Results tagged ‘ Rain Delay ’
10/3/09 Mets vs. Astros
It’s been a long time, I know.
I arrived at the second to final game of the regular season and had time to waste before I would meet my friend Joe ( http://baseballexperiences.mlblogs.com ), so I decided to head to the player’s entrance. Before I could get there I saw that the people were crowded near the fence, so that meant somebody was signing.
I ran over there and saw that it was Anderson Hernandez, and he signed my 1st autograph.
Soon after I met up with Joe. We decided to wait for one more player and then we’d go to the Rotunda. That player was Sean Green, and he signed my 2nd autograph.
Apparently the Astros had a different entrance because as we were walking to the Rotunda we noticed a player who looked oddly familiar and he was heading to the first base VIP gate, it was Hunter Pence! He signed my 3rd autograph.
After playing catch for a bit we got on line and went inside.
The cages were up, but nobody was on the field.
So Joe and I passed the time in the Sterling Club. A little bit later the Astros came out and started throwing. I got a spot on the railing next to the foul line and got Brad Moehler to throw me a random baseball lying on the field, my 1st ball.
Only one pair was left throwing, well trio. They were Samuel Gervacio, Jose Valverde, and Wilton Lopez. I was in the empty Left Field Bleachers, so it was easy to get Samuel Gervacio to throw me my 2nd ball when they were done.
I started playing for home runs after that, so I noticed that a ball landed on the batters’ eye in Center Field. I ran over considering to use the glove trick, but I choose not to when I saw that an usher was coming to get it.
I asked for the ball, and being that there were no other fans asking for it I got my 3rd ball tossed to me easily.
I moved to the seats in Right-Center field because Left Field was getting slightly crowded. It turned out to be a mistake. There were a couple home runs hit in Left Field, while where I was there were none. I *did* get Edwin Maysonet to throw me a ball he picked up in shallow Center Field (100ft away or so), my 4th ball. Here is the distance (he is pointed to using the black arrow):
And here is the ball:
That was the last of baseballs for me during BP. I met Todd and Tim ( http://cookandsonbats.mlblogs.com ), who I had met in Chicago on August 17th. I spent the remaining time with them and Joe before the game started. We started off by the foul pole (where in the photo below Tim is showing off his new baseball):
And then we worked our way to the Astros’ dugout. We stood there for the end of BP, and while Joe and Todd got baseballs thrown to them, I got none. We decided to head over to the play area for Tim, and after he took some cuts I said goodbye to them for the time being and headed to the dugout because pre-game throwing was about to start.
But I got no baseballs at the pre-game throwing, Joe did though. He went into the Sterling club as I recall and I waited for the first inning to try for a third out ball behind the Astros dugout. To pass the time I was sitting next to Todd and Tim, who were sitting in a section directly behind the dugout. I sat to their left because most third out balls end up being tossed to the outfield side. But Lance Berkman is un-predictable. When the third out was recorded, I realized that Lance was going in the home plate end of the dugout. I had to cut across Todd and Tim and run down. The problem was that they were in the 20th or so row, so I could only run down to around the 8th row, but Lance is un-predictable. He ended up tossing the ball right to me, right as I got there. Since it was the first inning, I was able to catch my 5th ball before the other people realized that baseballs do get given away.
While walking back up to Tim and Todd, Todd took a photo of me:
And then I examined the spekled dirt pattern on the baseball:
I spent the next while standing behind the plate going for foul balls with Joe, but it was empty. It was raining, and for some reason that I now forget, I went over to the Astros dugout before the rain delay. When the rain delay came, it was POURING. But then I remembered and got an idea.
I bolted to the umpire tunnel, dodging people to get their in time. This pouring rain would make the baseballs the home plate umpire had be waterlogged. When I got there, Joe followed behind me and we both got baseballs from Damien Beal, my 6th ball.
