used a bamboo stick as a bat. After graduating from high school, he entered Rikkyo University in Tokyo, where he started at third base. Rikkyo, typically an also-ran, won three college tournaments.

After graduating, Nagashima signed a then-record 18 million yen contract (about $50,000 in 1958, or about $550,000 in today’s money) with the Giants. As his star rose on the field, speculation about his marital status grew. In 1964, he met Akiko Nishimura, a hostess at the Tokyo Olympic Games that year. She had studied in the United States and spoke fluent English, which were considered marks of status and education. Their wedding was the most-watched television broadcast in Japan the following year. She died in 2007.

Their oldest child, Kazushige, played sparingly for the Giants when his father managed the club; he now works in television. Nagashima’s second son, Masaoki, is a former racecar driver, and his daughter, Mina, is a newscaster. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.

After Nagashima’s first stint as a manager, he worked as a television commentator. His affable style was matched by his occasionally incomprehensible chatter. But his charisma made him an irresistible target when the Giants were looking for a new manager in 1993. Then 56, Nagashima debated whether to return to the dugout.

“My wife and I were looking forward to a quiet life playing golf, and it was hard to decide to throw myself back into the fight,” he told reporters. “But I was raised as a Giant, and if I have the strength, I will do whatever it takes for the Giants.”

Mellowed by age, Nagashima was easier on his players this time around. He also had the good fortune to manage Hideki Matsui, the team’s cleanup hitter and one of the most fearsome sluggers of the 1990s. (He joined the Yankees in 2003.) The Giants won two Japan Series titles, in 1994 and 2000, during Nagashima’s nine-year tenure. In his 15 years as a manager, his teams won 1,034 games, lost 889 and tied 59 times. The Giants made him a lifetime honorary manager.

As he was preparing to manage the Japanese team at the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004, Nagashima, then 68, suffered a stroke that partly paralyzed his right side. Though he was seen less in public in the following years, he was no less adored. In 2013, he and Matsui were given the People’s Honor Award by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Eight years later, they were torch bearers at the opening ceremony at the Tokyo Games. Matsui walked slowly, holding Nagashima, as his old teammate, Oh, held the Olympic torch.

[rosssiler]

The Home-Away-From-Home Team

If you told me when I went to spring training in February 2020 that I would be watching a seven-inning doubleheader in Buffalo, N.Y., featuring the Texas Rangers and Toronto Blue Jays in July 2021 … well, I certainly would have had some questions.

Now? It all makes sense after COVID-19 wreaked havoc on the world and Major League Baseball, reducing the 2020 season to just 60 games.  But 17 months ago?  I would not have believed that Buffalo would soon be hosting MLB games.

After all, in the last century, Buffalo’s greatest claim to baseball fame was as the location where “The Natural” was filmed at old War Memorial Stadium, with sparks raining down on Roy Hobbs as he circled the bases after his immortal home run.

Otherwise, Buffalo was last home to a Federal League team in 1914 and 1915.  And before that, the Buffalo Bisons (featuring Hall of Famers Pud Galvin, Dan Brouthers, and Deacon White) played in the National League between 1879 and 1885.

That’s why this year’s baseball trip had to be to Buffalo.  What better represents the last two years of pandemic baseball than seeing the exiled Blue Jays playing home games at Triple A Sahlen Field—less than five miles from Canada, yet so far from returning?

I followed the back and forth for weeks over the Blue Jays’ request to the Canadian government to return to Toronto.  The Blue Jays played their last 26 games of the 2020 season in Buffalo with the border closed and then opened the 2021 season at their spring training home in Dunedin, Fla.

They returned to Buffalo for a series against the Miami Marlins beginning June 1, 2021.  Unlike in 2020, local fans were able to attend this season’s games at Sahlen Field.

Finally, on July 16, the Blue Jays received permission to return to Rogers Centre for a 10-game homestand beginning in two weeks on July 30.  That left six games to say goodbye to Buffalo.  And I was determined to make it before the Blue Jays left.

I booked the trip at the last minute—a flight from Seattle to Pittsburgh, then a 3½-hour drive to Buffalo.  After their July 17 game was rained out, the Blue Jays played a seven-inning Sunday afternoon doubleheader against the Rangers on July 18.

The Blue Jays clobbered Texas by a combined score of 15-0 over the two games—5-0 in Game 1 as Hyun Jin Ryu pitched a shutout and 10-0 in Game 2 as Lourdes Gurriel Jr. hit a grand slam for one of Toronto’s (Buffalo’s?) four homers off Mike Foltynewicz.

Even with the blowouts, it was one of my favorite baseball experiences ever. To watch a big league game (two of them) in a city that hasn’t had a team in 106 years was wonderful.  And a major-league game played in a Triple A park felt like seeing a big-name band play a club show.

The amount of work that went into hosting 49 games over two seasons in Buffalo was easily apparent.  Whether it was the Blue Jays, MLB, or the Triple A Buffalo Bisons, millions of dollars were clearly spent.

The Bisons (a Blue Jays affiliate) relocated to Trenton, N.J., so Toronto could move in.  The Blue Jays plastered Sahlen Field with “Home of the Blue Jays” signage—from the stadium gates to the signs along the concourse (which directed fans to the very Canadian “washrooms”).

They constructed an entire visiting team clubhouse and other facilities in temporary tents in center field.  They also renovated the home clubhouse and turned the Triple A visiting clubhouse into Blue Jays’ coaches’ offices.

The Blue Jays also replaced all of the stadium lights and brought the field up to major league standard.  You don’t think about the drainage necessary for a major league stadium until it rains 3 inches in a day (which led to the doubleheader).

For what it’s worth, the seven-inning doubleheader, intended to reduce time at the ballpark for teams amid COVID-19, created a game with minimal rhythm.  It seemed like everyone double-checked to make sure the game was really over after the last out.

The first game took just 1 hour 48 minutes, while the second game was three minutes longer.  And for the record, they sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” as part of a fifth-inning stretch during the seven-inning doubleheader.

As for the park, Sahlen Field opened in 1988 and preceded even Camden Yards in the trend of retro downtown stadiums.  Originally named Pilot Field, the stadium was built in the hopes of Buffalo landing an MLB expansion team, which went to Florida and Colorado in 1993.

The park is starting to show its age after 33 years—it is not comparable to the Triple A stadium built in Reno, Nev., that opened in 2009--but it felt like the Blue Jays’ home with all of the signage and upgrades, as opposed to just temporary housing.

The doubleheader drew 12,335, the largest crowd of the season to date in Buffalo, which was eclipsed the very next night when the Blue Jays hosted the opener of their last three-game series at Sahlen Field against the Red Sox.

There were long lines to get into the Blue Jays’ temporary team store—the Bisons’ store was nowhere near large enough—and the concourse was jammed between games of the doubleheader.

For the record, the Blue Jays averaged 7,733 fans for their 22 home dates in Buffalo for the 2021 season, better than three major-league teams (Tampa Bay, Oakland, and Miami). 

If you tuned in on TV, you would have thought the game was played in Canada. The advertisements on the outfield wall and behind home plate were distinctly Canadian (Pizza Nova?  Home Hardware?  MNP?  Sobeys?) and looked like Rogers Centre.

They played both the Canadian and U.S. anthems before first pitch.  I had a Labatt Blue Light, though I think that’s a staple at Sahlen Field even without the Blue Jays.  Beyond left field was a sign for I-190 North heading to the Peace Bridge and Niagara Falls.

My one disappointment was how little Buffalo color there was, despite the game being played in the city’s downtown.  After receiving permission from the Canadian government to return, the Blue Jays did put “Thank you Buffalo” signs on the two dugouts.

But there were no advertisements for Buffalo car dealers or banks or personal injury attorneys or any of the staples of ballparks across the country.  Other than the stadium being Sahlen Field—and I enjoyed a Sahlen hot dog during Game 2—it didn’t feel like Buffalo.

There was one exception.  Rangers catcher Jonah Heim grew up in Amherst, N.Y., and became the first Buffalo native to play a major-league game in the city since John Gillespie played for the Buffalo Bisons in the short-lived Players League in October 1890.

Heim singled off Steven Matz in Game 2 and got a huge ovation from the crowd. You wondered how many fans knew Heim (I saw a couple of jerseys and shirts) and how many were just acknowledging the hometown kid.  But it was a true Buffalo baseball moment.

There was also a great fact noted in The Buffalo News:  With the Blue Jays’ temporary relocation, Buffalo became one of just 15 cities to host big-league baseball teams in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.  Who knows what the 2100s will bring for Buffalo baseball?

Ultimately, if the mission was to provide a home away from home for the Blue Jays—with close-to-major-league facilities for the players and a Toronto feel for the television broadcasts—then Buffalo more than delivered.

I was so glad to make it with three days to spare, to watch MLB games in a city that I could not have imagined just two years ago.  

[rosssiler]

Green Day

Every year I look forward to the photos from spring training of teams decked out in their St. Patrick’s Day jerseys and caps.  I’m also more than a little jealous of the fans in attendance—not only are they enjoying baseball in the sun, they’re witnessing one of the sport’s great traditions.

This year I finally got to be that fan.  A work trip took me to Arizona in the middle of spring training and I stuck around an extra day to catch the Indians and Reds in Goodyear.  And, as they first did over 40 years ago, the Reds turned into the Greens to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

The Reds became the first team to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day in 1978 for a game against the Yankees.  The players apparently had no advance notice and were surprised with the jerseys an hour before game time.  A New York Times story from the game noted that the green jerseys were completely out of character for the Reds, who didn’t even wear stripes on their shoes.

Sparky Anderson, then the Reds manager, said of the uniforms:  “That’s what people don’t understand.  We’re not as old‐fashioned as people think.  We can have fun, too. The Yankees will have to come up with another idea to upstage us. Steinbrenner won’t know what to do.”

The Yankees lost 9-2 to the Reds in that 1978 game.  For his part, George Steinbrenner was quoted in the same story as saying:  “I think the green uniforms matched my complexion after seeing the inadequacies of the team that is supposed to be world champion.”

What started with the Reds is now entrenched across baseball.  MLB has a complete St. Patrick’s Day apparel collection for every team.  The St. Patrick’s Day caps this year (for almost every team) were white with green bills and logos and a shamrock accent on the crown.

Some teams opt to wear their regular spring training jerseys with the caps (as the Indians did).  My favorite St. Patrick’s Day look is similar to what the Reds did in 1978, with teams wearing their home white uniforms but changing the color of their logos, numbers, and striping to green.

The Reds opted for such a look last season, along with a “First Team to Wear Green” commemorative patch on the 40th anniversary of that 1978 game.  This year, the Reds went with green jerseys and white lettering.  They still looked great.

The game itself was terrific.  With the bases loaded in the fourth inning, Yasiel Puig came up against former Cy Young winner Corey Kluber and crushed a grand slam to erase a 3-0 Cleveland lead. Everyone knew Puig would swing for the fences and yet he still connected.

Puig homered a second time in the fifth inning before leaving with the rest of the starters in the seventh.  The Indians then staged a four-run comeback in the ninth inning and the game ended in a 9-9 tie.  Given that the Reds and Indians share Goodyear, both teams’ fans went home happy.

Between the postcard-perfect afternoon (76 degrees at first pitch), Puig’s electrifying grand slam, and the green jerseys, it was about as good as spring training gets.

It also was my first game at Goodyear Ballpark, which is located 20 miles west of downtown Phoenix.  The St. Patrick’s Day game was the 10th anniversary celebration of the Goodyear facility, which is almost shocking as it feels like Goodyear opened yesterday.

It’s hard to believe Goodyear has been around for 10 years considering how new the stadium feels and the fact that there’s still almost nothing around it. You see the ads on the outfield wall and in the program for supposedly nearby businesses and you wonder where they are.

There is nothing on the drive from Interstate 10 to the ballpark other than a nearby airport boneyard for planes no longer used.  I found myself wondering where the Indians and Reds players live during spring training when there’s so little around the park.

Goodyear does have a great baseball sculpture in front of the stadium, and the park was very comfortable.  I highly recommend the shaded club seats behind third base; they have attendants to deliver food and drinks, which helped on a crowded afternoon with endless lines.

There is a nice tribute to Frank Robinson, whose number 20 was retired by both the Reds and Indians, in left field.  Goodyear had bounce houses and wiffle ball fields for the kids.  It looked like you could get Skyline chili at one of the concession stands, but I couldn’t manage the line.

