Photo Flashback: Meeting the Mets home and away

Night at Oriole Park

I'm finally catching up after a whirlwind weekend. After working long into the morning on Thursday, I went to that afternoon's Mets-Padres game before going back to work that night. And who would've thought that of the two matchups -- Mat Latos vs. Johan Santana and Jon Garland vs. Jon Niese -- that it would be the Niese game that would turn out to be nearly perfect?

When Wednesday's game was rained out and the doubleheader announced for Thursday, I was psyched that Johan drew the afternoon start. I would've enjoyed seeing Niese -- I've seen him before, as far down as the Class A Sally League -- but I'm never disappointed when I get to go to a Johan game. As it turned out, I did get to enjoy Niese's performance on SNY, watching much more closely than if I'd been at the ballpark.

Padres vs. Mets, 6/10/10

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

On Friday, my wife and I hit the road at 1 p.m. -- an hour later than we'd hoped, but I needed to sleep in a little -- and got to our Inner Harbor hotel a little before 5. Even though we were an hour behind schedule, we still trudged up through the Mount Vernon neighborhood for cold beer and good food at The Brewer's Art (make time for it the next time you're in Baltimore), even though it meant missing the start of the game when the light rail took forever to come afterward. We waited for about 20 minutes and watched three northbound trains pass by.

Once there, we entered at Eutaw Street and walked around to our seats on the third-base side, behind the Mets' dugout. It had been nearly eight years since I'd been to Camden Yards and I think almost 18 since I'd been anywhere but the Eutaw Street concourse, so I didn't recall the layout of the main concourses. While Oriole Park began the retro ballpark trend, one significant change in most of those that followed is the open concourse that allows fans to see the game as they're circumnavigating the stadium. It doesn't detract much from the experience for me, and I actually found it quaint and another retro aspect of the design. The concourses are still wide, but they open through vast wrought-iron gates to the surrounding streets and as you walk to your section, you notice the immense support poles holding up the slanted structure above you. Writing now, I wish I'd paused to take a few pictures (though it's not like there aren't any out there, or like I'll never go back there), but at the time, we were weary and late and eager to get to our seats. Then once there, we didn't move until the Mets had wrapped up their 5-1 victory.

Mets at Orioles, 6/11/10

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The Mets' zero-sum games

It hasn't happened in the Majors in six years and hasn't been done by the Mets since September 1969, but it was completed tonight: A three-game shutout sweep. Amazing.

In some ways, I was as nervous heading to the ninth as I get during no-hit bids going into the final inning (or, if it's a no-hit bid by a Met, into the seventh or eighth). This wouldn't just be a sweep, but a resounding one, shutting out one of the best offenses in baseball (they are at home, at least) for three straight games. This series could turn out to be not just a statement (it already is) but a springboard. I'm still not sure exactly what this team has -- if it has enough to reach the playoffs -- but if it can play with this kind of confidence, energy, attitude and pitching (especially the pitching), it can make the NL East race very interesting (and hopefully not ultimately heartbreaking).

I think these Mets are starting to play to their ballpark. If Jose Reyes can get on base and use his speed, if Luis Castillo can make contact to move runners over (though, as Keith Hernandez has said on air, I'd like to see more hit-and-run calls than straight sacrifice bunts), if Jason Bay, Ike Davis and David Wright can drive them in with doubles (and a few home runs), and if the bottom of the order can provide opportunistic base hits, they can win a lot of games without a 30-homer hitter.

But none of it will matter if they can't keep it up on the road. Now they're off to Milwaukee for three and San Diego for three, the first road trip since the 2-6 swing through Miami, Atlanta and Washington that had Jeff Wilpon and Omar Minaya at Turner Field and the buzzards circling Jerry Manuel's office. In the past two seasons, the Mets are 5-9 in those cities, and three of those wins came in a sweep at Miller Park in '08. Otherwise, 1-2 at Miller and 1-3 and 0-4 at Petco.

Let's see where this trip takes them. A 4-2 swing has to be the benchmark for this feel-good feeling to last. Anything less, and it's back to wondering.

Looking back on the 1992 Hall of Fame Game

Like most of baseball, I went about my day last Monday as I normally would. I didn't take any time out of my day to visit MLB.com and listen to the coverage of the Hall of Fame from Cooperstown, the annual exhibition that used to be played the Monday following Induction Weekend. The Cubs and Padres were to play, but Mother Nature had other ideas and washed out the game.

At first, I didn't care. It didn't bother me that an exhibition game I had barely paid attention to over the past 15 years wouldn't be played anymore. It wasn't until I read Tom Verducci's "Requiem for the Game" that I realized that I will miss it, even if I rarely acknowledged it was there.

The truth is, the Hall of Fame Game has changed twice recently and wasn't what it was in 1992, when my family and I saw the Mets and White Sox face off following the inductions of Tom Seaver and Rollie Fingers. The first was in 1997, when Interleague Play came along and made a Mets-White Sox or any other NL-AL matchup less unique. As a result, baseball relaxed its rules on choosing one team from each league for the game, bringing the Dodgers and Padres to town that year. (In 1986, the Royals and Rangers played the first intraleague HOF Game, but it didn't become a frequent occurrence until 1997.) The second change was in 2003, when the Phillies (with minor league lefty Cole Hamels on the mound) and Rays played on June 16, moving the game off of Induction Weekend.

I was 15 in the summer of '92, so there was no widespread internet, let along blogs (we called them "diaries" or "journals" back then), so I don't know that I've ever written down my memories of that weekend. I do have video of it. We borrowed a camera from a family friend and my buddy Matt and I used it to record some of the induction (it was the first held at the Clark Sports Center on the outskirts of Cooperstown, instead of at the actual Hall of Fame, because of renovations there) and our tour through the museum. Not adept in video editing -- and, again, not having the computer technology of "digital" and "iMovie" -- we created a soundtrack by ... fastening headphones to the camera's microphone with rubber bands, and playing a cassette tape in a Walkman. We called it "Coop '92," and I really need to find out where that is and watch it again.

But as for the HOF Game itself, we hadn't been able to purchase tickets before they sold out, so my mom volunteered to go over to Doubleday Field the morning of the game and wait on line for standby tickets, should any be released because of cancellations or whatever causes people to pass up an opportunity to see Major League players at a town ballfield. While she waited, Matt and I continued to explore town, particularly shops selling baseball cards, and walked around the ballpark. We met up with Mom at a designated time (because, say it with me, no cellphones then, either) and she announced that she had secured three tickets. That's all we needed, because my sister and Matt's had no interest in going, and since they were two years younger, couldn't really be allowed to roam Cooperstown by themselves for three hours, so my dad volunteered to chaperone them.

While standing in line, my mom took note of all the uniformed Mets personnel who walked past her on their way from the dugout to the only men's room at the ballpark, a park-like facility with concrete floors and, I imagine, troughs that was accessible only from the parking lot. I think she was most excited to see Howard Johnson. She was also soon approached by a man who had come to turn in three tickets he couldn't use. There were two pairs (probably a purchase limit) that weren't together, and his wife would be sitting in one of the seats, so after chatting up my mom, he felt comfortable having her sit with his spouse. "It's better than turning them in and not knowing what she'll get," he said. So Mom became friends for an afternoon with some guy's wife, and Matt and I sat only a few rows up from the field down the left-field line.

Bobby Jones -- that would be Bobby J. Jones, the Mets' first-round draft pick the previous year -- was called up from nearby Double-A Binghamton to make the start, and he carried a perfect game into the seventh inning. He and two other hurlers combined on the only one-hitter in HOF Game history. The Mets won, 3-0, on a solo home run by Chico Walker (who, until I looked up the history of this game, I didn't not recall as a Met for a single at-bat) and a two-run double by Daryl Boston, both of which happened in the eighth inning.

Boston played left field, so we saw a lot of him -- particularly late in the game, when he started acknowledging us and getting the crowd along the line to chant his name. He and right fielder Dave Gallagher were engaged in a competition to see who could get the fans on his side of the field to cheer his name louder. I'm pretty sure we won it for Daryl.

