What Makes a Ballpark Great?

In my continuing efforts to visit every Major League ballpark in my lifetime, my husband and I traveled north to Boston to catch a game at the legendary and iconic Fenway Park.  We brought along my 11-year-old son, who was rooting for the visiting Orioles but was excited to see Pablo Sandoval and David "Big Papi" Ortiz in person.  It was a beautiful day for baseball, and the ballpark was packed.

So what did I think of Fenway Park?  Well, I had actually been there before, but I was a college student, there was alcohol on the bus, and I honestly don't remember much other than being the only fan rooting for the Minnesota Twins (seeing Kirby Puckett in person was a pretty cool thing for me back then).  So I decided to look at Fenway as if I was visiting it for the first time, and I made some comparisons between this park and my most-visited ballpark:  Nationals Park in Washington, DC.

First of all, Nationals fans expect to get something every time they visit the ball park - either a score card, a rally towel, or any freebie featuring the team's curly "W" logo.  Never mind the fact that most of the fans are federal employees who drive Lexuses or Priuses and can afford to buy Nationals jerseys in both home and away colors - they want something free!  I'm one who tries to plan her visits according to the promotions schedule (remember last year, how I wasn't able to attend "Jayson Werth Garden Gnome Night?"  Those things are going for crazy amounts of money on eBay!)  At Fenway Park, programs with score cards cost money, no one is handing you anything free, and fans are OK with that.  The only promotion on the day we visited was "Nun Day," where many area nuns were given a free ticket to attend the game.  It was nice seeing so many nuns enjoying themselves so much, even though they had crappy seats.

Another difference between the two ballparks is the PA announcers.  Apparently the Red Sox have more than one, and on the day we were there, the dude sounded ancient. Not Vin Scully or Harry Caray ancient, but just old, like a man who has had his prostate removed  But again, the fans are OK with that.  They don't need the Nationals' PA announcer, who sounds like a car commercial and stretches a two-syllable name like "Ramos" into a ten-second line that makes him sound like a Univisión soccer commentator announcing a goal.  Red Sox fans don't need fanciness or flashiness - they don't need the Mount Rushmore presidents racing each other during the fourth inning; they are perfectly happy singing "Sweet Caroline" during the eighth, no need for t-shirt cannons or dancing hottie girls.  Plus Fenway Park has a real live organist who plays a real live organ!  How cool is that?  He even cranked out "Sister Christian" and Mister Mister's "Kyrie" in honor of the nuns!

Red Sox fans also don't need cup holders at their seats.  While there are some plastic seats with cup holders in the rows of seats that are shown on TV, the farther-up rows have wooden seats (mine even had some areas of rot) without cup holders, an occasional obstructed view due to support columns, and no valet service that allows you to text your order and have it brought directly to your seat (yes, Nationals Park offers this service).  Fenway fans are happy to get up, walk around, and buy an overpriced beer ($9, just like at Nats Park), a Fenway Frank, or an Italian sausage.  They don't need the offerings from Ben's Chili Bowl, Nationals Taquería, or the carving station in the luxury boxes.  These fans are die-hard, and they've been happily rooting for their last-place Red Sox all season long despite their park not having leather couches for relaxing (found at Nats Park near one of the ramps that take you to the upper levels).

So who has the better ballpark?  Well, it depends on what you want out a visit.  Do you just want to watch a game with thousands of fans who have followed your team for decades, or do you want to be pampered and doted on?  Do you plan on celebrating every base hit and every run scored during every inning, even if your team is losing (the Orioles beat the Red Sox 8-6 at our game), or do you plan on arriving late, staying for a few innings, and leaving after they stop selling alcohol in the seventh inning?  Going to a baseball game should be an experience - something you can cherish and remember and tell your grandchildren about someday.  So is it better to tell them that an underpaid valet parked your car for you, or would you rather tell your grandkids that your ball park had a lively atmosphere both inside and along the streets surrounding it; that your park has a "green monster" (which I did not like seeing covered in advertisements), and that both Ted Williams and Pedro Martinez played in your park? And the fact that you no longer have to pee in a trough was a bonus for my husband, who grew up using the bathrooms in Cleveland's old Municipal Stadium.  I will always be a Nationals fan, but despite the terrible-quality toilet paper in the bathrooms and lack of natural lighting in their concessions area, Fenway Park is pretty great.  Ask any baseball purist out there, and he/she will agree.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Hello there, fellow baseball fans!  What's happenin'?  Well I'll tell you what's happening - Chris Heston, a 27-year-old rookie pitcher making just his 13th start for the San Francisco Giants, threw a no-hitter last night against the New York Mets at Citi Field.  I tuned in during the ninth innings with two outs, so I was able to enjoy the thrill of the no-hitter without the stress of sitting through a whole game wondering if the no-hitter was going to be broken.  Watching a no-hitter never gets old, and what made it interesting is that Heston actually hit three batters during the game!  Another interesting fact is that the Giants' catcher, Buster Posey, has now caught three no-hitters, which puts him in second place after the Red Sox's Jason Varitek, who caught four in his career.  You know me - I have to take a story and turn it so that the catcher looks good! (And if you read this blog regularly, you already knew that Iván Rodriguez caught 2 no-hitters in his career)

That was the "good."  The "bad" is that the Washington Nationals have lost 9 of their last 11 games.  They're still only half a game out of first place (because no one else in the NL East seems to want to win), but they're playing some terrible baseball.  Bryce Harper and Yunel Escobar seem to be the only ones hitting, 2 of their starting pitchers (Stephen Strasburg and Doug Fister) are on the Disabled List, and their bullpen just plain old sucks (except for their closer, Drew Storen, who hasn't seen much action lately).  It's very disappointing, though the season isn't even half over yet, and us "glass-half-full" people are trying to stay positive.  Luckily the Nationals don't play against the Mets until July, so they have some time to get their stuff together.