Goodyear wouldn’t be on my must-see list of spring training parks. But St. Patrick’s Day with the Reds was something special.

[rosssiler]

K.C. Masterpiece

After graduating college in 2002, I packed up my car and ventured into the real world, starting with a road trip from Chicago to San Francisco.  My now-wife came along too, though she was moving to New York for an internship.  Those were anxious days—I didn’t have a job and wouldn’t for several months—but they also were memorable and special.

As part of the trip, we stopped in Kansas City and caught a Royals game at Kauffman Stadium.  Neither my wife nor I remember much about the game, other than the famous fountains and that it was so hot it felt like being in a furnace.  I went on to see games at all 30 major-league stadiums, but that afternoon was my first and only game in Kansas City.

Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com, I can see why that June 27, 2002, game was so forgettable.  Both the Royals and Detroit Tigers went on to lose 100 games that season.  The Royals won 5-2.  Paul Byrd earned the win, Mike Sweeney homered, and Roberto Hernandez saved it.  There were 16,373 in attendance.  And it was 88 degrees at first pitch.

Sixteen years later, I made it back to Kauffman Stadium on this year’s baseball trip.  I saw two games of the Royals’ series against Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout, and the Angels.  The weather couldn’t have been more different—it was 42 degrees at first pitch on April 14 and snowed from the fifth inning on (see above photo).  I’ve been to hundreds of games over the years—including several frigid April games in Chicago—but never before a snow game.

Kauffman Stadium was the draw (along with seeing Ohtani 10 games into his career) and it far exceeded my memories and expectations.  The fountains remain the featured attraction, but the stadium underwent a $250 million renovation in 2008 and is one of the jewels of the majors.

I enjoyed Kauffman Stadium more than any park I’ve been to in recent years.  Were it not located in a giant parking lot next to Arrowhead Stadium and Interstate 70—and were the concession stands a little more distinctive for such a great food city—I would probably rate Kauffman Stadium as a top-five ballpark.

There was a lot to love about the Royals’ home, which is the sixth-oldest park in the majors (opening in 1973) and the lone baseball-only stadium built between 1966 and 1991.

For starters, the fountains are such a unique feature, and the Royals actually sell bottles of “Fountain Water” for $10 at their team store.  I didn’t realize it until the trip, but Kansas City is dubbed the City of Fountains and boasts having more fountains than Rome (and more boulevards than Paris).  I stood in the outfield in the late innings one night just to watch the fountains between innings.

The Royals also have perhaps the best Hall of Fame of any team.  The facility was built in left field as part of the recent renovations.  The memorabilia on display is extraordinary—everything from the ball from George Brett’s first major league hit (he totaled 3,154) to Frank White’s eight Gold Gloves to the last out ball of the 2015 World Series to the Royals’ two Commissioner’s Trophies.  The Hall is open before and during games until the eighth inning.

The Royals additionally have the greatest scoreboard in the majors—a 12-story HD board shaped like the Royals logo and topped by a crown.  The scoreboard towers over the outfield and creates a majestic panorama looking out from home plate.  The picture quality is not necessarily the sharpest, but there’s no scoreboard like it in baseball.

I also was fond of a lot of the little touches at Kauffman Stadium.  They sell boxes of baseball cards from the 1980s and 1990s in the team store.  They have a five-hole putt-putt course in the outfield as part of a kids’ area.  They have probably the best selection of game-used memorabilia I’ve seen (I bought a ball to add to my collection).  They have dedicated Boulevard Brewing bars throughout the stadium.

Parking is $15 a car, and there doesn’t seem to be a great alternative for getting to Kauffman Stadium, which is about 15 minutes from downtown.  On the other hand, thanks to the Royals’ 3-9 start and the freezing weather, I bought a ticket five rows behind the Kansas City dugout for $22 on StubHub.

I’ve seen a lot of small crowds at Safeco Field since moving to Seattle and adopting the Mariners, but it was a little alarming to see the Royals announce crowds of 15,011 and 15,876 for Friday and Saturday night games, which should be far stronger draws.

As far as the games, I saw the Angels rally to win 5-4 on April 13.  Albert Pujols blasted his 617th career home run and later singled off Brad Keller in the seventh to drive in a run and start the Angels’ comeback.  (Bad feet and all, Pujols also slid into first base trying to beat out Alcides Escobar’s high throw on a ground ball to short in the game.)  The home run and single were the 2,986th and 2,987th hits of Pujols’ career.

Ohtani batted seventh as the designated hitter and went 2-for-4 to raise his average to .367 (and his OPS to a ridiculous 1.191).  In the second inning, Ohtani looked completely late swinging at Jason Hammel’s fastball, then managed to turn on a two-strike pitch and double into the left field corner.  He also singled in the eighth and scored the winning run on Ian Kinsler’s sacrifice fly.

The Angels won the following night as well, 5-3, in the most miserable conditions I think I’ve experienced.  The umpires were determined to get in the game despite the rain and the snow.  Garrett Richards started for the Angels and threw four perfect innings before losing his control in the rain and cold.  Richards walked two and threw three wild pitches in the fifth but escaped with a 4-1 lead thanks to an inning-ending double play.

The best moment came in the top of the fifth with Trout at the plate and the rain falling hard.  Trout crushed a 429-foot homer to left field off Jakob Junis to make it 4-0.  It was Trout’s sixth home run of the season and might have been the most impressive blast I’ve ever seen given the weather.  Trout has 207 career homers and won’t even turn 27 until August.

I made it until the eighth inning with the snow falling before needing to get warm.  Those final innings were a struggle, but it also was fitting to see Kauffman Stadium—such a wonderful ballpark—turned into a one-night snow globe.

[rosssiler]

Division Game

Let’s start with what the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo., isn’t.

It’s not a hall of fame for Negro Leagues players and executives.  There are currently 35 former Negro League players and executives enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., immortalized (as they should be) alongside Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, and the other major-league greats.

On this point, the NLBM makes its position abundantly clear:  “Often the museum is referred to as the ‘Negro Leagues Hall of Fame’ or ‘Black Baseball Hall of Fame’ and various names. It is important to the museum that we not be referred to as such. The NLBM was conceived as a museum to tell the complete story of Negro Leagues Baseball, from the average players to the superstars.

“We feel VERY strongly that the National Baseball Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown, NY, is the proper place for recognition [of] baseball’s greatest players. The Negro Leagues existed in the face of segregation. Baseball’s shrines should not be segregated today. Therefore, the NLBM does not hold any special induction ceremonies for honorees. As space allows, we include information on every player, executive, and important figure. However, we do give special recognition in our exhibit to those Negro Leaguers who have been honored in Cooperstown.”

As compared to Cooperstown, though, the NLBM is the place where the story of the Negro Leagues is most completely told.  The museum, which was founded in 1990 and moved into its current space in the 18th and Vine district of Kansas City (a historic center of African-American culture) seven years later, features a chronological history of African-American baseball from the 1860s until the death of the Negro Leagues in the 1960 following integration in MLB.

I visited the museum on this year’s baseball trip and came away with a far greater appreciation for Negro League history.  The Negro Leagues were pioneering in many respects: For one thing, I didn’t know that night baseball was first played by the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro Leagues in 1930, five years before the first major-league game under the lights.

I also was not aware of the organizational struggles of Negro League teams. The NLBM proudly displays the articles of incorporation of the first Negro National League in 1920.  But the league, which was founded at a Kansas City YMCA, existed only until 1931, far before what the museum describes as the Negro Leagues’ heyday in the 1940s.

As well known as several Negro League teams are today—the Monarchs, Homestead Grays, Pittsburgh Crawfords (with Hall of Famers Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson, and Cool Papa Bell), and Newark Eagles—the teams struggled mightily as businesses.  According to the NLBM, the Grays were the only profitable team in the 1920s.

There were numerous interesting facts among the NLBM exhibits.  Satchel Paige was the biggest star and highest-paid Negro Leaguer, barnstormed across the country, and would not hesitate to change teams for a bigger payday.  The annual East-West All-Star Game drew crowds of 50,000-plus at Comiskey Park in the early 1940s.  Monte Irvin, Larry Doby, Willie Mays, and Paige all played in both the World Series and Negro League World Series.  Paige was the oldest rookie in MLB history and was an All-Star at age 45 and 46.

My only criticism of the NLBM would be that it perhaps focuses too much on the Negro League owners and organizers, though Gus Greenlee, Rube Foster, and Effa Manley were fascinating individuals.  To me, the players should always be the story, and I wanted to learn more about not just Paige and Gibson and Jackie Robinson, but Buck Leonard, Oscar Charleston, and others.

One white player who is prominently featured is Cap Anson, the 19th century great who staunchly opposed African-American players in professional baseball, leading to the so-called “gentleman’s agreement” among teams that kept blacks out of the majors.  Kennesaw Mountain Landis is also criticized for failing to integrate baseball during his tenure as MLB commissioner, which ended with his death in 1944.

The NLBM takes about 90 minutes to tour (I was happy to see visitors of all races).  The museum shares its building with the American Jazz Museum, and MLB’s Urban Youth Academy baseball/softball complex is part of the same block.  The museum features great exhibits on African-American clown teams, which carried on into the 1950s, and on the sports writers and African-American newspapers that crusaded for integration in baseball.

As far as memorabilia, the NLBM included signed Robinson and Paige baseballs, as well as my favorite piece—a bat used and signed by Hall of Famer Turkey Stearnes (nicknamed either because of the way he ran or because he had a pot-belly as a child).  Stearnes played for the Detroit Stars, Kansas City Monarchs, and a host of other teams.

The museum also includes what it describes as lifestyle exhibits that highlight black businesses from the era, including a hotel room and a barbershop, though the exhibit emphasizes that most Negro League teams stayed in hotels far worse than the one depicted in the exhibit.

After Robinson and Larry Doby broke the color barrier in 1947, it still took 12 years before every major league team featured a black player.  Although in decline after losing their star players to the majors, the Negro Leagues continued until 1960.  The museum chronicles the demise of the Negro Leagues and the accomplishments of former Negro Leaguers in the majors (including Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Mays, and others).

The self-guided tour through the NLBM leads to a series of lockers featuring replica jerseys and the Cooperstown plaques of the Negro Leaguers who have been inducted in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.  There’s a set of pearls in Manley’s locker as well, fitting for the first woman inducted in the Hall.

The tour concludes at the “Field of Legends,” which features a replica diamond with 10 bronze sculptures of Negro League greats in the midst of a game.  Paige is on the mound, Gibson is behind the plate, and Martin Dihigo is at the plate.  Leonard, Johnson, Bell, Charleston, Pop Lloyd, Ray Dandridge, and Leon Day are also on the field; Foster and Buck O’Neil have sculptures elsewhere in the NLBM.

My biggest thought in leaving the NLBM was gratitude that the museum exists.  Our connection to the Negro Leagues fades by the day—O’Neil died in 2006, Aaron is 84 years old, Robinson broke the color barrier 71 years ago—but the history of the Negro Leagues is well chronicled in Kansas City.

[rosssiler]

That 70s Show

I don’t know why I didn’t attend the Mariners’ first turn-back-the-clock game against the Houston Astros on May 24, 2014.  We had a 3-month-old baby at the time, which probably had much to do with it.  The pitching matchup of Brandon Maurer vs. Brett Oberholtzer might have been another reason.

But as soon as I turned on the TV that night, I immediately regretted not going.  The Astros and Mariners wore throwback uniforms from the 1979 season--with the original trident logo for the Mariners and the Astros in their iconic orange-red-yellow rainbow jerseys.

My regret only increased weeks later when Astros outfielder George Springer was pictured on the cover of Sports Illustrated on June 30, 2014, wearing the rainbow jersey from that night for a feature story predicting the Astros would win the 2017 World Series.

For me, the Astros’ rainbow jerseys are the greatest in baseball history.  After missing the chance to see them in person at Safeco Field in 2014, I resolved never to let a similar opportunity pass again.

Three years later, the Mariners held another turn-back-the-clock game against the Astros.  As part of their 40th anniversary celebration, the Mariners commemorated their inaugural 1977 season with their June 24, 2017, game.

That put the Mariners back in the trident uniforms and the Astros back in their rainbow jerseys, which they wore from 1975 to 1986. I had been given a second chance to see the Astros in their rainbows, and I wasn’t going to miss it.

