Boston

On Finishing What You Started

Fenway Park, 2009

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Toronto Blue Jays vs. Boston Red Sox
Fenway Park
Major League Baseball, American League East
Boston, MA
7:05 PM


Outside the Game:
So, this was it. Or something similar.

It was with some ambivalence that I was approaching the end of this road, even temporarily. On the one had, it was the work of four years coming to fruition. On the other hand, I was going to Boston. No one needs that.

When I bought these tickets back at the start of the year, I got it because it was the only one available at the time that seemed to be sufficiently distant from the launch date of my project at work that would still allow me to see a game at Fenway before the end of the year. Fate would have it be the one where they could claim the wildcard, for whatever the hell that dubious honor is worth.

It is hard to argue against a unanimous decision, and every last person who I spoke to who had grew up in Boston, lived in Boston, or had passed through Boston at one point told me not to drive to Boston. While there is a certain bloody-mindedness that would have me do it just to spite the universal opinion, I decided to err on the side of caution in the land of every last thing that's wrong with the world.

So I found myself in the tender mercies of Amtrak. The fact that the birthplace of the railroad industry as a real item cannot do modern train travel when literally every other nation on Earth can is something of an embarrassment. To be fair, Amtrak has improved over my last interactions with them, but, my fellows, the bar was extremely low to begin. On the Accelas, at least, all of the seats in "Business Class" were First Class airline seats crammed into trains, and they try very hard to make it seem like an airline experience, and I don't even know where to begin with what's wrong holding the airline industry as your goal to achieve.

The name is a lie.

The experience was much like a three year old trying to draw in perspective -- they knew what they were trying to achieve, but did not quite have the motor skills to pull it off, and failed at some rather basic executions. The train, for example, rode like a covered wagon. It was bumpy, noisy, and listed precariously from side to side at several points during the journey, sending people walking in the isle horizontally into the seats they were passing. This isn't new technology, guys. It has literally been around for over 150 years.

Once arriving at Boston's Back Bay Station, it was a short walk to my hotel. I trundled up to my room, dropped off my gear, and then got directions to the nearest pharmacy to get some heat patches for my leg to relieve the searing pain in my knee.

Back at the hotel, I decided to take a stadium tour before the game, and even then, I had two hours to kill before the game, so I went out a little ramble. I started with a walk through the Public Gardens just north of my hotel, and then migrated westward to Boston Commons. I eventually went to the Granary Cemetery and wandered around in the area by the old City Hall before needing to get back to the "T" station to get my "Charlie Card" and ride on "subway trolley." I mean--come on, Boston. Work with me a little, here.

Hope isn't the only thing that dies here.

After the game, I got back to the hotel with no problem. I got some room service and then went to bed.

Mmm.... room service

The Stadium & Fans:

Home plate to center field, Fenway Park

Fenway and Wrigley are the only stadiums of any age worth talking about left in the majors, after the unnecessary closing of Yankee Stadium at the end of last season. It is for this reason that I left Boston for last, and it is because of this that I had to give it due consideration.

Unlike the modern stadiums which allow access to all but the most exclusive areas through rotundas and other modern architectural magic, the old parks often have many areas reachable by ticket-holders only, and this was part of the reason I decided to take a stadium tour. It is the first one I've ever taken, and while it was something to do before the game, and would give me access to all the areas of the park, it was just something I wanted to do.

I got one of the last $12 tickets to the 3 PM tour. The tour was unsurprisingly run by a local college student working part-time at Fenway. The tour was nice in itself, with the expected mix of boosterism and salesmanship, but not without an interesting flourish of history as well. And, as expected, we got to go up on the Green Monster seats, which was a ticket-only area during the game. We had to go there out of turn for the tour because the Red Sox were starting batting practice early, and people on the regular tours are not allowed up there for liability reasons. The rest of the tour was on the Budweiser party deck, the club area, and downstairs in the wooden Grandstand seats.

After the tour, I had about an hour before the gates opened officially, so I wandered around the area, very much similar to Wrigleyville in Chicago, filled with bars and souvenir stores, and parking lots.

Overall, in both Wrigley and Fenway, you can see the parks' origins in old bandboxes that got expanded around to eventually fill in the entire space available to them to the most capacity that could be forced in. It also throws the original Yankee Stadium is such sharp contrast in how much larger and grander it was than its rather small contemporaries with which it shared the league at the time. It was a Collosus amongst pygmies, but it was still of that age, just on a larger and grander scale.