Other than wanting to see Seaver (he ignored me on his way into the ballpark -- my closest chance at getting his autograph in my lifetime) and White Sox third baseman Robin Ventura (who won the pregame home run derby, which I don't remember, so we might not have had our tickets yet), I don't recall what my expectations were for the game. (It wasn't the best of Mets teams, though they did have a former Yankee starting at second base -- Willie Randolph.) I marveled at the houses just beyond the outfield fence, clearly the best real estate in Cooperstown, I believed then -- before I became a homeowner and would have to be concerned about things like broken windows. But if you're going to have your windows broken by an errant baseball, wouldn't you rather it be from someone in a Major League uniform than the neighbors' kid? And before the game, when Matt and I were for some reason separated inside the ballpark, he recounted a scene he witnessed along the right-field line, when the Mets' John Franco took a liking to one fan's hat commemorating the game and traded his team-issued on-field cap for the fan's commemorative lid. Even though he was a Yankees fan, I think Matt felt a little disappointment that Franco didn't notice his hat first and offer the trade.

But now those moments are gone forever. As Verducci and Hal Bodley lamented, the HOF Game was an important link of baseball's present and past. Both writers alluded to the big-shot player who expresses disdain at having to trek to upstate New York during the middle of the season, yet once he arrives and gets a tour and sees the quaint field nestled in the center of the quaint town, reverses course and voices his appreciation at having made the trip.

It's a shame the game has to die, but I can see why. Verducci touches on all of them. But why can't baseball fix it, instead of pulling the plug? The NFL has it right, but making the game a preseason exhibition tied to its inductions. But baseball can't have a preseason game in upstate New York, not when local residents haven't put away their shovels for the season yet in late March. What MLB could do is extend the All-Star break by a day -- some teams get both the Wednesday and Thursday after the game off anyway -- and stage the game on that Thursday. Every team would be off, making scheduling easier. Or simply choose from among the teams that have that extra day after the Midsummer Classic. There are only four games -- that's 22 teams off -- playing that day this year.

Baseball keeps moving further and further away from the small-town, easily accessible game it was long before I was born. Many of these changes are natural, necessary and inevitable. But some of them -- like bringing the big stars of the Cubs and Padres, or any other combo of teams, to a small town in upstate New York where the game is celebrated year-round -- don't have to be made. It's a shame that this one was.

Dusk in Portland

It's the image of hundreds of photographs, film clips and memories -- the golden light and long shadows of dusk in New England. The grass seems a little higher, the hay bales shimmer in the glow and the scent of pine, wisteria, lupine or any number of fragrant foliage wafts on the breeze. And so it seemed appropriate that my first visit to Portland's Hadlock Field was for a night game at the end of May that began at 6:05 p.m. Nevermind the fact that the start time is almost certainly a measure designed to prevent fans and players alike from freezing in the Maine night at this early point in the season.

My attachment and attraction to Maine goes back to my childhood and our regular summer visits to see my uncle along the midcoast. When my interest in baseball took off in 1986 and I started collecting baseball cards, I noticed a line on the back of some rookies' cards commemorating their season playing for "Maine." From 1984-88, there was a Triple-A team in Old Orchard Beach called the Maine Guides, and though I never convinced my parents to take me to a game there, I always noted its location on maps and exit signs as we drove up the Maine Turnpike. After four seasons as the Indians' top affiliate, the Phillies entered a two-year agreement with the Maine franchise, but from the start it was understood that the team would remain in Old Orchard Beach for only the first year; in 1989, the team moved to Moosic, Pa. -- in between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre -- to the new Lackawanna County Stadium and became the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons.

Professional baseball returned to Maine six years later, when the Sea Dogs entered the Eastern League in 1994. Portland was awarded the team in 1992 as an expansion franchise brought on by the addition of the Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins to the National League. Portland and Florida entered into a player development contract that lasted until 2003, when the Red Sox teamed up with Portland in one of the most significant affiliation shuffles in recent memory. Hadlock Field was built for the Sea Dogs and two city high schools, the Portland High Bulldogs and the Deering High Rams, and named after a longtime high school coach.

My desire to see a game in Portland was first sparked during a conversation I had with Derrick Lankford when I was covering the Lakewood BlueClaws in 2001. He had been released by the Pirates, where he was in Double-A with the Altoona Curve, and signed by the Phillies, who dropped him two levels to high Class A. Born in 1974, he's two years older than I am and, at the time, was considerably older -- in baseball terms -- than his teammates. I think he had some sense of the impending end to his career and that may have made him a little more reflective. I joined him for a Saturday lunch at a local restaurant with a group of children, and he told me that Portland was his favorite minor league city to visit. He talked about the small-town aspect to Maine's largest city and the attraction of the harbor district, the stretch of piers featuring shops, bars and seafood along Commercial St. I first imagined Hadlock Field nestled in among the wharfs, a view of the sea and ocean breezes blowing in on hot summer nights. Soon I learned that Hadlock is inland, up the hill and adjacent to I-295, but that didn't dampen my longing to see my first ballgame in Maine.

When my wife, Casey, and I planned our weeklong vacation in Maine and Massachusetts, we did it because of a wedding in Amherst on the last weekend of May. The fact that the Sea Dogs were home -- and playing the Binghamton Mets -- during the block of days we had planned to be in Portland was a bonus. The crowd was more Boston than Maine, which is to say I felt more like I was at Fenway than among Maineiacs. That's to be expected, I suppose, with the Red Sox affiliation and the team's location further south than most of my Maine adventures -- not to mention part of the state's largest city. It was a festive atmosphere with a spirited crowd. Two women next to us cheered enthusiastically for Zack Daeges and the fans erupted into cheers with every extra-base hit and every run scored by the Sea Dogs. And it wasn't a scattered cheer around the stadium offset by empty swaths of seats; it was an encompassing wall of sound rising at once from every corner of the ballpark.

The best part of Hadlock Field is the local touches. The most noticeable is the Maine Monster, the left-field wall built to replicate Fenway Park's Green Monster -- right down to the Citgo sign and Coke bottle advertising touches atop it. There's also an inflatable L.L. Bean boot above the Sea Dogs' bullpen in right-center field. Beneath the stands, seafood at the concession stands and a beer counter featuring local brews made for good eating and drinking at the game.

Despite the B-Mets' presence as the visiting team, I didn't pay too much attention to the game from a journalistic or prospect-watching standpoint. Eric Brown, who I saw in Brooklyn a few years ago (with shorter hair -- on him, not me), was the starting pitcher and Mike Carp got the start at first base, but otherwise, there weren't too many prospects who stood out. (Nick Evans was with the big-league Mets at the time.) We just sat back and took it in for what it was: A minor-league game played by mostly anonymous youngsters striving for a shot in The Show. We ingested the local flavor, from the roller derby skaters watching from the steps of the adjacent gym to the region's residents parading by us on the concourse. I took only 20 pictures worth posting because I didn't leave my seat to explore the ballpark, as I would were I on my own (though particularly during weekday afternoon games, when a lot more seats are empty). But that didn't make this visit any less enjoyable.

Weary from another long day, we walked out just before the ninth, after "Sweet Caroline" (which apparently has creeped its way up I-95 from Fenway to infiltrate Hadlock) but before the B-Mets went down in the final frame of a 3-1 Sea Dogs victory. It was just after 8 p.m. and there was still some light left in the sky. If not for the 50-degree nip in the air, it would've felt like the kind of New England dusk so often depicted in an Edward Hopper painting.

Starting a new Tradition (or Starting anew at Tradition)

If teams are supposed to bring at least four starters to road games in the spring, how do you tell with the Orioles?

That's a question I asked my new friends as we watched the Mets and Orioles from the second row behind home plate at Tradition Field in Port St. Lucie. The lineup on this day featured holdover veterans Aubrey Huff and Jay Gibbons, and then ... probable center fielder Adam Jones (who had been acquired from the Mariners in the Erik Bedard trade) and eventual Opening Day starter Jeremy Guthrie. All-Stars Brian Roberts and Nick Markakis didn't make the trip, though the two New Jersey guys I'd met this morning and the Frenchman who had joined us walking around the complex thought that third baseman Mike Costanzo was Markakis, and shouted at him during batting practice based on that assumption.


I'd been at the ballpark since 7:30 a.m., taking a shot at catching some of the players as they arrived for work. I saw some -- Carlos Delgado in his Mazerati pulling into the fenced-in players' lot, Johan Santana and Aaron Heilman through the screen over the fence as they walked from their cars into the clubhouse -- but only Heilman acknowledged us, saying he had to get inside. There were only five of us, yet still no willing signers.

Port St. Lucie was the best stop of the trip. It might've been the familiarity of the club or the relative friendliness of being with my own fans. At Dodgertown, I could've easily had Jason Schmidt's autograph, but I didn't have much of a desire. But in St. Lucie, I went to bed at 10 p.m. just so that I could get up at 6 o'clock to be at the complex by 7:30. I was, literally, the first fan there.

