Final day

For my final day, I wanted to try to get to the beach.  I'd tried to get to the beach on Friday, but turned back at Church Avenue, as I was clearly not going to be able to get down there and back in time for dinner and the game.

So I got up earlier today and set off.  If I'd known the best subway lines to take, I'd have probably got there faster than an hour and a half!  The main problem is that I was banking on taking the 'D' train halfway and then switching to the 'B' - except the latter doesn't run at weekends, it turns out.  I ended up waiting a long time for various connections, which all added up to a long journey down to Coney Island to see the boardwalk and the Atlantic Ocean.  I paddled in it very quickly and then had to leave, as I had to check out by 2pm and I'd booked lunch at the restaurant in the hotel for 2pm too.  I got back to my room at 1.30pm, so just had time to finish off packing and check out and have lunch, before heading off to the airport.  The journey to the airport was easy, and I'm now sitting in the lounge just along from my gate, with about an hour to go before departure.

Toronto Blue Jays @ New York Yankees (game 2)

The final game of my holiday was the second game of the series, that the Yankees won the opener of the day before.  This time I was up the first base side, next to where Ichiro was fielding for New York.

Unfortunately, there was a New Yorker behind me with verbal diarrhoea and a very loud voice.  Occasionally the people he was with got a word in.  We all heard about TV he likes, his opinion on various films, everything really.

This game I missed the first inning due to having to wait for ages for a subway train (30 minutes!) and that was when Toronto scored their runs!  However, I saw the rest of the game.  It was much cooler tonight, and I almost needed a coat, but it was just about alright.  Derek Jeter nearly hit another home run tonight - it was just caught on the warning track in left field.

After the game, I looked around the store, which was packed for ages, and then headed home for the final time.  The subway platforms are so incredibly hot all the time, but fortunately the trains have cooling - once one comes.  As I had left it so long before travelling back downtown, I was able to get a seat easily.  My hotel is only one street up and half an avenue across away from the subway entrance which is very convenient, as there isn't a long walk once I've got back, although there are a lot of stairs to go up.

Toronto Blue Jays @ New York Yankees (game 1)

I had to queue a little to pick up my tickets are Yankee Stadium, and in the end, I didn't need my receipt that I had brought just in case they couldn't find my tickets!  Then I was able to pretty much walk straight in, which was unusual.  So, as I was hot, I bought an ice cream and went to my seat which was done the 3rd base line.  I've been in the area of section 130 before and it's quite comfortable, but you do have to look at an angle to watch play.  I also find it much harder to keep track of the game from such a distance.  However, it's amazing how close you really are to the fielders.

Anybody visiting the stadium this year could have been forgiven for thinking that the New York Yankees are a one-man team.  The team store has one tiny out-of-the-way corner containing jerseys for some of the star players, and the rest of the store is devoted to merchandise featuring Derek Jeter, who will be retiring at the end of the season.

This game was tight all the way with good pitching and good fielding, and I saw something that's a been a rarity this year: a Derek Jeter home run.  The crowd went absolutely nuts, as you might imagine, and then he nearly hit another later in the game.  The Yankees held on to win 5-3 and take the opening game of the series.

Journey to New York

This morning, everybody was woken up by the early riser who'd gone down to breakfast as soon as it opened at 6am and set fire to some bread, triggering the hotel's fire alarm.  Fortunately, it was just the bread that was toasted.   However, it means that I'm quite tired today as I had to get up at 7 o'clock anyway to give myself time to be ready to leave by 8.15am to get the metro to the airport for my flight to New York this morning - the final internal flight of my holiday.

As usual, the gate for my flight was as far as way as possible from the MetroLink station.   Not only was it on the 'A' concourse at the far end of the airport, but gate A19 is right at the far end of the concourse.  This has been an unbelievable theme for all my flights this year - the arrival gate at St Louis was three away from the very end, but every other gate has been as far away as it is possible to be!

This is also an Embraer aircraft which means my bag needed to be gate checked, so I had to remove everything I needed on board  into the bag that I'd kept for such eventualities.  However, we pushed back exactly on time and the pilot believes that the flight time will only be 2 hours and 1 minute, so we should be arriving early at Newark, which will give me time to get to my hotel and settle in properly.

Edit: it was about 2 hours, so I got to my hotel just after 3pm which was handy, as I had time to unpack and cool down before heading off to the game.

Edward Jones Dome

My hotel room looks out over the EJ Dome next door, home of the St Louis Rams NFL team!  This hotel would be very convenient for those games!  There's also lots of these signs on the pavements next to mounds in the road - it's not surprising US cars need to be so big and bouncy and get over the surface!

Milwaukee Brewers @ St Louis Cardinals (game 2)

I took the metro to the ballgame tonight (from Laclede's Landing!), and wore my long trousers and took my coat.  Tonight, I was in the back row of the bottom section on the end of a row.  This block was down the 3rd base line but still had an excellent view.

