Queens

On a Fine Start to the Season

Not Shea Stadium, 2018

Saturday, March 31, 2018
St. Louis Cardinals vs. New York Metropolitans
Not Shea Stadium
MLB, National League
Queens, NY
1:05 PM


Outside the Game:

The object of much desire

I thought I was starting the day under a bad sign. Thanks to some problems with the company’s site, I was late getting my Lyft to the PATH to go to the game. I felt a little slow the whole drive there, and sure enough, as soon as I got down the stairs, I had just missed the subway to 33rd Street.

And then they announced the delays on the PATH service, no doubt a hold-over from earlier in the week when a rail broke on the line, which made every commute to and from work a nightmare for most of the week. I was prepared to have quite a nice sulk when another 33rd Street train showed up out of nowhere and quickly sent me in the right direction. I got off, just in time to catch an orange train going north, and just again in time to grab the 7 heading east. I began to question if my initial assessment about my luck was not quite correct for today.

Along the way, the 7 train picked up a half-dozen young men who were blitzed off their asses. Thankfully, they were just loud and obnoxious drunk on Saturday morning, and not angry and dangerous drunk on Saturday morning. At every stop, one of them saw fit to hang out of the train doors and scream "All aboard!" before the doors closed.

There was an older Hispanic couple on the train, and in trying to stay out of the drunks’ way, we were huddled together in one corner of the car by the doors. I found out that it was "Build-a-Bear Workshop" free Mets teddy bear giveaway, and that the wife was particularly interested in getting her bear. We both took pictures of the stadium at the approach, and once the doors opened, it was every man for himself to get to the entrance.

There was a huge crowd already lined up for the game over two hours before the start of the game. I had yet to pick up my tickets, so I cut through the crowd to get to the ticket kiosk. I was confronted with a bank of broken or out of service machines, when I found one that was working and was quickly able to get my ticket.

As I was walking to the back of the stadium to see if the lines were shorter at those entrances, I walked right by a new entrance with no line that was opening up just as the gates were opening, and I was one of maybe the first hundred people in the stadium, inside and with my bear before people who had been waiting for over an hour even moved. Luck was definitely at least flirting with me at this point.

The way out was uneventful as well. Large crowds swarmed to the 7 trains, and it was wall-to-wall people on the extra express until the first couple of stations started to bleed passengers from the train. I went straight from the PATH to my car, as I had to go to my parents’ house to prepare the eggs for Easter the next day.

(And on my way home from that, I was trailed by a cop who decided to pull me over right as I was pulling into my garage to point out that I had managed to drive from my parents' house back to Hoboken without my lights on. Seeing my Metropolitan gear, he jokingly let me off with a warning because I was a fan.)


The Stadium & Fans: 

Home plate to center field, Not Shea Stadium

 Not Shea Stadium hadn't changed much since last season. The big updates were the addition of a NY lottery "Hit It Here" sign in right-center, the addition of a Citi Community Home Run apple in center field, and the fact that Mr. Met came out way earlier than last year. (He used to come out maybe a half hour or so before game time, and he was out and taking pictures at least an hour before, if not longer.) Also, the digital scoreboard in left field that showed the Manager Challenges next to the out-of-town scoreboard was altered to show the Challenges and the number of mound visits that each team had for the game, as part of the new "pace of play" rules for 2018.

Mr. Met

Opening Weekend always draws a big crowd, and especially with the Build-a-Bear giveaway, there was a thronging crowd on hand to see Jason deGrom pitch in only the second game of the season. It was your standard NY crowd. In between the selfies, there was a lot of cheering for what was happening on the field.


At the Game with Oogie: 

First Shack of the Year

There were more pre-teen girls at the game for the teddy bear giveaway than I think I have ever seen at a professional baseball game.

I went and did my run to Shake Shack for the first Shack of the year, and then did my tour of the museum and team store. While I was in line at the store, I ran into the Hispanic couple from the train who were looking for magnets that I had just found. The wife had gotten her teddy bear, so all was fine in the world. In doing my second walk-around, I was surprised to find Mr. Met out so early doing pictures, and then I went up to my seats in the Foxwoods deck, grabbing a Rao's meatball sub in the club area before doing more wandering around.