Being soaking wet we ran into the Sterling Club to dry off. Everything was fine, except for being wet. After drying off we headed in the Jackie Robinson Rotunda and saw Todd holding a crying Tim. We tried cheering him up, but then found out that he was faking it. After Tim was done fake crying, we were able to sneak them into the Sterling club, which is where we spent the next while, drinking free milkshakes and playing catch in the fancy seats, which we were able to do for a couple minutes. We then wandered around, waiting for the game to start. When they finally started taking the tarp off, we went back behind the dugout to look at the middle-game throwing, during which I got nothing:
Joe and I went back behind home plate to try for foul balls, and it was empty. There couldn’t have been more than 20 people behind home plate, but not a single foul ball was hit into the Sterling Club. There was one foul ball that sailed directly over my head into the next tier, and that was all the action I got (Joe was luckier). Eventually I went over to the umpire’s tunnel to try for one more Citi Field baseball. What happened next was odd.
Damien Beal came in and took the baseballs out of his pouch. He handed one to Todd and Tim (also there), a couple other kids, Joe (also there), but not me. Apparently he had one last baseball in his pouch because he stopped, turned around, and tossed the ball in my direction. The ball fell into the tunnel, just beyond my glove. But then a second or two later my glove wasn’t on my hand. One of the other umpires, Adrian Johnson, took my glove off of my hand when I wasn’t looking. He took a couple steps in, and then turned around and grinned. This was the chance to get the ball! I pointed to the ball lying in the tunnel, and he turned around, placed the ball in my glove, and handed it back to me. And I had my 7th ball.
Stats:
-
7 MLB Balls Today
- 3 MLB Autographs Today
- 205 MLB Autographs in this Season
- 244 Total Autographs in this Season
- 314 MLB Balls in this Season
- 335 Total Balls in this Season
- 5 Thrown, 2 Hand-To-Hand
- 4 BP, 2 During, 1 After
- Attendance: 37,578 People
- Competition Factor: 263,046
- 6.54 Balls / 1 Game
- 48 Consecutive Games with at least 3 MLB Baseballs
- 38 Consecutive Games with at least 1 MLB Autograph
8/20/09 Tigers vs. Mariners
No batting practice here is worse than no batting practice at Yankee Stadium. Shocking right? At Comerica Park you have 90 minutes of time before the game starts, not so strict security, and dugout and bullpen areas accessible. At New Yankee Stadium you have 3 hours of time before the game starts, semi-to-strict security, and the dugouts aren’t accessible, but the bullpens are. At Yankee Stadium the extra 90 minutes gives much more times to get baseballs and the strict security keeps out the not-so-skilled people. At Comerica Park it’s only 90 minutes and security lets people move freely. So there are much more crowds and much less opportunities at Comerica.
Because of the way Comerica is run I only got two balls before the game, and it took a while to get both of them.
My 1st baseball started off soon after the gates opened. After the gates opened I ran inside and saw that the tarp was on the field, but I also saw that two Tigers were running along the foul line. Not good. The people (Armando Gallaraga and a trainer) hadn’t thrown yet because they needed to get loose first (running) so by the time they would start throwing a crowd would have formed.
That was exactly what happened. They started throwing a while later, during which some more players came out to throw also in front of a large crowd with many kids.
Those players were Ryan Perry and a Translator for Tainwanese pitcher Fu-Te Ni, who was throwing with Zach Miner. A loose ball ended up getting away from the Translator, and it rolled to the wall, but somebody scooped the ball from over the wall. And then they finished first and tossed the ball to somebody else. Fu-Te Ni and Zach Miner finished soon after, and since I positioned myself right behind them, they tossed me the ball before they went in (1st ball).
I went over to the Mariners side where some pitchers were throwing, but I picked the wrong place every time. Although after David Aardsma threw I got his autograph for my 1st autograph.
Then when King Felix Hernandez (who suddenly became nice this season) started signing a bit further down the foul line a bit later I got him to sign my 2nd autograph.
