Monday, August 11, 2008

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES.

The photos from the weekend are on a new memory card...which doesn’t work in my old reader.

Actual Mets content coming tonight. Please stand by. :)

Sunday, August 10, 2008

THE BALLPARK AT ARLINGTON: REVIEW.

I will qualify this review by saying that aside from the tour, the entire time we were in Arlington it was 100 degrees and I was a little bit dehydrated, despite having purchased a case of water when we landed in Houston. It’s just hotter than us New Yorkers ever, ever have to deal with. So if it is not as lengthy or detailed as other reviews, I apologize. For example, we didn’t make a point of entering the stadium from the home plate entrance. I can’t even tell you what it looks like. We just entered the closest entrance we found because we were hot, tired, thirsty and wanted to sit down.

The Ballpark at Arlington is about a 3 1/2 hour drive from Houston. So if you’re in town for a series, why not skip a day, rent a car, and drive to this suburb of Dallas? Even if the team isn’t in town (which happens, the same way the Yankees aren’t at home when the Mets are) there would still be enough to make it worth your while.

It’s located in the middle of nowhere. There are no stores or any kind of commerce in its immediate vicinity. We did find it easy to find and abundantly signposted, and there is commerce about a 10 minute drive away. It is across the street from Six Flags, and on the other side, the new football stadium. There are a couple of hotels in the immediate vicinity. (We chose to drive an hour back after the game so we didn’t have to do the entire drive the next morning.) The parking lots for those who aren’t season ticket holders or Lexus owners are very, very distant. They do run shuttles, but be prepared for a lengthy walk. There’s a parking lot map on the web site; it would do you well to study it and know where you want to park.

Thursday, August 07, 2008

MINUTE MAID PARK: THE REVIEW.

Minute Maid Park is located in downtown Houston. By “downtown” I mean it’s one of those areas that was formerly neglected, the original center of the city, and that the city is trying to revitalize. There are some residential buildings, but it’s mostly commercial, government, entertainment and hotels. Aside from after the game, the only people we saw walking on the street were the people who clearly were going to work at the businesses in downtown. We never felt unsafe - we had multiple offers of help the one time we stopped to doublecheck something on a piece of paper - but it does have a bit of an odd, semi-deserted feeling in spots.

The home plate entrance to the park is through Union Station. The park was built on the location of the old railroad terminal, so instead of just tearing everything down, they kept the station to function as a public space and an entrance to the park. It is one of two places in the ballpark you can still see the Enron logo:

Union Station is also where you will go if you are taking any of the ballpark tours, and is the location of the team store.

The most important part of the review is right here: You cannot bring ANY food or drink into the park. No water, no snacks. The guards aren’t searching your bags for contraband, they are looking for granola bars. If you think I am kidding, I watched a security guard confiscate a package of Twizzlers and a quart ziploc of homemade popcorn. It’s unconscionable that in Texas you can’t bring a bottle of water in - even in air conditioning, you need to hydrate. Rant over.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

WEEKEND PHOTOS.

Until I get everything written up, some highlights and some links:

CLASH CITY ROCKERS.

Rare Clash Performance At Shea Stadium Set For CD Release

Clash’s entire performance at the Shea Stadium in 1982 is to be released on CD.

The band’s 15-song set at the New York venue, which closed earlier this month, will be available to buy from October 15th.

More here.

[thanx, K.]

Monday, August 04, 2008

LONE STAR STATE.

This team remains an enigma. They lose to teams they shouldn’t lose to and when they win, it is valiant and dramatic and makes you believe again… until they lose to, say, Randy Wolf.

*cue annoying wolf howl that Houston pipes through its ballpark that I hope I never have to hear again*

I am not going to talk about the games very much besides that sentence. But if you want to hear about the rest of our southern sojourn, read on.

We arrived in Houston early Friday morning. We were at the airport early (LGA on a Friday in the summer? You’d do the same) and since the security line was zero and we don’t check bags, we were able to get on the 6:30am flight. We picked up our car, and proceeded to kill time until check in with trips to Target (water, drinks, snacks, photographs), the House of Pies (breakfast), and the Galleria (travel sizes). We checked in around 1pm at a lovely 4-star boutique hotel about 7 blocks from the ballpark. We had enough time for a nap and a shower before walking down to Minute Maid Park for the 4pm tour.