Adam Wainwright was pitching for the Cardinals tonight, trying to get his league-lead-typing 19th win of the season, up against Mick Fiers of the Brewers, making his first start since his start against Miami when he hit Giancarlo Stanton in the face, unintentionally.

Neither pitcher had control problems tonight as the game motored along with no score and just half a dozen hits for the Brewers.  Fiers took a no-hit bid into the 6th inning when Wainwright singled to break up the no-hitter.  Eventually, the Cardinals pushed a couple of runs across in the 7th inning which proved to be enough as Wainwright finished off the game himself, pitching a 7-hit complete game shut-out.  The Cards only got 3 hits, but they got them in bunches and in combination with a fielding error, which was mostly triggered by a slip in the outfield that allowed the first run to score.


The game was over in two and a half hours, which is far more like it - it didn't actually get cold either tonight, with the temperature staying at around 17C/63F for the whole game.  I took the metro back to the hotel again and watched the end of ESPN's Wednesday Night Baseball, featuring the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim against the Seattle Mariners.  The Angels won that that and later on, due to Oakland giving up 6 late runs to Texas, clinched the AL West division title.  So that's half the divisions clinched.  It's going to be a few days before the others are sorted out, as the key series get underway over this weekend: Royals/Tigers, Giants/Dodgers and the matchups involving the Cardinals/Brewers/Pirates all struggling for the NL Central.

Union Station

Today, I went for lunch in the restaurant at Cardinal Nation, which is just beyond centre field at Busch Stadium.  There were a few other people in there, mostly dressed in Cardinal red outfits, as indeed were many of the people outside the stadium who were clearly there for the day to visit and catch the game in the evening.  The food was more gastro-pub than full-on restaurant, which was good as it was a lot cheaper than many of the dinners that I've been having!

Afterwards, I took the metro into town to see Union Station.  It's no longer a railway station, but a monument.  Sadly, many of the retail units seem to be empty nowadays and there weren't many people there at all.  After reading all the plaques about the history of the station, the largest ever constructed, I looked around outside where they have a pond that's full of fish!  As I walked along the boardwalk they seemed to follow me, looking up hoping for food.

Later on, I took the metro back to Laclede's Landing to have a look at the river.  When I came out, I discovered that the metro exit was right near to my hotel - up a bit of a hill.  So I needn't have walked so far through the rain on Tuesday night to get to the hotel from the previous stop on the line - this one is much much closer!

You can see the arch from the metro station, although I have to get back to my hotel to pick up my ticket and get down to the game now.

Milwaukee Brewers @ St Louis Cardinals (game 1)

The first game of this series was a tight affair, with only a few runs scoring.  Lance Lynn was starting for the St Louis Cardinals as they tried to increase their lead in the NL Central.

My seat was in the dugout box, the 4th row from the front, down the first base line, in the bit of the stands that juts out a bit.  In the first inning, Jonathan Lucroy, the Brewers' catcher, hit a foul ball that came towards my area very fast, and hit about a couple of metres away from my seat, a couple of rows back.  You definitely have to pay attention in these seats, because the ball can come very quickly.

This game was much more like you expect a National League game - pretty quick.  The problem was that although the Cardinals took a 2-1 lead into the 9th inning, Trevor Rosenthal gave up a run to allow Milwaukee to draw level.

It was getting quite chilly by this time, as the temperature dropped to around 12C/52F, so I was pleased that I had taken my coat to wear, although my legs were getting a little chilly.  As usually happens when games go into extra innings, people started leaving as they have to get up for work or school the next day, so when the Brewers pushed across a run in the top of the 12th inning, I and a lot of other people were hoping that the Cards would score 0 or 2 in the bottom of the 12th so we could all go home.  They got 0, although it was close with a couple of balls caught in the deep.

I walked back to the hotel, back the way I had come, although it didn't seem nearly as far on the way back.  That's probably because on the way there, I went to Joe Buck's restaurant, which is a little bit further along next to the stadium, and had a typical St Louis meal: BBQ ribs.

Los Angeles Dodgers @ San Francisco Giants (game 3)

The final game of this series was an afternoon game, fortunately.   I had feared that ESPN would make it the Sunday Night Baseball game which would have moved it to 5pm which would have clashed with the 49ers home opener against the Bears.

The Dodgers had their ace, Clayton Kershaw, pitching in this game against one of our better pitchers, Yusmeiro Petit.  This game was much more of a contest than the previous two, as it wasn't a blow-out either way.  The Dodgers scored first, however, and then the Giants fought back and managed to raise Kershaw's ERA and chase him after 8 innings(!)  Jansen got the save in the 9th as the Dodgers took the game 4-2, which was a shame, as we had chances throughout the game.

All three of these games have been surprisingly slow for National League games.  All of them have been over three hours, some of them significantly more than three hours.