As much as I love the Mariners, I might love the Astros’ rainbow jerseys even more.  We bought tickets on the third-base side near the Houston dugout--the better to see those jerseys. For the first time, I dug out the rainbow throwback I have in the closet and wore it in public.

It was the first game I’ve ever gone to just because of the jerseys the teams were wearing.  Watching the Astros spill out of their dugout every inning to take the field in their rainbows was simply wonderful.

It also was a rare sight:  According to an excellent Houston Chronicle feature on the Astros’ unparalleled uniform history, the Astros have worn the rainbow jerseys only 10 times dating to 1999 (including the June 2017 game).

The Mariners’ entire turn-back-the-clock production was perfect--with the centerfield scoreboard done in dot matrix style, low def scoreboard replays, and 1970s music and movie quote games for between-innings entertainment.

Instead of the usual HD hydroplane race between innings, the Mariners offered a sailboat dot race that looked like something out of the Pong era of video games.

As for the game, the Astros took a 5-2 victory (improving to 51-25) as Brian McCann hit a three-run double to right field in the seventh inning.  McCann’s sinking liner smacked off Mitch Haniger’s glove as Haniger attempted to make what would have been a spectacular diving catch.

* * *

A couple of weeks after the game, the Mariners auctioned the throwback jerseys for charity.  There is apparently much love for the Astros rainbows--George Springer’s ($5,004), Carlos Correa’s ($4,000), and Jose Altuve’s ($3,700) jerseys all went for eye-popping sums.  Even the jersey of No. 9 hitter Jake Marisnick sold for $510.

All I wanted was a game-used rainbow jersey of someone who played in the game.  And I was fortunate enough to win Luke Gregerson’s No. 44 for $320.  Gregerson faced three batters in the seventh inning as one of five relievers who preserved the win for Lance McCullers Jr.

I can’t wait to frame the jersey and hang it in our playroom.  It will be a forever memory of a second chance to see the greatest uniforms in baseball history in person.

* * * Four days after the Astros wore their rainbows, ESPN.com’s Uni Watch correspondent Paul Lukas wrote a feature all about the jerseys.  I think my favorite fact is that the Astros did not have separate home and road jerseys from 1975 to 1980--the rainbow jersey served as both.

* * *

Some of the action photos from the Seattle Times and Associated Press from the turn-back-the-clock game, showing the rainbows in all their glory.

[rosssiler]

Summer Catch

Walking up to the baseball field behind Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School, you hardly would believe that Chris Sale, Buster Posey, Justin Turner, and a host of others called it their summer home on the way to the majors.

Red Wilson Field features a wooden press box, a chain-link outfield fence (with no marked dimensions), a snack bar, and some scattered bleachers.  There’s not even stadium lights so games can be played after dark.

But such is the essence of the Cape Cod Baseball League, with the unmatched combination of small-town charm and big-time prospects.  For two months every summer, the country’s top college baseball players head to Cape Cod to play for the league’s 10 teams.

The league stretches some 60 miles across Cape Cod and along Route 6, from Wareham (Gatemen) and Bourne (Braves) in the west to Chatham (Anglers) and Orleans (Firebirds) in the east.  The teams are split into East and West Divisions and play 44-game schedules.

For this year’s baseball trip, I headed to the Cape League for a June 17 game between the Harwich Mariners and Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox.  It was the home opener for the three-time defending league champion Red Sox; admission was free (with donations gladly accepted).  The drive from Boston to the town of South Yarmouth took about 75 minutes.

The Cape League’s history of producing future major leaguers is staggering.  According to the league, 297 former Cape League players appeared in at least one major-league game in 2016—that would be the equivalent of almost 12 full 25-man rosters. The league has more than 1,100 former big-league alumni.

Among current Mariners, Dan Altavilla (Y-D), Taylor Motter (Harwich), Kyle Seager (Chatham), Danny Valencia (Orleans), Mike Zunino (Y-D), and Tony Zych (Bourne) all played in the Cape League.

This year, 10 of the 36 first-round MLB draft picks were Cape League alums, including top-10 picks Brendan McKay (Tampa Bay), Pavin Smith (Arizona), and Adam Haseley (Philadelphia).

Not surprisingly, the Cape League is heavily scouted.  We counted four or five scouts sitting behind home plate at the Y-D park armed with radar guns, with several scouts packing up and leaving at 6 p.m. to presumably catch a second game on the Cape that night.

My interest in the Cape League grew from Jim Collins’ fantastic book “The Last Best League,” which followed the Chatham A’s (now Anglers) for one summer in 2002.  Tim Stouffer and Chris Iannetta both became big-league regulars from that Chatham team.

But the book also focuses as much on the players who got so close to the big-time, yet failed to make it for one reason or another.  (Collins updated the book 10 years later after the A’s players all had either established or finished their baseball careers.)

We originally planned to see a game in Chatham, but those plans changed after a rainout.  Y-D was a great second choice—a 5 p.m. game that ended three hours later with the fog from the ocean rolling in across the field.

The Cape League is small-time enough that the homeowners beyond the right-field fence pulled up yard chairs and enjoyed dinner with the game.  One man walked his dog through the Harwich bullpen mid-game (he later talked about watching Posey and Kyle Schwarber both play on the Cape, and claimed Cotuit has the best park).

One of the Y-D players was in charge of selling tickets for the 50/50 raffle (Cape League teams must raise $200,000 annually).  And at the neighboring football stadium, the high school was holding a walk-a-thon dedicated to cancer support, with music blasting the entire evening.

The Red Sox and the other Cape League teams each employ squadrons of interns, who handle everything from marketing to running the concession stand.  The teams additionally air their games online using broadcasting students.

Some of the players still work part-time during the summer, while playing baseball in the afternoons and evenings, although this has become less common as players focus on getting scouted.  First-round bonus values now range from $7.8 million to $2.2 million.

I assume that I saw at least one future major leaguer--the Cape League’s slogan is “Where the stars of tomorrow shine tonight!”--but I’m not sure who that would be.  We went on the season’s first weekend, when several players whose college teams made deep NCAA Tournament runs had yet to arrive (according to the league, 62 players this season went to NCAA super regionals and 39 went to the College World Series).

Harwich third baseman Ryne Ogren had the game’s biggest hit, belting a two-run double to cap a four-run fifth inning for the Mariners.  I thought Harwich outfielder Dwanya Williams-Sutton and pitcher Matthew Frisbee also seemed like potential prospects, along with Y-D outfielder Carlos Cortes, who had three hits.

The Mariners also got 4 2/3 scoreless innings in relief from Austin Hansen, Brian Christian, and Theodore Rodliff.  The teams combined for 22 hits, but the players were still in their first week and seemingly adjusting to the wood bats of the Cape League after the metal bats of college.

(According to Collins’ book, MLB allows Y-D and Harwich to use the Red Sox and Mariners names, provided they order merchandise through MLB’s licensees.  The Red Sox cap actually uses the White Sox logo against an outline of Cape Cod; the Mariners use a compass logo just like Seattle).

The featured event for the season is the annual All-Star Game (held this year on July 22) and the championship series in mid-August.  There’s a game of the week broadcast on Fox College Sports as well.  Or you can just wait a couple of years to catch the league’s biggest stars in the majors.

I’m looking forward to checking this post in about five years to see which of the players below ended up making it.  We saw all of them play in the Mariners’ victory.

From Harwich:  Joey Bart C (Georgia Tech); Brian Christian (P) (Northeastern); Nick Dalesandro (RF) (Purdue); Brad Debo (DH) (N.C. State); Matthew Frisbee (P) (UNC Greensboro); Austin Hansen (P) (Oklahoma); Owen Miller (SS) (Illinois State); Kyler Murray (PR) (Oklahoma); Ryne Ogren (3B) (Elon); Teddy Rodliff (P) (Stony Brook); Cameron Simmons (CF) (Virginia); Cobie Vance (2B) (Alabama); Jordan Verdon (1B) (San Diego State); Dwanya Williams-Sutton (LF) (East Carolina).

From Yamouth-Dennis:  Cameron Beauchamp (P) (Indiana); Karl Blum (P) (Rutgers); Michael Cassala C (Jacksonville); Charlie Concannon (DH) (St. Joseph’s); Carlos Cortes (LF) (South Carolina); Kole Cottam C (Kentucky); Jake Crawford (1B) (Furman); Jonah Davis (RF) (California); Tyler Depreta-Johnson (SS) (Houston Baptist); Tanner Graham (P) (Alabama-Birmingham); Nico Hoerner (2B) (Stanford); Kyle Isbel (CF) (UNLV); Christian Koss (3B) (UC Irvine); Hunter Parsons (P) (Maryland); Carter Pharis (1B) (Alabama-Birmingham); John Rooney (P) (Hofstra); Christopher Sharpe (CF) (UMass Lowell).

[rosssiler]

Home of the Braves

If you were to list the major league teams in need of new stadiums a couple of years ago, the usual suspects of the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays might have been the only two teams to make the list.  Such is the product of the stadium-building boom across baseball in recent decades—nearly every team seemingly had a place to call home for a generation.

Or so it seemed for the Atlanta Braves.  Only 20 years after moving into Turner Field—built for the 1996 Olympics and converted for baseball the following spring—the Braves abandoned downtown Atlanta for their new home at SunTrust Park in the Cobb County suburbs north of the city.

More than just leaving the Atlanta city center, SunTrust Park represents a new era in stadium building. The Braves have developed an entire entertainment and commercial district around the stadium, with the potential of generating revenue year-round from sources beyond the 81 games a year scheduled at their ballpark.

The Braves christened their 41,149-seat, $622 million stadium this year, but they also are partners in the neighboring 10-story office building, a 500-room Omni hotel, and a music venue in the development known as The Battery.  There are restaurants and bars already operating on site (including a Yard House) and plans to open additional outlets, including something touted as the Garden & Gun Experience (after the noted Southern magazine).

The best comparison for SunTrust Park might be the Ballpark at Arlington, which is also located in a suburb off the highway between Dallas and Fort Worth.  SunTrust is located near the intersection of Interstates 75 and 285. The best comparison for the entertainment and commercial project might be the L.A. Live development located next to Staples Center.

I took advantage of an East Coast trip to swing through Atlanta and catch the Braves’ June 18 Father’s Day game against the Miami Marlins.  SunTrust Park is the first new MLB stadium to open since Marlins Park in 2012. The trip got me back up to having visited all 30 current parks in the majors.

The Braves won 5-4 as Brandon Phillips drove in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning after Marcell Ozuna had tied the score late with a two-run homer for the Marlins.  But with both teams well under .500, the game was really secondary to the new ballpark experience.

There were things I liked and didn’t like about SunTrust.  It felt in many ways like a temple to everything involved in going to a major-league baseball game, but not actually watching the game (shopping, eating, private clubs, kids’ activities).  And doesn’t that miss the entire point of going to a baseball game?

But these features are probably necessary for any new stadium being built these days, though it did make me appreciate the relative simplicity of my home park at Safeco Field.

As far as what I liked and didn’t like about the majors’ newest park:

Parking:  The parking situation at SunTrust is horrific.  It looks completely improvised, with the Braves creating lots out of parking lots of nearby hotels and office parks.  I would never pre-purchase a parking permit for a game—there’s typically a much better deal to be found—but SunTrust would be the exception to that rule.

Having driven by a half-dozen permit-only lots, I was directed to a cash lot in an office park on the other side of Interstate 75 where I couldn’t even see the stadium from the lot. If you told me I was in a different zip code or area code from the ballpark, I would absolutely have believed you.

The walk to the park took 15 to 20 minutes, through a Marriott parking lot (permit-only for Braves games), and across the highway.  The Braves charged $20 to park in this lot, despite being a mile at least from the stadium, and it was completely full when I came back to my car.

Walking into the stadium, I thought that I would go to like two games a year if I lived in Atlanta given the headache of just parking at SunTrust.  (And that’s on a Sunday when there wasn’t even traffic to deal with in getting to the park.)  Fortunately, there’s enough to like about the park that the parking situation did not completely overshadow the experience.

It’s worth noting the Braves have partnered with Uber and Waze to try to overcome some of the traffic and parking headaches for their fans.  There was a massive line of Uber drivers waiting to pick up fans after the game. But it just seemed to me like the Braves found a site for the stadium and development, and the parking plans are going to have to come in future seasons.