Noted.

And it was with that tragic realization that I knew that there were on two cities left where real baseball was being played, and neither was New York anymore.

The fans were enthusiastic and copious, as Fenway has been sold out for over five years now. Although this game turned out to be of some potential import, I can't image it is much different any other days. And the fans were tried and true, with most of the crowd remaining through the weather difficulties. But more on that later.


At the Game With Oogie:

Look familiar?

I bought these tickets way back in February, and was able to get a decent $100 single in the loge boxes between the dugout and first base. This is the section between the "luxury' seats right along the wall of the field and the wooden seats that fill out the lower deck Grandstand. The seat was incredibly close to the field and well worth the money.

I was sitting next to a couple of older gentlemen who drove down from Maine (beg pardon, who "drahv dahn fra Mahne") to see the game. We got to talking throughout the proceedings, and they were making their yearly pilgrimage down to Fenway. As the game progressed at its slow pace, they expressed concern of getting home before 3 AM, a fear that was not eased when the rain started and we discovered our row was exactly two rows too far down to be under the cover of the upper deck.


The Game:

First pitch, Blue Jays vs. Red Sox

The term "brutal beating" gets bandied about so much these days... But I get ahead of myself.

By virtue of being beaten like a redheaded stepchild the weekend previous by the Yankees, the Red Sox entered the game with a "magic number" of 2, meaning that a combination of any two Red Sox wins or Texas Rangers loses would mathematically lock the Sox into the American League Wild Card. This could happen in this game if the Red Sox won and the Rangers lost.

This was not to be. Red Sox starter Josh Beckett was scratched before the start of the game due to "back spasms," so a Red Sox reliever was put in as a spot starter to try and get the job done.

He did not. After getting the first out in the first, he gave up five straight hits, putting the Sox into a 4-0 hole before they even came to bat. There was some light for Boston, as they got two back in the bottom of the first on a Yukilis two-run home run, and then getting the Blue Jays in order in the top of the second. Stranding the bases loaded in the bottom of the second would be as close as the Sox would get, as Toronto got three more in the third, and two more in the fourth and fifth, staking themselves out to an eventual 11-4 lead.

The game was also s-l-o-w. It was on pace for four hours-plus, as the Sox game to bat in the bottom of the seventh. But they began an unlikely rally, as the new Blue Jays pitcher walked two, and the Red Sox drove one of them in with no outs, making the score a slightly closer 11-5.

Whopise.

And then the sky opened up with the judgment of a vengeful god. Those paying attention to the scoreboard on the Green Monster would have noticed that the Yankees game against the Royals was just starting up after a rather extensive rain delay. The nature of the weather patterns on the east coast would have become apparent as the first desultory drops of rain came down, prompting the jeers of fans to those bailing to shelter at such mild weather. Those jeers would be silenced by the weight of the entire crowd surging to under cover as cold, torrential rain bathed the self-righteousness jeers from the park.

The scoreboard immediately claimed that it was passing weather, and hey, please enjoy the Yankees-Royals game while you wait. I imagine that Bush would receive a warmer welcome at the ACLU national convention.

I was holed up with the guys from Maine for most of it, as we retreated several rows up to get under the overhang. I only made one foray out into the stands to hit the bathroom, and it was like a refuge camp in the Fenway hallways, as people milled around, and the lines at the stands selling beer can only be described as epic.

So we all waited in the seats for a resumption that would not come. After an hour, the scoreboard changed from messages about "passing weather," to messages saying "It's not passing; go home." And a great whine went up from the crowd. In the course of my travels, I'd been to over 30 major league games prior to this. Although there were rain delays of varying lengths, I had never had one prematurely called for weather. Way to go, Boston.


The Scorecard:

Blue Jays vs. Red Sox, 09/28/09. Blue Jays win, 11-5. Rain shortened.

I ended up purchasing three score cards for this contest. The first was outside the stadium, where there was a concessionaire selling them at a discount from inside the stadium. Since there were other parks that had done this, and I couldn't imagine the score card business flourishing enough that the market could sustain more than one per stadium, I bought one, went inside, and immediately found out this was, in fact, not the official program.

Number two is the obvious purchase of an official card inside the stadium. Three was by virtue of the weather previously mentioned. The initial downpour had come largely as a surprise, and there was every indication that the game would continue after a rain delay. So I bought a third card in case the rain did in the first one. It proved unnecessary as the game was called within 15 minutes of my purchase.