Los Angeles Dodgers @ San Francisco Giants (game 2)

After the victory last night, expectations were high that we could also have a go at Zach Greinke.  However, this was not to be as the game started in an eerily similar way to game 1 but the other wayy.  The Dodgers managed to push across 4 runs in the top of the first inning and in the bottom, the Giants looked to be going OK until a strange decision by the 3rd base coach to send the runner when it was obvious he was going to get thrown out at the plate.

The Dodgers added on more hits in the second inning, chasing Tim Hudson early, although it still didn't feel lost at that point, as we brought in Tim Lincecum to take over, but Tim is not the Cy Young award-winning pitcher any more, and he gave up more hits to give the Dodgers an 8-0 lead after the 2nd inning.  In the 5th inning, we managed to retire the side without any more runs scoring, but the Dodgers went on to register a record-breaking 24 hits and 17 runs - both the most for a visiting team at AT&T Park.

I had a loud Los Angeles fan called Chuck and his wife Michelle, who is not a baseball fan, sitting next to me.  As the game was pretty much over as a competition by the 4th inning, we spent a lot of time talking about Dodgers players, broadcasters, and other baseball things, which was fun.  We even got to wave to Jon Miller who was just behind us in the commentary box, as was Vin Scully, the voice of the Dodgers radio broadcasts who has just signed up for his 63rd season as radio broadcaster for Los Angeles!

Los Angeles Dodgers @ San Francisco Giants (game 1)

This was the first game of the 6 that the Giants and Dodgers will be playing against each other in the final days of the regular season.  With the Dodgers holding a 2 game lead in the NL West, it was important for the Giants to win at least one of the games.

Tonight we had Jake Peavy going against Hyun-Jin Ryu.  Unfortunately, AT&T Park has some of the dafter security precautions on the entrances, so I ended up missing the entire first inning whilst waiting to get into the ballpark.  That meant I missed the Giants scoring 4 runs in the bottom of the 1st as they batted around and knocked Ryu out of the game.  Fortunately, throughout the rest of the game, Peavy was rock solid and the Giants went on to register a 9-0 victory, which was something of a surprise, but the Dodgers never recovered from that first inning.

Arizona Diamondbacks @ San Francisco Giants (game 2)

Thursday was 11th September, as lots of commemoration activity was expected.  However, when I went down to the metro stop, there was a technical problem at Van Ness, further out of town, that stopped everything coming inbound.  This was going to be fixed "shortly" for about 40 minutes before services started again, so I missed the first two innings of today's game and all the ceremonials.

No problems with the temperature today, though, as being a day game it was pleasant to sit in the shade right behind the plate, but up just in front of the commentary boxes.

In this game, we have Jake Peavy going and after this first rough outing when we acquired him earlier in the year, he's turned out to be a really good pick up - Peavy came out of the game with a lot of pitches in the 6th inning having given up the first run to Arizona, and although they would later add a second run, the Giants already had 3 on the board, and added another 3 in the bottom of the 7th to cement a 6-2 victory.

Lou Seal visited our section during the 7th inning stretch to distribute bags of peanuts - by randomly throwing them in different directions, so everybody had to pay attention to avoid maybe getting hit on the head!  He got one stuck on an antenna attached to the next deck and managed to get one through the open window into the radio commentary box, which caught Kuiper & Krukow by surprise as it flew between their heads whilst they weren't watching.

As the stadium was emptying after today's game, and the announcement of the next game was made, the stadium was already ringing to the chants of "BEAT L.A.!"

I had never understood why it takes so long to get everybody back downtown after the ballgame on the metro.  It takes half an hour with lots of waiting around at a standstill because of the congestion on the line, despite there being only a few trains.  Maybe they should consider running a shuttle service between Embarcadero and the ballpark, just for half an hour after the game to try to clear the crowds as quickly as possible.  As each train only have 2 carriages, it takes quite a few to carry people back.

Arizona Diamondbacks @ San Francisco Giants (game 1)

This was the middle game of a 3-game series, of which the Giants won the first game on Tuesday.  The journey down to the ballpark was quick and hassle-free.  I was able to get into the stadium fairly quickly but because I went in the 2nd Street gate, I missed the escalator up to the club level and had to walk around quite a way to get up there.  My seat was just up the third base line with an excellent view.  However, I forgot to take my coat - it gets very cold in the stands at a night game, even if it's a hot day, so I was quite chilly by the end.

This game took nearly 3 and a half hours, which was puzzling as there were very few hits, and very few runs until the bottom of the 7th inning.  Vogelsong pitched 6 2/3 scoreless innings, but Machi picked up the win.  Collmenter matched Vogelsong with 6 shutout innings, but took the no-decision.

I have heard of Mark Trumbo, but none of the other Arizona players.  I was glad to see Angel Pagan pack in the Giants lineup, as I thought he might have been done for the year, although I didn't get to see Susac, who seems to have come in and started tearing it up.

The 4 in the bottom of the 7th and extra tacked on in the 8th were enough to complete the 5-0 win.

Smart card collection

I've added to my collection of smartcards with a Clipper card.