After a walk around the main field, I returned to a spot near the players' lot and met Jamie and Michael, the two brothers from central Jersey. We became fast friends and spent the day talking baseball. When I mentioned that I had to go buy a ticket to sit in the seats because I'd bought a berm-only ticket, they handed me one of their two spare complimentary seats two rows away from the Mets' on-deck circle. I even ended up in the aisle seat.

After two hours of nothing -- no players came over from the lot, though as I said, we saw Delgado, Santana, Heilman, Jose Reyes, David Wright, Brian Schneider and a few others, even if we were unsure of exactly who they were -- we walked through the practice fields with three fans from France who had made the trip and happily joined us around the grounds. Jamie and Michael saw two minor leaguers they'd gotten to know from going to games at Binghamton and Trenton -- Tim McNab and Mike Nickeas -- and we caught the big leaguers warming up for batting practice on Field 7, the one reconfigured with CitiField's dimensions. The outfielders were learning the angles just as we were usured out at 10:30, when the gates closed.

Though the Mets may have been the most unaccomodating of the three teams I saw -- no way to get autographs as the players arrive, only a short hour or 90 minutes to roam the fields, and a way-to-early forced exit at 10:30, then limited access near the dugout -- I enjoyed the brief glimpses in Port St. Lucie the most. But based on what others said about charging for workouts, I suspect the Braves are more uninviting. I arrived too late at the Disney complex to wander around, but I was told in PSL that Atlanta (or Disney) charges fans to enter the workouts. And though the Dodgers and Mets collected $5 for parking, that's $5 if it's one person in the car, but also if it's four.

Once we entered Tradition Field at 11 a.m., we spent about 90 minutes during Orioles batting practice waiting for Mets autographs and got nothing. They never emerged from the dugout, having completed all BP and warmups on the back field. That annoyed me. I haven't tried for any autographs in years, but I printed out some photos I've taken and felt an urge to meet a few guys for the first time in a long time.

My photos from behind the plate on this day are stellar, in my mind. It was a great afternoon for shooting, which made up for the lack of autographs. The Mets starters -- save pitcher Oliver Perez -- played through the sixth inning, and following Perez, we got Wagner, Heilman, Joe Smith and Duaner Sanchez. After the game, I went with Jamie and Michael to see Omar Minaya, but didn't think until much later that I should've mentioned my plan for the Home Run Apple to Fred Wilpon.

Jamie, Michael and I met up with the three French kids and the father/son pair from Islen once more before I headed north to my cousin Donna's house, another long drive through Floridian desolation with the iPod shuffling and the Prius coasting.

Port St. Lucie -- as remote and lonesome as it is, relative to the well-known Florida hotspots -- was the perfect end to this initial foray into spring training tourism. I'm eager to go back, though not as eager as I am for the course of this season, which is bound to be interesting. I don't know that I'd want to make it an annual trip (there are too many places I'd like to see to spend vacation time and money going to Florida every March), but I'd certainly be up for a somewhat regular return.

Won't you take me to ... Dodgertown

Down on the mid-Florida Atlantic coast -- the Treasure Coast -- sits Vero Beach, home to Dodgers Spring Training for 61 years ... until this year. Now that the deadlines have been met in Goodyear, Ariz., the Dodgers will train in the Cactus League beginning next year, ending a six-decade tradition that had come to mean Spring Training. Just those words, "Dodgertown" and "Vero Beach," meant that it was March, that the baseball season was just around the corner.

Coming off I-95, I went a few hundred yards on a local four-lane before turning left into what looked like any other old-growth Florida neighborhood or subdivision. Only when I came to the next traffic light in this area, a sign welcoming me to Dodgertown stood on the corner. I turned into the first parking area, which put me down the hill from the fence behind Holman Stadium's left-field berm, and walked back out to the main road -- such as it was -- and joined the rest of the late-arriving morning stream of fans. We were late for the morning workouts, but early for the game. Holman's gates weren't open yet, but the Dodgers were taking batting practice on a back field and minor leaguers were enduring pitchers fielding practice on another nearby diamond.

Dodgertown was quaint, a visit back to old-school Spring Training. Walking the grounds was like exploring a resort, the streets and paths having theme names and the recognizable figures passing the everyday visitors. The path from Holman and the main complex to the back fields and minor league headquarters -- Vin Scully Way -- was divided by rope, giving the players a clear road between the fields and stadium, yet allowing the fans easy up-close access as they passed. I headed that way to explore the grounds, watching the minor leaguers hustle, then hearing the clip-clop of their cleats on the asphalt as they left the field. Joe Torre sat in a golf cart on one field, the fans up against the backstop to get pictures of LA's new manager. From where we stood, we could hear the conversation clearly.

"We leave for Orlando tonight," Torre said. "And then tomorrow we'll fly to Phoenix before heading to China."

Heading back down the path, I looked over a group of fans lining the fence in the left-field corner, where Jason Schmidt was signing autographs. He signed for a long time, getting to everyone, which isn't too surprising -- it's not like he had any throwing to do this spring. Blake DeWitt also stopped on his return trip down Vin Scully Way. The fans went to get his signature too, perhaps unsure of who he was, but not wanting to take a chance to miss getting a signature from the next Dodgers Rookie of the Year or All-Star.

Holman Stadium's simplicity is striking. A '40s ballyard hosting one of the most valuable and recognizable franchises in the game. It was more than watching a big-league team on a minor league field -- it was watching it on a small-college field, a JUCO diamond in a small corner of the county. The only thing that made the players look out of place was their size -- giants on the diamond in some cases.

After a complete traverse of the concourse, from one foul pole to the other and back to the center, I grabbed some grub and settled into my seat -- five rows off the field at about the third-base coach's box. I was so close, I could just about see the smoke coming out of Larry Bowa's ears as he stood there, forced to wear a batting helmet.

In my lap was the day's giveway, a blue beach towel. I unfolded it to find that it was a Dodger Stadium towel, with a coupon attached. A man to my left noticed me looking at the coupon's fine print.

"You can get a free soda -- if you go to L.A.," he said as I read the details of the Carl's Jr. promotion of a free 32 oz. soda with any meal purchase.

"I can," I replied, "and if I do it before Oct. 31, 2007."

Just before the game began, the occupants of the four seats to my right, between me and the aisle, settled in -- a pair of older couples, the woman in the seat next to me with her cane. So that's when I decided I'd stay seated for the first five frames, then ask them to move so that I could get out and spend the rest of the game perambulating around the park. They were who you'd expect to see watching the Dodgers in Florida in March -- the retirees with time on their hands and savings to spend.

The main drawback to Holman was that smoking was allowed on the concourse beyond certain sections down either line, and I often found myself weaving around cancer clients taking up space. This lax rule allowed them to continue to watch the game, instead of forcing them down the steps to a more open area, near where the main merchandise tent stood and the restrooms were located. The restrooms were unusual for a ballpark, too, free-standing cinder-block-and-cement structures with the faint hint of a county park relief station (but in a good way).

I added to my collection of tiny plastic team helmets by getting soft-serve mint chocolate chip and headed toward the left-field berm. I got there and sat down at field level a few feet from the warning track, only a chain-link fence between me and left field. Shortly after I settled in, Juan Pierre, Andre Ethier and Delwyn Young arrived to run some sprints near the track before calling it a day and crossing the outfield to get back to the Dodgers' clubhouse. The berm had emptied out a bit from earlier in the game, and so I sat alone, with no one invading my space. Those around me were quiet enough so that when Pierre, Ethier and Young ran past, I could hear their grunts. When they walked back to the foul line for another set, I could hear their conversation. In between, it was nothing but the crack of the bat, the slap of the ball in the left fielder's mitt, and the echo of the public-address announcer calling another batter to the plate.

Baseball in the mouse's house

At one time, the acres of land southwest of Orlando, Florida, were undeveloped or consisted mainly of orange groves. But ever since Walt Disney established his World, the area has continued to grow. There are the theme parks -- internationally based, water-based, animal-based and movie-based -- a Downtown, a suburb (Celebration) and a whole Wide World of Sports.

After exiting the highway, you follow the signs -- in a cartoonish Disney font -- to your destination, turning this way and that, circling around it seems, disorienting yourself. Though I took the exit before 1 p.m., it wasn't until 1:05 that I stepped out of my car and made my way across the parking lot to Champion Stadium, named, I realized once inside, for the apparel company, and not any kind of run of success by its spring tennant, the Atlanta Braves.

