Tuesday, August 14, 2007

BIKINI BEACH PARTY.

Or, why MetsGrrl is not at the SNY viewing party at the Hawaiian Tropic Zone tonight

The first time TBF and I went to the “Glory Days” exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, the thing that struck me the strongest was all the *women* in the photographs of Ebbets Field (and Yankee Stadium, truth be told). Women in the stands. Women with pennants and scorecards and programs. Women yelling, women cheering, women heckling. Wearing hats and heels and hose, even, they were there, at the games.

And this is odd to me, still, because my perception growing up was that baseball was not a place for girls. I mentioned this to TBF, and he suggested, gently, that I wasn’t exactly around to know, and he’s right. And not growing up in a household that had any focus on sports (although had a strong focus on the three sisters [and one brother] in it being able to do whatever they set their minds on), my perception of professional sports, and baseball, probably came from the media, and more specifically, beer commercials. Everything surrounding baseball seemed to have a NO GIRLS ALLOWED sign on it.

This is why, when I started this blog, I went out there looking for other girls like me. And, like MG reader April (who wrote some very kind words about this blog a few months ago), I don’t know why I was surprised. To be fair, I don’t know if it was surprised so much as delighted. But it’s why I have the girls-only blogroll, and is one of the reasons I go out of my way to read other female baseball bloggers. (The second reason is that they are funny, or incredibly interesting, or amazingly good writers.)

[more after the jump]

Saturday, August 11, 2007

ROLLERCOASTER OF LOVE. [08-10-07]

I wasn’t going to write about this game. To be honest, I was praying fervently for a rainout all day. I should have taken two days off work after being sick, but I only took one, and then paid for it the rest of the week. Work was relentless, the subways crashed on us on Wednesday, and I’ve felt like the greyest, most washed-out rat in the proverbial race all week. All I wanted to do tonight was come home, put on my sweats, and get in bed with the cat and a good book, even as I made my usual goodbyes to my teams at work about heading out for my baseball therapy. The fucked-up 7 train tonight (not running express, and almost not running, period) meant that although I left work after 6pm, TBF was on the same train that I was. Leaving work at 5 and coming home to get the car still should have put him at Shea well before first pitch, much less both of us standing in the tunnel watching the last out of the Marlins’ at-bat in the first inning.

Yeah. It was That Kind of ending to That Kind of week.

HOT DOG HEAVEN.

The Shake Shack will have an outpost at Citi Field!!

TBF: “If they sell Chicago dogs at Citi Field, it will be baseball heaven.”
MG: “Honey, they don’t sell Chicago dogs at *Wrigley Field*.”
TBF: “One can only hope.”

No, seriously; this is *exactly* what I hope to see at Citi Field - local restaurants getting their spots. Yes, they’ll still be overpriced, yes, the lines will be long, yes, Aramark will likely still have a stranglehold on everything else.

But Shake Shack! At Citi Field!

No, seriously, this is damn exciting.

(Can we get a banh mi place too?)

Friday, August 10, 2007

VOTE MR. MET!

HEY YOU! Over there!

Yeah, you! In the blue and orange hat!

I need you to Vote for for me.

No, seriously. This is not some lame-o internet petition. This is the REAL DEAL.

Vote for Mr. Met in the Mascot Hall of Fame.

I say that even though the Mariner Moose (an ex-mascot of mine) is also in the running.

If you need more reasons, ESPN conveniently details them for you.

Vote early, vote often.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

RALLY TIME.

I know things are a little quiet around here. I managed to get food poisoning on Sunday night, which completely wiped me out this week. We sold our Tuesday tickets as a result (and, with hindsight, a brilliant move), and hope that the Section 12 regulars were not too hard on the complete strangers who turned up in seats 3 & 4 that night. TBF is now under the weather as well, so there’s a strong chance we’ll be getting rid of tomorrow night’s tickets too. But, I did manage to dump about 12 pages worth of reading and a couple hundred photos on the site on Sunday, which should hopefully have kept you busy. Look for MG to rally back later today or tomorrow.

Monday, August 06, 2007

CONGRATS, TOMMY G.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

VIA CHICAGO. [08-03-07]

It was the morning after a 21 hour day of travel, baseball and rock and roll, so unlike the other blue-and-orange wearing guests at our hotel (and there were plenty), Coop and I did not hobble off in the hot sun towards the Blue Line and a 60-minute El ride to Wrigley.  We needed to save our energy, and I was too impatient to sit on the train for any length of time, not when a taxi would have us there in under half an hour. Unfortunately, our hotel seemed unable to successfully procure a cab for us, and it took three requests on our part before one rolled up in front of the lobby. By then I was too flustered to be able to get in and say, “1060 West Addison” with the appropriate flourish.