The new Clipper smartcard for the transport systems here now supports MUNI passports, unlike when I was here a couple of years ago.  Since I knew what I was looking for, I was able to quickly purchase a smartcard with 7-day passport on it and go straight down to catch the metro out to the ballpark.  I should be able to transfer the value from my paper BART ticket onto it it, I hope, but it wasn't clear how to do that at the machines, so I can visit the help centre just up the line later and see if they can register it for me and transfer the value.  Whilst the (Chicago) Ventra card let me register it online, albeit with an incorrect address and phone number, and unlock the $5 of value, the Clipper website wouldn't accept my address, because it said the town, for which I put "Cambridge UNITED KINGDOM" and 00144-1000 ZIP code didn't match.

The Clipper card works inside my National Rail wallet without having to open it (the Ventra didn't)

So now, I have: Orca (Seattle), Clipper (SF/Oakland), Ventra (Chicago), SmarTrip (Washington/Baltimore)

Go West, Giants fan

Where possible, I choose flights that leave around midday in order to avoid having to get up too early.  So in this case, my flight wasn't until 12.52pm.  This morning, it was raining, but fortunately, it'd just finished when I left at 10.30am.  I got to the airport just before midday, went straight through the priority queue for the ID check, but then had to wait in a very long line for security - apparently, Premier Access doesn't give you premier access to the security line as well.

I did not get the upgrade to first class that I had requested, so I'll get the miles back and the money too - minus another lot of foreign transaction charge.  However, I was still in the second boarding group, so I walked straight onto the plane when I got to the gate as they were just starting to board group 3, so I had plenty of space for my bag in the overhead bins.  I was in the middle seat of three, and waited and waited for the window and aisle seat people to arrive before settling in with so little space between the rows.  They never came.  So, although I didn't get the first class upgrade, I had three seats to myself, so put up the armrests, used all three tray tables and had plenty of space after all.

I did buy a baguette for lunch ($9.49!) but there was no wi-fi and although there was DirecTV available on the flight, I didn't fancy paying $7.95 for that.  Unfortunately, the flight map channel was also included in that, so I didn't even get to watch our flight progress over Nebraska, Denver, the Rockies and into San Francisco - I complained about that in my feedback to United later.

I topped up my BART ticket from a couple of years ago to have enough credit to get me into town and back to the airport again, and made the journey downtown.

I had originally planned to stay in the Marriott on Beach Street, but did not like the sky high prices (over $400 per night!) because I couldn't find any space at other hotels that I like here.  The new Hampton Inn I'd been keeping an eye on still isn't open and its website now says it's opening in October.  However, rooms opened up at another of my favourite hotels: the Hilton on Union Square.  It didn't have any when I'd looked previously, and these are a little less eye-wateringly expensive, so I'm here instead.  It's fairly close to Powell station and the cable cars.  This is a "Skyline Bay View Room"  The bay, when it isn't shrouded in fog, is about as visible as the sea near Fawlty Towers!

Oakland Athletics @ Chicago White Sox (game 2)

I arrived in plenty of time for this game, with the ticket that I'd bought on StubHub - which complicates refunds in the case of rain-outs, so I was hoping that most of the game would be played.  As it turned out, I'm now back in my hotel, at midnight, and the promised severe storms and rain still haven't arrived in the area, although they are expected to pass through overnight.

This game featured John Danks for the White Sox against Jon Lester, now of the Oakland Athletics, formerly of Boston.  The main feature of this game was errors - the White Sox committed 5 of them, 3 of them by Semien at 3rd base, and the crowd really got on him for it  Although the score finished 11-2, there was quite a lot of adding on in the last few innings, particularly the 5 in the 9th inning.  Of the 11 runs, only 6 were earned due to all those errors.

One error occurred on a play involving a nasty collision between John Danks and Craig Gentry at first, where the latter ended up having to be removed from the game for what looked like a possible head injury as he hit his head on Danks' shoulder as they converged on first base.  Josh Reddick who had the night off came in to pinch-run for Gentry and played the rest of the game.  There was no news on Gentry's condition by the end of the game, although he did stagger off with some assistance from the Oakland coaching team.

There were two challenges in this game, one by each side, and both successful.  Robin Ventura challenged a play where the Oakland runner was called safe at 1st and Bob Melvin challenged a play where his runner was called out at 1st.

With the White Sox so far behind, and getting further behind with every batter it seemed, and the threats from earlier in the day of rain storms in the evening, a lot of the crowd had drifted away early.  However, a couple of sections along from me, a man proposed to his girlfriend and she accepted, so everybody was happy for them and far more interested in clapping that than the game that was about to restart.

By the end of the game, the crowd had thinned out so much that the front carriage of the Red line train back to downtown was almost empty.

I'm not sure whether I've learned anything about these two teams in these two games.  They are error prone, and at times look quite fragile.  Oakland's starting pitching has been good and has given a couple of quality starts with 8 innings performances from Gray and Lester, so I've not seen a lot of the pen, but it is worrying how they can be shut down by somebody like Noesi yesterday.  It's hard to judge today, as they had so many extra outs to work with.