It was during our walk through downtown when an old unused courthouse caught my eye and I stopped to take out my camera. That’s when I realized that the battery was sitting in Brooklyn, and D40 batteries aren’t sold in the team store. TBF had his point and shoot, which he kindly allowed me to take possession of, but it’s just not the same thing. It’s funny how in the course of a few years taking photos of baseball games, and the people and the places, has become so important. I kept trying to console myself that I could just enjoy the game, but when we settled in just off of the first base side later and I watched Jose Reyes jump back to base again and again and again from an angle I never get to see, it hurt.

Saturday, August 02, 2008

TEXAS UPDATE.

Things to remember when you get on a plane to go a thousand miles to see your team play:
THE CAMERA BATTERY. I know, I know. How could I, of all people, forget the camera battery? Thank god for Best Buy.

--Texas is hot. Like 106 hot. Like 99 degrees at first pitch hot. (And if anyone here says “but it’s a dry heat” I will invite you to do our laundry when we get back.)
--I sat next to a real cowboy Friday night
--Hunter Pence is dating this really sleazy stripper, and Houston is convinced that’s why he stopped hitting. David Wright isn’t dating a stripper, but I have to wonder if his current issues aren’t related
--Houston hecklers are the most boring and unoriginal in the entire country (gotta branch out from ‘sucks’, people)
--There so definitely was a second shooter behind the picket fence
--Billy Wagner is unreliable as heck (it was Family and Faith day up in Arlington, so that was as vocal as we got) when you need him most.
--In a superiority contest between the two ballparks, Arlington wins. However, while nursing my dehydration around 6:30, my superiority about not seeing baseball in air conditioning vanished.

Please, let Oliver The Good take the hill in Houston tomorrow. We are sitting six rows up from home plate, look for me. I’ll be the one NOT waving at the camera while not talking on my cell phone. TBF is planning on having a sitdown with some diehard Astros fan to find out why on earth they hate poor Carlos Beltran so much. Pray for us all.

More later.

With love from Corsicana, TX,

MG

Thursday, July 31, 2008

TOKEN YEARLY CAT PHOTO.

(Hey, this is a chick blog, remember?)

CAPTION THE PHOTO:
“It’s for your own good. I don’t think the Houston fans would appreciate you wearing a Beltran shirt.”

I wanted to do a LOLCat but I worked 12.5 hours yesterday and was too tired. 

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

A LETTER FROM MINNESOTA.

My friend Kari, the Twins fan who came with me to last Saturday’s game, just got home, and sent me this:

We went to the Yankees game and the WHOLE time I was there, I was writing my own personal blog in my head.  I just don’t get it. When I was in elementary school, there was a girl named Julie.  She was smart, attractive, and a good athlete.  But she was mean.  She was mean in a very special way.  She could purposely hurt the feelings of every single person in the classroom at one point or another, but yet SHE was the one everyone wanted to be friends with.  Even if it meant that she just wasn’t a very good friend back.  She could have cared less how many friends she had.  She would plan parties at her house and only invite the other popular kids.  Julie was the Yankees.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

DON’T FORGET ST. LOUIS.

Friday night was a fun night at Shea. However, just when you think that Phillies Phans are going to take the title of Worst Phans in Baseball, Shea is invaded by another sea of red. Section 12, in particular, seems to be The Place For Fans Of The Opposing Team. It’s not just one or two of them, it’s rows of them. I was going to write a diatribe about idiots who provide a standing ovation when a member of their team hits a single, but I realize I have already DONE that for the Phillies series. It’s even more moronic to do so when the player you are applauding has already struck out three times in that particular game.

The best description of St. Louis fans has to be the ladies’ room line after the game:
STL fan: “Well, so we’re not going to sweep you, but we’re still going to take the series.”
Me: “The Brewers called. They say ‘hello’.”
STL fan: *starts singing and clapping*

Saturday night was a special night because TBF was unavailable and I was going with my friend Kari from Minnesota. When I say “Minnesota” I don’t mean “a charming suburb of Minneapolis.” I mean middle-of-nowhere-Minnesota. Of course they are Twins fans and when I met her and her family (in town for Springsteen on Sunday) at Grand Central, she was wearing her daughter’s Santana jersey, much to her 15-year-old son’s concern.  He was worried that someone was going to give her a hard time. We had to actively search for someone to heckle her (one of the vendors) so his prophecy could be fulfilled.

We haven’t seen each other for over three years and it was her first time at Shea, so we got there early. I gave her the grand tour, we got two of those bargain enormous $9.50 beers, and headed for Upper Reserved Section 8. Those $9.50 beers are the best deal at Shea and I hate to write about them, because they might stop offering them. People will stop you when you are walking around with them in your hand and ask you, urgently, where you acquired them from.