Glendale (White Sox)

On Not the Dodgers

Camelback Ranch, 2016

Sunday, March 6, 2016

San Diego Padres vs. Chicago White Sox
Camelback Ranch
Cactus League (Spring Training)
Glendale, AZ
1:05 PM

Outside the Game: 

I was awoken this morning by a small movement of troops outside my window. Upon further investigation, apparently the hotel was a embarkation point for a tour to the Grand Canyon, and they mustered right outside my room in the lobby, which apparently necessitated everyone clomping down the stairs in the early morning as loudly as possible.

I grumpily went to get my own breakfast, and I decided to check out the park I glimpsed the day before. The park was a strip that ran parallel to the road perpendicular to the hotel for a good long while. It was used a place to walk pets, and since the hotel was pet-friendly, a lot of the pet owners would take their dogs out for a walk there. So, I got to pet a lot of dogs, which is always nice.

Unfortunately, the park had other denizens. There was a group of meth-head tweakers that were all trying to hang out nonchalantly not in front of a particular house. I have to assume a dealer of some kind lived there. It was all within viewing distance of the fire station that was across the park from them, and since the firefighters didn't seem to do anything about it, I didn't consider it too much of a problem. They didn't seem to be bothering anyone, so I didn't bother them, and just walked around in the cool Arizona morning and petting dogs for a while.

I went back to my room and took a shower and rested for a while before driving out to the same park as yesterday. It was not nearly as crowded as the day before, and not filled with drunk Dodgers fans, so that was an improvement. As I walked out to the practice fields, I impressed the gate guard by having my bag open when I got to the station, and she just waved me through. I spent some time in the practice fields and headed to the much shorter lines to get in.

West of the east gate

After the game, there was much less drama getting out, and I decided to head to the nearby Westgate District, which was essentially a giant mall with some arts thrown in. I spent some time at Dave and Busters and then headed back to the hotel.

Now, for all its problems, the hotel had a pool and a hot tub. I am not a swimmer. It had been up to a decade or more since I had been in a pool, but let me tell you something about Arizona: It is freaking hot. And dry. And being immersed in water was about the best-sounding idea I had heard up to this point. I had packed a bathing suit rather serendipitously, and I made my way out to the hot tub as the sun was setting.

It was already occupied by a gentleman who turned out to be from Flagstaff who was visiting for Spring Training. He used to live in Phoenix and gave me the rundown of the area. All the various little suburbs where all the stadiums are (Glendale, Scottsdale, etc.) were separate cities at one point, but much like on the east coast, the spread of the cities eventually connected them all into the Greater Phoenix Area. There also used to be prairie grass growing in what was now desert, but that was a whole other story. He also gave me two tips that would prove useful: he said I had to go to Honey Bears (a BBQ place built in old IHOP building downtown) and Birrieria El Gordo (a hole-in-the-wall Mexican place where he warned me I would need to order in Spanish).

I felt that some BBQ would be a good idea, and he told me he had eaten there that night, and I should leave now to get there before it closed. I thanked him and went back to my room for a quick shower to drive downtown to Honey Bears.

Chase Field at night

And I got there ten minutes after it closed. Oh well. I decided that since I was downtown, I would go and see Chase Field and get dinner downtown. I walked all around Chase Field and got some nighttime shots, and even got inside as a Fridays Restaurant in the stadium runs all year. They were doing something on the field, as they had huge floodlights on all over the field, but I couldn't figure out what.

I decided to go and see if I could find a restaurant, but I didn't realize how hard this would be. Most of the places in the downtown area were closed at 9 PM. Some nightlife. I eventually found a fancy burger joint that was still open, and I ate my burger and headed back to the hotel to get some sleep.

The Stadium & Fans: 

Home plate to center field, Camelback Ranch

The biggest change in the stadium from the day before was the lack of Dodgers fans, which can’t help but improve the circumstances. There was not a one-for-one replacement of White Sox fans, and the crowd was extremely small compared to the day before. All the team stores had swapped out Dodgers gear for White Sox gear, and the ushers were all in south-side colors, but beside that the stadium was the same, just less populated.