The ballpark sits among a collection of other attractions situated, in true Disney fashion, as a sort of Main Street microcosm. It's nothing more than a wide concourse, an open-air mall of sorts, but with the paths intersecting outside the gates behind home plate and the nearby stores and restaurants having full-on facades, it still has the feeling of theme-park-as-neighborhood.

By the time I emerged from the tunnel and saw the field, Brian McCann was batting for the Braves in the bottom of the first inning. He singled in the first two runs in what became a 3-1 Atlanta victory. A healthy crowd -- sprinkled liberally with fans in Cardinals red supporting the visiting team -- sat in the sun, and though I walked out to my section of metal bleachers along the right-field line and found my seat in the back row, I never made my way across the legs of the half-dozen people already there. I stood the whole game, exploring the various angles of the ballpark. It's a Disneyfied setup -- the cartoonish font returns to mark the sections, and there are hardly any permanent Braves logos to be seen, because once April comes, this ballpark is home to the Double-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays, the Orlando Rays.

The best part of the experience, of this first moment at a Spring Training exhibition game, is watching a Major League game -- even with a healthy dose of prospects and scrubs taking the place of the starts we'll see come the regular season -- in a minor league park. The little details that aren't noticed from any Major League loge or mezzanine section are enhanced here: Adam Wainwright's lanky height, Albert Pujols' chin resting on his front shoulder in his batting stance, Mark Teixeira's distinctive swing, Phil Niekro's chalk-line-white hair.

Among other things, I noticed that the Cardinals are wearing their red caps with their road gray uniforms, a change from recent (regular) seasons, when they'd wear a navy blue cap with red "STL" logo. And in a fun example of lawn art, the outfield grass had a silhouette of Mickey Mouse's head mowed into it.

As it is with players' performance or rookies' emergence, Spring Training can provide a hint of what's to come when the season begins in earnest. Maybe the Cards are doing away with the blue road caps (a shame, if it's true). And maybe Pujols' elbow injury won't take away from his game that much, after all, because he's still hitting the ball this spring the way we'd expect him to.

As I leave the ballpark and make my way across the sea of cars, I'm glad I made the Disney complex my first stop, because it's the most anticeptic, generic, corporatized ballpark of the three I'll see on this trip. I chose it over the Astros' camp in Kissimmee, and I probably would've enjoyed that a little more for the atmosphere (and gotten to see Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay take on the Astros' No. 1, Roy Oswalt), but Orlando proved to be a good choice because of the stars who played in this game -- not just Pujols, McCann and Teixeira, but Troy Glaus, Jeff Francoeur, probable Cards Opening Day pitcher Wainwright and Braves pitching prospect Jair Jurrjens. Plus, I found out his first name is pronounced "J-air," the sound of simply putting a "J" in front of the word "air."

I follow the line of cars snaking its way out of the labyrinth of the Disney complex -- parking here is free, something unique for me on this three-camp tour, but I hear later that the Braves charge fans to watch workouts, so in the end, it's not as great a deal when you're paying for each person individually, rather than by the carfull -- and hit the overpriced toll road east to Titusville. I've got a little space detour before I continue the baseball portion of this trip.

America suffers an outbreak of wanderlust

Everyone's hitting the road. Two of my co-workers leave tomorrow morning on a four-city baseball tour through the Midwest, while a friend of mine is off on a longer 10-day journey covering ballfields from Cleveland to Minneapolis to St. Louis. The New York Times' Frugal Traveler is doing what I did nine years ago, even using the same name that I tacked onto the entries in a former blog. And writers, reporters, photographers and bloggers everywhere are doing all they can to mark the 50th anniversary this fall of the publication of Jack Kerouac's On The Road -- the first journey of which began on July 17, 1947, or 60 years ago.

And though I've got enough to keep me busy at home, though our funds are strained by projects on the new house, and though we've got a long weekend in Chicago to look forward to in just three weeks, I'm jealous of each and every one of them. (Particularly the NY Times guy. I mean, come on, "American Road Trip"? I never liked it when I chose it, and now you're stealing it -- albeit an "it" that's not really "mine." But I'll save that whine for another blog.)

Perhaps I can satiate my own urge with a smaller undertaking, a more local journey emanating from home, a series of out-and-backs each day tucked in around my work schedule each night. It won't be as fun as the 3-in-3 odyssey I put together two years ago, but it's better than sitting at home dreaming about it. Day games are scheduled all over the tri-state area -- both on New Jersey's northern and southern ends -- and I have my choice. I can hit four ballparks in four states in four days, or four in three states. I can visit three new ones out of the four, or split them two and two. That breakdown will be determined tomorrow, when I have to decide between the 48-minute drive (so says Google Maps) to Bridgewater for the Atlantic League's Road Warriors-Somerset Patriots tilt, or the hour-and-48-minute jaunt up to West Haven, Conn., for the Can-Am League's matchup between Les Capitales de Quebec and the New Haven County Cutters. Bridgewater will provide the convenient and the familiar; New Haven would be a new experience, but also more of a haul. And considering today's journey, tonight's sleep and the timing of everything, the drive to Connecticut would be much more taxing.

If I can make the trip in three hours or less, it fits my requirement for a "there-and-back" journey. In other words, any ballpark that is a three-hour drive one-way from our house, and I'll consider it for a matinee -- or the occasional night game -- without staying over. I've done it to Baltimore and Pawtucket, but it's not the kind of trip I would make on only a few hours' sleep or if I have to work that night. So, depending on my schedule, only a handful of teams on the outer reaches of that three-hour window have games that are truly available to me. On Monday, the Tri-City ValleyCats just barely fit into that opening.

Ideally, I like my time at a game to equal or exceed the one-way travel time. It's not much fun when you drive three hours to get to the game but can only watch two hours of action before you have to get back on the road in order to make it home in time. I'll take a 2-2-2 split -- two hours driving, two hours at the park, two hours back in the car. It's not great when your total travel time is twice as long as your ballpark time, but those are the concessions I make to expand my reaches.

The trip to Troy, N.Y., just over the Hudson River from Albany to the east, took me a few minutes longer than two hours. It was a simple trip, though, the Garden State Parkway easing into the New York State Thruway, which took me up along the eastern edge of the Catskills and spurned I-787 just outside Albany. I took the beltway a few miles east, exited, crossed the Hudson, and found my way to the campus of Hudson Valley Community College.

Joseph L. Bruno Stadium is a recent and modern minor league park, built when the ValleyCats -- because they reside in the Hudson Valley -- essentially moved across the state line. Until 2002, the franchise had been in Pittsfield, Mass., as a Mets affiliate. But the New York-Penn League underwent a bit of a sea change in the late 90s and early 2000s, when the Yankees bought the league's Watertown, N.Y., team and moved the franchise to Staten Island; the Mets took over the club from St. Catharine's, Ontario, and established the Brooklyn Cyclones; the Pittsfield club moved to Troy, and Cal Ripken bought the upstate Utica Blue Sox and expanded the NY-P League south to Maryland.

When the Pittsfield franchise made the 42-mile move west, it adopted the Tri-City nickname, encompassing the Albany-Troy-Schenectady area, similar to the way the Angels want to dominate both Anaheim and Los Angeles. Of course, New York's Tri-City area is not to be confused with the Kennewick-Richland-Pasco region in Washington State, which is home to the Tri-City Dust Devils.

I have to say, I wasn't drawn in by the Tri-City moniker. To me, it didn't mean much, particularly because of the companion team across the country. To say I saw a game "at Tri-City" says nothing, but to tell friends what it's like to experience a game "in Brooklyn," "in Staten Island" or "at Trenton" is much more exciting. "Tri-City" sounds made-up, like something out of The Simpson. I'm not knocking it as a nickname for the Albany region, but it would not have been my choice on the Name the Team ballot. I'm sure it's a great advertising tool for the fans in the area -- which is what the team should be focused on -- but it's not going to draw me in as a tourist.

Semantics aside, the game was enjoyable. As I tend to find at these weekday afternoon games, the cheaper seats along the outfield foul lines were jammed with kids in color-coded summer camp shirts, while the premium seats from the far end of one dugout to the other were largely empty, their season-ticket-holding owners stuck at work for the only mid-week matinee on the schedule. So I took whatever ticket they gave me at the window ... and looked at it only out of curiosity. I never found section 230; instead, I spent the first couple of innings a few rows behind the third-base dugout, stood in line for another half-inning to buy my lunch, then ate it in a seat behind home plate and the protective screen, just slightly to the first-base side. After eating, I moved further out along the first-base line, getting out from behind the screen to have a clear view through my lens. (Pictures will be coming as soon as I can get them uploaded to the computer and sorted, but that may be a few days if I get to as many parks as I'm planning this week.)

