Spring Training Snoozer at Scottsdale Stadium -- Hello HoHoKam!

It has been our tradition to go to Scottsdale Stadium on Presidents' Day to see the early workouts. With the holiday being celebrated so early this year, there was little to be seen on Monday--the players' parking lot was half full, the Dugout Store wasn't open, and they wouldn't let us fans into the stadium. I did catch a glimpse of Madison Bumgarner on the back field through the fence. He stopped his truck as he was leaving and gave a few autographs--but sadly, not to me.  I did get these photos.

We drove out to Mesa and bought a Spring Training shirt at the home of the A's. The store employees at their team store were incredibly helpful, including one lovely lady who found us exactly what we were looking for in the correct size, and suggested additional sale items. Someone better snap her up after spring training--she would be a great asset to any company!

We only have tickets to three Giants games this spring--vs the Reds and the Indians at Goodyear Ballpark, and vs the A's at Mesa. But I will be expanding my volunteer schedule as a ticket taker at Goodyear Ballpark to eight games, so I will see lots of spring baseball. Last year I saw some great pitching by Cincinnati's Johnny Cueto and an inside the park home run by Cleveland's Francisco Lindor! I also won the auction bidding for a beautiful black bat signed by Lindor during that game--sweet!

Buy my tickets - San Franciso Giants and Oakland A's spring training opener in Mesa on Tuesday!

Wouldn't you know it that we got sweet directly behind home plate seats in Field Box 100 row 10 for Tuesday's first game in the A's new park Hohokam Stadium--and we can't go!! Auugh!!!  I listed the tickets on StubHub for $45 each. Surely there must be some fan of either team that would like to sit in the premier seats among the scouts, players' wives, etc. I sat next to Mark Ellis' wife one year, and one year next to Kurtwood Smith from That 70's Show (oh, wait that was at a Giants-Dodgers game at Camelback).

Friday is my first day as a volunteer at Goodyear Ballpark--Kansas City playing the Cleveland Indians--can't wait!

Arizona Rookie League - Goodyear

We headed over to Goodyear to check out the progress of the new Cincinnati Reds facility, co-located within the Cleveland Indians new park. It was going along pretty well, despite the fact that the Reds logo sign was taped onto the building over the entrance. We didn't look really closely, due to the "No Admittance" signs, but there was a Rookie League game that night between the players from the Indians and the Kansas City Royals.

There weren't many spectators. The metal grandstand held the official MLB scorekeeper, a few players, and a scout for the Oakland A's. We could hear the scorekeeper calling in the starting lineup and the game details after every inning. The scout was unfamiliar with just about everything, including how to get to the following night's game at Scottsdale. He didn't even know if the game was to be played at their stadium or at Indian School Park. We offered him advice on the best routing to Indian School.

Just before gametime, one of the Indians players brought us folding chairs and as you can see in the photo, we had great seats--and they were free! We adopted Trent Baker as our player to root for--sharing the same surname, after all!

Shortly after the game began a lovely young lady with long blonde hair was offered a chair near us. She asked various questions about the game, and at some point, we asked if she was either related to a player, or knew a player. She said that she was Trent Baker's girlfriend--how cosmic! He is from Australia, and according to her, used to be a pitcher (now a centerfielder), but they want his bat in the lineup. She is from South Africa originally, living in Orlando now.

The only odd things were that there was no scoreboard--this was the only field in the complex with lights--and the lights for the warmup pitchers was being produced by a noisy gas generator behind us. We think the final score was 4-3 in favor of the Indians. We know that Baker hit the game-winning RBI on a sacrifice fly. However, his girlfriend was perturbed that he made the out, and had made an error in the previous half inning.

One of the pitchers was someone that we apparently should have known (had we been Indians fans) who was making his first appearance after surgery. His fans seemed pleased, and we may have been ignorant, but we had fun anyway.