Second lunch

I settled into my seat on the third-base side of the club level about a half-hour before game time. There was a guy and his girlfriend to my left. He didn't show up in person until the second inning because he was waiting in concession lines, and she was fashionably dressed in cut-up jeans that left her freezing through the entire game. There was a large group of friends to my right who popped in and out throughout the game between beer and concession runs.

The boyfriend to my left was scoring the game, as well as a guy in the row in front of us. It was quite the number of scorers for this day and age. We talked a little about things, and I helped him fill in his card for the plays he missed while getting his date a hot dog at the start of the game.


The Game: 

First pitch, Cardinals vs. Metropolitans

 The Metropolitans were hosting the always-feisty St. Louis Cardinals in, thanks to the odd new scheduling debuting in 2018, the second game of the season this cold Saturday.

The Cardinals were certainly cold, as Jason deGrom set them down in order in the first. New York jumped out to an early lead with a leadoff double, a walk, a fielder's choice that eliminated the lead runner, and another double that brought in two runs, raising a 2-0 lead before going in order the rest of the inning. St. Louis only managed a single in the top of the second, while the bottom of the Metropolitans order only got a walk in the bottom of the inning. The Cards went in order again in the third, and New York repeated the feat.

St. Louis finally got something going in the top of the fourth with a leadoff walk, sacrifice bunt, and back-to-back, two-out singles to bring in a run, to cut the lead to 2-1. New York answered back immediately with a leadoff homer in the bottom of the fourth before only scrounging a single for the rest of the inning, but increasing the lead to 3-1. The Cardinals went in order again in the fifth, while the Metropolitans got a one-out home run to left to get a 4-1 advantage. The Cards got a leadoff single to second on an error in the sixth, but then struck out in order to strand the runner, and New York managed to squander back-to-back leadoff singles in their half.

The Cardinals wasted back-to-back leadoff singles of their own in the top of the seventh, while the Mets turned a leadoff single, walk, ground out, and sacrifice fly into another run, for a 5-1 lead. St. Louis cracked a one-out homer to center in the top of the eighth, while New York converted two singles and a double into another insurance run to make their lead 6-2. The defeated Red Birds only got a walk in the top of the ninth, and the Queens faithful went home happy with a 6-2 win to extend the undefeated streak to two games.


The Scorecard:

Cardinals vs. Metropolitans, 03/31/18. Metropolitans win, 6-2.

Out of perhaps morbid curiosity, I decided to back and try the Metropolitans’ official scorecard, part of the now $6 program. For those poor fools of you who have read all my previous ramblings about the official card (I know you're out there), you'll recall that the Wilpons have done no right in the last decade or so with the scorecard, except for keeping it the full size of a two-page spread and not putting advertisements on it. It has been a wasteland of smudging background colors on the card area itself, erasable lines, and wasting most of the spread with dark background colors around all the borders, making them unable to be written upon.

So imagine my surprise when I was confronted with the clean, new, scorekeeping-friendly scorecard the Metropolitans had. The background was nearly all pristine white and the print quality was decent enough that it didn't erase away. It was intelligently laid out, had minimal use of color, and plenty of space for scoring. It was almost as though they had designed a scorecard to be actually used for scoring.

That said, there were very few interesting plays to score this game. There was a 5U in the bottom of the first on a ground-out to third with men on first and second, a 4Ut in the bottom of the second on a two-out grounder with a man on first, and an overshift ground-out in the bottom of the third (4o-3). The bottom of the sixth had the weirdest play of the game, a CS 8-5 when a runner tried to go first to third on a single, and there was an infield fly rule in the bottom of the eighth (F-6 IF).

The only now-play scoring of note was thanks to the pitcher batting in the 8 hole, I had to do a lettered skip-down to accommodate everyone in the eighth position as the game went on.


The Accommodations: 
Jersey City, sweet Jersey City

Click here to see all the pictures from this trip.

 2018 Stand-Alone

Jupiter (Cardinals)

On a Pleasantly Short Sunday Sojourn 

Roger Dean Stadium, 2015

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Miami Marlins vs. St. Louis Cardinals
Roger Dean Stadium
Grapefruit League (Spring Training)
Jupiter, FL
1:05 PM


Outside the Game:

Jupiter was mercifully close to my parents' condo, giving me a chip shot drive of under and hour there and under an hour back, which was a good deal considering how much driving I had already done and how much more I had left to do. Either way, I definitely wasn't a Spring Chicken anymore.