The card itself was an average paper bi-fold in a rather thin $5 program. It was spacious enough for an AL game and otherwise unremarkable. I did have to put in the new notation for the rain cancellation instead of a delay, which was a first. A referencing of the rules revealed that the new rule on games called on account of the weather is that at the moment the game is called, the game ends at that exact point. I seemed to recall that the game reverted to the last completed half inning where the home team completed an inning (orafter the visitors batted when the home team was ahead), which would have made the end of the sixth the last official inning, but there appears to have been a rules change at some point.


The Accommodations:

Boston Plaza Hotel & Towers

I made my hotel reservation back when I bought my ticket in February, and as the nervous economic situation was just starting to get its steam at that point, I got a very reasonable rate for a room at the Boston Plaza Hotel & Towers, just south of Boston Commons and the Public Gardens. This hotel has been here a while, and is likely the illustration for "fancy-schmancy" in the OED, if it carried a definition for such a word. It is in the register for historic hotels in America, whatever that is. Impressive-sounding, though, isn't it? The place has an honest-to-goodness ballroom, and that's all you really need to know.

It was interesting that the doors to their rooms make watertight bulkheads on naval ships seem flimsy. I thought that the key to my room was not working properly, until I sheepishly discovered that I just wasn't pulling the door open hard enough. Once inside the bulkhead, you can be summoned by a doorbell that ever room has, perhaps because there is no chance in the world that you would hear anything short of manic pounding on the Brobdingnagian doors once inside the room.

On Going There and Back Again

Back Bay Station

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Hoboken, NJ


Outside the Game:
There was not much to do today except get back home. I didn't bother to set my alarm clock at the hotel (not needing to be anywhere before noon), so I woke up when I woke up, stumbled downstairs to the breakfast buffet, and ate the hotel out of house and home. I don't know why I was so hungry, but I do know that I had at least one of everything and two of most.

Since my knee was acting up after all the walking around the day before, I went back up to my room and packed up my stuff while filling the tub up for a needed soak. After that, it was time for checkout.

The train station was only a few minutes walk away, and I had an hour or so to kill before the Amtrak train was rumored to show up. I killed it walking around the "Southwest Corridor Park," and came to two realizations about Boston.

The first was why no one in Boston could drive. And the answer is simply that the traffic system in Boston was arranged by someone on drugs -- and not fun, gateway drugs, but someone on a hard-assed cocaine binge, or perhaps LSD. Further research is necessary to determine the exact cocktail of pharmaceuticals. Contrary to every single other city planning on the face of Earth, the crosswalk patterns in Boston are not arranged so that the two parallel-traveling sides of pedestrian traffic cross at the same time. Oh no, we could not have that. At intersections, two sides of the street going perpendicular to each other cross at the same time, meaning that you could be stranded at a corner with no legal way to cross. No wonder people in Boston can't drive -- this is the system they were taught. There are probably ex-traffic wardens in Mogadishu who would look at this state of affairs and shake his head sadly over the travesty to civic organization.

The other is why I don't cotton to Boston. And it boils down to it being a completely self-conscious city, a statement which needs to be unpacked a bit more. NYC, for example, is built on one single principle: capitalism. Everything that is there, everything that happens there, and everything that goes there is there to make a buck, from the lowliest artist dreaming to make it big, to the douchebag suburban stock manager who commutes there every morning. Because old can sometimes equal money, there's still a bunch of old things there, but only as long as they are valuable as old things. New Jersey, for example, is completely function over form. With very few exceptions, most of the cities and towns in New Jersey have one or two old buildings, and beyond that, you couldn't prove that the place wasn't built in the 70s (or at most, the 50s) because it is just rebuilt and rebuilt to the current standards of suburban living. As a contrast to Boston, there is San Francisco, which in a lot of ways is like Boston, but without the self-consciousness. San Francisco, for lack of a better world, is more "practical" in its organic-ness, in that while there is a lot of form, there is also a lot of function to that form, and that the development was more organic and less self-possessed. Boston, while it has an excellent record with historic preservation and being a haven for the arts, is... not quite smug about it, perhaps, but it definitely seems to be doing it more for how other people who perceive it instead of how it is used. In New York, something is there because it makes money. In New Jersey, something is there because a mom needs it. In San Francisco, something is there because someone is using it. In Boston, something is there because someone thinks they should have "one of those."

Or perhaps I think I can actually edit this down even further: If you got the people at "Things White People Like" to design a city from scratch, it would look an awful lot like Boston.

