Kj's Baseball Collection: Home of Your Dbacks

My baseball from visiting the Arizona Diamondbacks's Chase Field is an image one with a street map of the downtown Phoenix area. It has a big star where Chase Field is located with the label Chase Field. It also oddly has the nearby U.S. Airways Center (I think this is the basketball arena) identified in big letters. There are other landmarks noted with small dots and lettering, but the U.S. Airways is identified in the same big lettering as Chase Field despite having a small dot. The ball says Home of Your Dbacks in the middle of the Map. One side has a black D logo and the other has a red A Diamondbacks logo.

Mik's Mini Bat Collection: Black Dbacks

There were no mini bats at the Play Ball exhibit, so Mik's first bat from the All the Ballparks trip was from the Dbacks game. He already has a lot of Dbacks mini bats, but he found one with a different Dbacks logo than any he has and it is black, which is a color he did not have in his Dbacks collection yet. The mini bat has a silver Louisville Slugger logo and a red A Dbacks logo with Diamondbacks written below it.

Game 1: Washington Nationals 2 @ Arizona Diamondbacks 1

The first game of the trip was a great one in my opinion, as my team won. Mik was a little disappointed, but he really got into the ninth inning when the Dbacks scored 1 run and had a shot of winning. He mostly played his DS and PSP during the game, but in the bottom of the 9th he shut it off and even said "This is exciting." That's the best I could hope for, especially after his close to annoying complaining of wanting to leave as early as the 7th mainly because the Dbacks were losing.

Honestly, I did not expect the Nats to win, as they have not been great this season and I think today's win makes it the first time this season they have won three in a row and they still are the worst team in baseball. I also expected it to be a hitter's game with lots of run, which seems to happen a lot when the Nats are involved in a game. Instead it was an interesting low run game, although I would not exactly call it a pitcher's duel with the Nats starting pitcher, Lannan, walking about one Dback an inning and a decent amount of hits from both teams. Nevertheless it was a fun game to watch and a great start to the trip.

The seats we had in section 105 were not too bad. The scoreboard was kind of hard to see, but not impossible. The one thing that annoyed me a little is the bar in front of the handicap seats that are right in the line of sight for watching the game if you are short. It really is a poor design thing in my opinion, especially for those in wheelchairs that cannot really stand up and try to get that out of their view when something really exciting happens. Unfortunately, that is pretty standard for handicap seating as far as I have experienced. Of course, Mik does not mind, as he mostly played his video games and actually found he could lean forward and get a good sight line below the bar. It is the only time I do not bug him for not sitting up straight. I kind of felt like this bar was a little higher than most other areas, though, because it never seemed to bug me as much. Or perhaps it is all the non-handicap seats I sat in last year at the Nats and got used to no people or bars in my sight line.

Besides the helmet sundae and Mik's meatball sandwich we had some other good food. I had a good veggie wrap and also had an interesting Green Apple Jolly Ranger Slushie. More on the food to hopefully come in the form of Mik's Food Review, which is a category I going to try to get Mik to consistently help post to or at least post the food scrapbook photos from this trip to.

Right now I am posting as we drive back to Tucson using the handy USB Internet thing for my laptop. It works pretty good, but not too great for trying to upload a bunch of photos, so I will get the rest of the photos from the game uploaded later. I will try to remember to update (here or a new post) when I do, but the photos will be uploaded in the album that can be seen if you click the photos in this post.

Now just 12 more days until the real road trip part of the trip begins. Today was just a small taste of the trip and I am totally excited for the actual trip begin. I sort of wish it was sooner, but then again there is still a lot I need to take care of at home before we hit the road for two and a half months.

Update 5/10/09: The photos I took at the ballpark and the game are now all uploaded here. They can also be seen in the album you get to by clicking the photos in the post.

Waiting for Game to Start

We got to Nats @ Dbacks game way early. We even got the gift shop shopping out of the way before they closed to prepare for opening for the game. I got a cool baseball that has a street map of Phoenix downtown marking where Chase Field is. Mik has probably 5 or more Dbacks mini bats in his collection already, but he found a black one on homestand special to add to the collection. They also had some World Baseball Classic 09 stuff on sale. I got two balls and Mik got a mini bat from that section. Lastly I got a cool Chase Field postcard that has spots on the back for putting the game info like final score. I am mailing that with a Take Me Out to the Ballgame stamp for my postmarked postcard collection.

The park finally opened at 3pm. On the way to our seats I got a helmet sundae. I am going to try to collect one from each team when we are at their ballpark. Mik already got a meatball sandwich, but we will probably have dinner later as we are still full from lunch at Sonic. Now we are waiting for the game to start. About another 30 minutes to go.

Go Nats!!!!!!

And from Mik: Go Dbacks!!!!!!!!!!!

Arizona Diamondbacks @ San Diego Padres Game Wrap Up

Last night we went to Petco Park to see a game as something to do while in San Diego for a family reunion. Partly went because we love going to baseball games and mostly because Mik's favorite team was in town. The Diamondbacks lost, but it was still a pretty exciting game with lots of scoring. I was a little disappointed that Jon Rauch, who was recently traded to the Diamondbacks from the Nationals and is the tallest Major League Baseball player ever, did not pitch at all.

The Padres got on the board with a 2-run home run by Khalil Greene in the 2nd inning. The Diamondbacks then came back in the 3rd with a 3-run home run by Montero. The Padres put the game out of reach, though, with a 9 batter inning that included a 3-run home run and a total of 6 runs. The Diamondbacks kept the Padres from scoring the rest of the game, but were only able to get 1 more run in the 6th themselves. Thus the Padres won 8-4.

Overall this was a fun game, but we did have some annoying people behind us and distractions of security coming by several times to confiscate alcohol that group brought in. Plus they were using a lot of foul language and we certainly did not appreciate them using that foul language to bash the Diamondbacks. I do not care if people root for their own team, but I do not think it is ever appropriate to bash other teams and I think the players themselves can agree with that.

Also, Petco Park is one confusing ballpark that is pretty horrible for being among the new ballparks. I remember sitting next to the building in the left outfield the first year it was open and we could not even see the scoreboard. We could see it this time from the Right Outfield seats, but getting there with Mik in his wheelchair took us quite some time and involved us going up and down elevators and up ramps. I did not mind too much since we got like a small tour of the ballpark, but it is sad that the three ushers gave us bad directions and the signs are not at all clear about where the elevators are at for specific sections.

See more photos I took at the game here.