The between-inning entertainment was about the same as Saturday afternoon, except that there was a kids run the bases event after the game.

At the Game with Oogie: 

Spring scoring

While I was waiting to get in the outfield entrance to the stadium, the usher recognized my Cyclones hat and told me he was from New Jersey originally. He was a snowbirder who decided to stop going back for the summer. Unfortunately, he was a Phillies fan, but we all have our faults.

Brat

For my second trip to Camelback Ranch, I was sitting on the first base side a couple rows behind the dugout in the much less crowded stadium. There were a lot of south-side fans in attendance around me, including a large extended family and friends that took up nearly the entire row in front of me. The youngest of the group was on the end of the row and running down at any opportunity to grab free stuff at the end of innings. I was also in the blessed shade for most of the game, which was most welcome.

Chicken fingers and souvenir soda

For food, I ended up getting a brat absolutely overflowing with kraut and a chicken fingers and fries basket buried in BBQ sauce.

The Game: 

First pitch, Padres vs. White Sox

The Padres and White Sox faced off this afternoon, and while the action didn't really get started until the middle innings, it was over early, even if it didn't appear the case at the time.

Both side went in order in the first (though the Sox had a leadoff single erased on a caught stealing). San Diego only had a single to show for the top of the second, while the Sox manufactured a run in the bottom half. A leadoff double was bunted over to third and brought in with a sacrifice fly to center to stake them to a 1-0 lead. The Padres once again stranded one in the top of the third, while Chicago came close to another run. A leadoff walk was sacrificed to second and made it to third on a passed ball, but there he was left. The Pads mustered two baserunners in the top of the fourth, but they were both erased or stranded. A surge of power in the bottom of the fourth gave the Sox two runs in the person of back-to-back leadoff homers to center and left-center that extended their lead to 3-0.

It was six up six down for the fifth inning. San Diego got two on board in the sixth, but stranded them. The Sox only had a single in the bottom of the frame. The Padres finally got one across in the seventh thanks to a lead-off homer to left. They got two more on, but stranded them, leaving it 3-1. The wheels came off here, as Chicago struck back with a one-out single and walk and then a long double that brought them both in. The runner at second stole third, but was stranded by two strikeouts with the lead at 5-1. San Diego went in order for their last two at-bats, but in their last at-bat in the eighth, the White Sox tacked on two more with a leadoff single that made it to second on a ground out and to third on a dropped throw by the third baseman on a grounder to short (that could have ended it with a double-play). A ground rule double brought him in and made it second and third with one out, and then another ground-rule double with two outs scored the lead runner, making the final tally 7-1, Chicago.

The Scorecard: 

Padres vs. White Sox, 03/06/16. White Sox "win," 7-1.

The scorecard was the same as the day before, but branded White Sox instead of Dodgers. It was the same mini-tabloid full-color magazine program with the cardstock centerfold scorecard. As before, it was easy enough to write on with pencil and not marred by any ads taking up space, but the scoring squares were absolutely tiny, and the summary for extra bases and the like were a superfluous waste of space in this light.

There were a couple of plays of note in this otherwise run-of-the-mill game. There was a blown 1-3-6-2 pickoff in the top of the fourth (though he was erased on a strike-‘em-out-throw-‘em out DP K2-6 right after), and in the bottom of the eighth, there was a dropped throw to the third baseman for an E6 that helped the scoring happen in that inning, as well as two ground-rule doubles in the same inning.

The Accommodations: 

After a bit of drama on the first day, things were settling in a little on the hotel front, if not for the goddamn tour groups waking me up at all hours of the morning. Realizing that I was going to be in the same hotel room for potentially two weeks, I started to stack all of my soaps together, because when would I have this opportunity again?

Click here to see all the pictures from this trip.

2016 Cactus League