Indians 3, Angels 2 -- The Streak Continues

This past weekend, Duckie was kind enough to accompany me to my 20th high school reunion in Penfield.  This was our second trip to Rochester this month.  Now, I love my family and I think Rochester is a great town, but two trips there in the hottest month of the year?  Well you gotta add a little somethin' somethin' to entice the wife to make the trip.  In this case, the "somethin' somethin'" took the form of a side trip to Cleveland to see an Indians game.  Was it worth it?  Hell, yes!

Cleveland Rocks!
I had never been to Cleveland (neither had Duckie), but we would definitely go back.  The front desk staff at the Hilton Garden Inn was great.  Super friendly.  And not they-pay-me-to-be-friendly friendly.  They were really friendly.  Stuart, our waiter at Carnegie Kitchen and Dining was awesome.  We went to CKD, twice for cheap high quality breakfast and Stuart's helpful advice about Cleveland.  We didn't actually take his advice about what to eat at the ballpark because we were too full of the tasty goodness from Iron Chef Michael Symon's restaurant, Lola, to eat during the game.  I'm sure his suggestions were spot on, though.

Finally, the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland. Go there.  Go see the inductee video presentation on the 5th floor.  It takes a while to get through all 26 years of inductees, but it's worth it.  The guy next to Duc had a grand ol' time.  He couldn't stop laughing, which was a little weird but not totally inappropriate.

The Park:
Progressive Field opened as Jacob's Field in 1994.  It's nickname is "The Jake", which has to be the best nickname for a baseball park.   It's a nice park.  Not quite as pretty as AT&T and PNC parks, but it has to be the easiest stadium to get in and out of that I've ever been to.  We had field level seats behind home plate about 25 rows back.  They were pretty sweet.  It felt like reasonable foul ball territory, but nothing got anywhere near us.

The Fans:
Meh.  The park was far from full, and the fans weren't particularly decked out in Indians' regalia.  I don't know.  Maybe the Cleveland fan base is just too worn down from years of futility and abuse.  Maybe they're embarrassed by the iconic but decidedly offensive Chief Wahoo.  Or maybe I'm just becoming biased because the Giants fans are beginning to look and act like the Red Sox Nation thereby making other mellower fan bases look uncommitted and disinterested.  Or maybe they just need more Asian fans (Duc spent several innings scanning the stadium trying to establish her level of Asian tokenhood.  We eventually spotted an Asian women several rows in front of us, and later a bunch of Asian kids popped up on the diamond vision screen).  In any case, I wasn't impressed.

Extracurricular Entertainment:
The staff at The Jake did a decent job keeping us entertained between innings of a game that was pretty tedious for the first 6 innings or so.

They had a race in which an 8 year-old with a mohawk unfolded and put on a frozen t-shirt faster than his normal-haired opponent. 

There was a footrace between three poor suckers dressed up as condiments (or maybe they were hot dogs covered in particular condiments -- it wasn't clear) during which we learned that Ketchup is a dirty no-good cheater.  (Duckie got a great picture of Mustard before the race.  He finished last.)


Thanks to the folks at Fenway, a lot of ballparks feel a need for an 8th inning sing-along.  The Jake is no exception, and the song of choice is "Hang On Sloopy" by the McCoys.  A great choice for the home of the Rock 'N Roll HOF, I must admit.

The Teams:
The Tribe squared off against the Los Angelheim Angels, my least favorite baseball team.  Orange County is home to two off the worst American cultural phenomena: the Angels and "The Real Housewives of Orange County".  Two good reasons to stay clear of the place.  I'm trying to come up with an insulting name for the Angels based on TRHOOC without sounding misogynistic.  If you have any ideas, send 'em my way.

The Indians team featured two Athletics' cast offs: right fielder Travis Buck and third baseman Jack Hannahan.  In the 9th inning they were batting back to back (7th and 8th in the line-up, I think).  That's enough to give an A's fan PTSD flashbacks of the Bob Geren era {shudder}.