Astros outfielder Hunter Pence is Tri-City's most recent graduate to the majors -- and its most beloved, it appeared -- and watching these short-season Class A games in the NY-Penn League becomes a guessing game as to which players may have the tools to keep climbing up the ladder. The ValleyCats could have another outfield prospect in Collin DeLome, while third baseman Craig Corrado and second baseman Russell Dixon looked like they could move quickly through the first few rungs of the system.

The player I liked the most, though, was Mahoning Valley Scrappers center fielder Adam White, the Indians' ninth-round pick in last month's draft. He entered the game batting just .224, with a .265 slugging percentage -- thanks to a triple representing his lone extra-base hit out of his 11 knocks so far this season -- but I didn't know his stats coming into the game and didn't make a point to notice them on the board. I view the NY-Penn League a bit like Little League or high school games -- your best players bat near the top of the lineup, with the best all-around players hitting first or third and the bottom of the order guys mainly fillers. Maybe this was White's coming-out party, the game that jump-starts the rest of his season. So when I saw White put up two hits, hustle on the bases and get caught stealing in a rundown between second and third because of his aggressiveness (he jumped the wrong way on a pickoff attempt). He may one day move Pence to a corner, or he not make it much higher than Mahoning Valley, but he made Monday's game pretty exciting.

I saw some early fireworks -- including the only home run, by tall Mahoning Valley first baseman Todd Martin -- in what turned into a Scrappers rout. As always, the experience was worth the trip. The fans treat it like it's a vitally important contest and you're sitting right on top of the field, where you can hear the crack, the thwack, the smack and the slide anywhere on the infield. If I get to bed soon, I should have enough time to get to sleep and build up enough energy to make it down to Bridgewater tomorrow.

I don't want to overdo it on the second day of the week, not when Wednesday and Thursday have so much to offer.

Day 3: Philadelphia freedom

Before I started this weekend endeavor, I had my doubts. I wondered if my enthusiasm would hold through the weekend. As much as I wanted to take the weekend and see three major-league ballgames in three different ballparks, there was a part of me on Friday that just wanted to go home and splay myself out on the couch to read some magazines or pop in a DVD. But as that 7 train pulled into the Willets Point stadium and I saw the high definition screen outside Shea Stadium announcing, MERENGUE NIGHT IS SOLD OUT, I got the feeling that this weekend would be nothing but fun; there would be no funk.

As I crawled into bed at 2:30 a.m. after Matt and I had convened again with Brad to discuss the game over a few pints, I figured 9 a.m. would come too soon. Yet when the alarm went off and I pulled myself out of bed, there was no dragging of feet. Matt and I watched Lance Armstrong pull into Paris and then I tossed my bags into the car and returned to the interstate.

Recent world events have prompted an increase in security, particularly in the various means of transportation, so as I pass through Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, I am greeted with various variations of the same message flashing on the overhead LED displays: REPORT SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY. In Delaware, they use the state's postal abbreviation so that the sign read, DE TERRORIST TIP LINE, followed by the phone number.

I keep my eyes peeled throughout the drive, but the only suspicious activity I may or may not have encountered was not worthy of a phone call: a car with New York plates going the speed limit, a BMW cruising along below 70 mph, an SUV with a "Save the Trees" bumper sticker, a New Jersey driver leaving appropriate distance between the car in front of it, a hybrid car with a George W. Bush decal. These things aren't the usual activity from such drivers, but they don't seem to be threats to national security.

As I suspected, the drive takes two and a half hours, so I exit I-95 just after 1 p.m., find the parking lot that will give me easy access to New Jersey after the game, and buy my ticket with enough time to spare that I make it inside in time for the National Anthem, the first time in three days that I've not missed the first pitch because I'm still en route to the ballpark. I enter on the first-base side but must walk around to left field to get to my seat, so I turn right to walk down Ashburn Alley, the outfield plaza packed with concession stands, standing-room views and a Phillies timeline posted on the back of the brick batters eye in center field. Despite the recent comments by Peter Gammons and John Smoltz, just two of the esteemed baseball men who have come forward to pan the ballpark as a place to play, it remains a fabulous venue in which to watch a game. I ask for a seat in the shade, not wanting to commit to the sun on a hot day. For $22 I am placed in left field, in prime home run territory. As it turns out, I am just outside the edge of the overhang that would've provided the shade I asked for, but it didn't matter. I spend about an inning and a half in my seat; the rest of the time, I wander the ballpark. It's conducive to such perambulations. The wide, airy concourses might as well be enclosed and air conditioned, the difference between those areas and the open sunshine were so great. I'd also guess that 90 percent of the space around the park includes chest-high shelves on which fans can place their just-bought cheesesteaks and watch and eat while they stand and watch the game. If you wanted to get exercise at the ballpark, you could buy the cheapest ticket available and spend the entire game walking laps around the park without ever losing view of the field except for the brief half-minute it would take you to walk behind the scoreboard and Harry K's restaurant in left-center.

The gripe Gammons, Smoltz, et. al. have, though, is somewhat legitimate. Pop flies can end up eight rows deep in the outfield. Power alleys are chip shots. Tomas Perez, playing shortstop, goes back on a pop up -- as any shortstop would in this case -- but because left field is so small, Pat Burrell is playing so shallow that he calls Perez off. When Perez circles around to return to the infield, he's closer to the warning track than he is to the infield dirt.

They're clever there in Philly. As the public address announcer finishes off the day's lineups with the umpires, the theme from Law & Order serves as background music. When San Diego's pitching coach walks out to the mound with catcher Ramon Hernandez for a conference with starter Brian Lawrence, the choice is the theme from Three's Company.

Sometimes it's lonely going to ballgames alone. If you go to see a specific player -- say on a night Pedro Martinez is pitching, or in the minors, to catch a top prospect -- then you have a purpose. You can keep score and then pay particular attention to Pedro's innings on the mound or the prospect's at bats; use the other innings for trips to the beer cart or the bathroom. This is why I felt the need to view Shea Stadium in a different way on my Friday night trip. I was there just to kick off the three parks in three days weekend, not for any other reason. But as a Mets fan, it was easy to cheer and high-five the strangers around me on big plays like Carlos Beltran's three-run home run. In Washington, I sat with a friend and conversed with his fellow season-ticket holders around us. But the energy of the crowd inspired me to stand and cheer when a Nationals pitcher got two strikes on a Houston hitter, even though a Washington loss would be better for the Mets' position in the standings. For one night, I allowed myself to enjoy the atmosphere of a division rival. It made the ballgame more enjoyable.

The night before going to Philadelphia, I wondered how the fans would be. Going in, I expected Citizens Bank Park to rank third in enthusiasm behind Shea and RFK. The city is known to be passionate about its professional teams ... mostly when they're winning. These days, it's an Eagles town first and foremost. Until the lockout, the Flyers were probably No. 2 among the four teams. The 76ers may have fallen to last now that they're a few years removed from Larry Brown and the finals appearance against L.A. The Phillies fluctuate throughout the season. They're higher on the list in April, when they're in contention; if they fall eight or 10 games back by the time Eagles camp opens, they also tend to become the city's second sports interest. Among 35,322 fans on an 83-degree sunny Sunday (the smallest crowd of the weekend by 7,000, but bringing the total crowds of which I've been a part to 128,275), I do experience moments of Phanaticism. It doesn't reach the levels I felt in New York or Washington, but when Ryan Howard launches a double (mere feet from a home run, from what I can see) to left-center in his first at bat, then doubles into the right-field corner to deliver a run his second time up, I stand and cheer. Sure, it's probably more for his days as a BlueClaw, but I still find myself involved in the game.

As I said, I don't sit long in my left-field seats. The breeze is nice but I still feel like I'm baking in the sun -- and getting an uneven tan with the sun directly to my right. I get up to walk along the third-base concourse, stopping into the team store before catching another half-inning standing at the back of the seats, in the shade, on the walkway. Again it becomes clear that when this stadium was designed, the fans were the first thought; the pitchers, clearly, last. I continue out towards center field and Ashburn Alley again, passing the left-field gate and looking out on the sea of cars, the parking lot where Veterans Stadium once loomed. It's the first time I've been to this south Philadelphia sporting complex since a January night to watch Notre Dame play Villanova in basketball at the Wachovia Center. Now all that surrounds the four arenas -- Citizens Bank Park, Lincoln Financial Field, Wachovia Center and the small Spectrum -- are parking lots and warehouses. If it weren't for the new stadia and their restaurants, there wouldn't even be a place to eat. The biggest drawback to this beautiful ballpark is that it's in the middle of nowhere and can never rank with PNC Park in Pittsburgh or Camden Yards in Baltimore among the best places to spend a day and catch a game.