After some walking around, I wandered back to Back Bay Station to catch my Accela back to NYC. The train showed up vaguely at the time it was expected, and after crashing down in the sort-of-filled mid-day train, I promptly lapsed into a nap for an hour or so.

The ride back to the city was uneventful beside an announcement from the train staff about the importance of locking the rest room doors, which I have to imagine was prompted by a specific incident that we missed in our car.

I was dropped back into midtown at rush hour, and after a day in Boston, I found myself smiling in spite of myself as I leaned a shoulder into some guy who wouldn't get the hell out of my way.


The Accommodations:
Home, for whatever it is worth.

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.

2009 Stand-Alone trip

Baltimore

On The Glory of The Real

Oriole Park at Camden Yards, 2009

Monday, May 25th, 2009

Toronto Blue Jays vs. Baltimore Orioles
Oriole Ball Park at Camden Yards
Major League Baseball, American League East
Baltimore, MD
1:35 PM


Outside of the Game:
My friend headed home in the morning, so I was on my own for the day. I had breakfast at the hotel again, and then headed out to the game.

Sunset on the Pike

My trip home after the game was surprisingly uneventful. Although traveling on the NJ Turnpike on the last day of Memorial Day weekend, it was smooth sailing all the way home outside of some congestion right after the shore exits.


The Stadium & Fans:

Home plate to Center field, Oriole Park at Camden Yards

For those of you not up on your contemporary ballpark history, Oriole Park at Camden Yards was the first in the line of the "next generation" of ballparks. Previous to Oriole Park, the trend in baseball venues for last two decades or so had been towards multi-purpose, suburban stadiums. Because they were multi-purpose stadiums, they were non-optimal for watching a baseball game, as the cavernous seating was remote from the field of play and they tended to look half-full due to the incredibly high seating capacity. Also, because they were suburban and dumped in the middle of nowhere, they were mostly car-only affairs, with people arriving just before the game and leaving right after as there was nothing else to do surrounding the suburban stadium.

Oriole Park was the first new baseball venue to buck that trend. It was a baseball-only park, designed for optimum intimacy and sight lines for baseball, with a commiserate loss in total seating capacity. It was also specifically designed to fit into an urban area, as most ballparks used to be. The resulting success was nothing less than a revolution in ballpark design that has affected the design of nearly every new ballpark since then, touching almost every team in the major leagues.

I had the unfortunate scheduling of seeing most of the copy-cat parks first before seeing the original article, so despite all the raves I had heard about Oriole Park, I was a bit skeptical after seeing the pale imitations. I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised.

There are many things that set the real McCoy apart from its pale imitators. It was very interesting to see the features that were endlessly copied at ballparks across the country in their original, and quite superior, form. The most noticeable of these is the location. The decision to put it downtown in an available urban space feels a lot more natural than it does in its antecedents. The park was wedged into an existing space, and a street and abandoned warehouses were incorporated into the design. Adapting the shape and layout of the park to an existing urban environment feels organic, as opposed to a park such as San Diego, where the incorporation of old industrial buildings seems spurious given the sprawling grounds they clearly had available with which to work.

A street between the old buildings and the new park was closed to car traffic, and becomes the early-entrance gate for the park. A number of shops and concessions line the road, and there are often autograph sessions with current and ex-players also held in the alley. Home runs that made it to the road from ballpark are memorialized with brass markers where they fell, with a special marker on a warehouse wall where Ken Griffey Jr. became the only person to hit a ball that crossed all the way over the street and hit the warehouse wall on the fly.

The closed-off street provides entrance to the center field area for batting practice, while keeping the entrances to the other area of the park closed. The center field porch houses all the team's pennant flags and provides an area for people to watch batting practice. The other wings of the outfield seats are often packed during BP to catch flies or provide an area for kids to beg for balls from the outfielders taking fielding practice. After batting practice, the gates to the other areas of the stadium are opened, allowing fans to get to their seats.

The park is well laid-out, and there doesn't seem to be a bad seat in the house. The seats are all as close as possible to the field, so even the upper-deck seats are relatively proximate to the field. The layout of the stadium just looks and feels correct, and it is this level of symmetry is missing from later imitators. From the detail on the decorative seat grills to the overall layout of the park, it is clear that a lot of actual thought and planning went into the park, and the result is simply excellent.

Also especially nice was the fact that while there was a kids area, with park equipment and the like, there was no area for kids to play video games (baseball or otherwise), nor was their the seemingly ever-present "tiny Wiffle-ball field of the stadium," which I can appreciate in concept, but gets boring in its repetition in nearly every baseball stadium these days.