And it wasn't helping that my father kept waking me up super early as he "quietly" got ready for golf. I mean, I know I should be grateful for a free place to sleep, but then again, it was a place to sleep, and I wasn't doing all that much of it.

I was up, breakfasted, and showered pretty early, and I only needed to leave for the park around 10 AM. I had been there before, so I even knew the way, and the traffic, such as it was, would be cleared up by then. I grabbed my game bag and headed out, and after putting the destination in the GPS, I was off for a quick ride up. I parked and did all my photography outside before heading out to the practice fields for some photos and then heading to an entrance for the short line to get in as gates opened.

Spring training autographs

After the game, I was out again in a flash, and even with the crowd, I was able to leave relatively quickly for the short ride back to the condo. I dumped my bags and shut myself into my parents' bedroom for another coma/nap. After that, I headed down to the clubhouse at the complex, because it was the only place that had Internet, and I mainlined some pop culture for a while and did some typing up and the planning for the next day.

Back in my parents' condo, I had dinner, and then set about using my voucher from an awful stay in Buffalo to secure a room for the next night before seeing how quickly I could kick my parents out of the living room so I could hit the sack early and perhaps get some real sleep before my father woke me up on the way to golf the next morning.

The Stadium & Fans:

Home plate to center field, Roger Dean Stadium

Not much about the Roger Dean Stadium had changed since the first time I visited, except that there were a lot more people in the stands and there was the pitch timer clock in the outfield. The Cardinals fans outnumbered the Marlins fans by at least three-to-one, and probably more. Each fanbase was clustered around their "side" of the field, with the Cardinals by first base and the Marlins by third.

Obviously, there was a big crowd for the game, and it was mostly dominated by Cardinals fans. Unlike some other places, the between-inning activities were still in full swing, but on a tighter schedule thanks to the shorter intermissions. There was still the general minor-league level contests and give-aways to keep people occupied and distracted from heat stroke. Fredbird didn't make the trip down for the Spring, so it was up to the human crew to shepherd the games around.

At the Game with Oogie:

Sun scoring

It was a hot one, which is a statement I'd be making with alarming regularity for the afternoon Grapefruit League games in Florida. I got in as the gates opened, and it was a packed crowd, as the senior resident Cardinals were playing the junior resident Marlins, and the stadium was filled to capacity with all their fans.

Hot dog and souvenir soda

I wandered around the place and took supplementary pictures while drinking a lot of liquids. I grabbed a hot dog and souvenir soda, and later I supplemented that with a "Dean Dog" and a water or two to get me through the game. I had a seat that was at the very last row behind just beyond first, which gave me a nice view of the field, but absolutely no protection from the sun. I was packed in with Cardinals fans, although the people directly to my right were actual Braves fans down for the game. I kept my opinions to myself and made some small talk with them throughout the game.


The Game:

First pitch, Marlins vs. Cardinals

This meaningless Spring Training game pitted stadium-mate Miami Marlins against the home-team-for-today St. Louis Cardinals, with one of the home teams coming away with the victory.

As can happen with Florida afternoon games, it started slowly, with both teams going in order in the first. Miami jumped out to the early lead in the second, getting a run from a leadoff walk with another walk, a fielding error, and a ground out, earning them a 1-0 lead. The Cardinals again went in order. It was the Marlins turn to go in order in the third, while St. Louis stranded a walk and a single in their half.

Miami added to their lead in the fourth with a lead-off homer to dead center, making it 2-0, while the Cardinals stranded two more singles in the bottom of the frame. The Marlins just had a walk in the fifth, while St. Louis finally got on the board with three straight two-out singles, cutting the lead to 2-1. Miami managed not to score in the top of the sixth despite a walk and two singles, while the Cardinals went in order in their half.

The Marlins just had a double to show for the top of the seventh, while St. Louis decided to get all its scoring done. A leadoff double was followed by a homer to left, and a batter reached on an error to be driven in by another, two-out homer to left, leapfrogging ahead to 5-2. Miami went in order in the eighth, and so did the Cardinals, thanks to a double-play that erased a leadoff walk. The Marlins tried to get something going in the ninth with a leadoff single, but two groundouts and a strikeout ended the game, giving the Cardinals their pointless 5-2 victory.


