Prepare yourself. Baseball blogging ahead in 3…
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If you’re still here, you can’t say I didn’t try and warn you.
Yesterday Elizabeth and I took off early and went down to Shea stadium so that I could cross that stadium off the list (Oakland, SF, Seattle, LA, Anaheim, San Diego, Boston, Arizona in case you’re curious) and to see the Giants in their only trip to NY this season.
If you were really sharp, you noticed something wrong in the picture that I didn’t notice at all, and Elizabeth didn’t notice until we were on the train to New York. We went to the game last night, July 9th, the tickets we got online were for Tuesday, July 8th.
This was me after realizing I might have screwed up the tickets for a second time (The tickets were initially sent to my old home in Los Angeles. I gave stubhub my billing address, but forgot to update the delivery information as well since I was in a rush to get to work the morning I ordered them. But, my old landlord is a cool guy, and over-nighted them to me). After a panicked call to my brother, and forcing him to check the email reciept (I haven’t changed my password yet Al, so if anything funny happens I’m coming after you btw) I didn’t buy tickets for the wrong date. The seller just sent us the wrong tickets!
Stubhub is a pretty cool company though, and after not being able to contact the seller they gave us new tickets which we picked up at will-call just before the game. Our original tickets were on the second level just past 3rd base, not bad, but the new tickets were same level right behind home plate.
New tickets!
They weren’t quite what we expecting, but they turned out better situated than we expected (more on that later). We could see home plate quite well, and the rest of the field without issue, but anything about 20 feet over the outfield fence we couldn’t see. The scoreboard, pop-ups, jumbotrons and the rest were all completely obscured by the overhang from the level above us. It was like being in a cave a little, but we were in a great location, so it’s hard to complain.
Jonathan Sanchez for the Giants went up against Johan Santana. When you’ve got a punchless offense, facing the best pitcher in baseball will make for a long night. It was pretty good luck for us to catch both teams with such interesting pitchers starting the night. Sanchez, is finally getting his chance to start and doing well in the role, and like previously mention Santana has been the best overall pitcher in baseball the last couple years. Except for a little wildness and a mistake in the fourth, which led to a 3-run homer Sanchez was having a decent evening. Santana was his normal self and shut out the Giants (not saying much though).
Then it got better!
The first time I’ve ever mildly enjoyed a rain delay. Thank God for the overhang!
Nice and dry.
After the delay both starting pitchers came out and the bullpens duked it out for another 4 innings. Unfortunately, the Giants couldn’t muster up much against them either. The Mets managed to score another two runs against us though. And so the game ended, 5-0.
I was surprised to see the amount of Giant fans at the game; there was a large contingent of black and orange there. There were even a few elderly Giant fans who I’m sure are Giant fans because back in they day (pre-1958 ) the Giants were from New York. The new stadium is being built directly adjacent to Shea and looks like it will be a good park. It’s being built in the retro-early 1900’s look-a-like style, and as of now, looks like it will be an upgrade. Shea stadium, while alright, is nothing to write home about. We didn’t get home and to sleep until 2AM, but the whole evening was totally worth it. We had a great time.
Here are a couple photos before the downpour.
Not much to look at from the outside,
but the new stadium looks like it will be an upgrade and
Shea is actually much better looking once you getting inside.
Next Saturday Elizabeth and I are going to the Yankees/A’s game. Two games in 10 days! Woohoo!