Entrance to SunTrust:  There is not a traditional home-plate entrance to the stadium. The first entrance in walking up from parking on the other side of I-75 is the third-base entrance.  There are statutes of Phil Niekro, Bobby Cox, and Warren Spahn circling the stadium perimeter, which I thought was a nice touch.  Niekro is throwing a knuckleball in his statute.

The Braves have created an outstanding fan plaza beyond centerfield.  There was a drum line going an hour before the game, and the Braves brought back four players to sign autographs for fans in the plaza (leading to the question of who thought John Rocker was an appropriate choice to welcome back).

Brewery:  I give the Braves enormous credit for including a brewery on site at SunTrust. That will undoubtedly be a feature copied by numerous other teams.  Terrapin Brewing Co. brews select beers on site at the park, including a version of its Hopsecutioner IPA (called the Chopsecutioner IPA) that is brewed using wooden bats.

The Terrapin tap room (adjacent to the centerfield plaza) serves Fox Brothers barbecue.  The tap room was busy enough that fans were being told there was a two-hour wait for food before the game.  I was able to step up and grab a $6 Chopsecutioner without any wait, which seemed like a bargain based on stadium beer prices.

Monument Park:  The Braves built an expansive monument park on the main concourse behind home plate. The park pays tribute to the combined history of the Boston/Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves, with the Braves noting that they are the longest continuously operated major league team.  There’s even an explanation of how the Braves got their name.

A statute of Hank Aaron connecting for his record-breaking 715th homer is the centerpiece of the monument park.  The Braves also display their 1995 World Series championship trophy, Aaron’s MVP award, and Greg Maddux’s Cy Young award, in addition to other trophies and memorabilia.

Price and Sightlines:  I was almost dumbfounded to get a $9 ticket in the 300 level (not even the upper-most 400 level) with a great view along the right-field line.  I spent four times that to sit in basically the same spot for the Blue Jays/Mariners game a week earlier.  The sightlines all over SunTrust seemed great—I even liked the view from the outfield bleachers looking back on the field.

The Sandlot: The Braves built a kids’ zone called the Sandlot that was supremely impressive.  The featured attraction appeared to be a full zipline, but there was also a climbing wall, a race track, and a host of other games.  The only downside seems to be that the Sandlot is so compelling, the kids and their parents might have little reason to watch the game at all.

Organist:  I appreciated the cleverness of the Braves’ organist, which is definitely not the trend at baseball parks these days (the Dodgers reduced their longtime organist’s role a couple of seasons back).  The SunTrust organist played the theme from Batman when the Marlins’ J.T. Riddle came up, “Coming to America” for A.J. Ellis, and the theme from the Wizard of Oz in honor of Ozuna.

Tomahawk Chop:  Can we please retire the tomahawk chop, which shows less than zero cultural sensitivity?  It was almost unnerving to watch Brian Jordan lead the crowd in the chop during the first inning.

Extended Netting:  The Braves are the first team I’ve seen that has extended the foul netting from behind home plate to over the home and visiting dugouts.  There’s no good reason not to do this and save a family from having to go to the emergency room because their kid or mom got drilled by a liner.  I saw at least two liners that the extended netting kept from screaming into the stands.

Attendance:  I was shocked that the Braves drew only 36,912 for the game (5,000 below capacity).  What team doesn’t sell out on Father’s Day?  Part of the Braves’ explanation for moving out of downtown Atlanta was to be closer to their suburban fan base.  But there was no shortage of empty seats, with tickets that obviously went unsold and also fans who seemingly were caught up in the park’s other diversions.

Even though it wasn’t a sellout, I thought the Braves also struggled to handle the crowd.  Every team store had a long line of fans waiting to get in. I didn’t end up trying any food at SunTrust (other than the Chopsecutioner) because it looked like a multi-inning investment to wait in the concession lines.

(From what I saw, the food options looked very strong, with everything from barbecue stands and gourmet burger stands to hot dogs and popcorn to Chick-fil-a and Waffle House to a chophouse and the fancy private clubs.  Bonus points for having outposts of everything in the upper deck, which is not the case at many stadiums.)

Design: I thought the brickwork at SunTrust gave it a really distinctive look.  For being next to the interstate, it’s visually appealing from the outside.  And the brick along the infield and outfield walls just works.  The hotel and office building (which is a regional headquarters for Comcast) create a recognizable outfield backdrop for what otherwise would be woods, highways, and office parks.

The Freeze:  I couldn’t help but leave a little disappointed because the Braves did not stage their racing promotion where The Freeze, an Olympic-caliber sprinter who works on Atlanta’s grounds crew, chases down a hapless fan given a head start in a race around the warning track.  The Braves don’t run the promotion every game; we got a tool race sponsored by Home Depot instead.

* * *

All things considered, I would rank SunTrust Park as comparable to Target Field and Marlins Park. I didn’t like it as much as the new-era parks in San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and Colorado.  And it just can’t add up to the experience of seeing a Yankees game in New York at the new Yankee Stadium.  I would rank SunTrust ahead of Citi Field and Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia for sure.  I could see, though, the parking and traffic situation being so problematic that some nights the stadium just would not seem functional at all.

It’s a park in the top half of major league stadiums, which is a solid accomplishment given that there have been so many quality ballparks built in recent years.  It’s also better than what I originally expected when I heard the Braves were building a ballpark 10 miles outside of downtown in the suburbs of a neighboring county.

I expect the Braves will put down roots at SunTrust longer than the 20 years they stayed at Turner Field (which is going to be converted into a football stadium for Georgia State University).  To get from the airport to SunTrust, in fact, you have to drive past the relic of Turner Field downtown.  I had no issue with Turner Field—I ranked it higher than many—but SunTrust is a definite upgrade.

For what it’s worth, it looks like the next new stadium will belong to the Texas Rangers and open in 2020 or 2021. I keep holding out hope for a new park in Oakland and (for once) an easy trip to see a new ballpark.

[rosssiler]

See the Future

Back in the fall of 2011, baseball fans could have watched Mike Trout and Bryce Harper regularly play in the same outfield as Scottsdale Scorpions teammates during the Arizona Fall League’s annual six-week season.

That fall marked the pinnacle in AFL history, even if it was little noticed at the time.  Now in its 24th season, the AFL serves as Major League Baseball’s self-described “graduate school,” where top prospects don major-league uniforms and play in big-league spring training parks as one of the last stops for many on their way to the show.

Following from afar, I’ve long believed the AFL—with its “See the Future” slogan for 2015—might be the most underrated event in baseball.  The weather is the same as spring training (only in October and November), but the crowds are non-existent by comparison.  Every year, the AFL features a who’s who list of prospects, though not always a Trout-Harper combination.

Waiting until mid-October, I took this year’s baseball trip to Arizona for the fall league.  I saw all six AFL teams (Glendale, Peoria, Surprise, Mesa, Salt River, and Scottsdale) at five ballparks over three days.  Added up, I saw 126 players, and now I can look forward to seeing how many of those 126 do in fact graduate to the majors.

History is on their side.  According to the league, over 2,500 former AFL players have reached the majors (approximately a 60 percent success rate among the league’s 4,100 all-time players), and 51 percent of players on MLB opening day rosters in 2015 played in the AFL.

Thirteen former players have won MVP awards, including Trout, Andrew McCutchen, Buster Posey, and Albert Pujols.  (That number could increase to 15 this season, given that Josh Donaldson and Harper are both AFL alums.)  And 43 MLB All-Stars in 2015 played in the AFL on their way up.

An AFL game is a different experience. The crowds at the four official games I attended were listed at 462, 663, 418, and 540.  It seemed like two-thirds of the crowd were either scouts or autograph hounds (a product of the league’s MLB success rate).  I often wanted to ask the rest of the fans just what brought them to an AFL game, with $8 tickets and general admission seating.

The games can be eerily quiet at times—one game at Peoria was played to the noise of construction crews working on stadium renovations—and big plays were greeted with applause, not cheers.  There are no scoreboard replays, no walk-up music, an instrumental version of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch, no between-innings entertainment, and the closest thing to a promotion is the league-wide “Mystery Bobblehead Wednesday” giveaway, with MLB teams sending their leftover bobbleheads to the AFL.

On the other hand, I watched a Surprise-Mesa game at Salt River Fields undisturbed from the very first row behind the dugout.  That was after parking for free just steps outside the main entrance in the stadium lot.

The Surprise roster was loaded with prospects who undoubtedly will play in the majors—Lewis Brinson (Texas), Brett Phillips (Milwaukee), Gary Sanchez (Yankees), Bubba Starling (Kansas City), and Alex Reyes (St. Louis), who struck out five in 3 2/3 electric innings.

Starling, a former No. 5 overall draft pick in 2011 who signed with the Royals for a record $7.5 million bonus, went 3-for-4 with an RBI single and threw out a runner at the plate trying to score on a sacrifice fly to right field.  That’s the future that the AFL advertises you can see right now.

I also witnessed impressive performances by Detroit’s JaCoby Jones, who connected for two homers, including a blast off top Colorado pitching prospect Kyle Freeland.  Cleveland outfielder Clint Frazier (a No. 5 overall pick himself in 2013) went 3-for-3 with a two-run homer off Freeland as well.

Shortstop J.P. Crawford, MLB.com’s No. 5-ranked prospect.

Alex Reyes, the St. Louis Cardinals’ top prospect.

Bubba Starling, former No. 5 overall pick.

Sean Manaea, A’s pitching prospect.

Kyle Freeland, Colorado’s former No. 8 overall pick.

Clint Frazier, the No. 5 overall pick in 2013 for Cleveland.

Pirates catcher Reese McGuire, a former first-round draft pick.

Some lesser-known players also made an impression.  Angels catcher Stephen McGee hit a home run out of the No. 9 spot and also threw out two runners for Mesa.  Washington second baseman Chris Bostick cracked two home runs for Salt River—after hitting all of 12 in Double-A and Single-A this year.  Miami pitcher Jake Esch outdueled Reyes, striking out six in three scoreless innings.  Esch reached Triple-A New Orleans in 2015.

The AFL additionally serves as MLB’s testing ground.  This year, the league is experimenting with an aggressive 15-second pitch clock, which begins counting down as soon as a pitcher receives the ball from the catcher.  I saw one ball called on a pitcher who failed to deliver his first pitch on time coming back from an inning break.

The 15-second pitch clock is 5 seconds faster than what the AFL and minor leagues have previously used.  Only one of the games I saw finished in less than 2:30, but the greatest benefit likely comes in saving the AFL from 3:30-plus drudgery given all the pitching changes and offense.

With the wave of top prospects who reached the majors this season, the AFL probably lacked some depth of previous falls, though Surprise is an exception. Even so, every game I attended featured multiple top 100 prospects.

Each AFL team is a collection of 35 players from five major-league teams (dividing the 30 clubs into six AFL squads).  The Mariners players, as example, are teammates on the Peoria Javelinas with players from San Diego, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Atlanta.

There are complicated rules regarding player eligibility—all Triple-A and Double-A players are eligible, so long as a player was on his team’s Double-A roster by August 15. So are all major league players with a year or less of active service time. Mac Williamson, Jason Garcia, Oscar Hernandez, David Rollins, and Matt West all appeared in the games I saw.

Teams are also allowed to send a handful of Single-A players, plus designate certain other players for exemptions.  By contrast to past years with more established prospects, this year’s AFL seemed to lean toward players who were mid-season call-ups to Double A.

That’s a steep climb for a player who started the year in high Single-A—the California League, Florida State League, or Carolina League—and is finishing it in the AFL.  Not surprisingly, those growing pains are often evident.  I saw five errors in one game, then 17 walks in another game that same day.

The AFL is unmistakably a hitter’s league.  That’s not surprising, given how conservative most teams are with their young pitchers.  By fall, most pitchers have reached their innings limits for the year, leaving a shallow pool of pitchers (typically starters who missed time during the season and relievers with innings remaining) available for the AFL.

It’s also unclear just how much AFL success translates to the majors.  Kris Bryant was named AFL MVP in 2013, but Chris McGuiness (Texas, 2012) and Dustin Ackley (Seattle, 2010) won the award in recent seasons.  Ackley hit .424 in his MVP season, compared with .244 for his MLB career. McGuiness has played just 10 games in the bigs.