The Scorecard:

Marlins vs. Cardinals, 03/08/15. Cardinals "win," 5-2.

The scorecard was the centerfold of the $4, full-color magazine program. While the scorecard took up the entirety of the spread except for a tiny strip ad at the top, it was printed on semi-gloss magazine paper, while did alright with regular pencil, but much less so with colored pencil.

Which is a shame, because overall, this was a great scorecard. Each batting line had space for a replacement, each batting line ended with batting totals, and each inning column ended with summary totals, including errors and left on base. The scoring boxes were blank and comfortable to score in. Pitching lines were under the batting lines and also included catchers' lines for each pitcher. The scorecard was printed on white, so there was space for notes on the margins. With different paper, this would have been a dream.

There were a number of plays of note. In the top of the third, there was a pitching change with a 1-0 count on the batter that got its own note. In the bottom of the fifth, with runners on first and second, there was a shot into the shift with the shortstop behind second base. The play went to first, too late to get the runner, and the heads-up runner at third went home on the throw. The throw to get him went 6-3-2 but was too late, resulting in everyone being safe. That play got a note as well. And finally, in the top of the sixth, a runner at first went all the way to third on a single to deep left, and he arrived safely, with the player tagging him after he arrived. But he kept the tag on, and the runner left the base, so he was count out CS 7-5 with a note explaining it all. That was a weird one.

All but two players rotated out of the game. The Marlins swapped all their players between the sixth and eighth innings, while the Cardinals swapped all but the bottom two players in the lineup a little earlier in the game, between the fourth and sixth.


The Accommodations:

I was on the pull-out couch at my parents' rented condo again, not quite comfortable, and definitely not getting good sleep thanks to my lead-footed father and his early golfing habits.

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.

2015 Grapefruit League

Chicago

On Overcoming Setbacks

Air Bus

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Chicago, IL

Outside of the Game:
I was going to leave for my flight to Chicago directly from work. Although my flight wasn't until 9 PM, I would be going all public transportation to Newark Liberty Freedom Bald Eagle God Bless America Airport for the first time, so I wanted to give myself some leeway. After double-checking that everything at work was pointed in the right direction, I grabbed my bag and went to the train.

I took the PATH to Journal Square, and then switched over to the Newark train. Getting to Newark Penn Station, I discovered I couldn't get to the Airport station directly, but had to get a train heading that way for one stop and then transfer for the monorail. This was a relatively easy process, and it being rush hour, there were trains leaving along that line every few minutes, so I grabbed the next available iron horse and got to the airport station and switched for the monorail. We were packed like sardines, but a short ride later and I was at Terminal C a little more than an hour after I started.

An excellent first run through, but this left me a good two or so hours to kill at the airport after I got through the fancy-people security line. So I walked around until I found a sit-down restaurant that tickled my fancy and had a proper diner while doing some reading. When it was time, I headed out for my 8:20 boarding time. Thanks to a late-arriving plane, we weren't ready to board until about a quarter to nine. Although we were a little late getting going, we had enough cushion that we could make it up in the air. The flight was of little note outside of some reading and napping, and we landing just about on-time in Chicago.

After getting off the plane, it took a bit of walking around to finally find the banks of cabs that were just waiting for me. I gave the cabbie the address, and about a half hour later, he dropped me at the doorstep and left me $40 poorer.

The Accommodations:
There's kind of a long story behind this. Back in April when I was looking for a place to stay, I found that the hotel prices in Chicago were incredibly high, even for Chicago, for this weekend. (I'd later find out this was because of the big air show in town during that period.) I was using Hipmunk to try and find listings, and one of the things that came up was a place called AirBnb.

After a little bit of research, I discovered this was a short-term apartment or room rental service. If you had an extra room, or were going to be out of town for an extended period of time, this site would help you find people who were looking to rent it. (It was in the news recently when a renter absolutely trashed one of the rental properties and the AirBnb company tried to downplay the situation and label it as an exaggeration. They've been doing a full-court press PR campaign to try and save face from their missteps since then.) There was a yuppie couple with a Wrigleyville apartment a few blocks from the park looking to rent a nice room for about $100/night, which was still about at least $100/night cheaper than anything else in a formal hotel, so I booked it. We exchanged some nice emails, and then I didn't think about it for six months.

