I did say I wasn’t going this game, right? They changed time from 6:00 to 2:00, making
it impractical for me to go. I told the
people at work about the change for this game, and they told me to go ahead and
go. In fact, they were downright
insistent I go. Fine. (I didn’t even need Athletic Director Mario
Moccia’s work excuse letter.) Game
Day, I awoke to cold 40 mph winds.
(Actually, I got woken up by a repairman, who was turning A/C’s for the
building. You think your job sucks,
these guys spent literally all day on the roof in those winds.) With no abatement of the winds by noon, I
called Ron and asked if he still wanted to go.
Yep, he still wanted to go. (Ron
must really want out of the house as much as possible.) I even had him check the team twitter feed to
see if the game had been cancelled or delayed.
It was on, so off we went.
Luckily, the winds died down a bit by game time. It was bright and sunny and about 80 out of
the wind on what would otherwise be a nice day.
We got there way early. The
parking lot was mostly full, but it may have been mostly students parking for
classes. Ron got a parking pass off the NMSU website. A ticket seller
last year told me that they don’t ticket people on game days, but why take the
chance? There was a group of Texas Tech
fans tailgating by the stadium. Inside
the park, the concession trailer was shockingly closed. I suddenly had a bad feeling about what the
crowd size was going to be. Not to
mention, I was thirsty. By the way, that
bank of water fountains by the dugouts don’t work. I also discovered a third bathroom for
confused Snowflakes around the corner from the normal people bathrooms. You guys in the Athletic department put in a
third bathroom, but don’t have working water fountains, and you wonder why
you’re having financial problems.
Inside, there turned out to be an entire visitors’ section
full of Tech fans. And I thought Yale brought their fans. They
easily outnumbered the Aggie fans that were there early. One of the Red Raider players was from El
Paso, so his extended family was there with signs and t-shirts. (Of course, he was getting the biggest
ovation of any player going up for an at bat.)
The main thing I noticed was that the Tech fans spent a lot time taking
pictures of themselves. (The Aggies were
coming off a three-game sweep of Seattle U, where Aggie fans actually may have
outnumbered Seattle’s. These things
happen.) There were just a couple of
kids in attendance as you might expect for a Tuesday afternoon. One was a cute little toddler in an A’s hat
and an El Paso Chihuahuas’ shirt. His
caretakers got plenty of exercise corralling him. Somehow, the usual ball hawk kid was also
present.
We got good seats behind home plate, just next to the
reserved section. We were mostly out of
the wind, which alternated between blowing across the field to blowing in. The PA was the guy that did most of the
announcing last year and not the new girl.
He does a good job, but I kind of missed the girl all but flirting with
the Aggie players as she announced them.
One last thing I noticed about the opposing team was that the Tech
players all have their names on the back of their jerseys. That’s the first time I’ve seen that for a
college baseball team. I guess that’s a
perk of being on the #6 ranked team in the nation.
These are two of the densest scorecards I’ve ever kept. Unbelievably, everything added up at the end
(more or less). (Did you know that a run
scored on a passed ball is unearned, but a run scored on a wild pitch is
earned? Yes, I was hitting my rule book
again for help.) The main explanation
for the completeness was the amount of time I had to work on it while at the
game.
This was not Aggie pitcher, Chris Kucko’s, day. Even for a bullpen day, this was a bad show. Right out of the gate, the bases were loaded
on a hit, walk, and a hit batter, and there was already action in the Aggie bullpen. The first five Red Raider batters scored, and
apart from some cheering from the Tech fans, the crowd and dugouts were ominously
quiet. The fiery Andy Frakes came in for
relief and even he was fairly subdued in mood.
He managed to only allow one inherited runner to score (on the first out
of the inning no less), but eventually closed out the inning. 0-6 Texas Tech after a half inning and
batting around +3.
During the Aggie half of the inning, there was some hope, as
Dan Hetzel tripled in Joey Ortiz to bring the score to 1-6 Tech. By this point, the game may have been going
on for the better part of an hour (I didn’t check the time at the time). A much larger, late-arriving Aggie crowd
filed in. This was heartening. The stadium filled up nicely and good, noisy
chatter coursed through the crowd. They
were also bringing in concession items.
I wonder if somebody forgot to tell the concession people about the time
change and then quickly called them in when they saw how many people were
showing up.
Also with this crowd were some other Aggie sports players. A couple of volleyball players came in after their
practice. (Megan Hart wasn’t with
them. I’m disappointed that I didn’t get
to see her.) Softball player, Amy
Bergeson, came in with her boyfriend (presumably) and given how much I like the
way she plays the game, I should have said something to her as she walked past. A very pretty blonde girl wearing an Aggie
soccer sweatshirt came by. She must
new. I’d have remembered seeing her on
the field.
If I’d had a drink with me (which I never ended up getting),
I would have done a spit take as women’s basketball star, Brooke Salas, came
in. I didn’t figure her for the “let’s
support the other Aggie teams” type. Maybe
this is part of that “leadership” thing I mentioned in another post that
she should start doing. Brooke had her
hair down and styled and looked glamorous.
I almost didn’t recognize her teammate, Zaire Williams, with her, with
her hair attractively down too. I really
wanted to say congratulations to them on their season as they walked past. Unfortunately, they weren’t just attractively
intimidating, they were intimidating period.