The Angels team also featured a former Athletic -- a good one though.  Danny Haren got the start and pitched very well for Los Angelheim.  He struck out 10 in 7 2/3 innings with 2 walks, 3 hits, and 2 earned runs.  I like the guy, but I'll like him more when he gets the hell of that damn team.

There were a bunch of really great names involved in the game on both sides:
Torii Hunter -- We've decided to start pronouncing both i's as if he were Japanese or Hawaiian
Ezequiel Carrera -- A z and a q in one first name?  Awesome.
Asdrubal Cabrera -- He's an excellent shortstop with first name of dwarf from Middle Earth
Carlos Santana -- He's a Black Magic Catcher....(sorry about that)
Maicer Izturis -- Pronounced just the way it's spelled.
Lonnie Chisenhall -- Great rhythm to that name, but not as much as...
Alberto Callaspo  -- Don't forget to pronounce the double l properly.  It makes all the difference.

The Game:
It's was a great game, but I don't think I would have said that in 6th inning.  I'm not going to give you the full recap or run through the box score.  Not my style.  I'll just let you know what I found noteworthy.

First of all, the Indians starting pitcher, Fausto Carmona, is extremely painful to watch.  He takes something like 3 hours between pitches, and it's not like he's efficient with his pitches.  He only struck out three Angels in 6 innings while walking 3 and giving up 4 hits with 100 pitches.  It didn't feel like a dominant performance, but when he left the game he was beating Danny Haren 1-0.  Unfortunately for Fausto, the Indians bullpen let him down.  No win for him.  Angels DH, Bobby Abreu -- or as I like to call him, some jerk -- hit a 2-run homer in the 8th.  Since Danny Haren recorded two more outs in the bottom half of the inning, he was in line for the win when he left.  He didn't get it, which is what made the game a great one.

The Angels appeared to have things well in hand when Haren was pulled.   They had a one run lead, and reliever Scott Downs finished off the Indians that inning by making a miracle catch on a ball that was just drilled right back at him off the bat of Austin Kearns.  At least I think it was a bat.  It may have been some kind of missile launcher.  All I know is that if Downs hadn't caught that ball, it would have killed him.  But then things turned to shit for Los Angelheim.  Hurray!

They were unable to add any insurance runs in the top of the ninth, so they had to hold on to a 1 run lead in the bottom of the inning.  They didn't do it.  First Michael Brantley singled then stole a base and finally scored the tying run on Travis Hafner's double with one out.  Hafner soon had company on base due to a walk and a hit-by-pitch.  With the bases loaded, our boy Travis Buck stepped to the plate with an opportunity to be the hero.  But in classic Athletic cast-off fashion, he did the second least useful thing he could do in that situation.  He hit a soft grounder that allowed the Angels to get the force out at home.  At least he didn't hit into a double play.  (In a possibly related note, Travis Buck was just designated for assignment.)  So Buck left it to rookie call-up Jason Kipnis to win the game.  Kipnis was playing in only his second major league baseball game, and he had yet to get a hit.  Guess what he did.  Yep.  Game-winning walk off RBI single to right field.  Nice job, Jason!

So in the past two seasons, Duc and I have attended 5 non-Bay Area baseball games, and the home team has won every time.  Yes, we will accept tickets to attend games at your favorite team's ballpark to work our magic ...unless your team is the Angels.

Giants 5, Dodgers 3 -- July 19, 2011

The Giants have a ridiculous number of promotional give-away events this season.  There are bobblehead nights and T-shirt nights and replica World Series trophy nights and horrendously ugly Giants based beer stein nights.  Sometimes these give-aways are available to the first 20K-25K fans (that's how we got our Cody Ross Bobbleheads).  And sometimes the give-aways come with specially purchased tickets (that's how I got my cursed Cody Ross T-shirt).  A few weeks ago, Duckie decided that she wanted to exploit one of these special offers, so we bought pretty nice View Level seats behind home plate on Bobby Thomson bobblehead night.

