Playoff Atmosphere

So many times you here commentators or players say it was like a playoff atmosphere. Well, on October 4th, at 42 years old I finally got to attend a playoff game and saw what a “playoff atmosphere” was really like.
My brother Scott and I went to the game. We like to get there early for batting practice, and for free parking. Usually if you get to Dodger Stadium early enough you can park on the street just outside the stadium parking lot. However the first difference I noticed for playoff baseball was that everyone arrived there early. By the time we got there the parking lots were opened already and it was more than two hours before game time. So we ended up parking inside the stadium parking lot.
It was about then that I realized that I did not bring the tickets. There was a moment of stress, but the people at the will call window were nice enough to print me new tickets. The Dodgers opened all levels of the stadium right away, but would not allow anyone into left field without a left field ticket. So we were relegated to the centerfield warning track area. Here was our view of the stadium when we entered.

It was nice that we had somewhere to go to try to get a ball, but the place was packed.

A few balls came close to my area, but it was hard to move around. Most people that hung around for a while were really nice. They were all dressed in Dodger Blue, and I had some pleasant conversations with several people while I was out there. There was only one guy that put a damper on things. Apparently I had bumped him while I was pursuing a ball in the area. He told me to take it easy. My thoughts were “Everyone here wants a ball, you have got to expect a some bumping when a ball comes nearby.” But although I told him I was sorry, I don’t think he forgave me, because the next time a ball came close to us I felt an elbow in my chest blocking me from moving to the ball. Sure enough it was the same guy. After the ball landed in the crowd I noticed that he didn’t have a glove, and he wasn’t even going after the ball. He just didn’t want me to get it. The guy is in the picture below. I won’t tell you who it is, but you might be able to figure it out on your own.

Near the end of BP I finally made my way up to the front row.

Unfortunately no balls came my way and I left batting practice empty handed. But that was okay; I really wanted to see the game. The Dodgers were up 2-0 on the Cubs and had a chance to close out the series. It was the first home game for the Dodgers, so it was cool to see all the hype before the game. They made introductions of all the players and brought out the huge American flag.
The game was great. The Dodgers scored two runs in the first inning, and Hiroki Kuroda shut down the Cubs for six plus innings. For some reason I decided to take score during the game. It might have been the first time I ever did that.

The stadium was packed.

Almost everyone I saw were Dodger fans. However, there was a lone Cub fan sitting in front of me. He tried to be obnoxious but it was hard to do since the Cubs only scored once.
Scott and I decided to watch from behind home plate as Jonathan Broxton finished out the game.
Then the celebration began. Someone from the top deck decided to throw beer around in celebration. A little bit got on to Scott and I. But the Dodgers made up for that by placing a picture of both Scott and me on the scoreboards! It was nice of them to commemorate our first playoff game that way.

Batting Practice

When I was in high school I went to a baseball game in the Seattle Kingdome, which was my third major league baseball stadium. I had been to Dodger Stadium and the ballpark in Oakland. I decided that it would be cool to visit every major league stadium before I died. At the time it was really my only lifetime goal. So when my family moved back down to southern California I made sure that I saw a game at Angel Stadium. I went to the nearby ballparks when I was in College, and I started taking mini-trips with my brother Scott. (shown here with me before a recent game at Petco Park)

Scott, took on the goal of seeing all of the ballparks as his own goal, and actually finished his tour of all 30 major league stadiums when we visited Tropicana Field with our brother Andy in 2006.

Well Scott, who is a teacher, takes a trip every summer to see several baseball games at different ballparks across the country. He would tell me stories of snagging balls during batting practice. He made it sound like so much fun. In all of the games I had been to (over200 games) I had only caught two foul balls, and none in batting practice. So I went with him to a game at Dodger Stadium and I managed to win a scramble for a ball during batting practice. Latter we went down to San Diego and I caught my first batting practice home run (hit by Olmedo Saenz).

When the 2008 season arrived I was so excited to get back to batting practice, I went to a preseason game at Dodger Stadium March 28^th. Scott and I went together and sat in the all you can eat pavilion. People get so excited about the free food that they don’t try to get baseballs right away. Within 5 minutes a Red Sox player threw a ball up into the stands. I was one of the only ones standing there so he threw it to me. A couple of weeks later I caught a ball on the warning track. The Dodgers opened up the warning track during batting practice during the 2008 season.