I pass again by the statue of Richie Asburn beating a throw to the bag, I suppose. I climb some stairs to the bleacher section perched atop the concession stands beneath the big Liberty Bell scaffold that lights up and sways whenever a Phillie goes yard. Here I can look down upon Ashburn Alley while getting a far-away view of the field, perhaps somewhat like the vantage point those rooftop fans around Wrigley Field see. When a spot along the railing below, the one overlooking the visitors' bullpen, opens up, I slid in, resting on the shelf beside a kid chowing down on a carton of seasoned fries from one of the counters behind me. I watch Clay Hensley warm up before he pitches the final two innings of this 5-1 Padres loss. The beauty of this spot is the closeness to the game. I can discern the stitching on Hensley's jersey, I can hear the zip of the ball as he brings his arm around and releases the orb at 80 mph to the catcher 60 feet to my -- to our -- left. Perhaps best of all, I can hear what Hensley hears, that being the taunts and jeers of the famously harsh Philly fans. Just as Hensley gets up to loosen up, Scott Linebrink also emerges from the bench beneath our feet. He stretches his legs, then uses the elastic band strapped to the railing to loosen up his arms and shoulders. "That's right, Linebrink, warm up!" shouts one fan perched behind me up near the bleachers. "Make sure you get that goatee nice and loose!" The comment makes no sense, but therein lies its hilarity. I study Linebrink's face for any sign of acknowledgement, finding none. But I like to think he heard it and was amused by it too.

As I spend the day exploring the ballpark more than sitting still to take in the game, I feel as if I am in a familiar place. I glance at faces looking for signs of recognition; I have this feeling that somewhere in this crowd is someone I know. This sensation, I later decide, stems from two things. The first is the ballpark's proximity to New Jersey -- just over the Walt Whitman Bridge. No doubt there are a lot of Garden State Phillies fans here. The other is derived from the familiar t-shirts and hats, either from a Jersey Shore vacation/recreation town or the Lakewood affiliate of the Phillies. I'm wearing a red BlueClaws hat myself to go along with my Gavin Floyd Phillies t-shirt. So as I stand along the bullpen, watching both the game and Hensley's warm-up routine, I'm not startled -- perhaps I'm even expecting it -- when a hand rests on my right shoulder. I turn around to see Hal, a BlueClaws employee I know from my days covering the team. In that moment I'm amazed more at my expectation of running into someone I know than I am at actually seeing such a person. We spend an inning or so chatting about the game, the ballpark, the BlueClaws before we split up for separate sustinence; now that the line has virtually disappeared at the Italian ice stand, I make my first in-park purchase of the entire weekend and get perhaps the best bargain at any of the three venues when a decent-sized cup of cherry ice is just $3.75. Even my small (or "like it") sized cup of Cold Stone ice cream cost more than $4. I take the ice up to the bleacher perch again to enjoy both the coolness inside my body and the complimentary breeze outside. By the time I'm finished, my tongue has taken on the same shade as the hat and shirt I'm wearing, that of Philly and BlueClaw red.

It's not long before Billy Wagner comes in and shuts down San Diego with perfect ninth inning and I'm scattering with the fans out to the surrounding parking lots. I'm quick to the car despite emerging from a gate behind right field rather than along the first base/right field line and losing my bearings. I walk left up the road at first before realizing that this doesn't feel right though there is some familiarity because I'm heading to the lot where I parked for a game last September (and I had been hoping to find again on my way in today). I turn the other way and head toward an intersection that I soon see is Pattison Ave., where I did indeed park in a moderate sized lot that does not have a bottleneck at the exit. I am out of there before I get to find out whether one forms or not. Thankful for the small but discernable signs pointing to I-76, I'm back in New Jersey in no time, cruising up 295 and then 130 to avoid the Turnpike traffic. When I do join the toll road at exit 8A, I'm north of the congestion and find myself coming through the door to the apartment a mere two hours after the game ended.

Exhausted, I make dinner and watch TV and manage to pound out the account of Saturday's visit to D.C., unsure exactly of how I am able to stay away until midnight. But it was worth it to relive the day before and record an account of this wonderful weekend while the images and sensations are still clear in my mind. My doubts about my stamina, my endurance for a three-park road trip in three days did not surface after Friday's initial questions on the way to Queens. The proximity of the three cities to one another and the comfort of a bed in Matt's house rather than a lifeless hotel room certainly made the trip more bearable, not to mention the camaraderie the three of us shared over burgers and beer and more beer.

I'm happy, too, that I stuck to my budget and limited my expenditures to tickets and higher-quality meals and drinks outside of the ballpark concessions. Before embarking on the trip, I told Casey that, other than the games for which I already have tickets, I think it's just minor-league ballparks for the rest of the summer. These major-league prices can take a toll on your wallet.

My passion for the game is as strong as ever, so I suppose it's no surprise to me that I've already looked at which teams are at home this Saturday, when Casey's away again. I'm happy to get in as many games as I can now, because once December rolls around, when we're two months removed from the World Series, in the dead period between the end of the college football season and awaiting the bowl games, I'll be itching for springtime and the start of another baseball season.

Day 2: At least Washington's first in something

"First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League." That's what they used to say about the old Washington Senators, the hapless bunch of baseball men who couldn't do much in two separate attempts at playing baseball in Washington, D.C. So this time, when they brought baseball back to the capital, perhaps they figured they should try the other league. Now -- well, as of July 23, 2005 -- they're at least first in the National League (East). If two out of three ain't bad, then I guess one out of three is ... a start?

In posting Friday night's account of the Mets game (see below), I found myself falling into bed at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday. I set the alarm for a not-late-enough 6:30, figuring on at least half an hour of snooze time onto the end of that. And it might have worked out that way ... had I remembered to turn on the alarm. So at 8:15, I looked at the clock and thought, "Shoot. I suppose I need to get going."

An hour later, I was in the car and soon I was zipping down the New Jersey Turnpike, Washington-bound, following the signs that said SOUTH. I find it sad, as I make a quick stop at the Walt Whitman Rest Area, that we're about 90 miles into New Jersey, and the most prominent thing when you walk into the gift shop is a table covered with "I Love NY" t-shirts. It didn't occur to me at the time that, of all the service areas on the Turnpike, I choose the Whitman one for my quick restroom run, considering his 1846 dispatch to the Brooklyn Eagle: “In our sundown perambulations of late through the outer parts of Brooklyn, we have observed several parties of youngsters playing ‘base,’ a certain game of ball ... Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our close rooms...the game of ball is glorious.”

Upon arriving in Maryland, I come to an empty house. Matt, the college friend I'd be going to the game and then staying with, was not home. I had called from the road to inform him that I was running late and he didn't have to rush home from his girlfriend's for my planned noon arrival. But I hadn't been specific enough.

"Yo!" he says when he answers my call.

"I'm sitting outside your house ..." I say in a mock-stalker voice.

"Oh ... whoops," he replies.

"I suppose I should have actually given you a time at which I would be arriving," I said. But soon, after bringing another college pal, Brad, into the conversation, we came up with a remedy: I would get back on the Beltway and the three of us would meet in Arlington, Virginia, where Matt was and near Brad's home. We were to meet at Baileys Pub and Grille at the Ballston Common Mall. When Brad first mentioned the place, some interference in our cell phone connection garbled his voice a little, so on the drive down, I tried to figure out why a suburban shopping mall in Virginia -- a commonwealth full of its own rich Colonial history -- would choose to name itself after a New England village green, Boston Common. As it turns out, the mall is roughly the size of Boston Common, so the similar name is appropriate.

After lunch and ice cream, talk of baseball and bachelor parties, Matt and I swing by his house again to leave my car as we head across the District to RFK Stadium. Traffic and then unexpected closure of Matt's regular parking lot -- the former, we believe, caused at least in part by the latter -- prevents us from getting through the turnstiles in time for the first pitch. Or the 31st pitch. Not only do we listen to the top of the first on the car radio, but we get into the bottom of the inning before we park and start walking up the hill to the stadium. Inside, we find Cristian Guzman batting -- a term used loosely when it comes to the .180 hitter -- with two outs and a 4-0 Nationals lead. Settling into our seats, I spot a fan walking in the field seats below wearing a Guzman jersey and I wonder if he'll get his money back. I'm sure the Nationals would like theirs back.