You'll be happy to know that this particular bobblehead does come with sound effects.  Specifically, pressing the little black button on the pedestal plays the famous radio broadcast of Thomson's "shot heard 'round the world".

So that's why we were at this particular game.  And it was a good game.  I probably wouldn't be writing that if the Giants had lost, but they didn't.  So it was a good game.  I'm not going to recap the game, though.  If you want a recap you can find it here.  And here's the box score for you statistically-minded folks.  Instead, I'm going to provide my own impressions from on and off the field.  That will be more fun for me.

Off the field:
 Last night was a particularly beautiful night for baseball in SF.  It wasn't cold.  It wasn't windy.  The sky was clear, and it was about 60 degrees Fahrenheit.  Duckie didn't even put on her jacket until the 8th inning or so.

We got to AT&T Park in time, but since we decided to get food and our bobblehheads before going to our seats, we missed most of the first inning.  No biggie.  No one scored.

Food-wise, we ate well.  I had my traditional Cha-Cha Bowl and a beer.  Duc went for a Polish sausage and Sprite combo.  Later in the game (the fifth inning, I think), I went off to find us some ice cream for dessert.  Fortunately, there was a Dreyer's (that's Edy's to those of you on the East Coast) stand not far from our seats.  The line wasn't that long, but progress was very slow.  I missed the full inning.  When I reached the front of the line, I learned the reason for the delay.  The kid manning the scoop put nearly a half of pint of ice cream in each waffle cone.  It was ridiculous.  But for $7.25 per cone, they should give me at least a half a pint.  I ate all of mine, but Duckie had to bail out on hers just as she made the ice cream flush with the top of the cone.  I couldn't help her much, either.  Dairy sits heavily on a bed of Cha-Cha Bowl and beer.  I was too full for the remnants of her cone.  In the end I spent $25.75 on food for me alone.  Actually, in San Francisco that's not that bad.

The other major form of off-the-field entertainment for me was my traditional Giants game texting conversation with David.  I think we exchanged about 50 texts during the course of the game.  I may need to upgrade my plan if I go to too many games.

The Game:
This game marked the return of Giants rookie first baseman, Brandon Belt.  With the rookie Brandon Crawford at short, the Giants were employing a two Brandon infield.  It was a risk that paid off.  Belt had 3 RBI on the night including a solo homerun in his first at bat.  Welcome back, Brandon.

Brandon Belt has a great baseball last name for obvious reason, but the Giants starting pitcher for the night, Madison Bumgarner, has one of the worst baseball names around.  Ever since the movie "Splash", Madison has been a girl's name.  I don't know how the Bumgarner parents missed the memo.  And Bumgarner is a clumsy last name that starts with a euphemism for 'ass'.  No good.  And no one has come up with a good nickname for the guy, and he needs one badly.  The press seems to like MadBum.  I think it sucks.  No flow.  But I have now an alternative. I'll get back to it in a minute.

The Dodger's starter was a fireballer named Rubby De La Rosa.  He hit 99 mph on the gun at least once that I noticed.  He wasn't super dominant, but he was relatively effective, and damn he throws hard.  His biggest problem is that Rubby is pronounced Ruby (ROO-bee).  Not in my dictionary it's not.  When I expressed my disdain for the pronunciation to David, he proposed that if changing Madison Bumgarner's name to Mubby (MOO-bee) made him throw 99 mph, he'd be on board.  So, you can probably guess my proposal for MadBum's new nickname.  Mubby Bumgarner it is.  At least until someone finds a better name that I'm willing to accept.

Anyway,  the Giants won the game, and Mubby got the W.  We have tickets for three more baseball games for sure this season, and only one is in AT&T Park.  I'll try to remember to blog about my impressions of those games, too.