Two games - two balls, I thought I was doing pretty good. I started thinking that other people must be into this batting practice thing as well. So I googled “batting practice” and after following a few links I stumbled across Zack Hample’s website zackhample.com. Zack has amassed over 4000 balls in his lifetime including more than 500 in 2008. I suddenly started thinking that I wasn’t doing that great after all. So I started reading his website and his blog http://snaggingbaseballs.mlblogs.com/ trying to learn some things that would help me get more balls.

The next game I went to I got 3 balls. Woo Hoo!

So that is basically the start of my batting practice obsession. Alina and Tommy have enjoyed it and I am enjoying watching them. I try to get them to stand in the front row, look cute and raise their gloves. Even Casey has got into the act, but no one has thrown Casey a ball yet. Here he is at Wrigley Field.

So after getting balls at Dodger Stadium, Wrigley Field, Turner Field, and Busch Stadium, Alina Tommy and I were going to make one last trip to Dodger Stadium. It was going to be on Labor Day. Scott informed me that Zack was going to be at that game. I hadn't seen that on Zack's blog yet. So we were able to see Zack in action. We didn't get any balls that game. It was the first batting practice that I took the kids to that none of us got any baseballs. But we did get our picture on Zack's blog http://snaggingbaseballs.mlblogs.com/archives/2008/09/9108_at_dodger_stadium.html (the forth picture on his post that day) and we got a picture with Zack after batting practice.

We later went to a game at Angel Stadium, which was detailed on my previous post.

Angel Stadium

To complete our Summer of Ballparks and batting practice I wanted to take Alina and Tommy to Angel Stadium. So September 26th I called to find out about tickets. The ticket office told me they only had scattered singles. The stadium was going to be the 4th, 5th and 6th stadium of the summer for Alina Tommy and me respectively. I felt it was worth the risk of driving down there and not being able to get tickets. I figured if we could just get in we would be able to find a place to sit together. So we headed down. When we got into the parking lot Alina and Tommy were immediately impressed with the big "A."

As we started looking for open ticket windows I was afraid that we would not find one open. However as we got to the front of the stadium we found one. The guy inside told me that we could get tickets for $3 and I said "I'll take 'em!" So with tickets in had we headed in for batting practice.

We were a little bit late but it was not very crowded for a Friday night. Alina and Tommy found a spot along the wall, where we had hoped they would get noticed by the players. Unfortunately they did not pay any attention to the kids and neither Alina nor Tommy got a ball tossed to them. And then the wall started getting more populated.As we were watching one of the Rangers players tease us with a ball to our right, another ball was hit towards our area. No one was looking and then out of the corner of my eye a saw something. I turned and had a ball bounce right into my glove area, I bobbled it but made the grab. Anyone around me could have caught it if they had been looking. I was just in the right place and got lucky. So now the goal was to get another ball, so both of the kids could have one. After having no luck, a man who had managed to get a few came over and gave me one. What a nice guy! He is pictured to the left and has the arrow pointing to him. I told Tommy if he went over and said "Thank you" I would buy him and Angels bat. So Tommy did. So now both Alina and Tommy had baseballs so we went up into our seats - yeah right! We stayed there until batting practice was over, even though both the kids were saying they were hungry, but we didn't get anymore balls.

We found something to eat and watched the start of the game down near the left field foul pole. Here is a view from where we sat.
When we eventually got to our seats this was our view.



The Angels got killed in the game 12-1. We saw Lackey have his shortest outing of the season, and Josh Hamilton hit his 32nd and last home run of the season.
I found someone to take our picture before we left. This baseball season was really fun for me. Both Alina and Tommy had four balls thrown to them. They are both understanding the game more as well. This is the last park that we will visit together this year, but I look forward to many more seasons with my growing baseball fan family having a ball (or two or three) at the ballpark.

2 balls this game
22 balls in 13 batting practices this season (1.69 per game)
1 consecutive game with at least one ball