Baseball Blog 8-23-15 Back to the Dog Pound

There!  Your Southwest University Park nickname.  Finally.  You’re welcome.

This time I was fortunate enough to go as part of a group outing.  I say “fortunate” because I actually wasn’t part of the group; I was a guest of someone who was, Ron.  There was also some significant guilt attached I’ve been actively attempting to poach this person from this business for the place that I work for.  I now know what sort of ethics I have went it comes to going out to a ball game: I don’t have any.  At least I had the manners to invite my host to an Aggie football game that my business is having a tailgate at.  Hopefully I’ll have a report on that event in a couple weeks.  I already bought a shirt and hat for it, so I’m economically obligated.

There was some significant delay in the getting to the park and confusion as to where we were supposed to go, but we were there in time for the game.  I had time to visit the teamshop and pick up a hat to go with the shirt.  I also grabbed the 2014 and 2015 Chihuahuas team set baseball cards.  Still no Buster Posey card damn it!  I’ve bought all these cards over the last couple years and still haven’t gotten a Buster card.  I can’t understand what I’m doing wrong.  Wait, what’s that?  Try buying a Giants team set if you want a Buster Posey card?  Let me look over these Chihuahuas cards again.  There’s got to be one in there.  In the meantime at least I now have a couple of Chico cards to content myself with.  Good move giving the mascot a card.  I also picked up a shot glass for someone at work.  I thought about getting the larger and more practical beer glass, but Ron reminded me, “Dude, whatever you buy, you’re going to have to carry for the rest night.”  Good point.  Between this shopping trip and the trip the day before to get the Aggie gear, I don’t think I can afford any more free tickets to sports events.

This was apparently a very popular event.  If I can extrapolate from this, group and suite sales are probably a big part of the Chihuahuas revenue.  It is a great place for a group outing.  Ron and I ended up in the Santa Fe Pavilion with most of his co-workers.  There were several team staffers there for hospitality.  Chico even put in a special appearance.  (And once again, action during the game prevented me from getting my picture taken with him.)  The provided food was bacon-wrapped hot dogs, fajitas, nachos, and big cookies.  The fare was pretty good, though I was tasting that hot dog for the rest of the night. 

The view was honestly not that great from the outfield.  Action going to Center and Right field was occluded unless you were in the very front row of seats.  Those seats are also usually in direct sunlight (a fortunately placed cloud kept it shady for most of this game), and while it would be a tremendously lucky shot, one does feel the need to keep a mitt while sitting there (though being careful to not interfere with play, not sure where the home run line is offhand).  The seats and chairs behind them have a lousy view, but are cooler and less dangerous seeming.  Fear not.  There’s a large TV with the MILB feed of the game playing on the wall, so you don’t have to miss any plays.  There’s also two smaller TVs, in this case, one with a Major League game and another with a stupid NFL pre-season game. 

The outfield view does give you a new appreciation for outfielders and flyballs.  It’s a long way out there and whole bunch of territory.  By the way, the grass out there is manicured to an Astroturf-like conformity.  It was a little breezy that night.  It kept the wide-open pavilion very comfortable.  There were storm clouds and lightning in the distance, which thankfully kept their distance. 

Once again, the crowd was still filing in in the 3^rd and started leaving in the 8^th and 9^th, regardless of the score.  Ron’s co-workers were very pleasant, though there was one kid there who had the same camo shirt I did.  We were looking at each other like debutantes at a ball who had the same dress on.  He went with the full camo hat as well.  I had considered that style, but they only had it in the fitted version (heads up, those aren’t a good investment unless your head and hair are kept at exactly the same size all the time), and I thought the black hat would look better by itself without the shirt.  Enough fashion. 

Though it may not show, I made heroic efforts in keeping a scorecard during the game.  I got bumped out of the front row seats after a couple innings.  I was standing for about three innings.  Finally, I was seated on a tall bar chair in the back for the rest of the game.  All the while, bacon-wrapped hot dogs and a long line waiting for them were tempting me.  Thankfully, at some point later in the game, I could hear Tim on the speakers in the pavilion and I could take out my static-y radio earplugs.  The cute little Goth girl with purple highlights was also a continual distraction.  (She wasn’t one of Ron’s co-workers, so I couldn’t ask for an introduction.)

The game itself was a bit of a disappointment.  Like I said before, that last game was a classic and unfortunately you can’t expect that every time.  Such is the nature of sports in general.  The NFL does a pretty good of making most of their games exciting, but that’s mostly because their games are fixed.  The Chihuahuas lost to the Colorado Springs Sky Sox 3-2.  Renfroe, making his debut, got a home run in the 1^st that got the crowd going.  Other than that, the largest cheer in the game was for the grounds crew in the 5^th doing a choreographed dance while going around the bases.  That also proved to be the pivotal inning, as the Sky Sox loaded the bases and scored two on a single.  Other than mounting a couple of efforts in the 6^th and 8^th , the Chihuahuas offense didn’t match their pitching effort.  At least the game went quickly at 2 and ½ hours.  Ron commented on the good pace of the game thanks to the pitch clock.  I mentioned seeing an MLB game earlier in the week where a reliever actually walked around the mound in-between each pitch.  Thankfully, that guy wasn’t pitching here.   

The star of the game was Chico.  He challenged the Sox first baseman to a push up contest and won by default.  Hey, doing one-armed pushups in that outfit, you’re the star Chico.  The game may have been a bit disappointing, but me and Ron both wanted to return as soon as possible (it was his first time there).  Regardless of the result, as I told Ron, “It’s never a wasted day at the ballpark.”