There is something special, though, about the AFL.  The games are played in big-league spring training parks—Scottsdale Stadium is 430 feet out to center field—and the players wear their major-league team uniforms.  The Yankees and Red Sox prospects have no names on the backs of their home jerseys—just like Derek Jeter or David Ortiz.

The AFL runs for six weeks, with each team playing 31 games, and features a Rising Stars Game on November 7 and a championship game between the AFL's two division winners on November 21.  MLB Network typically televises three or more games each fall.

We’ll see if the AFL someday becomes a baseball destination complementing spring training.  Given the increasing cost of spring training (I saw $44 tickets listed at Camelback Ranch for weekend games), as well as the monster crowds (Salt River drew a record 13,507 to a game last March), the AFL certainly presents a welcome alternative.  And I’ll report back in 2020 on the number of future major leaguers I saw on my trip.

* * *

Had the chance to see a handful of Mariners’ prospects at Peoria, though I missed D.J. Peterson’s two-homer game.  Tyler Smith started at shortstop and had two hits, including a triple, for the Javelinas. Tyler O’Neill, who bashed 32 homers this season at Single-A Bakersfield, started in right field and went 2-for-5 with a ninth inning homer.

Rollins, who pitched in 20 games for the Mariners in 2015 (with a 7.56 ERA), worked the fifth and sixth innings.  It was not major-league stuff as Rollins gave up four hits and a walk, including the two-run homer with two outs to Bostick.  Rollins should dominate the AFL as a 25-year-old with big-league experience; instead, he’ll spend fall trying to work that 9.00 ERA down.

* * *

The AFL boasts great names, starting with the teams themselves, especially the Scottsdale Scorpions, Peoria Javelinas, and Mesa Solar Sox.  As far as players, I was a fan of Brandon Trinkwon (Dodgers) and Trey Michalczewski (White Sox) on the Glendale Desert Dogs, catcher Spencer Kieboom (Washington) on the Salt River Rafters and, of course, Baltimore outfielder Mike Yastrzemski—Carl’s grandson—on the Javelinas.

* * *

My final game was cut short in spectacular fashion as a real-deal Arizona dust storm ripped through Camelback Ranch with one out in the fifth inning of a Scottsdale-Glendale game.  The crowd ran for cover under the upper deck and in the bathrooms as the field went completely gray during the storm.

With rain and lightning following the dust storm, the game was canceled with the Desert Dogs owning a 4-1 lead.  There were two highlights—top prospect J.P. Crawford’s RBI single and Pittsburgh second baseman Adam Frazier’s hustle play to score from second on a double-play grounder.  Frazier also impressed with two triples in a game earlier in the week.

As much as I wish I’d seen a fifth official game, the dust storm was a wild experience. I also would probably recommend going to the Fall League around the Rising Stars game—in the first AFL week, the weather was more summer than fall league, with scorching 100-degree temperatures for the afternoon games.  Night games, though, were pleasant and wonderful.

* * *

The 126 players I saw in the AFL:

Glendale: Steven Brault, Ralston Cash, Chris Cotton, Jharel Cotton, J.P. Crawford, Nicky Delmonico, Adam Engel, Adam Frazier, Andrew Knapp, Robinson Leyer, Reese McGuire, Austin Meadows, Trey Michalczewski, Albert Minnis, Chan Jong Moon, Jake Peter, Edubray Ramos, A.J. Reed, Jacob Scavuzzo, Brandon Trinkwon, Matt West, Tom Windle (22).

Mesa: Caleb Adams, Eric Aguilera, Jake Bauers, Buddy Borden, Austin Brice, Jaycob Brugman, Jeimer Candelario, Willson Contreras, Austin Dean, Jake Esch, Mike Franco, David Garner, Casey Gillaspie, Kris Hall, Tyler Kinley, Aaron Kurcz, Sean Manaea, Brandon McCurry, Stephen McGee, Renato Nunez, Chad Pinder, J.T. Riddle, Daniel Robertson, Brad Schreiber, Elliot Soto, Hunter Wood, Mark Zagunis (27).

Peoria: Alex Blandino, Johan Camargo, Phillip Ervin, Jason Garcia, Cody Hebner, Adrian Marin, Tyler O’Neill, Gabriel Quintana, David Rollins, Chance Sisco, Tyler Smith, Andrew Thurman, Daniel Winkler, Eric Yardley, Mike Yastrzemski (15).

Salt River: Chris Bostick, Gavin Cecchini, Abel de los Santos, Brady Dragmire, Roemon Fields, Kyle Freeland, Daniel Gibson, Emilio Guerrero, Gabby Guerrero, Mike Hepple, Oscar Hernandez, Mickey Jannis, Spencer Kieboom, Nick Lee, Jeff McNeil, Sam Moll, Daniel Palka, Jordan Patterson, Chris Rabago, Jack Reinheimer, Justin Shafer, John Simms, Dominic Smith, Myles Smith, Raimel Tapia, Rowdy Tellez, Drew Ward (27).

Scottsdale: Christian Arroyo, Ray Black, Nick Burdi, Dominic Ficociello, Clint Frazier, Mike Gerber, Todd Hankins, JaCoby Jones, Jacob Lee, Tzu-Wei Lin, Jeremy Lucas, Phil McCormick, Antonio Romero, Taylor Rogers, Dan Slania, Austin Slater, Sam Travis, Stuart Turner, Adam Brett Walker II, Mac Williamson (20).

Surprise: Domingo Acevedo, Tyler Austin, Jacob Barnes, Bryan Brickhouse, Lewis Brinson, Aledmys Diaz, Kevin McCarthy, Brett Phillips, Michael Reed, Alex Reyes, Robby Rowland, Gary Sanchez, Bubba Starling, Tyler Wade, Patrick Wisdom (15).

[rosssiler]

Wrigleyville West

As someone who regards Wrigley Field as baseball’s mecca, I was interested in visiting the Cubs’ new spring training stadium in Mesa, Ariz., on this year’s baseball trip to the Arizona Fall League.

The Cubs are the embodiment of Arizona spring training.  It’s likely that without the Cubs in Arizona, the Cactus League would not be home to 15 teams today.  But with an expiring lease and aging facility after years at Hohokam Stadium, the Cubs investigated moving to Naples, Fla., before Mesa stepped up and built a new complex, which opened for spring training in 2014.

There’s a lot to like about the new Sloan Park, which incorporates several touches from Wrigley.  The wall behind home plate is brick like in Wrigley, the light towers and grandstand evoke Wrigley, and the scoreboard features the same clock as Wrigley’s iconic hand-operated scoreboard.

And while there’s no ivy on the outfield walls, the streets around the stadium have been named after the streets surrounding Wrigley in Chicago—Waveland, Clark, and Sheffield.

Sloan Park’s capacity is 15,000, counting 4,200 spots on the outfield berms.  The park resembles a double-decker Triple-A stadium like Smith’s Ballpark in Salt Lake City.  The Cubs also have retro murals around the stadium as a tribute to their longevity in Mesa.

I was impressed by the amount of shade at Sloan Park, which is comfortable even on a 100-degree afternoon.  There is minimal shade by comparison at Peoria Stadium, Camelback Ranch, and other new or remodeled parks.  And there are few things worse than suffering in the sun for three hours at a spring training game.

The downside to Sloan Park is that it is the anti-Wrigley in terms of nearby development.  There are no bars and restaurants, only a new Sheraton hotel sharing the property.  Perhaps the development will come with future spring trainings, but the beauty of Wrigley is that you can spend hours in the neighborhood before and after a game.

It might have been unrealistic for the Cubs and Mesa to build replica brownstones beyond the outfield berm, but it would have been the perfect nod to Wrigley, and could have served as home to a handful of bars and restaurants (or even a kids’ playground or group event space).

All told, I would not rate Sloan Park ahead of Salt River Fields or Camelback Ranch among the Arizona parks.  After finally visiting Salt River Fields, I would concur in the opinion of a friend who called it one of the top parks in all of baseball—including major-league stadiums.

* * *

Salt River Fields was truly spectacular, from its architecture to its open concourses to the creek framing the stadium entrance to its location north of Scottsdale.  It was a stunning park, one that I would rate in the top six or seven of all ballparks.  I can’t believe Salt River Fields is home to the Rockies and Diamondbacks—two MLB have-nots—as opposed to the Cubs or Giants.

Camelback Ranch is also a beautiful park, particularly with its use of rock in the outfield.  I also drove to Goodyear to see the Goodyear Ballpark that opened in 2009 for the Indians and Reds.  Goodyear is a long way out of Phoenix, and the ballpark was much smaller than some of its contemporaries.  The Goodyear Ballpark does have a great baseball sculpture in its entryway.

[rosssiler]

Birth of a Legend

Around the corner from Oriole Park at Camden Yards, in Baltimore’s Ridgely’s Delight neighborhood of wonderful old rowhouses, there’s a building whose walls really can tell a story.

The rowhouse at 216 Emory Street is where George Herman Ruth Jr. was born on February 6, 1895, in a second-floor bedroom of the home his maternal grandfather, an upholsterer named Pius Schamberger, leased between 1887 and 1904.

Babe Ruth, of course, went on to become the greatest and most iconic baseball player in history, both as a Yankees slugger and Red Sox pitcher.  The Sultan of Swat was more popular than the president at the height of his career.  And the home on Emory Street is now the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, a modest shrine to Ruth’s life that has been open since 1974.

We visited the Ruth museum on our trip to the D.C. area for Christmas, driving up to Baltimore on a quiet Sunday afternoon to take our 10-month-old bambino to the original home of the Bambino.

Although the greatest collection of Ruth memorabilia is undoubtedly in Cooperstown, N.Y., the Ruth museum had several notable pieces, including three autographed Ruth baseballs (all of which are pictured).

The most jaw-dropping artifact is Ruth’s 1914 Baltimore News rookie card, printed in red and white, from Ruth’s time as a pitcher with the minor-league Baltimore Orioles.   The card is one of only 10 in existence.

In fact, a New York sports memorabilia shop reportedly was selling another Ruth rookie card for $695,000 in December.  It’s not every day that you can see a $700,000 baseball card--especially one that isn’t the famous Honus Wagner card--in person.  That alone was worth the $6 admission for me.

Other highlights were Ruth’s hymnal book, catcher’s mitt, bat, and jersey from his time at St. Mary’s Industrial School (a home for orphans and delinquents where Ruth was sent in 1902); a brick and cup from Ruth’s father’s old saloon, located in what is now centerfield at Camden Yards; a scorebook from Ruth’s first professional game; Ruth’s first marriage certificate; and an ashtray from Ruth’s old New York apartment.

The museum also features an exhibit on the 500-home run club, along with Eddie Murray’s 500th home run ball, which sold for $280,000 in 1996.  At the time, it was the most ever paid for a home run ball.

There’s much to learn about Ruth’s life from the exhibits.  The museum itself consists of only a few rooms--we stayed for about an hour.  But the downstairs living room and upstairs bedroom where Ruth was born have been restored to resemble how they would have looked in 1895.

Most significant is an explanation for the moniker “Babe” Ruth.  According to one display, Ruth was nicknamed “Babe” because of his child-like exuberance for everything from “railroad trains, elevators, restaurants, [to] money in his pocket” during his first spring training with the Orioles in Fayetteville, N.C., in 1914. 

Someone observed that Ruth was like a “babe in the woods” and the nickname stuck, with reporters who covered the Orioles dubbing Ruth “Jack Dunn’s baby” after the Baltimore owner and manager who signed Ruth to a $600 contract out of St. Mary’s.

Dunn, incidentally, agreed to serve as Ruth’s legal guardian until he turned 21 as part of the deal.  Ruth had become a renowned pitcher and catcher at St. Mary’s, where he lived from 1902 until 1914.  However, Ruth left the school on at least five occasions (contrary to legend) during those years, for periods lasting one month to more than a year.

We had the Ruth museum all to ourselves on a football Sunday in December.  If our babe someday goes on to hit 714 homers, it will be quite a memory indeed.

[rosssiler]

The Opus

A couple of weeks ago, my wife declared, “Nobody likes coffee table books,” during a discussion about Christmas gifts for relatives.  She apparently hasn’t spent much time in our family room . . . where I keep a collection of baseball coffee table books.

The mother of them all came out in 2010 and is titled “The Official Major League Baseball Opus.”  The Opus Media Group in England specializes in creating oversized coffee table books--billing them as “epic,” “monumental,” and “luxurious” publications--and the MLB Opus dwarfed anything I’d seen.