I don’t know how much fan interaction these girls wanted today and
wasn’t willing to find out in an awkward way.
(Brandee Walton or Tamara William, I’d have said something to, because I
know they’re nice.)
Okay, the game itself was kind of functionally finished by
this point. It was just a question of
how bad would the outcome be for the Aggies.
Let’s just hit a few inning by inning highlights rather than drag this
out (unlike actually having to sit through this game). Another great moment in heckling occurred in
the third as the umpires gathered to discuss if Austin Botello had been hit on
the foot by a pitch. After a couple of
minutes eventually a “Call New York!” cry rang out, to my complete amusement.
Greg Popylisen was making the most of his spot start in
center. He had a highlight reel, diving
catch in the fourth. In the bottom, catcher,
Mason Fishback, got picked off first. He
slammed his helmet down back in the dugout.
Given that he probably hadn’t had any intention of stealing that was
kind of embarrassing. However, when the
Red Raider pitcher tried to pick off Brent Sakurai, one of the speedier players
on the team, he ended up throwing the ball away for a two-base error.
I had an idea.
Inspired by the brave trumpet player, I started working on some
signs to hold up to get Brooke’s attention behind us. Ron declined to participate, so I let it
go. Popylisen again went all out in the
fifth, slamming into the wall, trying to get at flyball. The middle of the fifth had my favorite
moment of the whole game. The PA told
Aggie fans to make some noise if they wanted free What-a-Burger coupons. The loudest section was actually the Tech fan
section, but the attendant completely snubbed them. But when the inning started, he apparently
had change of heart and went back to them and handed out a bunch to them, at
which point the Tech fans started chanting, “Go Aggies!”
In the sixth, Mario Moccia came by. I’d been looking for him. He sat in the nearby reserved section with
some boosters and/or alumni or player families and chatted with them. If I’d talked to him, I was going to tell him
that I was playing hokey from work to be there (and maybe bring up a few issues
if he was foolish enough to stick around).
Popylisen again made another dive for a ball. This time he ended up hurt and had to come
out. David Bellamy came in for him. Where’s Marcus Still, the regular
centerfielder?
Meanwhile, Brooke and Zaire had gotten up and moved around,
walking past me a couple more times. I
felt all but taunted. They stopped and
talked with Mario for a minute right in front of me. Eventually, the girls, Mario, and most of the
Aggie fans left by the eighth. The Texas
Tech fans all stayed. The weather
alternated to warm and sunny with no breeze, but by the end, the wind started
again and shifted into the stands. It
got a bit cold and I started feeling my cold coming back. Gamewise, the Red Raiders kept up a fairly
steady pace of scoring, including sending all nine men to the plate in the
eighth. The Aggies scratched out a
couple more runs, but never really seemed to get a rally going. Three double plays certainly killed a few
innings.
The game finally ended.
Our final was Aggies 4, Red Raiders 15.
The Aggie fight song played, which was surprising, since it was a loss
and a bad one. The Tech fans started
clapping along with it. Perhaps our
fight song sounds like their fight song, and they were confused. Let’s get the most important stat of the game
out of the way: in spite of all that wind and 19 runs scored, zero home
runs. Zero. Who would have picked that there would have
been more double plays (4) than homers today?
Our players of the game are Joey Ortiz, offensively, going 4
for 5 with 2 runs. The team got hits and
scored runs, so they weren’t completely overwhelmed by the competition. Defensively, Greg Popylisen gets the nod for
his efforts in centerfield. He literally
sacrificed himself out there, trying to limit the damage. The team actually had no errors today, so
they at least didn’t self-destruct outside of their pitching. Credit to Frakes for gritting his way through
four + tough innings, and to Chance Hroch and to Keaton Graf for having two
clean relief innings. In honor of the
two Texas Tech cowboy hicks in the next section, that I had to listen for two
innings in the eighth and ninth, that ragged on Las Cruces and the Aggies, I’m
not recognizing any of their players’ efforts here.
I asked Ron for the time, since I’d actually planned on
going to work after the game. Holy
crap! This game took four hours. This didn’t surprise me, but it was still
shocking. The Yankees and Red Sox would have
called this a slow-moving game. I’d
missed my window for making work worthwhile and had to call in for the rest of
the day. As we pulled out of the parking
lot, we noticed an Aggie Women’s soccer match going on on the pitch next to the
softball field. I had no idea they were
playing in the spring. I’ll have to look
them up (and see if that pretty blonde was on the team). Dinner was at the NY Pizza place somewhere on
the East Mesa. That was a nice place
with really good service. The pizza was
good, but had some not-so-good after effects.
No lasting damage done.
Much like the Tennessee softball game, I’m
disappointed at the result, but it was kind of cool to see a really good,
nationally-ranked team playing here. I
wonder if this is the highest-ranked opponent Aggie baseball has hosted. Probably not, given how long they’ve had the
program, but I think it’s the highest since the remodel at least. Also, it was good to see that big crowd in
the stadium, even if a bunch of them were for the other team. (These guys were not the classy, friendly Yale
fans.) Hopefully, the unexpected (and
undeserved, given the time change and late concessions and no water fountains)
success of this game may bring more nationally ranked teams here. Maybe I can be there for some great upset
victory in the future.
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