Oakland have the firepower on both sides of the ball to win a wild card game, but at this stage, I wouldn't fancy them in a division series against anybody else in the American League.

Beach and paddling in Lake Michigan

Weather forecasting remains an imprecise science.  I have lugged my coat and hat around all day on a hot day on the promise of rain in the early evening - rain which never came, and still isn't going to arrive for a few more hours.

Today, after doing the first full batch of laundry (which cost just $2 - $1 each for the washer and drier) I took the train further up the North side to some of the beaches.  It was sunny and hot, so I tried to keep in the shade of the trees as much as possible.  It's nice that there are so many sandy beaches so close to the centre of a big city like Chicago.  I walked about a bit, up to the next metro stop a few blocks further North and paddled in the lake for a bit.  I was there for a couple of hours until I knew I had to leave to get to the restaurant on time.##

I thought I'd left plenty of time (cue The Crystal Maze's Richard O'Brien: 'There's NOT plenty of time!') as I worked out I could change to the Brown or Purple line on the way back to get straight to the restaurant without going back to the hotel first.  As it was, I arrived at two minutes to five - so just in time for my dinner at the Kinzie Chophouse.  From there, I carried on around the loop to get the Red line down to Sox-35th for this evening's game - still carrying my coat and hat.

Oakland Athletics @ Chicago White Sox (game 1)

This was the first game of a 4 game series, of which I'm seeing the first two - hopefully.  The weather forecast for tonight isn't great, but last night it was a fine night at 21C/70F throughout the game, with clear skies.

The crowd was quite small - 15,000.  I don't think I've been in the club level here before, but it's very plush and quiet, although the latter is more down to the crowd size.  There were only 9 people sitting in my section 348 (of around 100 seats) and we were all in the front row, and spaced apart.  The seat angle is a little weird here, if you sit and look straight ahead, you're looking towards the right fielder (you're about 75% of the way down the 3rd base line), so you either have to try to sit slightly sideways, or get a crick in your neck.

This was a weird game as it tipped one way and then the other, but nobody really laying claim to the game.  Sonny Gray was OK and went deep into the game, but the pen gave up his win when Tyler Flowers capped his night with game-tying home run in the bottom of the 9th (with 2 out, and on a 2-2 count) and then repeated the feat in the bottom of the 12th for the walk-off win.  Earlier on he'd actually tripled as well, so a lot of total bases for the catcher.

I got a free Paul Konerko T-shirt.  It was very handy to just wrap my arms in to keep warm in the latter stages of the game, as this stadium also gets a stiff breeze through it which makes it chilly on an otherwise warm night.

Pittsburgh Pirates @ Chicago Cubs (game 3)

The final game of this three game series, and my final game at Wrigley Field, was another afternoon affair.  Predictably, the Pirates scored multiple runs in the first inning of what turned out to be another rout - it wasn't nearly as close as 10-4 makes it look.  There was a steady stream of balls sailing into the left field bleachers - or over them - as the Pirates used the long ball to great effect, even Gerrit Cole, the starting pitcher, hit a 2 run HR.

The bright spot would be the Cubs pitcher Jokisch who came in to clear up Travis Wood's 7ER mess in the second inning.  Jokisch pitched 4 1/3 innings giving up just 1 run, 4Ks, and didn't walk anybody and got the job done at the plate with two sacrifice bunts.

So we sang Take Me Out To The Ballgame in the middle of the 7th, with the score at 10-2 with the optimistic call from one of the TV announcers who was leading the singing of "let's score 9!".  Well, they scored 2 in the bottom of the 7th and that was all she wrote.

This is the 100th year of Wrigley Field ball (although the 2015 schedule that came out today says that next year is ... well they ought to ask the Cubs, because they've been celebrating that all year this year!)  Despite its age, the ballpark is in surprisingly good condition.  The seats are a bit narrow (for me!) but aren't uncomfortable and you have a great view of the action.

Today, we had a small band performing between innings a couple of times - a banjo, trumpet, trombone and clarinet.  The second time, they were right behind my seat - I had the trumpet to one side of my head and the trombone on the other.  They were very good.  I also saw Tom Ricketts (Cubs owner) again - he was down meeting fans again.  I also saw "Woo Woo" - a local celebrity who spent the best part of half an hour signing things and having his photo taken with fans of all ages.

The way that the stadium is open to the elements means you get some lovely sights.  When the sun is low, you can see the shadows on the protective netting behind the plate of the people walking around the concourse.  My favourite quote has to be of a little girl who was leading her slightly weary-looking grandma who'd done enough walking for the day to their seats, and saying "Not many more steps now, Grandma!" whilst pointing at the steep set of concrete steps up to their seats.