The Sunday before I left, I emailed them again, looking to finalize the details. I got a puzzled email from them saying they cancelled the reservation and I had responded, so they were wondering what I was talking about. Some manic activity turned up a bunch of information quickly. Apparently, they had indeed cancelled the reservation a month ago while I was in Japan, and I had not gotten any message from AirBnb, probably because it was flagged as spam when I was in Japan and not checking my spam folder too closely. When you get cancelled on by a host, AirBnb “helpfully” posts a message as you in their system saying when the cancellation happened, so my original hosts thought I had received the news about the cancellation and was being a jerk about it. If I didn't email them that weekend, I would have shown up on their doorstep without a place to stay on Thursday.

Now, anyone can screw up, and it all about how you rectify the errors that generally make all the difference. The customer service people at AirBnb were actually helpful. They immediately gave me $50 off everything, and then put out a "last-minute help" message. Within 24 hours, I had several offers from several different locations around the city, and the customer service rep assigned to my case called me every day to see how I was doing. After a day or so of back and forth, I settled on a place a few blocks from Wrigley Field and made the (cheaper) reservation with my customer service rep. So everything worked out, although there are still some kinks to work out of the system (such as having “you” auto-post messages right after cancellations, which is just asking for trouble).

At any rate, the room in the apartment I was renting was in the “back half” of the building, which is apparently a common thing in Chicago. The host had sent me some detailed directions on how to get in, so I had a pretty good idea of what I needed to do. I just had to go to the back of the building and climb up all the decks to get to the top floor. I wasn’t quite expecting how long the building was, as getting to the back took me down a set of stairs and through an extended dungeon-like passage. Eventually I emerged at the other end, wondering if there was even a fire code in Chicago at all, and climbed up to the top of the back. As promised, a key was waiting for me, hidden on the deck, and I let myself in to an empty condo.

The condo itself was very nice and modern, with the aforementioned deck, and a biggish living room/kitchen area, bathrooms, and the bedrooms. I wanted nothing more than to just get to bed, so I went down to the hall the host had identified as mine, and dumped off my bags.

Soon after, I got a call from the host saying he was still out working and he was going to be back in a half an hour or so. I had every intention of  staying up to meet him, but for some reason I was asleep as soon as I lay down to read for a little bit.

On Returning to the Best

Wrigley Field, 2011

Friday, August 19, 2011

St. Louis Cardinals vs. Chicago Cubs

Wrigley Field

MLB, National League

Chicago, IL

1:20 PM

Outside the Game:
Getting back to Wrigley was the whole purpose of this trip. It was one of the first parks that I had seen on my baseball trips, and coincidentally turned out to be my favorite. (The last park I visited on these trips, Fenway, came in at number 2. It is also worth noting that they are the two oldest parks left in the league.)

My host mentioned that the White Sox were also in town, playing a seven o’clock game, and he encouraged me to try for the double-header. Frankly, this was not something for which I needed much arm-twisting. And so the plan was hatched. It was a simple Red Line ride from one stadium to the other, and unless the Cubs game went extremely over, it was a can of corn.

After I left the apartment, I went directly to the ballpark, and did my walk-around and picture-taking. Not yet having breakfast, I went across the street to the McDonalds. Now, I normally wouldn’t do such a thing, except for two reasons. One was that it was a baseball-themed McDonalds built especially for its proximity to Wrigley. The second was that it was absolutely packed with Cubs personnel. Now, if the workers from across the way are here, when presumably there are a bunch of other places to get food, it has to be worth going to, or the other options around aren’t as good (or, in retrospect, if they likely got an employee discount). At any rate, I went to McDonalds for breakfast and didn’t die.

Outside the stadium, they were having a Wrigleyville Block Party right next to the main gate and ticket window. It opened up a half hour before the gates for the game did, and it had a beer garden, so there was a huge press of mostly Cardinals fans to get some beer before they could go inside and get more beer. It was an interesting little fair, with beer and food and a stage with live bands (the first of which was the rather amusingly named “Rendition”). I went to an activity table to make a Christmas card for service personnel and got a very useful little carry-bag I made use of for the rest of the weekend. About twenty minutes later, I got on line and went into the stadium.