There are two versions of the MLB Opus--the Marquee and the Classic editions.  The Marquee is basically the varsity while the Classic is the junior varsity.  Both are the equivalent of the 747 of coffee table books given their enormity.

The Marquee is almost unfathomably super-sized--790 pages long, more than 3 feet wide when opened, and weighing 75 pounds.  It is also almost equally unattainable, as only 1,000 copies were printed and they sold for $3,000 or more.  There are even a select number of Derek Jeter Marquee editions, signed by the Yankees shortstop.

The Classic is the “scaled down” version, measuring in at “only” 428 pages and 26 pounds.  Yes, the book weighs more than my 10-month-old.  They printed 5,000 copies of the Classic edition and originally sold them for $300.

Having coveted an Opus for years, I finally found a Classic edition for sale this fall (and thank goodness for online pawn shops).  It was in better shape than I expected, and the book immediately became one of my prized collectibles.

The Opus is described as the most beautiful baseball book ever published.  You can judge from the pictures below, but I would tend to agree.

  As far as content, the Opus aspires to tell the complete story of baseball, including spreads devoted to the star players of each era (from Cap Anson to Albert Pujols).  There are also chapters dedicated to themes such as spring training, ballparks, the World Series, Opening Day, etc.  The middle includes a two-page spread for each current team highlighting key moments in franchise history.

For such an impossible goal--to start in the 19th century with Abner Doubleday and Albert Spalding and tell the entire history of baseball--the Opus largely delivers.  There are some misses--I don’t think Harvey's Wallbangers, Vida Blue, the 2007 Rockies, or the World Baseball Classic needed their own spreads.  And the Opus publishers have to wish they had a mulligan for the page devoted to Alex Rodriguez as an all-time great.

The spread on Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds says only that fans "[a]t the time" were captivated by their assaults on the home run record--it egregiously fails to mention steroids at all.  As best as I can tell, Pete Rose gets all of a paragraph-and-a-half in the book.

But the Opus also includes spreads on Curt Flood, Bill Veeck, the rise of relief pitchers, and baseball after 9/11.  All are worthy topics.  It also excerpts notable baseball writing in history, including a lengthy passage from Peter Gammons' Sports Illustrated feature on Bill Buckner following the 1986 World Series.

The photography--the most essential part of any coffee table book--is simply stunning.  There’s something like 400 images (plus 60,000 words) reproduced in the Classic edition alone.  A full page photo of the transfer agreement through which the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees was a personal favorite.

There’s a photo of a packed Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during the 1959 World Series, another photo of an empty Yankee Stadium on the day Roger Maris hit his record 61st homer, and a gorgeous panorama of the modern PNC Park and the Pittsburgh skyline.

I also loved a close-up shot of Bud Selig sitting at his commissioner's desk on the phone (and with papers strewn everywhere).  Plus, there's a lot to learn from the Opus--I had forgotten that George Brett once hit .390 for a season, or that baseball selected MVPs (Jeff Bagwell and Frank Thomas) for the strike year of 1994.

The Opus is not the kind of book you sit down to read--it is too large to hold comfortably.  I don't even keep it on a coffee table as it would take up almost the entire thing.  But it forever will be the featured attraction in my baseball coffee table book collection.

[rosssiler]

Game 162

Every year, I attend the last game of the Mariners’ season to say goodbye to baseball for the summer. This year, Game 162 seemed like the Great Awakening of Seattle baseball following a lost decade.

For 1 hour 38 minutes, the Mariners actually played relevant baseball on the season’s final day. Not until Oakland finished off a 4-0 victory over Texas were the Mariners eliminated from the American League’s second wild card spot.

Playing two time zones ahead, the A’s took a 2-0 lead while most fans were still arriving at Safeco Field, so there was a sense of finality for the Mariners from the beginning. But it was still a satisfying day, with the crowd of 40,823 giving the Mariners a standing ovation as soon as the Oakland game went final.

As for the game, Felix Hernandez was dominant in capping a likely Cy Young season, striking out seven of the Angels’ first 10 batters. Hernandez allowed just one hit in 5 1/3 innings before being removed to the first standing ovation of the afternoon.

It was a footnote, but watching Hernandez twice face Mike Trout, the expected AL MVP, was especially memorable. Trout struck out in the first inning and grounded out to short in the fourth against Hernandez.

Michael Saunders connected for two RBI doubles, and the Angels pulled five starters (including Trout) heading into the bottom of the fifth. The teams used a combined 39 players, which might be the most I’ve ever seen in one game.

The Mariners won 4-1 and finished the season 87-75, a 16-win improvement over last year’s disaster. They will be a wild-card favorite next season, and hopefully the enthusiasm from the final weekend will carry over.

* * *

The contrast couldn’t have been greater to the final game of last season. A year ago, the Mariners lost 9-0 to the A’s with Erasmo Ramirez lasting just four outs and a crowd of 17,081 finding more entertainment in watching the Seahawks game on concourse televisions. Eric Wedge had quit as manager in a war of words with management, and the Mariners were the picture of dysfunction.

Oakland’s starting pitcher that day was Sonny Gray, who struck out eight in five innings. When the A’s needed a victory on the final day of the 2014 season to clinch a playoff spot, Gray delivered a 103-pitch complete game shutout. I wasn’t surprised.

* * *

One of the most agonizing moments of the final day probably went unnoticed. Mike Zunino hit an RBI single in the fourth inning to raise his season average to .200. The Mariners, despite having two backup catchers on the roster, left Zunino in to finish the game. Zunino flied out and struck out in his final two at-bats and was left with a .199 average for the season. One percentage point makes all the difference heading into a long winter.

After being released by the Mariners, John Buck was on the Angels’ roster as a backup catcher. Buck played in five games for an Angels team that finished with the majors best record.

The Mariners had six holdovers in their Game 162 lineup from their Opening Night lineup of Almonte CF, Miller SS, Cano 2B, Smoak 1B, Morrison DH, Seager 3B, Saunders RF, Ackley LF, Zunino C. (Miller came off the bench in Game 162.)

Brandon Maurer pitched 1 2/3 innings of relief against the Angels. With the Mariners missing the playoffs by one game, it was easy to point to Mauer’s 1-4 record and 7.52 ERA in seven starts as one of the reasons. The Mariners went 2-5 in games Maurer started (though Maurer exceled as a reliever).

With two outs in the ninth, 40-year-old shortstop John McDonald doubled in the Angels’ only run of the game off Danny Farquhar. It might have been McDonald’s final at-bat in a 16-year career spent with eight teams. The Angels asked for the ball after McDonald’s hit in appreciation of the moment.

We had a lot of fun following the Angels’ Shawn O’Malley, who replaced Howie Kendrick at second base. We went to the game with the O’Malleys—it turns out there have only been three O’Malleys ever to play major league baseball. It was great to see that name on the back of a uniform and on the scoreboard.

* * *

The schedule did the Mariners no favors this season, with an 11-game trip in September dooming any chance they had of making the playoffs. The Mariners also had to make five separate trips to play the five AL East teams.

Next season’s schedule is infinitely more favorable, and the Mariners at least will knock out the Yankees and Rays on the same trip. The Mariners also will open and close the team at home (and they finish against the Astros if they need wins).

For the first time since we moved to Seattle, the Mariners will play at home on Opening Day around the majors. Even better, it will be a 1 p.m. game against the Angels. I'm already looking forward to April 6.

[rosssiler]

Summer scenes

Between a new baby, new home, and new job, there have been fewer trips to the ballpark this summer than previous years. Even so, there have been many highlights--none better than taking our 6-month-old son Oliver to his first game on August 31 (a 5-3 Mariners victory over the Nationals).

Masahiro Tanaka’s elbow might never be the same, but I saw one of his 20 starts for the Yankees in person on June 11.  Tanaka was brilliant, striking out 11 and improving to 10-1 in a complete-game domination of the Mariners.

The Mariners pasted the Blue Jays 11-1 in front of tens of thousands of visiting Canadian fans on August 11--with lightning crackling in the middle of a seven-run sixth inning.  Felix Hernandez twirled his record 16th consecutive start of at least seven innings while allowing two runs or fewer.

Stephen Strasburg arrived in Seattle with a pedestrian 10-10 record, but he struck out eight in 7 2/3 strong innings as the Nationals beat the Mariners 3-1 on August 30.  Strasburg struck out Robinson Cano with the bases loaded in the third inning on a 97 mph fastball--one of the best pitches I’ve ever seen.

Bryce Harper homered twice off Hisashi Iwakuma the next day for the Nationals.  I couldn’t have asked for more on a sunny Sunday afternoon for Oliver’s first game.  His Natitude (as seen above) was off the charts.

And just to make sure I got in another game in September, I went to Astros starter Nick Tropeano’s MLB debut on September 10 against the Mariners.  The 24-year-old Tropeano went five innings to earn the win.  It was the 20th player I’ve seen debut, first since Mike Zunino.

Of course, there have also been some lowlights as well for the baseball experience.

[rosssiler]

The Late Show

Driving north from Denali National Park to Fairbanks at about 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, I started to become very, very concerned about the prospect of the 109th annual Midnight Sun Game being played and having traveled 1,500 miles for nothing on this year's baseball trip.

It was pouring along Alaska Highway 3 (miles of which were reduced to dirt and gravel by paving work) and Fairbanks was getting closer and closer. Then I remembered that there were still seven hours to first pitch—thanks to the world’s only scheduled 10:30 p.m. baseball game—and I relaxed for the rest of the drive.

A 7 p.m. game might have been in danger of being rained out, but everything seems like a potential passing storm when the game doesn’t start until nearly bedtime.

If anything, I learned from this trip to the top of the world, 160 miles south of a town named Circle (you know, after the Arctic Circle), that they will do whatever it takes to play the Midnight Sun Game on June 21 and keep one of baseball’s most enduring traditions continuing.

Midnight at the Midnight Sun Game

First inning, with an Alaska storm rolling in that delayed first pitch until 10:48 p.m.

Final pitch at 1:15 a.m.

The game, played annually on the summer solstice, dates to 1906 and makes every list of ultimate baseball road trips, along with Wrigley, Fenway, and Cooperstown. I think my interest grew out of a wonderful 2005 ESPN.com story about the 100th game.

With a storm rolling in an hour before first pitch, the 2014 game was a lot more midnight than sun. It was actually lighter out in the later innings than the beginning. There was no sun to speak of, only breaks of clear sky in the distance with some of the daylight that makes Fairbanks on the solstice so surreal.

And yet it was the baseball trip of a lifetime for me. I can’t describe what it’s like to decide to attend and know on December 21—the darkest day of winter in a place like Seattle—that you’ll spend June 21 in Fairbanks watching baseball at midnight and enjoying 21 hours and 47 minutes of daylight.

The official sunset for the day is at 12:47 a.m. The last pitch of this year’s game was at 1:15 a.m. (I really was hoping for anything after 1 a.m.), and I can attest that at 1:30 a.m., there was more than enough twilight for the city to feel awake. I walked into my hotel with crews blasting Bastille while they were setting up for Fairbanks’ downtown solstice festival on Sunday.

The game itself was a 13-6 victory by the Alaska Goldpanners (who’ve hosted the game since 1960) over the Lake Erie (Mich.) Monarchs. The Goldpanners are a team of college players—many from elite programs like Oregon State and Cal State Fullerton—who spend the summer in Alaska hoping to get scouted.

In addition to the game, the Goldpanners boast an unmatched tradition. They’ve sent more than 200 players to the majors in the last 50 years, including Barry Bonds, Dave Winfield, Tom Seaver, Jason Giambi, Rick Monday, Terry Francona, Harold Reynolds, Michael Young, Bill Lee, Bret Boone, and Graig Nettles.

On that Growden Memorial Park kaleidoscope field of worn green turf (the outfield is natural grass), with yellow basepaths and chocolate dirt sliding pits, there’s very likely one or two future major leaguers playing each summer.

(I will be following Tyler Mildenberg, a second baseman from Oregon State; Tanner Pinkston, a 6-foot-6 first baseman from Cal State Fullerton; and Scott Hurst, an outfielder who made the Goldpanners team out of Bishop Amat high school before playing a game at Fullerton.)