Pittsburgh Pirates @ Chicago Cubs (game 2)

After hanging around for 50 minutes of hanging around whilst the infield was tidied up by the ground crew and the teams had had a chance to change into their alternate uniforms, it was time for the start of the second game.

It started badly for the Cubs as the first Pirate got a hit, and was driven in by the second hitter for an immediate lead - which turned out to be enough as the Pirates went on to shut out the Cubs 5-0.  Liriano pitched 6 scoreless innings for the Pirates, but didn't really look anything special to me - not as good as when I've seen him before.  The Cubs looked every bit the lovable losers as they found ways to get out of innings without scoring, even with men in scoring position with fewer than 2 outs.

Unfortunately, given the late start of the game, I couldn't wait around for the end of the game, but had to leave in the middle of the 8th inning in order to get back downtown for dinner.  I'd tried to re-arrange the time, but the next they had was 10pm, and I didn't really want to have to wait that long for dinner.

Pittsburgh Pirates @ Chicago Cubs (game 1, part 2)

It feels wrong to have a 7th inning stretch after 5 minutes of play, but we've got to the middle of the 7th inning, so it's time to stand and sing!

The Saturday game was due to start a couple of minutes ago, but it is not starting any time soon, as we're into extra innings in the resumed game.

Update: Pirates win 5-3 in 11, which doesn't thrill the crowd.  The announcement that the Saturday game won't start for another 50 minutes does not improve the crowd's mood either!

Pittsburgh Pirates @ Chicago Cubs (game 1, part 1)

The flight arrived on time and within 20 minutes of touching down, I was on a CTA Blue train heading towards downtown Chicago.   A quick change of line at Jackson and I was able to get to my hotel at around 12.15pm and was able to check in immediately, which was fortunate.  So I changed clothes and set off straight away for Wrigley Field.

The Red train was packed, as usual, but it's not far up to the Addison stop for Wrigley Field.  My seat was right at the back of section 524 - that's next to the media centre, right at the back and right at the top.  Fortunately, there is a roof over the seats, although it is open to the elements, which was a relief, as there was a lovely breeze up there which was enjoyable on the hot day.   It's also an excellent place to watch a game from, apart from the pillars supporting the roof.  My ticket cost $14 for that seat - a true bargain.  I was too late for the giveaway, which was a Greg Maddux bobblehead - but I'd not have had anywhere to put it anyway - I'd have had to post it home!

This game had two more firsts for me.  The first of these was a rain delay with no rain - more specifically, the extremely dark clouds were gathering and the chief groundsman had spoken at length with the umpiring crew chief during a break in play and when the first flash of lightning occurred, the game was halted immediately, the tarp was put on the field, and people in the exposed areas of seating were instructed to move under cover.  As far as I could tell, no rain fell and half an hour later or so, the game restarted.  Then in the top of the 7th inning, the clouds gathered quickly and this time there was a deluge and the grounds crew covered everything as fast as possible and then we sat and watched lightning and heavy rain for a time, and then the rain stopped.  An hour and a half after the break started, a couple of the umpires and the head groundsman walked around the edge of the tarp, inspecting the condition of the grass and having returned to home plate, signalled that they were suspending the game - the first time I've been a suspended game.  So the game will resume at 2pm on Saturday, then we may or may not get turfed out the stadium and have to re-enter for the Saturday game which was originally scheduled for 3pm.

During the break, I obtained a celebrity autograph!  Well, I say celebrity,  but Tom Ricketts, owner of the Cubs, was walking around the concourse meeting people, signing autographs, having his photo taken with people.  It's nice to see the owner out and about and actually meeting the real fans - especially when it's the fans in the cheap seats.

Dark clouds threatened much but no rain the first time

Some people were already wet, others had it covered

Baltimore to Chicago

In-flight wi-fi works!  I'm currently typing this at around 33,000 feet above Ohio, en route to Chicago.  We were a little late leaving but look to be catching up time.  It was warm even early this morning in Baltimore and it looks to be around the 27C/81F in Chicago.  It'll be a quick dash across the city to drop my bag at the hotel and then up to Wrigley for the game.

Cincinnati Reds @ Baltimore Orioles (game 3)

Baltimore have developed a resilience that could see them go deep in the play-offs.  Having bashed Mike Leake for 6 in the bottom of the 1st inning, and with Schoop adding his 3rd homer in 3 games, the Orioles looked set to cruise through this game.  Tillman turned in a quality start - just, with his 3 runs allowed in 6 innings, and then turned it over to the bullpen.

That's when it started to go all wrong as the pen gave up a 4-run 7th to let the Reds draw level and cost Tillman his win.  Fortunately, the bottom of the 7th saw Baltimore add two more runs on a single by JJ Hardy to take a 9-7 lead.  The Reds seemed to have runners all over the bases in the last two innings (the first 6 innings went really quickly; the last 3 seemed to take forever) but they were fended off with the aid of two superb diving catches in right field in the 8th by Markakis and then in the 9th, a screamer blocked at 3rd base by Flaherty, on as a defensive replacement, was turned into a groundout, and the final out was a terrific play from deep at short by JJ Hardy just getting the batter-runner at 1st to wrap up the game and the series sweep.