After the game, I was looking to make it South Side for the Sox game, and me the mindless scrum to get into the Addison El Station. About twenty sweaty, oxygen-deprived minutes later, I made it through the gates and to a south-bound train.

The Stadium & Fans:

Home plate to center field, Wrigley Field

Even with the non-optimum seats I had my first time through, Wrigely was hands-down my favorite park in the majors, beating out Fenway on a few critical areas. They had made several adjustments since the last time I was there, including an unwanted “Captain Morgan” area out in front by the fan walk and a revamped team store right by the main entrance. Nevertheless, the stadium was still in its endless seats, winding ramps, seats-on-houses-across-the-street, and bathroom trough glory.

It is hard to encapsulate the absolute rightness that Wrigley gives off, as it is mostly a non-tangible thing. But it was very much real, and one of the only two remaining active parks in America where Babe Ruth ever played. (There’s two more in Japan, for the trivia-minded.)

The slightly claustrophobic interior, the lack of fancy concessions, and the warts-and-all atmosphere are exactly what I look for in a baseball experience. There are no loud and distracting jumbotron distractions between innings, and the only event they have is one worth having: the seventh-inning stretch. With Harray Caray just being able to look down from heaven with beer-blearied eyes, they have celebrities sing it every game. Sitting where I was, I was only a stone’s throw from Larry King belting out “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” When they added a “specialty area” to the park (the “PNC Club”), they just gutted an existing luxury box to make it and didn’t tack on something else to the already crowded stadium.

Sweaty-eyed maniac

The fans were same fatalistic but hopeful Cub fans I had known from the last time. When the Cubs went down early, the outcome was not unexpected, but they kept up hope nevertheless, even when a seemingly impossible miscue seemed to kill their last chances at a comeback. And that’s the kind of fans that are worth having.

There was unsurprisingly a large Cardinals contingent for the game, and also unsurprisingly, the Card fans seemed to stay together in large flocks – just in case, one supposes. But all the back-and-forth seemed to be in good spirits for most of the game.

At the Game with Oogie:

Pre-game brat

I had nearly forgotten about the “early bird special” at Wrigley, which is that up to an hour before game time, there is a big discount on concession items,. I was reminded of that fact when I bought my first brat. This led to a second brat, and then an indeterminate amount of brats afterwords until the special was over. I felt no particular need for food for the rest of the afternoon, for some reason.

As I was wandering around and taking my pictures, I bought a block of tickets for the 50/50 raffle (in keeping with my “always participate in charity events at the ballpark”) and headed out to do my pictures. It was then I first encountered the air show. My host had mentioned it, and there is a big air and water show on the lake every year that is a huge deal in these parts. It wasn’t scheduled until the Saturday, but they were doing the “dress rehearsal” today, so we were buzzed rather continuously by planes for all of the afternoon. It was eventually enough of a distraction that the players (particularly Albert Pujols) seemed to be getting peeved about it. After I did my normal picture-taking rigmarole, I headed up to my seat.

I bought the ticket for this game on the day single-game seats went on sale sometime in March, if I remember correctly. I was very excited at the time, but I forgot about it in the intervening months, especially with Japan in the middle there.

But when I got into the park, I remembered why I was in love with this seat. I was in section 420 (duuude), which was in the upper deck right below the broadcast booth, behind home plate, in the first row. When they take the postcard shots for the stadium, they sit in my damn seat. It was so beautiful that I nearly cried. If it was legal in the great state of Illinois for a man to marry Wrigley Field seats, I would have done so at the first opportunity. It was easily the overall best seat I had ever had for a game.

View from the seat

Not surprisingly, I was mostly in a season ticket-holder section. There was an older couple of either side of me, and the man to my left was keeping score, aided by his wife when he had to get up for whatever reason. These were people a man could trust. Right next to me on my left was a father with his kid. We talked on and off throughout the game, and I had to keep an eye on the kid once while the Dad went to get some food. They were all baseball people and Cubs people, and it was nice to be in such company, which is one of the reasons that I loved Wrigley so much.

The Game:

First pitch, Cardinals vs. Cubs

The last and only other time I’d visited Wrigley, the Cubs got blown out big, and it looked to be history repeating itself on this day, with the woeful Cubs playing the Cardinals, who still had a shot in catching the seemingly unstoppable Brewers.