The Midnight Sun Game always features a team from the Lower 48—the Monarchs were this year’s invitee. Lake Erie featured a host of players from the Midwest—Big Ten schools like Michigan State, Illinois, and Purdue, along with Western Illinois, Toledo, and others.

The game predates Alaska statehood by nearly 53 years and is almost as old as the World Series, which was first played in 1903. It originated as a midnight game on the solstice between teams from two local bars—the California Bar and the Eagles Club. It was attracting national media attention at least as early as 1914.

In fact, the 2014 ticket contains a report on the 1914 game from an Ohio newspaper:

“Ball Game at Midnight. Fairbanks, Alaska. June 24—More than a thousand persons attended a midnight baseball game played here last night between two local teams. The game was the opening event of the festival of the midnight sun, features of which will be a carnival parade and general merrymaking.”

You can never go wrong with general merrymaking.

I think my favorite bit of trivia is that the first game was reported as played between two teams—dubbed The Drinks and The Smokes—in the Fairbanks newspaper.

Even though Growden—built in 1964 and featuring a section of seats from Seattle’s old Sicks Stadium—has light towers, those lights are never, ever, ever turned on during the Midnight Sun Game. The game is destined to be played without any artificial light on the longest day of the year.

The old Sicks Stadium seats.

There was a game suspended because of darkness a couple of years ago (which did not go over well). But they are so committed to the concept of a 10:30 p.m. game that Goldpanners general manager Don Dennis told the crowd that they would try again Sunday, then Monday, and so on if the game was rained out.

The lights stayed off Saturday, and the game went off almost as scheduled. The conditions weren’t the best between the darkness and soaked field. But the Goldpanners still drew a crowd of probably 3,000. With $15 tickets, the Midnight Sun Game is the team’s chief moneymaker each season.

I bought a $25 reserve ticket online this winter (it was pretty great to have an actual ticket to the Midnight Sun Game sitting in a dresser in March). That ticket paid off terrifically in allowing me to sit under the cover of Growden’s press box during a rain storm that delayed first pitch until 10:48 p.m.

One of the most memorable moments was Dennis’s speech before the game. Dennis has served as Goldpanners GM for 55 years and was retiring after Saturday’s game. With the rain falling hard, Dennis gave a rambling, 22-minute monologue from home plate about the Goldpanners’ history and Fairbanks’ role in it.

He started talking about the 1964 team. Five minutes later, Dennis was up to 1968, and everyone in the park knew they were in for it. Even the players who’d lined up to listen started retreating for the dugout. At one point Dennis even called Fairbanks pitcher and Goldpanners favorite son Sean Timmons out of the stands. Yet Dennis almost seemed to beat back the weather with his words.

The rain had nearly stopped by the time he finished (after introducing Baseball America founder Allan Simpson as the guest of honor) and the players quickly ripped the tarp off the field to get the game underway following the delay.

One tradition is to stop the Midnight Sun Game at the half-inning nearest to midnight (it was the middle of the fifth Saturday) to sing the Alaska Flag Song, with reference to the “gold of the early sourdough’s dreams.” A local guitarist named Hurricane Dave performed and it was incredible to see the entire crowd on their feet singing along.

The crowd during the Flag Song

The Goldpanners trailed 6-3 entering the bottom of the fifth, but they seemed to come alive after the Flag Song, after Saturday had become Sunday and June 21 turned into June 22. Jacob Hayes (Indiana State) and Vahn Bozoian (Concordia-Irvine) connected for back-to-back doubles as the Goldpanners erupted to score six times with two outs and take the lead 9-6.

Cody Nulph (Orange Coast College) delivered a two-run single to break open the game. I also got to write my favorite thing ever in keeping score at nearly 200 games—circling Brandon Caruso’s (Pepperdine) pop out to third and writing “midnight” next to it. Caruso had the distinction of batting at 12:00 a.m. in the game.

I spent the sixth through ninth innings wandering the stadium to get a feel for the event. First of all, fans do leave the Midnight Sun Game early. A lot of folks headed home after the Flag Song (and after the stadium PA played “After Midnight” following the six-run fifth). More fans trickled out around 1 a.m.

My favorite thing was seeing the number of young kids at the game. In a grassy space behind the right-field bleachers, a scrum of kids were playing 500. Keep in mind, it was almost 1 a.m. and these were elementary-school kids. Bedtimes are apparently not enforced in connection with the Midnight Sun Game.

I also loved that around 1 a.m., the parking lot and street lights at the nearby Carlson Center arena turned on, apparently set to the craziest sunset auto-timer in the country.

There were also a lot of people content to bring a lawn chair and sit along the left-field fence or beyond the outfield wall. There’s worse ways to spend the solstice than watching midnight baseball … and they even serve beer by the can for four bucks at Goldpanners games.

Gates opened at 9 p.m., and there was a line of people waiting to get in 90 minutes before first pitch. I loved that some fans in prime bleacher spots reserved seats for themselves and their later-arriving friends and family, cordoning off areas with tape like you see along the sidewalk at parades.

The Goldpanners tacked on four insurance runs in the sixth and seventh innings (and insurance runs are completely unwelcome at 12:45 a.m.). Center fielder Scooter Bynum—a Fairbanks product from Monroe Catholic high school—ran down a long fly for the game’s last out. Bynum’s catch was all the more impressive considering how tough it was to follow the ball in the twilight.

By the time I made it back to my hotel across from the Chena River, the sun was only about an hour away from rising again at 2:57 a.m. Even if there was no Sun, the Midnight Game in Fairbanks still was about as memorable as it gets for a fan.

Downtown Fairbanks at about 1:40 a.m. on the solstice.

* * *

I got a taste of Midnight Sun baseball the night before as the Goldpanners beat Lake Erie 14-9 on a warm, sunny night in front of several hundred. The Goldpanners scored in each of the first seven innings, stole seven bases, and took advantage of five Monarchs errors. This was the panorama at 9:30 p.m.

* * *

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner actually had a story on the game (with quotes!) in Sunday’s paper. That makes the Daily News-Miner officially the paper with the greatest deadlines in the country.

* * *

Here’s Jim Caple’s ESPN.com story on the 100th Midnight Sun Game that captivated me so many years ago:

Where Baseball Shines the Most

By Jim Caple Page 2

June 22, 2005

FAIRBANKS, Alaska – The Midnight Sun game is like most baseball games … except here the shadows are still creeping across the infield at close to 11 p.m.

"Nobody here knows if the lights have ever been turned on or not," Alaska Goldpanners manager Ed Cheff said, squinting through the golden sunlight at the light towers at Growden Park. "The rumor is that they might not even work. I know they’ve never been on in the four years I’ve been here. You talk to the locals about the lights and they just laugh and say, ‘Yeah, we don’t know about them, either.’"

Cheff said this Tuesday night around 10 p.m., as his team warmed up for the 100th annual playing of the Midnight Sun game, held in Fairbanks on each summer solstice – and always without artificial lights. The game starts at 10:30 p.m. and has been known to end after 2 a.m. (And just think how long it would last if there were commercials!) While the sun officially sets at 12:47 a.m., it really just dips below the horizon for an hour or so. There’s a rosy glow near the horizon but it never really gets dark enough to stop the game.

Not that you would want to face Randy Johnson in these conditions.

"My guys used to yell, ‘Turn on the lights!’ and I’d say, ‘No way,’" former Goldpanners manager Red Boucher said. "So they would yell, ‘Then how are we going to see the ball?’ And I would say, ‘Listen for it. If you hear it humming real loud, you’re too close.’

"No other city in the world has this tradition so there is no way we’re turning on those lights."

And just in case someone tried, Boucher said it wouldn’t matter. “I pulled out all the fuses.” The Midnight Sun game is one of baseball’s greatest and oldest traditions, dating back to 1906, or nearly to Julio Franco’s birth. That was so long ago that they couldn’t sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh inning stretch because the song hadn’t been written yet.

Or just think about it this way: Alaskans were playing this game 50 years before Alaska even became a state.

"Baseball was the big thing to do in Fairbanks back then because there was nothing else to do in Fairbanks," said Bill Stroecker, whose father played in the very first Midnight Sun game. "There were no automobiles here, no planes, no trains, no roadways. The only way to get here was to come up the river by boat."

Kind of puts a whole new spin on a long weekend in Detroit, doesn’t it?

"I got off the plane to join the Goldpanners in 2001 and said, ‘Where the [expletive] am I?" former Goldpanner pitcher Zak Basch recalled. "Then we won the National Baseball Congress championship in 2002. And I got drafted when I never should have. And I had a minor league career I never should have. And I tell you, winning the NBC World Series for the Goldpanners trumps anything I did in my pro career. I’d give up my entire pro career to get back one second of playing here, that one second throwing the last pitch to win the NBC series."

Basch is one of the hundreds of collegiate players to have made his way from the Lower 48 to play summer ball with Fairbanks in the amateur Alaska League – following a line that includes Tom Seaver, Dave Winfield, Jason Giambi, Alvin Davis and Bret Boone. The players live with host families, work the field in the morning and play each night. Some, such as Basch, love the experience. Others, such as Boone, were … well, less thrilled.

"It’s a good experience but it’s just different," Boone said. "It’s weird. I mean, it never gets dark. It’s like every game is a day game but you’re playing at night. The sun is still above your head at midnight."

Well, not quite. But Basch insists there was a game a couple years back that was delayed because the sun was shining in the first baseman’s eyes – “And it was 11:45 p.m.”

That’s the way it is when you’re the northernmost baseball team in the world. How far north? North Pole, Alaska is 10 miles to the south of Fairbanks. Of course, that’s not the actual north pole – merely a town that named itself North Pole to generate a cottage Santa Claus industry. But still. We’re talking way up there.

Hey, there’s even an Ice Museum smack in the middle of downtown.

Fairbanks is an insane town. The average winter temperature is 12 degrees below zero, and it’s so cold that the temperature somehow actually increases with elevation. “I’m OK up until about 30 below,” Goldpanners pitcher and Fairbanks native Sean Timmons said. “Once it gets to 35 or 50 below, then I start getting cold.”

The record high, meanwhile, is 96.

On the other hand, homes are a lot cheaper than in San Francisco. Plus, each summer Mother Nature takes pity on Fairbanks and provides long days of what Cheff calls “the most ideal baseball weather in the world. In the East and the Midwest, they’re baking in the heat and the humidity. But here it’s perfect.”

The weather certainly was perfect for Tuesday’s centennial. Fairbanks received buckets of rain over the weekend, but the clouds parted and the sky was clear by early evening, with temperatures in the low 70s. It was such an idyllic night that even the mosquitoes stayed away.

The ballpark was so crowded that fans stole the bullpen bench and moved it to a standing-room-only section that had been hastily set up in foul territory down the left field line. Fans also sat on the dugout roofs, and the concession stands were so backed up that there was a long line to pay your money, another long line to get your hot dog, and yet another long line to go to the bathroom.

(But when you consider that the fans at the first Midnight Sun game arrived in Fairbanks by taking the train from Skagway to Whitehorse, then tramping to the Tanana River and boating upstream, the lines don’t seem so bad.)

The field at Growdon Park is unusual, to say the least. The outfield is natural grass, but the infield is lime green artificial turf. The basepaths have been dyed a dusty yellow, but the dirt in the sliding pits is a dark chocolate. It’s as if it were laid out by the same guy who designed the old Astros jerseys.

And yet, the way Basch sees it, this diamond is not only the geographic pinnacle of baseball, it’s the spiritual pinnacle as well.

"I’ve been to Fenway Park. I’ve been to Yankee Stadium. I was at old Tiger Stadium. But there’s nothing like this," he said. "I’m a purist. I love baseball for what it is. And nothing can compete with this. I know you’re with ESPN and you’ve seen it all. Hey, I watch ESPN and nothing on ESPN can top this.

"These kids on the team don’t know. But in five years they’re going to be sitting around with a beer telling people, ‘One time in Alaska I played baseball at midnight without lights.’"

That’s the thing. It’s easy to lose concept of time when it never gets dark. It just seems like you’re at a regular game until you’re walking home and two 12-year-olds on bicycles ride past with bats and gloves and it suddenly hits you, “Wait a minute – it’s two in the friggin’ morning.”

Go back two decades and Timmons could have been one of those kids bicycling. He grew up attending the Midnight Sun game as a fan and now has played in nine of them.

