Well with baseball season nearly officially here, Trish offered to have me write a guest blog for the night! Two weekends ago we went out to Arizona for our annual Spring Training trip! This was the 4th time Trish and I had been out there, and 6th time I had been out there! I always love a good road trip, so was excited for the trip! At the last minute Trish’s dad decided to come too, so the three of us loaded up and off we went around 6 PM on Friday night!
We weren’t sure if we were going to stop in Yuma on the way or just go for the whole trip, which takes about five and a half hours. As we passed Yuma after a nice In N Out dinner, we were going strong! Started pulling into the Phoenix area….and all of a sudden we realized another problem: We aren’t the ones going to Phoenix anymore. About the first six hotels we walked into all had “No Vacancy” signs. Trish and I even called a few and no luck. Finally we found one and settled in around 12:30 AM. Needed our sleep for the next day!
Wake up rested and headed off for a little Cracker Barrel bre
akfast! Cracker Barrel is an AMAZING restaurant that are all over the rest of the country apparently, but not in California. Good home-cooking! After my French toast, it was off to our first game!
Now the Royals this year are an odd team of former top prospects who 5 years later still haven’t panned out (see former Brave/Dodger/Yankee/Royal Wilson Betemit) and veterans who are still hanging on like Jason Kendall. The Cubs actually won their division in 2008 but were bad last year and of course, haven’t won a World Series since 1908. The game started out with some offense, but in the end the Cubbies won 5-1 I think.
I love spring training, because the tickets are less, the ballp
arks are smaller, and the players seem pretty relaxed. The caliber of baseball isn’t always the highest or most pressure, but you can catch glimpses of that next great player as well. Unfortunately the Braves and Nationals play in Florida so the two most exciting players of 2010 (Jason Heyward of the Braves, Stephen Strasburg of the Nats) weren’t there.
Picked up Trish’s friend Megan who is going to phys
ician's assistant school out there, then went over to Glendale, AZ for a nightcap Dodgers-Padres game! Before the game we were supposed to meet and tailgate with a few of Trish’s friends from high school who were out there, but they were late. I played catch with a couple of guys who were out there which was fun. Of course I brought my mitt to every game. Didn’t catch a foul ball though. We secretly BBD’d our bratwurst and headed in the gates!
The Padres actually looked VERY impressive! Their lefty Wade Leblanc held the Dodgers to 1 hit over 5 innings, and all in all the Dodgers only got 2 hits all game! And they were starting Manny, Kemp, and most of the other starters. Padre prospect Matt Antonelli hit a 3 run homer and the Padres won 5-1!
Sunday was our last day, and the weather was amazing again, so we took lawn seats for the Rockies-Royals game. Megan is f
rom Colorado, so a big Rockies fan, otherwise we would not have paid money to watch the Royals again. It was an offensive game, which you would expect from the Rockies, and they jumped out to a big lead, then the Royals wore it down and then took the lead! I was surprised at the crowd, it was the Royals home park but until this trip don’t think I had ever seen more than one Royals fan at a time. Very impressive. The Rockies really are a fun team. I’ve always Todd Helton, and with guys like Eric Young, Jr., Troy Tulowitski, Clint Barmes, and even bench guy Jason Giambi they should be fun to watch. I’ve also long been a fan of Ubaldo Jimenez for fantasy baseball. We decided to leave early, an inning early, which was tough for me, but was anxious to get going. Megan stayed and apparently the scoring continued and ended in a tie…plus she caught a foul ball!!
I concluded my baseball season prep with my first ever live auction fantasy baseball draft, which was 4 hours and I will never do again, and writing up my 2010 predictions, which you got a preview of here. Spoiler alert: I pick the Braves to win it all.
Thanks for letting me guest blog Trish, hopefully this isn’t too long!
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