Opened in 1962 for the second incarnation of the Senators, RFK slid in front of Shea Stadium to become the NL's third-oldest ballpark, behind Wrigley Field and Dodger Stadium. It certainly looks and feels like a 1960s multi-purpose stadium. Now that the Redskins have moved out, RFK -- or The Rob, as Brad calls it -- again splits its time morphing from a baseball stadium to a football one and back, only now it hosts international football in the form of D.C. United and Major League Soccer. There are no box seats, I notice as I look down. The best they could do was put new, soft blue cushioning on several sections behind home plate and put a table into a small box down in the front row directly behind the catcher. At some point, it's clear that they decided they needed more premium (as in high-priced, not high-quality) seats, so they cut off the continuous walkway by inserting seats at intervals that stretch from behind the first-base dugout around to the one on the third-base side.

With the score already 4-0, there's not much left for us; Washington cruised from there. Tony Armas Jr. carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning before a walk to Craig Biggio ahead of Lance Berkman soon becames a 4-2 Nats lead: Berkman deposited a pitch over the right-field wall for the first hit of the game.

The atmosphere is as electric as it was on Opening Day, now that Washington has risen to first place and we're just over two months away from the end of the season. Matt has become friends with his fellow season-ticket holders, chatting with the two men to his right and the family behind us. One of the regulars points out how the numbers on the outfield wall designating the distance from home plate have moved. Those that read 380 feet that were once in right-center and left-center field are now closer to their respective foul lines, more straightaway right and left. First it was players who couldn't believe their drives to the gaps were falling short of 380 feet; they argued that it was at least 20 feet deeper. When the grumbling got louder, someone decided this matter needed to be settled. Lasers were involved and, indeed, those 380-foot power alleys are actually 394-foot gaps where home runs go to die.

For two nights now, I've been a part of large, spirited crowds. Washington's doesn't quite measure up to Merengue Night madness, but those were special circumstances. Both the Mets and the Nats are teams comprised of loose, laid-back players who feed off of the fans. When Shea starts rockin', you can see the Mets players quietly taking it in, the energy of the fans spurring them on. The same thing happens in Washington, where 81 home games likely won't be enough to make up for 33 years without a team. In two nights, I've been among 92,953 spirited, knowledgeable boosters. In New York, the fans have suffered through high expectations and low results for years now; in Washington, each home run, each big hit, each key strikeout seems to be followed by a release of cheers and applause that have been building since the Nixon Administration. By that logic, the fans in Philadelphia should be exponentially louder -- they've been stuck with underachieving, underwhelming, hapless teams for decades. How they'll be on a scorching Sunday afternoon at a sparkling new ballpark remains to be seen.

Day 1: Discovering a new Shea

River Road curbside I stand waiting for the 158 New York City bus -- sweating uncomfortably, I might add, until this pleasant breeze kicked up -- I could count all the drivers heading south who unsafely (and perhaps illegally; I'm not sure what Edgewater's law is) talk on their cell phones while driving. Holding it, looking at it -- a glance at the screen as he pulls up to and then through the intersection. I mean, if you're going to look, don't do it at an intersection on a four-lane road. Here I stand, easily annoyed at how much more our society becomes me-centered everyday. But the bus arrives at 5:41, pretty much on time and so articly, refreshingly frigid.

This is my third game in nine days, my second in three, my 48th at Shea overall. How do I approach it differently? How do I put a fresh spin on a routine experience? Therein lies the challenge, I believe. Tonight, rather than sitting and scoring (a task that, in this internet age can be done -- or adjusted, for accuracy -- at home) I decide instead to wander the aisles a little bit, to observe and record the atmosphere, the flavor of Shea on a sweltering July night. I know I'll arrive late anyway, so most of any scoring would be done online as a result. The challenge, of course, is getting to the city. A 20-minute trip at best (and, truthfully, it's never that), 30 minutes on average, takes that long just to get to the last stop in New Jersey, at Lincoln Harbor. Then it takes us another 20 to get through the Lincoln Tunnel to New York, where we head all the way to 31st Street to get onto 10th Avenue to go up to the Port Authority at 40th. All because of traffic. Nearly an hour after I boarded, we're in the left lane at 37th and 10th and I'm wondering how we'll move to the right across three lanes of traffic in three blocks. Turns out we'll do it in the span of one block -- simply by brute force, mere intimidation. When does the 40-ton bus change lanes? Whenever it wants to!

Off the bus at 6:45, I'm in luck with no line at Auntie Anne's, so for $3.70 I have a pretzel and a lemonade. At Shea, that would cost me about $6.50 -- if not more -- and with three ballparks in three days, I'm determined to spend no money inside Shea Stadium tonight. Only the good fortune of no line allows me this stop and my timing turns out perfectly. As I descend the steps inside the subway, the E train has just come to a stop, only the slower moving pokes in front of me prevent me from boarding as the doors close. I stand there a second and the doors do indeed open again, and I step aboard with a satisfied sigh. The pretzel is gone before we've made four stops and left Manhattan.

How to approach this game differently was taken care of by the Mets: a sellout on Merengue Night, an atmosphere off the train and on the ramp like a holiday, a postseason game, an event. The platform railing was packed with people watching from afar (and for the low, low cost of a $2 subway fare). The gates into the ballpark were linked by one extended, meandering, pulsating throng of people wrapping the stadium. It is a late-arriving crowd, the top of the second inning underway inside and lines still forming to pass through the checkpoints and get inside. Mets employees are checking tickets and directing people to their assigned gates to cut down on bottlenecks, not to mention at the top of escalators and ramps, preventing people from exiting onto the loge level if their tickets are for the mezzanine or upper deck.

I couldn't be happier with my seat in the back row of the loge. On Wednesday, when I bought the ticket, I asked for the cheapest, upper reserved. The ticket agent told me she had the rear of the loge for the same price, the trade-off being the low overhang which cuts off my field of view a few feet above the outfield wall. It's not new to me, so I didn't mind taking it for the closer view of the rest of the action. The bonus to this panoramic home-plate view is the constant breeze, natural air conditioning so comfortable, this game might as well be played in a dome. Looking down as I write in my notebook, I hear the crack of Jeff Kent's bat and the resulting, "Ooooh" of the crowd means I don't even have to look up. But I do, and I see Cliff Floyd trotting toward the wall in left field for a token look as the ball sails deep into the Dodgers bullpen. 1-0 Los Angeles.

Up the aisle walks a kid -- maybe 12, 13 years old -- in a Yankee shirt. It's one of my biggest pet peeves at the ballpark, the wearing of a team when it's not on the field. With New York being a two-team city, it's to be expected, whereas in Seattle or St. Louis, it might not be so commonplace. But this kid is no hanger-on, no bandwagon jumper, for when he turns around, the back reads, "GEHRIG 4." That's respect.

As I walk the ballpark -- or, more accurately, the loge level -- the Dominican flags are too many to count. At least six full-sized ones hang from overhangs and railings out in the stands while dozens of a more manageable size are carried, tucked into a waistband or incorporated into a shirt or a hat. For every red, white and blue Dominican flag, there are probably two jerseys or t-shirts with a No. 45 on the back and the name Martinez above it. The electricity that could have been produced had the Mets not altered the rotation and kept Pedro on schedule to pitch tonight ...

By the fifth inning, it's 6-0 Dodgers. Victor Zambrano just didn't have it tonight. At least it's in support of Jeff Weaver, I think, wondering how much that helps, having a pitcher on my struggling fantasy team pitch well at the expense of my favorite major league franchise. Earlier, out in section 31, I heard someone echo my mother's oft-repeated thought. Citing the Mets' 12-0 victory on Thursday, he said they should've "saved" some runs for tonight. Well, no, not really, I think. Hitting is contagious. Get into a groove and keep it going for a few games. That's what I say.


The loge level is where you want to be for a big game, or for a sellout. When there's a raucous crowd, the overhang amplifies the cheers. You feel like you're in a club, it's so loud. That observation is brought to you by Doug Mientkiewicz and his 10th home run of the season, cutting the score to 6-2 in the bottom of the fifth.