The only noticeable feature absent from Oriole Park was the "promenade" level, which gives a constant view of the field to people walking to their seats or from the concessions stands. While I can appreciate the idea behind the innovation, I can honestly say that Oriole Park does not suffer in the least by its absence. Also notably missing is the locked-down, upper-class only areas behind home plate that most of the newer parks are implementing. While there is a special air-conditioned section for box seats and the club level, it is easy to circumvent, and does not prevent access directly behind home plate as is the case at Not Shea, for example.

Baltimore fans have gained a reputation as die-hards, and that seems a fairly earned designation. Although the stadium wasn't full, it was a holiday when many people are out of town. And the fans in attendance didn't let something like constant rain from about the fourth inning on dampen their enthusiasm. At most parks, when the rain starts, usually about half of the fans will depart, with progressively more leaving as the game goes on and the rain continues. The Orioles fans retreated to under overhangs, but for the most part, the fans that showed up at the start of the game remained until the end of the game. Much as was the case at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, I can see how fans can keep packing this park even when the product on the field is not quite up to snuff in recent years.


At The Game With Oogie:

Delays

I again had selected mid-level seats to keep me out of the sun, but again, it served the actual purpose to protect me from the rain that fell through the last two-thirds of the game. I once again inadvertently bought tickets in the air-conditioned "premium" area, and outside of being on the third-base side, it was almost the exact seats as the ones we had at Nationals Park the day before.


The Game:

First pitch, Blue Jays vs. Orioles

The Blue Jays were in first place the day before, but a continued losing streak had dropped them to third in a day, and their woes continued against even the sad-sack Orioles. The Jays jumped out to a lead in the top of the first, but gave it away in the bottom of the inning. The Orioles took the lead in the third against the listless play of the Jays and would put the game out of reach with two runs in the 7th, winning 4-1.


The Scorecard:

Blue Jays vs. Orioles, 05/25/09. Orioles win, 4-1.

The separate scorecard was $1, or included in the $5 full program. It was relatively roomy cardstock fold-out, but the black background made it impossible to write any marginal notes. They also demanded the inclusion of information (in this case, the team records) that they did not provide on the scoreboard, so negative points for that.

Because the Blue Jays used an overshift on the Orioles' Huff (for non-baseball fans, an overshift is moving the infielders from their regular positions to locations stacked on one side of the infield to defend against good hitters who generally cannot hit to the opposite field), I had to come up with some new scoring terminology to record the overshifted position of the 2nd baseman. (I settled on an "o.")


The Accommodations:
I was at home sweet home this night, and ready to dread the workday Tuesday.

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.

2009 The Beltway

Toronto

On Traveling

Friday, September 19, 2008
Toronto, ON, Canada


Outside the Game:
After work on Friday, I was going to fly up to Toronto out of LaGuardia. Apparently not learning my lesson from last trip, I booked on American Airlines regional service, American Eagle.

After arriving at the airport with no problems, and having a plane at the gate, I wondered what would inevitably go wrong. The answer would be no crew. We were delayed nearly two hours waiting for our crew to arrive from a connecting flight that had been delayed. Presumably to keep us occupied, they made us switch to another gate and then back again. The majority of people on the flight looked to be commuters who were going home to Toronto for the weekend, and it was a full flight. They were taking the news even worse than myself, and their overreactions helped me to keep the situation mildly in perspective.

We were going up on one of those flying buses, but I tend to prefer them for short trips. There is no First Class bullshit or pre-boarding. Everyone just gets on the plane and sits down, so there isn't the inevitable problems that happen on larger planes, like one entitled person blocking the rest of the plane until they stow their three illegal carry-ons.

Once we got a crew, boarded, and then had our requisite wait for a runway slot, the flight itself was quick and uneventful. Upon landing, I was confused by patient and helpful airport staff helping me to get a cab. Just for fun, there was construction going on the highway to delay me some more getting to the hotel.


The Accommodations:

Metropolitan Hotel Toronto

I booked a nice room in a nice hotel as part of my package deal, but my delayed arrival was disorienting.

I stepped out of my cab, and was greeted by the disappointed stares of a throng of 30-something women dressed like retired hookers. Upon checking in, I was told that there was an event happening in the hotel restaurant for an American band. As I was finishing my check-in, the women started going crazy as a strangely familiar-looking, lumbering, lurch-looking individual got out of a limo. Then someone walked by with a stage pass for New Kids on the Block. Yes, the New Kids on the Block were not only doing their reunion tour in Toronto that night, but they were having an event at my hotel. To my eternal shame, I did not blow up the hotel to ensure their demise. History will judge me poorly.