There was only one pair left throwing over by the Mariners, but the Tigers had a couple, so I went over there. But before I got to where the people were throwing lets get to some players signing. From the other side of the stadium I could see that Fu-Te Ni, Ryan Perry and Zach Miner were signing on the foul line for an incredibly long time. But by the time that I got over there Zach Miner was no longer signing and Ryan and Fu-Te were in close proximity. I tried getting Fu-Te, but it seemed as though he was only signing for people who had a spot on the wall, so I got Ryan Perry first for my 3rd autograph.
Then I moved about 15 feet to the right of Fu-Te and grabbed a spot on the wall. I was right and he signed for me, my 4th autograph.
Then I moved down to where the pitchers were throwing, but no baseballs were to be had, only an autograph, Fernando Rodney. I don’t get why ALL the kids were calling him “Rodney”. Not “Fernando”, not “Mr. Rodney”, just “Rodney”. Well anyway I got “Fernando Rodney” for my 5th autograph after waiting for a bit.
It was getting right before game time and I only had one ball. It was one of the worst beginnings I’ve had. I had to recuperate and snag a few more baseballs, so when I looked at the crowds on each side I picked the visiting team’s side. It was a good choice; I would’ve had no chance over by the Tigers side, but by the Mariners side? I was the only person there, so I was the only Mariners fan. It was too easy, so when Michael Saunders and Jack Hannahan started throwing where the players stretch the ball was as good as mine. Michael ended up with it, saw my Mariners stuff, and flung me the ball as I ran forward and made the back-handed grab for my 2nd ball.
There were no more pre-game throwing except at the dugout, where Jose Lopez threw with someone I couldn’t remember. But he didn’t give the ball out. So I was trying to think of how to salvage my day. Should I try for third out balls first before the competition gets too intense? What about pre-inning warm-up balls? Should I go for foul balls? I looked at the area behind home plate and noticed that there were no second, third, fourth, etc. deck seats where foul balls would land, so they would bounce down to field level (or land in little openings). And also there was also a cross-aisle running right through the seats all through the seats. It seemed perfect so I had to go for it. It was a good decision. This was my view for lefties:
And my view for Righties:
And my view to my left:
It was in the Top of the 1st Inning, the third batter of the inning. Jose Lopez was batting against Jarrod Washburn, who isn’t exactly a flame thrower. Jarrod Washburn was pitching. He loaded the count with a sinker down in the zone and then two back-to-back change-ups in basically the same spot. Apparently Jose wasn’t given the red light because he swung at the next pitch, a sinker on the outside part of the plate and fouled it off, but not back. But on the next pitch, a fastball up and in, a ball, he did. He basically fouled it straight back. It was going in a high arc to my left, so I ran over there. It landed in the second row of the Tigers’ Den (look at the first photo above) right next to a guy sitting down in a red shirt. But luckily it rolled down in the first row. It came into view underneath a seat and it started rolling towards me, so I stuck my arm through some metal bars and tried grabbing the ball. I pulled my arm out and in it was my 3rd baseball of the day and 2nd lifetime game ball! I didn’t know what to do, so I just held up the ball for a second and then went back to work. I scrapped my arm a bit from the metal bars, and the ball was a little scrapped from hitting the concrete, but I had the ball. Like I said it was scrapped a bit from the concrete underneath the MLB Player Silhouette and the Rawlings text had a bat mark on it, smudging it.
Even though I got that foul ball 3 baseballs wasn’t enough, but I wanted another foul ball. So I would go for foul balls for the first two outs, and when the second out was made I would head to the dugout of the team that would be coming off the field. I didn’t get any baseballs until the game was official. I ran down to the front row when the out was made for the bottom of the 5th. Russell Branyan of the Mariners started jogging in with the ball he used to make the out and looked into the crowd. He looked into the crowd, flipped a ball up in the air, caught it back in his hand, and then tossed it to me, my 4th ball.