The cab was the right choice, even as I watched the meter tick upwards as we crawled eastwards on Addison through the outskirts of Wrigleyville, Cubs insignia on almost every front door, fans wearing colors walking up the sidewalk. I am checking the map in my PDA as we move, and when we reached the corner of Racine and Addison, about four blocks away, I ask the driver to let us out. I can’t tell you why I did this, all I knew was that I wanted the experience of walking up to the ballpark and not just being dropped off in front of it.

We meet this gentleman, and buy bottles of frozen water from him. We are chatting and talking and making yet more Blues Brothers jokes, when all of a sudden it comes into view:

The fabled red and white sign announcing WRIGLEY FIELD, HOME OF CHICAGO CUBS. The goosebumps on my arm signaled that my odd instinct that we needed to approach Wrigley on foot was dead on. Where I managed to acquire these instincts in not even two short years is another wonder. It’s not like anyone told me to do that, or that Coop and I talked about it, or TBF mentioned that it might be a good thing to do. If we’d taken the train we would have come from the other way, which would have denied us the experience of seeing that legendary sign come into view, and the associated hustle and bustle around the intersection of Addison and Clark.

[More after the jump.]

BOB’S COUNTRY BUNKER. [08-02-07]

7:35am LGA to ORD, pick up the rental car, fight traffic, pick up some speed, and we’re passing the Cheese Castle by 10:30 and Miller Park greets us through the windshield by 11am. The parking lots are not packed, but they are full of people who have clearly been there for hours in the hot sun, with their grills and their deep friers and their tents - on a Thursday afternoon.  As we make our way through the parking lot, we are gently heckled: “METS fans? Oh, no.” or “You’re not tailgating?” It’s a RELIGION in that state, I tell ya. TBF swore that, even wearing a Mets jersey, if we wanted to hang out people would feed us. But we are hot, and want to get inside, so we forgo any attempts to socialize with the natives.

We entered via the home plate entrance, which was not particularly spectacular. It did, however, put us at immediate proximity to our seats, which were six rows behind home plate and *are* particularly spectacular. This also meant that our section was right in the sunlight. We decide to wander the stadium, get some food, and return closer to game time. Day game after a night game meant no BP, so there was little incentive to roast unnecessarily for an hour and a half before the game started.

[more after the jump]

LOVE BOAT CAPTAIN.

I figured I would get these photos out of the way since most people are only going to want to look at these anyway. Ed Vedder at batting practice at Wrigley on 8/3/07, talking to Sandy Alomar, Scott Schoeneweis, throwing out the first pitch, and walking back to the dugout with Kerry Wood, and hanging out with Rickey Henderson. (See the comments for the update about the last one.). If anyone can tell me how Vedder and Schoeneweis are such good buddies, I will owe you a beer.

WHY GO HOME?

I am now going through the 496 photographs (I am not exaggerating) of the last two days, so any detailed posts will have to wait until tomorrow.

One small detail to keep it interesting:

Thursday night we got to see Pearl Jam play a small (1400 capacity) theater at a fan-club only show. (In a previous life, I was an enormous PJ fan, but it’s been years, really.)  Somehow I got tickets, and we drove straight from Miller Park to the theater, got in line, and saw the show.

During a short pre-show acoustic set from Eddie Vedder, he announces that he’s going to play a new song that he’s written about the Cubs, since they’re actually doing well this year. This being a Pearl Jam audience, way too many people applaud the Cubs because they’re Eddie’s favorite team, not because they actually like them or follow baseball. (And if you want to argue with me about that, see the previous paragraph.) I didn’t start the boos - I leave that credit to the dozens of Phillies fans (who were at Wrigley that day) - but once they started, we joined in with great enthusiasm.

However, we were not about to let them get away with the resulting “Let’s go Phillies” chants, and having seen a few Mets hats earlier in the evening, Coop and I started “Let’s Go Mets,” at which point we were all booed down, but not before Coop got in a hearty, “Jose, Jose, Jose.”

Of further note, but this is only interesting to the majorly geeky, is our sighting of a questionable personalized baseball jersey with the letters AMENT 10 on the back, being worn by a random fan in the crowd (Jeff Ament being Pearl Jam’s bass player, and 10 being a number significant to Pearl Jam fans, the title of their first album, etc.). Two minutes later, the jersey walks the other way and I see it is a YANKEES jersey. We express our disgust, only for a Phillies fan in front of us to turn around and offer, “Yeah, that’s just all kinds of wrong.” Then he sees my hat, pauses, raises his beer: “At least we can break bread on that.”

The photos, and the full reports from both Milwaukee and Wrigley, will be up starting tomorrow.