By the time I got to my room, it was past the time for room service, and the restaurant itself was closed due to the NKotB event. I was in the Financial District, so there weren't any nearby restaurants still open. There weren't even any vending machines. I was left to go through the complex machinations to open my minibar and spend $10 on a small Sprite and some pretzels to tide me over until the morning.

On Canada

Rogers Centre, 2008

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Boston Red Sox vs. Toronto Blue Jays
Rogers Centre
Major League Baseball, American League
Toronto, Ontario Canada
1:10 PM


Outside the Game:
As it was an early afternoon game, there wasn't much to do before the game besides getting breakfast, meeting up the local with whom I was seeing the game, and walking down to the stadium.

Afterwards, I got the tour of Toronto, starting down on the waterfront. On the way, we passed lamps with nipples on their tops and what can only be described as the palatial Hockey Hall of Fame building. (Though, disappointingly, it turns out that it had just moved to the current stately old building after running out of space at its last facility.)

On getting to the waterfront, it turned out that the Canadian armed forces were holding a free recruitment drive on one of their ships, a patrol frigate of which they were very proud. That we were in Canada was evidenced by a number of things. The gangway to get onto the ship was the most rickety, take-your-life-into-your-own-hands affair to which I have ever been party. Once on the ship, there was what could only be called minimal security. There were a couple of boxes and doors locked and some rudimentary guide ropes, but on the bridge, for example, everything was not only operational, but turned on. Sitting down at one of the active weapons stations, I felt I was in possession of enough knowledge to activate, arm, and fire one of the weapons if I was feeling particularly brave. Alas, my constitution was not up to the attempt.

We wandered about the waterfront for a while longer before resting on a "wave" bench right on the water. This is another thing that would not pass muster in America as 1) It was artistic, and 2) It was incredibly unsafe. The undulating bench had under a foot clearance in front of the water. Considering that I nearly fell in twice, I can only imagine how many people they fish out of there in a given week. It was, however, a nice place to watch ducks eat moss.

We eventually walked up the Toronto version of Chinatown and had a nice meal at a Chinese noodle house, followed by some desert courtesy of Tim Horton’s.

After dinner, it was more wandering around town, visiting their version of Times Square (a mall with a ton of new digital billboards -- perfect, really), an old Church the city has surrounded (complete with its own maze), and the new City Hall.

The last was of some notice to me, because it struck me how completely wrong some architecture can be. City Hall was arranged so that it was a divided shell of a circle. There are no windows on the outside, only facing inward towards the other side of the circle. Unless you come right up to it, you can't see in. Is that really what you want your city government to project? A building that turns its back to the public and seems only accountable to itself, and takes a good bit of effort to even seen inside at all? It strikes me as the wrong (or, perhaps at least the most truthful) message to convey.


At the Game with Oogie:
I met a local Blue Jays fan for the game proper. We sat in the middle tier of seats, not in the largely abandoned upper decks, but not at field level, either. We were right by the first base bag, and they had a great view.


The Stadium & Fans:
The Rogers Centre (nee SkyDome) was an interesting place. The Rogers family seems to own most of Toronto. They own the stadium, the cable company, some TV stations... it is like Rupert Murdock's wacky Canadian cousin.

The stadium itself is a little odd. It is a dome with artificial turf, and the dimensions of the stadium were certainly on the small side (400 to the center field wall), and the field itself appeared the smallest of all the domed parks I saw so far. With the dome open, as it was for my game, the CN tower looms quasi-majestically overhead.

In the center field wall, the adjoining hotel juts into the complex, with a wall of suites that looks down onto the field. They had to stop taking TV shots of that area during games because the suites became exhibitionist central, which I suppose could have been predicted with a tiny amount of forethought. Underneath the hotel area is a restaurant that apparently went out of business. And so it goes.

The Centre was clearly one of the late 80s domed stadiums that they tried to spruce up however they could. It was a weird combination of luxury bars and suites combined with exposed cement support groins jutting out at random intervals.

The jumbotron had some amusing animations before the game, both playing on the titular bird. One had a Yankee fan getting crapped on by a blue jay to promote an upcoming series. The more amusing was a completely over-dramatic flight of a blue jay whipping up a whirlwind with its wings and then flying through the opposing team's logo, exploding it. And the only thing I could think was, "You know that is a blue jay, right?"