He didn’t plan on playing in the centennial, though. He is studying to be a physician’s assistant at a Savannah college and is only home for a two-week vacation. “I was going to call the team up to see whether I could sit in the dugout for this game because I knew how crazy the ticket situation would be,” he said. “But they called me about two and a half weeks ago and asked whether I could throw for them. I haven’t pitched since the end of the season last July but I said, all right.”

He said he began thinking Monday night about how the Midnight Sun game could be his last time on a mound. “I didn’t want to go out and disappoint anyone. I wanted to go out there and have one good last game.”

Timmons did, holding the Omaha Strike Zone to one run in five innings, and the bullpen took over from there. Given that the final innings were played in dusk with the umpire expanding the strike zone, Omaha didn’t have much chance for a comeback. The Panners won 3-1 and Timmons got the win in what may be his final game. The final pitch was at 12:55 a.m. and almost everyone stayed for the end, listening to “Midnight Special” playing over the loudspeaker. The “Alaska Flag Song” was sung at midnight before the start of the sixth inning.

Cheff joked afterward about using Timmons on 364 days rest until he turns 40, but the Hall of Fame has a better idea for preserving the pitcher. They asked for his cap and jersey for the museum. “That was awesome,” he said. “And I get a lifetime pass to the Hall of Fame.”

It’s a great exchange. Not only can Timmons visit Cooperstown anytime he wants, but the Hall will preserve the moment he stood precisely where so many players have lived out their midsummer night’s dreams over the past century – in the sunlight and on top of the world.

[rosssiler]

"The Kid"

I’m leery of any reviews of Ben Bradlee Jr.’s Herculean new biography of Ted Williams primarily because I question whether the reviewers actually finished the book. “The Kid” is 775 pages long, spanning 34 chapters, and weighs in at 2.6 pounds. It is a book that feels like a conquest to have read.

There’s no stone in Williams’ life that Bradlee leaves unturned (we even learn that Williams put on his shoes before his pants and that his home keycard code was 1941, the year he hit .406). It is the only sports book I’ve read where the main subject’s playing career ends with 312 pages to go.

That’s a testament to Williams’ extraordinary life, and the family drama that led to him being frozen at a Scottsdale, Ariz., cryonics facility following his death--with his head severed from the rest of his body and stored in a tank of liquid nitrogen.

Bradlee interviewed 600-plus people for the book--everyone from George H.W. Bush to John Glenn to Dom DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky to Williams’ two surviving ex-wives and two surviving children to the people in the room at Alcor (and there were many of them) when they performed the cryonic suspension.

For me, “The Kid” ranks as one of the Mount Rushmore baseball books along with “Eight Men Out” and Richard Ben Cramer’s biography of Joe DiMaggio, “The Hero’s Life.” Bradlee spent 10 years writing the book and the result is the definitive Williams biography. I would be surprised if “The Kid” wasn’t a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

It is a deeply personal book at times, detailing Williams’ oldest daughter’s abortion after a teenage pregnancy and suicide attempts. Bradlee also takes the reader in the room decades later when Williams disinherits the same daughter (Bobby-Jo). “It was the ultimate humiliation,” a lawyer says.

There are a handful of themes that Bradlee weaves throughout the book. The most central was Williams’ desire to be cremated following his death, with his ashes scattered in the Florida Keys along with a beloved Dalmatian--a desire he expressed repeatedly during his life.

Bradlee also describes Williams’ relationship with God. Although Williams was a professed atheist (who often defamed Jesus as “syphilitic” and with a series of expletives), Bradlee suggests that Williams was curious about Christianity at a minimum and possibly asked for salvation on a handful of occasions.

(Williams’ contempt for religion was the product of his upbringing, as his mother ministered in the streets of San Diego on behalf of the Salvation Army, though often at the expense of Williams and his brother. Williams suffered a lifetime of embarrassment when he was forced to march with his mother and the Army devotees.)

In addition, Bradlee portrays Williams as a verbally abusive bully--“It was so absolutely obvious that he had a mental problem,” Bobby-Jo says--who roughed up each of his three wives at least once and spit food in the face of one daughter. “He was a tornado,” said his third wife, Dolores.

At various points, Williams is described as churlish, mercurial, volatile, insecure, controlling, and thin-skinned. Yet he also raised millions for cancer-stricken kids through the Jimmy Fund in Boston and found his best friends in life among the cops, repairmen, and other ordinary people whose paths he crossed.

Bradlee also paints a sinister picture of John-Henry Williams. Ted’s only son lived an entitled life, stole millions from his father’s memorabilia business, isolated Williams in his dying years, and masterminded the idea of Williams being cryonically frozen--possibly with the intent of selling his DNA 1,000 years in the future.

Perhaps the biggest question is whether Williams could have avoided the John-Henry saga had he opted to marry for a fourth or fifth time, preventing his son from taking over his affairs through a power of attorney. Williams, who was married three times, once declared that he never went 0-for-4 at anything in life. I think the quality of Bradlee’s writing also gets lost in the sheer volume of “The Kid.” He describes Williams’ “career-long jihad” waged against the Red Sox beat writers. After spitting at the Boston fans, Bradlee writes that Williams “retreated into his own inner world of festering sores.”

My favorite passage came with Bradlee finally delivering his analysis of Williams’ personality, after hundreds and hundreds of pages of chronicling his life:

“The rage attacks came on like a fever, usually triggered by loss of control—such as when he was booed by fans or ripped by writers for reasons that he felt were unfair. One reason he connected with the Jimmy Fund kids and some of his trusted friends was because he was always in control. The charity work was compelling to him altruistically, but it also made him feel powerful. He was tall, athletic, and famous, but he didn’t always feel powerful—he felt vulnerable. And the Jimmy Fund kids were helpless and dying. These were uneven relationships, but Ted could relate. After all, he had been a disenfranchised, neglected kid himself. And if on some deep, emotional level he didn’t feel good about himself, maybe being in the company of people who were really suffering made him feel better. The Jimmy Fund kids could bring out Ted’s tenderness, and he—at least the part of him that needed his mother, who was out in the streets—craved such an outlet. And if he knew that someone was dying, maybe he could give even more freely: no future obligation would be due. The kids couldn’t hurt him. He had few situations like that. Not with the fans, the press, or even his own children.”

That’s the caliber of book Bradlee delivers with “The Kid.” * * *

There were so many interesting passages in “The Kid,” including a hilarious tale of Williams asking a 15-year-old clubhouse boy in Detroit to procure chocolates and condoms for him. But a couple of stories stood out to me.

(1) The Alcor personnel who performed the cryonic “suspension” on Williams were so unskilled that Williams experienced so much arterial leakage that he was bleeding from his eye. According to Bradlee, the person who cut off Williams head was trained as a dialysis technician, not a surgeon, and as many as 30 people were filming in the room, though no pictures or video ever has become public. “Security in the operating room during this case was grossly negligent,” according to an internal Alcor report.

(2) Williams never submitted a formal application to Alcor, “unlike virtually everyone else” whose bodies were frozen at the facility. Instead, John-Henry produced a “pact” dated Nov. 2, 2000--nearly two years before Williams’ death--and signed by John-Henry, Williams, and Williams’ youngest daughter, Claudia, in which the three expressed a desire to all be cryonically frozen together.

However, Bradlee’s reporting reveals that Claudia Williams never was present on Nov. 2, 2000, and the pact likely was forged, possibly created after Williams’ death using a sheet of paper that Williams used for warm-up signatures before beginning a memorabilia autograph session.

That John-Henry stored such an important document in the trunk of his car-- and that Williams expressed a desire to be cremated to several people after Nov. 2, 2000--only supports Bradlee’s claim. Williams additionally signed the pact “Ted Williams,” as he did in signing bats and balls, and not “Theodore S. Williams,” as he did with legal documents.

(3) After George H.W. Bush lost the Iowa caucuses in 1988, his strategists asked Williams to campaign with him in New Hampshire. Williams turned out crowds in the thousands, which helped Bush capture the Granite State’s primary and go on to claim the presidency.

Williams drew so much attention that Bush told Bradlee, “I thought to myself: Wait a minute, the vice president of the United States is here too.” Bush describes Williams as “cantankerous” and “feisty” in recounting their dinners together. Bush went on to honor Williams twice at the White House as President (even if the book shows that Williams the person likely didn’t deserve such treatment).

(4) Williams was so troubled that he spat at both the crowd and the reporters in the press box at times during his career, including after his 400th homer. “I didn’t mind the errors, but those goddamn fans, they can go [expletive] themselves, and you can quote me in all the papers,” he once said. Williams also famously dubbed the Boston writers the "Knights of the Keyboard," calling them out in his farewell speech.

(5) Not only were the Red Sox the last team to integrate in 1959, they held sham tryouts for both Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays in 1945 and 1948, declining to sign either player. The scout who traveled to Birmingham (Ala.) for Mays didn’t even bother to stay to see him play after a couple of days of rained-out games.

Bradlee writes that failing to sign Robinson or Mays likely contributed to the Red Sox’s World Series drought more than the Curse of the Bambino and Babe Ruth.

(6) Williams would have hit .411, not .406, in his legendary 1941 season if the modern sacrifice-fly rule were used (in which hitters are not credited with an at-bat for a sac fly). In addition, Williams hit .406 with just five infield hits (out of 185 total) all season. He legged out almost no hits even with such a stratospheric average.

By one estimate, Williams would have hit 686 homers and totaled 3,496 hits had he not missed five years of his career serving in World War II and Korea. His war service cost him 165 career homers and 842 hits.

(7) The Red Sox moved in the right-field bullpens at Fenway Park to accommodate Williams’ pull swing and give him a better chance of hitting home runs. The resulting bullpen area was dubbed “Williamsburg.”

(8) Williams was such a disinterested fielder that he often would stand in the outfield with his back turned to the plate and mimic hitting with an imaginary bat.

A former minor-league baseball player, Hall of Fame quarterback Sammy Baugh said of Williams’ antics: “He’d go out to right field, stick his glove in his back pocket and turn his back on the pitcher and start doing jumping jacks. . . .These old-school guys, many of them on their way back down from the majors . . . they were raising hell, saying ‘get him out of here!’ They hated Williams. Here was a young kid who didn’t give a [expletive] about anything. Nothing bothered the cocky bastard. . . .But you know, that crazy sonofabitch would get up there and knock a goddamn board off the fence in the out-field. Everybody knew he was crazy. Everybody also knew he was going to be great.”

(9) The press was so omnipresent in Williams’ life that they broke the news to him his first daughter was born and tracked him down in the middle of the night while he served in Korea.

(10) Joe DiMaggio is not portrayed favorably in the book--including an anecdote that DiMaggio offered to sell to Williams for $500 each his share of autographed photos of Williams, DiMaggio, and Bush from a White House ceremony. Bradlee concludes:  “Ted enjoyed being Ted more than Joe enjoyed being Joe, and Williams had a more satisfying post-baseball life.”

(12) Williams did not see combat in World War II, initially sought deferments from serving in both WWII and Korea, and felt that he was called back to fly in Korea largely because the Marines saw him as a publicity drawing card.

(13) John-Henry was so entitled that he once parked his car directly outside of Fenway Park with the hazard lights flashing among the crowds of the 1988 American League championship series while he tried to secure a ticket to the game. John-Henry also partnered with several porn sites as he tried to launch his Hitter.net Internet service provider, thereby turning Hernando, Fla., into the “porn capital of the South,” in the words of one person.

(14) Lastly, Bradlee describes the scene when Williams took batting practice for the first time at Fenway after returning from Korea. As told by a former Red Sox writer who witnessed it:

“All of a sudden Ted comes striding out in those long, loping strides, and there’s a roar from the concessionaires and even the ballplayers. They used to have a wonderful batting-practice pitcher--Paul Schreiber. He was in there. Everyone is clapping.

“Ted hit a couple of line drives. Then he hit one out, next to the bullpen. This is the first time he’s hit since coming back from Korea. Schreiber threw another. Ted hit it out. Then a third that went way out. Schreiber was following the flight of the ball. ‘Never mind watching,’ Ted screams at him. ‘Throw the [expletive] ball!’

“He must have hit about twelve out. Then I noticed that blood was coming through his clenched fingers. His skin was tender. Finally, after, like, the thirteenth one, he just went back to the dugout.

“It was the greatest display I ever saw.”

Writes Bradlee: “The Kid was back.”