It is slightly worrying for O's fans that the Reds were able to stage a comeback, as they did in the first game of the series when the O's jumped out to an early big lead.  Many of the Reds players were unknown to me other than Jay Bruce and Brandon Phillips, who yet again nearly sent me a foul ball in the first game - just two rows in front and it bounced straight back down into the lower level.  I've come to appreciate Phillips and I think he's a really good player - when he first came up to the majors, he seemed to do a few immature things as sometimes happens with rookies, but he's matured nicely.

The O's look like they'll do fine even without Machado.  They could be vulnerable in the play-offs to a team with a really good offence, but they'll be hard to beat.

CIncinnati Reds @ Baltimore Orioles (game 2)

With no sign of bad weather around, this game started on time and was quick - over in just 2 and a half hours.

The O's used the long ball to build a 6-0 lead, whilst Gonzalez pitched his first career complete game - and it was a shut-out too.  He had only 80 pitches through the first 7 innings and although it did get a little iffy in the 8th and the 9th innings, Buck Showalter left him in to finish it.

The crowds are disappointingly small here.  I could understand it in years gone past when Baltimore wasn't very good and were out of it, and last night's weather forecast clearly kept a lot of people away, but they are leading their division, good forecast - and still a poor crowd.

Baltimore's Inner Harbor

 On Wednesday, I visited Fell's Point.  I had booked my lunch via OpenTable as usual and had chosen 'Riptide by the Bay', which, despite its location in a tourist area, turned out to be a small local independent establishment with excellent service, rather than a large chain outlet.  The food was very good and came quickly.

I had a day pass for the Water Taxi which is definitely the most pleasant way to get around the harbour to the different locations, especially with the continuing heatwave, although there can be a 15-20 minute wait for a departure, if you're unlucky.  It's also a great place to take photos.

One of few remaining screw-pile lighthouses that formerly guarded the entrance to the river but was moved to the harbour a few decades ago to preserve it.  You can go inside to look around and take photos from the balcony.

Cincinnati Reds @ Baltimore Orioles (game 1)

This was one of the most bizarre games I've ever been to.

Tuesday was a stiflingly hot day here in Baltimore with temperatures (in the shade) up to the mid 90s with high humidity too.  The weather forecast was for potential thunderstorms in the evening - it was right.  The rain started coming down about an hour before first pitch.  It didn't last all that long, but I can see a sliver of the infield through a gap in the stadium's walls from my hotel room's window, and the infield was still covered, so I didn't bother going over until a while after it had been removed.

In some senses, I timed it perfectly - the national anthem was just finishing as I entered the stadium.

The Reds' first batter hits the ball, it ricochets off the pitcher towards first base, the pitcher's running towards first and shovels it to the first baseman, who drops the ball, whilst the runner is unable to stop after passing 1st and takes out the 1st base umpire who was moving from fair to foul territory to get into a better position to make the call, who subsequently left the game.  He doesn't even get listed in the box score having umpired only 0+ innings of the game!  So, the remaining 3 umpires realign to cover everything and the game continues for 4 more pitches, and then the heavens opened.

At this point, a 2 hour rain delay occurred, although the heavy rain didn't actually last very long.  The main problem was that the tarp was still wet from its pre-game use and the ground crew had a huge struggle to cover the infield that left the area around 3rd base something of a lake, somewhat reminiscent of the Giants/Cubs game at Wrigley recently which had to be called in similar circumstances.  It took half an hour after the tarp was removed, plus dozens of bags of diamond dry to repair the infield before we could get under way again, still in top of the 1st, none out, with a runner on 2nd - and only 3 umpires.  I spent a lot of it talking to a couple of guys who'd travelled down from Pennsylvania to watch the game - they didn't have to work tomorrow, so didn't mind the game potentially going on a long time.  I told them all about my trips, and they told me about their trip to the UK and other sports-related things.

After the resumption, Norris got the next three outs without conceding a run and then the fun started, as the Orioles put 4 runs on the board as Mat Latos struggled through the bottom of the 1st.  A solo home run in the bottom of the 2nd extended the lead to 5, but then everything settled down and zeroes were put up for the next 5 innings.

As time had gone by, many of the families started leaving and others and as the clock passed 11pm and the crowd had thinned out considerably albeit from a not very large one at the start (many people probably stayed away due to the forecast) it was announced that as a gesture of appreciation to those who had stuck it out for so long, everybody was welcome to sit in the bottom level of seating, where the expensive seats are.  I didn't go down, and neither did many of the other few remaining on the club level, which has a great view anyway.

Everybody was just willing the game to be over quickly, and then in the top of the 8th, O'Day came on to pitch for Baltimore and loaded the bases with a walk, an error and a hit by pitch, and gave up a grand slam to Jay Bruce, making it 5-4.