The Cards went in order in the top of the first, and the Cubs had a scattered single and walk erased by an inning-ending double play. The Cardinals started their damage in the second, with a one-out walk followed by a two-out home run. A double and a single to bring the runner home also came closely thereafter before Cubs could end it. They only mustered a single in their half, ending the second inning down, 3-0.

St. Louis went in order in the third, but the Cubs managed to scrape one back. A leadoff single was erased on a fielder’s choice, but another groundout to short advanced the lead runner to second, where a two-out single brought the run around. And there would have been more if not for a sterling catch by the Cardinal center fielder to leave it 3-1 Cards.

The Cardinals got the run right back with a solo home run in the fourth, with the Cubs only managing a walk erased with a double play in their half, making it 4-1 Cardinals after four. The Red Birds scattered two walks to no effect in the top of the fifth, while the Cubs got one back again with a leadoff home run in their half to close it to 4-2.

St. Louis went in order in the sixth, and the Cubs had a leadoff single erased by another double-play. The Cards again went in order in the seventh, but, perhaps inspired by Larry Kings rendition of “Take Me Out To the Ballgame, back-to-back triples (triples?) gave the Cubs another run, making it a tantalizingly close 4-3 at the end of seven. A single led off the eighth, only to be cut down stealing, and another base runner on a walk didn’t go anywhere for the Cardinals. In their half, the Cubs got a one-out walk that came all the way home on a long double to center, but the Cubs could do no more than tie it up 4-4 at the end of eight.

The Birds went in order again in the ninth, and then one of the most inexplicable plays I have ever seen or am likely to ever see happened in such a way as to personify the flailing century-long failure of the Cubs. We start with a leadoff single from a pinch hitter that just gets past the second baseman. Okay, we’re fine so far.

And then the runner tried to steal second. This is also not out of the ordinary, except that the batter lifted one to center, caught easily by the outfielder. The runner had no idea what was going on. Some wild gesticulating by the base coaches eventually got him moving… towards third. By the time he got sorted out and on his way back to first, the center fielder had doubled him up.

The crowd went into hysterics. The fact that the next batter got a single that may have scored the runner to win the game was an afterthought. Everyone was wondering who had screwed up what on the play. Either the batter missed the steal signal and managed to pop one up, or the runner was going on his own… none of it made sense. It definitely was a steal attempt and not a hit-and-run from the way that the runner was acting. It was still a hot topic of conversation as regulation play ended and the game slumped into extra innings with a tangible pall in the air.

It was a fast-paced game, and extra innings started less than three hours after the start of the game. The Cardinals went in order again, bringing the Cubs to the plate again with the score still tied. Finally, some basics went right. A leadoff single was sacrificed to second base with little incident. And then another pinch hitter came to the plate to avenge his teammate, lining a clean single to center to bring home the winning run and send the fans and players into a joyous celebration, the likes of which they might have if they ever get back to the World Series.

The Scorecard:

 Cardinals vs. Cubs, 08/19/11. Cubs win, 1-0 in 10.

Although the Cubs do sell their own scorecard, I’ve used it before, so decided to pinch-hit the Eephus League scorecard. I usually either draw a line for where the hit goes (which fails when there is an infield hit) or draw a bubble for where the hit went (which can also fail for the same reason). It can be cramped, but I tried to write in the numerical designation for the field of the hit with the hit information (e.g. “1B 8”). It was a bit of a tight fit, but I think I like how it worked out.

Easily the most bizarre thing I’ve ever had to write in the scorebook was “DP F8-3” on the play described further up. I mean, everyone was stunned on that play, including the baserunner.

The Accommodations:
When I woke up on this morning, I finally got to meet my AirBnb host, who was sleeping on the couch. Recently out of college, he was renting his room in the condo as a source of income to pay his rent while he was working on his start-up project that took much of his time, as his long day the previous night had shown. He rents out his room a few weekends a month, sleeps on the couch, and makes rent. It is exactly the sort of plan that would have made a lot of sense to a twenty-something me at one point, except that the Internet didn’t really exist in a commeditizable form back then, and all of my apartments from that period were dumps not really near anything, or arrayed in any way that would have left me any place to sleep once I rented out my bed.

Needless to say, it seemed to work out for him, and I wish him all the best.

But I didn’t get back to the apartment until late that night, because I was about to see two games…

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.

2011 Chicago