Well, I was trying to get some time to upload photos for the game before I posted this, but I’ve been crazy busy with 5 (!) softball games this week, and that along with bad thunderstorms rolling through that required power shutdown to save my computer…well…no photos are uploaded still so they’ll have to get a bonus post this weekend.
Who knew that Sunday would be the last time we’d see Willie at Shea?! I’m sure *some* people knew. Cough, cough. But, back to the story at hand…
Buy one, get one free. That was the motto for Sundays’s single admission (!) doubleheader. I’ll admit on Saturday I heard Gary Cohen mention Sunday would be a single admission doubleheader, but it wasn’t until he said how Saturday’s tickets would not be honored that I really comprehended the situation. This is the first “real” doubleheader in a loooong time and obviously it’s a money losing situation for the team since they don’t get two sets of captive audiences. I was not complaining though!
Of course, a doubleheader required some additional planning especially since it turned out I had a 12 hour day (left the house at 9:30am, returned at 9:30pm!). First, an extra large bottle of water to last the day as opposed to the smaller one. I will not be paying $4.50 for a bottle of water, thanks for asking though. Secondly was food for lunch. I usually do buy some type of food at the stadium, but I was not about to eat stadium food for both lunch and dinner. Therefore my choice for lunch was a bagel from Panera. Now, granted at 350-450 calories for a bagel, that isn’t really a healthy alternative either but given the following (1) it is not greasy or fried like other stadium offerings, (2) costs $1.99 plus tax it was a worthy and portable alternative. Of course, when I went to get my dinner of chicken fingers & fries I nearly fell over on the floor when I saw that the menu board has calorie contents and said chicken fingers & fries were 1014 calories. In text-speak: O! M! G! I knew that they were probably a lot but never really stopped to consider it, but now knowing that it is 2/3 of a daily calorie allotment in ONE meal, I think I may be making an early morning stop at Panera from now on. Yikes!
It did not look good in the beginning…rain started falling and even though my seats are under the overhang, the wind was blowing in my direction and we were getting sprinkled with water. Thankfully it passed quickly and stopped by the time the game was about to start.
We got treated to a softball home run derby by the Long Haul Bombers pre-game. One of the guys was just hitting bombs, literally, over and beyond the picnic area. Being a softball player myself (although not really a home-run hitting softball player), I was impressed. Starting in the 2nd inning of the first game, the guys were in the kids area to sign autographs and stuff. Maybe neat for kids, not so much for me.
This game was the first time it was really crowded in my section. I didn’t like it. Every game before this, my whole entire row has been pretty much empty with maybe two other people sitting in it. It was full up yesterday except for the two seats on the end.
What can be said about the on-field play…well…they were losing then coming back then losing worse then made a valiant effort at the end to get within one…but no cigar. The majority of the crowd left during the 8th inning and I was eyeing seats in the front row of the Mezz Boxes to move down to. We already knew that a great majority of people would not stay given that it was a holiday and all. Some of the regulars even stated their intentions of leaving because they already had plans. We saw some people already starting to seat hop down into the boxes during the top of the 9th, so we moseyed on down and had a good vantage point for some excitement at least.
The placed pretty much cleared out, more than I had even expected, and so in between games we started eyeing Loge Box seats. Hey, no one was down there really so why not? We spent the first two innings in the Mezz while eating our dinner and made our way down to the Loge during the 3rd and got front row seats right above the clock in RF. They were pretty sweet seats (aside from the couple sitting one box over who used their seats as their own personal make-out box. Whatever). Hardly anyone was down in the RF Loge sections. Maybe 30 people by the end of the game. It harkened back to the end of the 2005 season which I attended the last Thursday game of that year when there was no one around. We saw a much better consistent effort through the game and while they still left too many people on base, at least it was a winner.
This past week I saw on tv that the seats immediately behind home plate have small tv’s in the wall. WHY?! They are right behind all the action! Yesterday I learned that the StubHub seats in RF, you know, those leather reclining ones, also have flat panel tv’s in front of the seats. WHY?! The ultimate in luxury? I’ll take some luxury sometime, come find me!
The bonus of sitting in the Loge was that it took no time at all to get out of the stadium and up to the train, with just a few minutes to spare before we were “all aboard”. That was pleasant to be able to get out and on a train pretty much right away.
Next game up will be Sunday’s Subway Series. I am glad ESPN did not take that for the night game. I hate when they do that.
Baseball Shell 