There was a light drizzle about a inning later, but soon that light drizzle turned into rain. Rain hard enough to stop the rain and make me wet, but I realized that there would be a baseball that I could get from the Home Plate Umpire coming off the field. The baseballs would be ruined from the game, so he would want to get rid of them, right? But instead of going in through the umpire’s tunnel he went through the home dugout. But he must’ve not been allowed there because he, and another ump, soon came out and headed for the tunnel. I was at the top of the steps at that point, so I ran back down into the seats. He looked up and saw me coming down the steps, pulled a ball out of his pocket and flipped me my 5th baseball and then went in the tunnel.
The Home Plate Umpire turned out to be Dan Iassonga.
Even though I had used up the dugouts I still got higher than my average. You see there are these things called bullpens that usually use up a lot of baseballs during the game. In the 8th Inning I went to one of them, the Tigers’ bullpen. Bobby Seay and Fernando Rodney were warming up in the bullpen.
Bobby was the one to go into the game, but instead of immediately giving the baseball out he put it on the pitchers mound where it laid untouched until I asked bullpen coach Jeff Jones for the ball. He walked over, picked up the ball and tossed it to me, my 6th ball.
And then I moved over to the bullpen to my left, the Mariners’ bullpen. David Aardsma was warming up there. When they were done I asked the bullpen catcher, Jason Philips,
For the ball, but he said hold on a second and gave the ball to John Wetteland, and then he grabbed a ball from the bag and flipped it to me, my 7th ball, the last one of the day.
Long story short, never, EVER go to Comerica Park if there is the slightest chance of no batting practice. It’s horrible, not worth you time. New Yankee Stadium is starting to look very good to me.
Stats:
- 7 MLB Balls Today
- 5 MLB Autographs Today
- 163 MLB Autographs in this Season
- 202 Total Autographs in this Season
- 238 MLB Balls in this Season
- 259 Total Balls in this Season
- 6 Thrown, 1 Hit
- 1 BP, 1 Pre-Game, 5 During
- Attendance: 31,167 People
- Competition Factor: 218,169
- 6.26 Balls / 1 Game
- 38 Consecutive Games with at least 3 MLB Baseballs
- 28 Consecutive Games with at least 1 MLB Autograph
- 23 Consecutive Games with at least 4 MLB Baseballs
7/23/09 Yankees vs. Athletics
Is it good when you come to a make-up game because it won’t be crowded, but then it starts raining?
There was more of a crowd than I expected during the game, but at the beginning, these were the 100 or so people waiting to get in at the Great Hall:
It was raining as soon as I got there. I ran up the steps hoping for there to be BP, but I didn’t get disappointed. I looked all across the field until I got to the left field bullpen, where there were a couple players. The players/coaches were Gio Gonzalez, (Brandon Buckley?), Curt Young, and Ron Romanick. You can guess what each guy was doing.
Gio made an errant pitch and it settled on a nearby tarp (the ball’s location is where the black circle is currently in the photo above). I asked Curt for the ball, but he did the universal “wait” sign (holding up one finger). So I waited until after when Curt went to get the ball.
I thought he was going to chuck it over the net so I stepped back about 10 feet, but he instead tossed it in front of the net. When I realized what was happening, I did what I would consider a great play by running up to the net at the last second and sticking my hand under it in the hope that it would land in my hand because I just stuck it through the gap randomly. Less than a second after my hand went underneath it, my 1st ball smacked my hand. Curt watched the thing unfold and gave me a thumbs up.
The Yankees did something which I thought was incredibly neat. Most fans weren’t there to watch Gio in the bullpen, so the Yankees showed the last half-inning of Mark Buehrle’s perfect game on the JumboTron.
But Gio Gonzalez wasn’t the last to throw. Justin Duchscherer came to throw.