And now for the "ugly."  Staying with the Nationals for a minute... Shortstop Ian Desmond has committed FOURTEEN errors this season.  Who DOES that?  Do you think I would still have my job if I made 14 errors in 9 weeks?  And Desmond makes WAY more money than I do!  The thing is, they keep putting him in the lineup every day, and I think he just needs to sit out a game or two - a "mental health day" of sorts.  They have several guys (Escobar, Espinosa, Rendón) who can play shortstop while Desmond clears his head - and they probably wouldn't commit any errors!  It is so frustrating, because he's missing some pretty basic little-league-type plays; maybe he needs to get his eyes checked?  Seriously - how often do baseball players get eye exams?  I hope that's part of a routine physical at the beginning of each season; in Desmond's case, I would send him to an eye doctor right away.

Now in order to not end this blog post on a negative note, let me also mention that the Angels' Albert Pujols tied Mickey Mantle for 16th on the all-time home runs list with number 536.  That's pretty cool - anyone who has the potential to cleanly pass Barry Bonds on the list is a cool dude in my book.  Also hitting a home run on the same day was the Houston Astros' Carlos Correa.  This was his first homer (a long way from Pujol's 536) - but any time a kid makes his Major League debut and hit his first homer in the same week, that's pretty special.  And Correa is Puerto Rican (not a catcher), so there's that coolness factor as well.

So there you have it - highlights (and lowlights) from this week's baseball action so far.  See how I write more often when there's actually stuff about which to write?  Let's hope the next few weeks bring more excitement - I need to have things to write about once school is out and I'm done with work for the summer!

Meet the A's New Righty, er, Lefty

May was a crazy month in our house.  3 of the 4 people who live here had birthdays within 9 days of each other, life revolved around track meets and baseball games (until my son broke his foot, putting an early end to his season), and a trip to Nationals Park on Mother's Day was thrown in there as well.  I've also been busy with a new writing project, but just like those ants that invade your kitchen every spring, I always keep coming back.  This blog is very dear to me, and I am never going away (sorry, folks, you just can't get rid of Mudville Mom!).

It's been an interesting baseball season so far - Bryce Harper is living up to his hype and leading the Majors with 18 home runs (along with Nelson Cruz and Giancarlo Stanton); the Orioles' Matt Wieters came back after a one-year recovery from Tommy John surgery (it's not just pitchers who get that done!); and Alex Rodriguez passed Barry Bonds in the all-time RBI list.  As much as I dislike A-Rod (and you should all know that by now!), I hope he realizes that he can be just as good a player without performance-enhancing drugs.  Same for Nelson Cruz - without the PEDs he's still hitting home runs, so let that be a lesson to you all:  You can be pretty good without PEDs.

OK, so what about this pitcher that the Oakland A's just called up from the minors?  Well, Pat Venditte is a switch-pitcher, something that Major League Baseball hasn't seen in 20 years.  In his first big-league game, he entered the game in the eighth inning against the Boston Red Sox.  He started throwing warm-up pitches with his right hand, then he switched to his left to face a lefty batter who grounded out.  Then Venditte pitched right-handed to the next two batters, one who got a single (Hanley Ramirez) and the other who hit into a double play (Mike Napoli).

Because switch-pitching is such an oddity, the "Venditte Rule" had to be implemented (hopefully the guy will be known for more than just a rule with his name on it - kind of like poor Tommy John, who had a decent pitching career but is mostly known for his surgery.  And don't even mention Lou Gehrig, one of the greatest Yankees ever who had to have ALS named after him after he died from it way before people started foolishly pouring buckets of ice water on themselves for charity).  Anyway, the "Venditte Rule" states that before each at-bat, the pitcher tells the umpire, batter, and baserunners what hand he will throw with for that batter.  If the player at the plate switch hits, he is free to hit from either side.  The pitcher cannot throw with the other arm in the same at-bat.

So we'll have to see how good Venditte ends up being and if he tends to favor one arm over the other.  One positive note is that if he injures one arm, he still has the other one that he can use (Remember Jim Abbott, the one-handed pitcher back in the 90s who went from college ball straight to the Majors after pitching in the 1988 olympics?  It can be done!).  Let's keep an eye on Pat Venditte and see how he does - I definitely find this guy interesting.

In other baseball news, the All-Star voting is well under way.  I plan to submit my ballot as soon as school is over, when I can sit down and analyze all the players without any work-related interruptions.  I usually vote earlier in the season, and then someone I voted for ends up in a slump or with an injury, so I'm going to wait a little this year.  I know that the Giants' Buster Posey and the Cardinals' Yadier Molina are in a dead heat for the starting catcher position, and I'm not sure if I'll go strictly Puerto Rican on that one or if I will give my sentimental vote to cutie-patootie Posey.  I also have to decide if I should vote for Bryce Harper because he's having a great season, or give my vote to Nick Markakis of the Braves, because he's not an ass like Harper is (and my step-daughter took care of Markakis's dog when she worked in an animal emergency room).  Luckily we get three votes for the outfield, so I may vote for both.

So until I cast my vote in a couple of weeks, enjoy the nice weather (it finally stopped raining here in the mid-Atlantic), catch some games on TV or in person, and feel free to go to www.mlb.com and cast your own vote for this year's All-Stars.   Maybe next year we'll see Pat Venditte on the All-Star team.