Because this was one of the last series against the Red Sox and significant to their playoff hopes, easily half of the fans in the stadium were Red Sox fans. A group in front of us had t-shirts made up for their trip (as they apparently were in Toronto for all three games). While they made a lot of noise, the locals were surprisingly able to drown them out most of the time, especially when they had something to cheer about. With the exception of one bean-eater who did the "stand up and turn around" agitation, the Americans were well-behaved.


The Hot Dog:
In keeping with the unassuming nature of Canadians, the park dog did not have a special name, but it was a larger and better than average dog.


The Game:
I can never seem to see a proper "pitcher's duel" on these trips. They usually end as a blowout or a slugfest. Again, I was faced with two "aces" squaring off (Halladay vs. Lester), and by the end of the second inning, it looked like I was in for more of the same, as the runs kept adding up. But it was a strange game in that the after the third inning, both pitchers calmed down to some quick innings in the middle of the game.

The Blue Jays stuck it out, however, winning 6-3 and sending half a stadium of Red Sox fans home unhappy.


The Scorecard:

Red Sox vs. Blue Jays, 09/20/08. Blue Jays win, 6-3.

The scorecard was part of the $5 program. It was not outstanding, but certainly solid, with enough space for the tasks at hand.


The Accommodations:
I was at the Metropolitan again, sadly NKotB-less, however.

As part of my hotel package, I got a discount on their fancy-pants buffet at the restaurant where the NKotB had their event the night before. Not having had a proper meal in about 16 hours, I absolutely destroyed the buffet, but not without incident. The beverages of your choice came with the breakfast buffet, and I ordered some decaffeinated tea. I noticed that there was a lipstick stain on my cup, which I pointed out to the waiter, who reacted as though I had just told him his father had murdered my father. There were apologies both numerous and extravagant. He pulled a cup from a nearby table, for my tea.

The statement that this cup had an even larger lipstick stain had scarcely passed my lips before absolute anarchy exploded onto the scene. The waiter began simultaneously apologizing and damning the overnight washing crew. Within moments, a new cup was at my table that was polished so brightly that I could see my soul in it. While the staff did what could only be called a Level 1 Diagnostic on all the tableware, the Manager came out and apologized to me personally. I think someone may have been fired over it.

On Timeliness

Toronto International Airport

Sunday, September 21st, 2008

Hoboken, NJ


Outside the Game:
I had the foresight to book my flight in the early afternoon, giving me the opportunity to sleep in a little and still get breakfast.

I used my second voucher for breakfast downstairs and once again absolutely destroyed their buffet, and then strolled out to get my cab to the airport. In calling the concierge’s desk the night before to book my ride, I found out that the construction on Friday was a mere appetizer to today, where they shut down the entire highway to do construction. I had to go back streets all the way, so I allotted some extra safety time just in case. My driver had particularly strong feelings on the subject of the construction, but thankfully I napped through most of them.

As was the case with most of my travels home, there were no delays. Avoiding the traffic for the afternoon ballgame, my trip to the airport only took about ten minutes more than via the highway. This gave me ample opportunity to wander around the airport and spend every last cent of my Canadian money before coming home.

In one of these transactions, I found I was three cents short, and asked if I could use three American pennies instead, to which they readily agreed. Now, they were getting screwed about 10% on the deal at the time, and although it was only three cents, I just can't imagine that American airports would be as accommodating, especially when the exchange rate was in our favor. There's probably some larger point to be made, but here we are.

The airbus home left on time and flew without incident.

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.

2008 Stand-Alone Trip

Anaheim

On Questionable Patriotism

Angel Stadium of Anaheim, 2008

Friday, July 4, 2008
Toronto Blue Jays vs. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Angel Stadium of Anaheim
Major League Baseball, American League
Anaheim, CA
6:05 PM


Outside the Game:
I was able to get up the next morning and run down to get (as the sign at the hotel advertised) a "nice breakfast" before leisurely packing up to get on the road. I was about forty-five theoretical minutes from my hotel at LAX, but all I had in front of me was LA, a holiday, and wildfires. To my utter shock, I rolled into my hotel forty five minutes after starting.

After a nap, I was a theoretical half hour from the stadium, with just LA, a holiday, and Disney Land between myself and my destination. To my incredulous disbelief, I drove into the parking lot at Angel Stadium a half hour later.

