Arizona Fall League Championship Game

The Salt River Rafters and the Surprise Saguaros met for their championship game at Scottsdale Stadium today. It was a beautiful afternoon for a ballgame, with temperatures in the 70s.

We chose great seats right behind the Saguaros dugout--none of that assigned seating in Fall League! Batting practice was over by the time we entered the stadium but they had a little merchandise area set up so I could go shopping. I bought Arizona fall league card sets from 1999 and 2000, last year's model of their logo shirt for five dollars, and two mini bats for three dollars each. What a deal!

Several of the players had devised a totem, fashioned out of a broken bat, batting gloves, and other sundry items. We saw Tyler Bortnik putting on the finishing touches and he posed with his creation.

They even gave a couple of awards before the game. An MVP award went to Kevin Mattison, and the sportsmanship award to Rockies player Nolan Arenado. The Miami players were wearing the new style uniforms to go with their new stadium--nice! Jason Castro, the Astro from Castro Valley (try saying that three times fast) was playing catcher and had a single and a double.

The Surprise team had the better record, but the Rafters took the lead in the second inning and never lost it. The final score was 8 to 3 Rafters. Therewas much joy, jumping around, and eventually, water cooler dumping!

Mesa Solar Sox vs Salt River Rafters 11/11/11

This game was also free! I got a pair of free tickets at the "Dugout Store" in Surprise during the Rising Stars game. And since Tracy is a veteran, it was cool to watch the pregame ceremonies. All veterans were asked to stand--to much applause--and there were fireworks after the game too. Since the game was held at the Salt River Fields at Talking Stick there were introductions of many Indian veterans (yes, that is the way they were announced). The stadium is on their land...

The game was tight most of the way, but the Rafters prevailed 7-6 in the end. We had not been bringing food or drink to the game, but after the awful, rubbery $6 hamburgers at Scottsdale, we brought some drinks and Crunch and Munch. They did not search bags for any reason at any of the parks we have been to. However, they have been announcing that people are not allowed on the berms in all the parks (except Talking Stick where the kids had a great time rolling down the hill all night). Enforcing it is another matter....

We sat behind the Solar Sox dugout. We were so close we could hear a couple of the players ummm... commenting on the "Flag Lady" and imitating her. And we could see that Brian Dozier had been with the New Britain Rock Cats--we recognized the logo on his batting helmet. Oh and there was an extremely well-behaved Canine Companions for Independence dog two rows behind us the entire game--watching that ball very carefully while resting her head between the seats. The announcers for MLB Network were in a booth behind us and we could look back and watch their screen for an instant replay!

Arizona Fall League Rising Stars Game Nov 5th

You might say that the best part of this game is that we got in for free! A couple from New York that we were chatting with in the parking lot gave us their spare pair of tickets. We sat right behind the East Rising Stars' dugout and the autographs were easy to obtain. There were nearly 3,200 people in attendance. Sadly, the game was lopsided from the start--Danny Hultzen struck out the side in the top of the first, and then the West hit two home runs and scored five times in the bottom of the inning. Four more runs in the third added insult to injury, and in the end, the East was beaten by the West 11-2.

Several of our friends in the Bay Area spotted us on TV at the bottom of the sixth inning looking glum! At least a Giants player got to play in the later innings. Joe Panik got a couple of at bats but didn't get on base.