Another thought comes to me an inning later, set up by singles from Jose Reyes and Mike Cameron. Carlos Beltran comes to the plate and turns on a Jeff Weaver offering to launch a home run into the small spit of loge seats that extend into fair territory -- way out in section 31. My section behind the plate is eccstatic, the music pumping and Reyes and Cameron exchanging a unique bumping of fists and elbows at home as they await Beltran's arrival. I think back a week to the home run derby in Detroit and to last year's in Houston, where I watched from a seat far out in right-center field, where no balls could reach me (not that I wanted it that way, but that's where they sat the less important media). The Mets haven't asked to host an All-Star Game in nearly 30 years, but how could they have it? Shea hardly has any outfield bleachers, so all of those home-run balls would bounce off the scoreboard or land in the no-man's land of scaffolding and player parking instead of being engulfed in a sea of bare arms and outstreched gloves.

Now it's 6-5, thanks to Beltran, and I decide then that rather than leaving at 9:30 in order to ensure I catch the 10:30 bus back to New Jersey, that I must stick around for this one. There's a feeling in the air besides the humidity, the feeling that there is more to this comeback. I'm sitting in a sea of strangers, brought here first for our love of the Mets, but my neighbors on this night also come for the love of the music to be played after the game. On this night, we gringos are far in the minority. I don't want to leave. I want more of a rebound from the Mets, more reasons to slap hands with these momentary friends around me. I can't bring myself to walk away from this just so I can be home "at a good hour" to pack for the weekend and get off to an early start in the morning.

The seventh inning stretch comes and rather than the standard Lou Monte jingle following "Take Me Out To the Ballgame," someone in the production room plays to the crowd as the Macarena echoes across Shea. Sadly, those are the last few moments of what had become a block party atmosphere. Los Angeles' bullpen comes in and closes the door, preventing any further Mets comeback. I stay to the end, leaving only when there are two outs and no one on in the bottom of the ninth. I stand at the top of the ramp to watch the final out before turning and commencing the brisk walk to the elevated tracks to beat the crowds -- not onto the train, but those who are moving down, entering the field level after sitting for nine innings in the upper deck. They want to be closer to the show, closer to the concert by Fernando Villalona, Sergio Vargas and El Jeffrey.


I walk to the front end of the platform, out from under the overhang and beyond the wall that blocks any view of the stadium. The ramps are packed. The sidewalks around the outside are bustling. It's a festive scene, one that you wouldn't expect following a loss, but this is one of those games where you get the feeling the outcome wasn't the most important thing. Coming to this game tonight was about community, about a night out with friends, whether you planned ahead and came with them, or ran into them as you made your way to your seats -- a phenomenon I witnessed twice tonight. The Mets have always been New York's second team, the one that came along later after the Yankees had existed in the city for more than half a century. The Mets were immigrants to the New York baseball world, and these nine years of heritage nights -- of which Merengue Night is one -- simply seem appropriate for this ballpark, for Queens. A ballgame at Shea Stadium, to me, feels like walking down a city block where everyone knows their neighbors, where they sit on the stoop and send greetings out to the passersby on the sidewalk or to a window three doors down and two flights up. And on Merengue Night, it just becomes a 55,000-person block party.

Baseball and the road

I love the road and I love baseball. The two go hand in Rawlings glove. For me, I think the lure of covering the sport as a profession was more enticing because of the travel than it was for the involvement and insight into the game. When I was a minor-league beat writer, two of my best assignments were the visits to North Carolina — the first for the first game in Lakewood BlueClaws history, the second for a feature about life on the road. For that one, I rode the bus and essentially lived the life of a minor leaguer for five days. Perhaps a little more the life of a minor-league coach or manager.

Baseball and travel go so well because the game is everywhere -- even up in Alaska, where the annual Midnight Sun Classic is as unique as a ballgame can be. There are several travel guides to help you plan your baseball road trip, and there are numerous post-trip accounts from people who have checked off each major-league ballpark, whether over a single summer or a few seasons.

While I do admire those "ballpark collectors" who try to see everyone, be it major league, minor league, or simply all of them, my feeling is, frankly, it's been done. I try to look for trips that are more unique. I've got a few ideas, a few routes planned out in my head, but I don't have the time to embark upon them right now. I may not be the first to think of them — I may not even be the first to do them. But as long as I haven't heard of them yet, that's good enough for me.

So while my fiancee is out of town this weekend, my first thought was to consult the schedules to see what kind of small trip I could make myself. At first, I thought I'd tick off two new major-league parks by taking today off and cruising out to Cleveland for tonight's game, then moving on to Cincinnati tomorrow. But when my friends in Cincy told me they'd be away, that trip lost some of its attraction. Yet I used that trip as the starting point. It became option No. 1 on a list of 15 excursions I came up with that would include three ballparks in three days, assuming I took this very Friday off and made it to my first destination in time for tonight's first pitch. My 15 routes went as far west as that Great American Ballpark in southwest Ohio, as far north as historic Centennial Field in Burlington, Vermont, and as far south as Harbor Yard in Norfolk, Virginia. I looked at a combination of major- and minor-league stadia that would allow for games on Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoon — enabling me to be home by a reasonable time in the evening to not completely exhaust myself at the start of the week.

Unfortunately, over time, my conscience kicked in. I felt I shouldn't spend too much money; two nights in hotels — even minor-league town roadside motels — might not be the best use of my money when I have a wedding coming up before the start of the Division Series. (Not to mention the gas prices, which are horrendous, even for New Jersey standards, and aren't likely to get better so long as an oil barron — even one who's never worked for anything in his life — is running the show.) I also then found out that one of my good friends will be coming out a day early for my bachelor festivities, and I realized that would be a better day to take off than this random Friday. I started to narrow down the list to the more manageable, more financially responsible choices. And then I found a trip that would work perfectly.

Sadly, I never got myself up to Montreal during the final two seasons to see what French-Canadian baseball is like. One friend and I talked about it before the 2003 season, but only he and his wife made it happen. I didn't make it a priority. He lives in northern Virginia, and the Washington Nationals are his team now, so he had more of an interest in going. He and I and a third friend of ours in Maryland are all ecstatic that Washington has a team again, and that development is what will enable me to embark upon this weekend's trip.

Tonight, I'll leave work and hop on the 7 train to Shea Stadium. It's Merengue Night, but sadly the Mets are babying Pedro Martinez again and have pushed him back to tomorrow afternoon's game. At least I was aware of that, yet I still decided to go — even though it will be my third game in the last nine days at Shea. Instead, I get Victor Zambrano — who's pitched quite well over his last 10 starts or so -- and one of my fantasy stallwarts, Jeff Weaver.

Tonight, Shea; tomorrow, D.C. In the morning, I'll hit the road and arrive at Matt's house in Maryland around lunchtime. We'll grab some burgers or pizza, then probably chow down on the other before tomorrow night's Astros-Nationals showdown. Sadly, Roy Oswalt pitched yesterday and Roger Clemens goes tonight. I'm just missing all these aces. On the docket in D.C.? Brandon Backe and Tony Armas Jr. At least maybe there will be an onslaught of runs.

Sunday morning, I'll head out from Maryland bound for Philadelphia. It's about halfway home on the trip, leaving me a comfortable two, maybe two-and-a-half hours home in the late afternoon. San Diego, which I just saw in New York on Wednesday, sends Brian Lawrence to the hill against Brett Myers, easily the most intriguing starter of the six I'll see between now and Sunday night.

Three games, three ballparks, three cities, three days. Three teams in the tight NL East race. Had I thought of tackling this trip on a different weekend, when the Braves and Marlins were visiting two of the stops, I could have seen the entire division. If there were, perhaps, a Sunday night game somewhere south of Trenton, and were the Orioles at home, it could potentially be four games in four ballparks in four cities in three days, but I'll leave that for another summer -- or another ambitious ballpark traveler. For now, I'm happy with the route, the teams, the games. For some reason, the Diamondbacks stuck in my head as the Phillies' opponent this weekend, which would have meant the potential to see my fellow Notre Dame alums — Brad Lidge and Craig Counsell — on consecutive days. But a Lidge save on Saturday would be doubly sweet, considering that any loses for NL East teams are better for the Mets. I'll also see two of the four oldest parks in the National League and one of the two newest. RFK Stadium opened in 1962, the same year as Dodger Stadium, with only Wrigley Field older. Shea debuted in 1964.

Tonight, I hope to post an account of the Mets game, though I doubt I'll make an effort to use Matt's internet to put up thoughts on tomorrow's Nats game in such a prompt manner. So Sunday, as I cool off (and likely re-hydrate) after a day in the Philadelphia sunshine, I'll wrap up the final two stops of the weekend.

Fill 'er up and play ball!