5 days, 3 baseball games, 1 late inning close loss, 1 spectacular but unsuccessful comeback, and 1 extra innings win. Saturday and Monday were tickets I’ve had since before the season started, and were fun enough - especially Monday’s game. I had 400-section nosebleeds, but after the Phillies took an 11-0 lead on Ryan Howard’s grand slam in the 6th, the stadium started to empty. Never one to leave a game early, I caught sight of some field-box seats that weren’t being used and moved down, just beyond third base, 5 or 6 rows back. And then the Cardinals offense came to life putting up 3 in the 6th, 6 in the 7th, and 2 in the 8th. Meanwhile the bullpen gave up another homerun, leaving the score at 12-11. Several drives (particularly one by Ryan Ludwick and one by Yadier Molina) looked like they were out of the park, but the dead wind in the stadium was no help as they were caught at the wall or on the warning track. The game ended 13-11, but was wholly satisfying to those who bothered to stick around, which didn’t include the folks sitting in the front row, which is where I spent the last two innings of the game.
Then there was last night. I finally got going early enough to bike down to the stadium at 7:30AM, and purchased a pair of "First Pitch" tickets for $5.50 each (there are 125 pairs sold day-of-game at 9:00AM before every game). The catches are (1) you don’t enter the stadium until 10 minutes before game-time, (2) you probably won’t get any of the give-aways, and (3) you don’t know where your seats will be, or even if you will get a seat. So just before game-time, I enter, get my tickets, and find that I’ve got 3rd base field-box seats. Great seats, great view, great fun. Cards took a 1-1 tie into extra innings, and on Yadier Molina bobble-head night (no I didn’t get one, drat!) who else but Yadier Molina drove in the game-winning run in the bottom of the 10th. Fun stuff!