After the game, the fireworks kept most the people in their seats, and again, I found myself driving blissfully uninterrupted back to the hotel. Due to the early hour, I dropped off my rental car that night and took the shuttle back to my hotel.


At the Game with Oogie:
For one more go around, I found myself in what would have been called the "upper deck" in olden days, right behind home plate. Except that this time, I was as far as humanly possible behind home plate while remaining in the stadium. I was also in the seat right at the terminus of the stairs, which at least provided some extra leg room. Being in the last row also afforded a welcome breeze, as there was a slight gap between the back stadium wall and the seating floor that let in a gorgeous draft right up the back of your neck if one were to lean back.

Next to me was a family clearly out to have a good time. They cheered when they were supposed to cheer and sang when they were supposed to sing, and seemed to be having a hell of a time. I could only wonder deep in my soul that if I just surrendered myself to such organized fun, could I be as blissfully content as those folks?


The Stadium & Fans:

Mass Flag Desecration Day

Angels Stadium was a perfectly middle-of-the-road affair, with a standard promenade level around the place, plenty of food choices, the local team Hall of Fame, and the standard kid-friendly amenities in the outfield area. There wasn't anything particularly outstanding about it (beside the giant caps and letter "A" outside), and there wasn't anything particularly bad about it. It was just a good park to watch a game.

Where the Angels really seemed to shine was getting the fans into the game. Every program came with a pro-Angels placard that could be held up, and nearly everyone in the park had some manner of promotional noise maker or accessory, from thunder sticks, to drum paddles, to an infinite myriad of rally monkeys.

It being July 4th, the give away was an American flag, which I'm sure seemed like a good idea at the time. But with a little bit of thought, I'm sure the actual outcome of this promotion could have been ascertained -- Mass Flag Desecration Day, as the give-away flags were chucked under seats or simply thrown away. There was a flag unfurling during the national anthem and a flyover by some manner of military transport.


The Hot Dog:
Another generic "Super Dog."


The Game:
The Angels played the perpetually-on-the-road-on-July-4th Blue Jays. Although the Blue Jays hung in it and mustered a late-inning rally, they were clearly overmatched by the first-place Angels, losing 8-2. Of particular interest in this game was that until the 5th inning, every at bat was official, i.e. no sacrifices, walks, hit batsmen, or the like. At the end of the game, there were only three: a sac fly and two walks.


The Scorecard:

Blue Jays vs. Angels, 07/04/08. Angels win, 8-2.

The roomy scorecard was part of the $3 program. Although on glossy paper, it was easy to write on and correct, and provided adequate space.


Oogie's East Coast Connection of the Day:
There are several giant Angels hats that people cower under to avoid the sun before the gates open at the game. Under one, my Brooklyn Cyclones hat was again identified by another patron. Dressed head to toe in Angels gear, the gentleman (with family in tow) was yet another displaced Mets fan who had gone native. We had a nice chat about things as we hid from the burning yellow eye until the gates were opening and his kids dragged him off to the stadium.


The Accommodations: 

Sheraton Gateway at LAX

I decided to splurge at this late stage in the trip and stayed at the quite frou-frou Sheraton Gateway at LAX. Upon checking in that afternoon in my disheveled t-shirt and shorts, it was quite clear that I was not their regular patron, although none of the staff would be caught dead even hinting at such a thing.

Due to booking several months in advance, I managed to get a corner king suite for relatively cheap. The bed was the size of my bedroom back home, and I had a separate desk area for "business" and a whole other bathroom with a walk-in closet. Complimentary waters were available for just $6 each.

On getting back from the game, I wanted to ask the consignor about the shuttle service in the morning. But at the restaurant by the pool, there was some manner of hip-hop party going on, and the lobby was filled with thumping base. After trying to communicate with the elderly Asian man, I expressed my admiration of him standing stoically at his post in the face of all this uncommon phatness, to which he smiled wanly and nodded.

Room service

I then did what I always do in posh hotels: I ordered room service. I ordered a grilled cheese and soup ("three cheese grilled panini and French onion soup"), which was transported to my room by an officious man in a tuxedo, who utterly ignored the exploded suitcase on my bed, cleared off the secondary desk with one hand, put down and opened my tray, and then sat me in the chair and tucked in my napkin before presenting me with the bill and letting himself out. How do you not give 20% to someone like that? The soup and sandwich were, of course, exquisite -- which they had better be for $25.

Click here to see all the pictures from this trip.

2008 The West Coast