He threw for a while and when he finished, he looked towards me and wound up for a long throw, and sure enough he threw it about 1 section long.
It took a couple bounces but since nobody else ran for it, it settled on the ground and I grabbed my 2nd ball, and thanks to the many bounces and wetness it got this weird mark:
With incredible luck, Brian Bruney started throwing as Duchscherer finished so after he finished I ran over to the Yankees dugout where I saw Andrew from last time. Since I had two, I let him (successfully) get that ball AND Joba Chamberlain and Dave Eiland started throwing. Andrew and I ran over there and got there in time. Joba finished throwing and pointed to Andrew. He threw the ball and put a lot of heat on it. I wasn’t sure whether that ball would hurt Andrew or not, but I still reached out and grabbed my 3rd baseball, and then immediately gave it to Andrew. But he was nice enough to let me keep it. All of that happened in less than 1 hour.
There was nothing going on the time so I paid a visited to the Upper Deck, and with it’s open air concourse had a bunch of rain:
And a lot of empty seats:
And provided a view of more empty seats:
Then an a while later after I visited the Upper Deck an A came out in the pouring rain and started signing.
I don’t know why the player would do that (Brad Ziegler), but it was my 1st autograph.
I did get to ask him some questions.
“You going to try to play the game today?” I said.
“Hope so,” he said. “I don’t want a double header!”
“Are you guys gonna throw?”
“We were supposed to 30 minutes ago.”
Not a good sign, but about ½ hour later, 4 A’s came out to throw.
Santiago Casilla threw with Andrew Bailey and Craig Breslow threw with Brad Ziegler.
Since it was wet out, Brad had an errant throw. The ball went off the tarp and settled on the ground. Craig Breslow walked over after he finished, retrieved it, and threw it my way. I timed it and caught my 4th ball on a back-handed catch.
Edgar Gonzalez was just standing there and later started throwing and when he finished, he went over to sign. I rushed over there and was able to get him on two for my 2nd autograph (on bottom).
So this 2 hour and 40 minute rain delay did nothing to get rid of fans. Andrew and I went into the Mohegan Sun Sports Bar and waited 1 hour to get a chicken fingers, hot dog, water, and coke. Way to go Yankees, people love to wait 1 hour for food during rain delays.
But the good was that at 9pm they announced that the game would be played at 9:40! Pretty soon after that, some players came out. They came to stretch and even 4 players threw. Matt Holiday was with Orlando Cabrera and Bobby Crosby was with Mark Ellis.
So then when Orlando finished, I stood on a little piece of concrete on top of Legends. It worked because he spotted me and threw my 5th ball over the Legends and everyone in it.
So Andrew and I worked over to behind the dugout and partition where we were last time. We stayed there for a good 5 innings. I got nothing, but Andrew got a ball tossed to him by Todd Steverson.
Why did we stop then? Well, we got in the Legends by LEGAL means (to anyone who knows, please don’t say or tell). So since we had attracted a lot of attention over by the A’s dugout, we stayed by the Yankees dugout. I only got one ball, my 6th ball, because a specific little boy by the dugout got two straight balls in the last two innings. My ball was the ninth inning Yankees warm-up ball, courtesy of Mick Kelleher.
We rushed over the A’s dugout at the end of the game to try and get something. I got nothing, but Andrew got a ball from the ballboy.
Stats:
- 6 MLB Balls Today
- 2 MLB Autographs Today
- 100 MLB Autographs in this Season
- 139 Total Autographs in this Season
- 161 MLB Balls in this Season
- 182 Total Balls in this Season
- 4 BP, 1 Pre-Game, 1 During
- 6 Thrown
- Attendance: 44,206 People
- Competition Factor: 265,236
- 5.75 Balls / 1 Game
- 28 Consecutive Games with at least 3 MLB Baseballs
- 18 Consecutive Games with at least 1 MLB Autograph
- 13 Consecutive Games with at least 4 MLB Baseballs
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