In the next half inning break, we had "The Midnight Hour" and other songs featuring the word 'midnight' played on the stadium PA system with the scoreboard clock shown on the video screen, as it had just passed midnight.

The Reds got the tying run the third base and go ahead run on 1st in the top of the 9th with just 1 out and everybody except the Reds players and fans by their dugout feared we could be going to extra innings.  Then a great double play was turned to tag out the runner from 1st and complete the double play at 1st so the game was over and it didn't matter that the runner from third had got home.

Lots of celebrations, ground crew come and remove the bases, everybody starts going home, and then ... "The last play is under review" as the Reds challenged it.  The ground crew put the bases back, wheeled off their wheelbarrows and the umpires huddled around the headset and thankfully a quick confirmation of the out came from New York and everybody could continue going home.

One Bag

I am attempting this trip with just one bag, mainly using suggestions from the One Bag website.

This is a bag that is the maximum carry-on size for flights, which is packed in a careful way to maximise the amount of things that I can get in it.   I have:

• 1 shirt
• 5 polo shirts
• 3 pairs of shorts
• 1 pair of formal trousers
• 1 pair of casual trousers
• 6 sets of underwear
• 2 pairs of shoes
• 1 coat
• 1 shaver (plus plug and charging cable)
• 1 small deodorant 
• 49ers cap

Obviously, I am wearing one polo shirt, one pair of trousers shoes, underpants and socks. Then I have:

• phone (plus USB charging cable and USB mains plug)
• camera (plus USB charging cable)
• MP3 player (plus USB charging cable)
• laptop (plus power cable)
• UK four way adaptor
• 1 (large) UK-US plug adaptor
• noise-cancelling headphones (these Bose QC-15 headphones <em>are</em> amazing)
• passport
• seatbelt
• two wallets for tickets (UK-specific and US-specific)
• all the game tickets (12 sheets of A4)
• money wallet
• puzzle book

However, I have actually still brought far too much with me.

One reason for bringing a coat was the pockets, which are handy.  It's too hot for a coat, so now it's become something I have to carry.

The 4-way adaptor is a waste of time and space - it's relatively bulky - and I only have two things to plug into it.  The mains adaptor is my bulky one with the third optional pin, which was stupid.  I should have not bought either of those, but instead just one of my lightweight two-pin adaptors.  Other than the shaver, every other electronic device will happily charge from the laptop's USB port.

For some reason I bought my UK wallet containing all my hotel membership cards, my clubcard, my Stagecoach smartcard and Beefeater card.  All the hotels have my membership number on file, and besides, I could have a note on my phone of all the membership numbers.  None of the others operate in the USA in a way in which I could use the cards.  This was just a packing mistake, as I had carefully separated out the cards into the set that I needed and the set that I did not into the different wallets - and then brought both anyway.

My clothes bundle has worked really well - nothing was particularly creased and all looks fine now they are hanging in the wardrobe, although it did mean I couldn't get my shorts out when I arrived in Washington - I'd have really liked to change to shorts given the heat.

I may invest in a laptop bag, just in case I have to gate check my bag (i.e. when we get to board the plane and find there's no locker space left) as at the moment, I simply have a plastic bag and a list of what I need to take on board, which will take a few moments to extract, but it's awkward to do that at the end of the jetway with everybody else going past.

I shall discard the game tickets as I go - perhaps paying the $2.50 extra for Will Call would have been worthwhile, then I just get the normal (much smaller) tickets when I arrive at each city.  No more paper boarding passes - I brought one for the international flight and now have a disposal problem as it contains my name, my partial frequent flier number, and my itinerary locator code.  I will have to dispose of it in pieces.

Arrived safely and tiredly

I am now in Baltimore.

We actually pushed back early at Heathrow and had a minimal taxi rather than the usual 15 minutes of touring the taxiways, and took off without having to wait in a queue.  The flight had brief moments of light turbulence, but nothing was spilled.  Unusually for me, I was able to sleep for a bit during the journey, which was useful, as I only got about 3 hours sleep last night.

The flight went better than expected and time was made up so we actually arrived on schedule in the end.  There was a short queue for immigration, but once it was my turn, it was very quick (presumably as I'm already on file!) and then ignoring the baggage reclaim, straight to a massively long queue for customs, which had just one guy taking all the forms.  I'm not sure why this should be such a long queue, given that all you do is walk up and give him the blue form and carry on.

Within 45 minutes of touching down, I was on the Washington Flyer to the metro, added some credit to my smartcard and off we went.  It's a lot easier without tons of baggage, and also a lot easier if you know what you are doing and where you are going!

I had to wait until 3.25 for my train at Union Station, so a couple of hours to wait.  It's a common stereotype that the British like to queue and others don't.  If you believe in that stereotype, drop in to Washington's Union Station or New York Penn Station and observe the Amtrak departure areas.  About 30 minutes before boarding started, people started lining up and the queue went out the waiting area, and right down the length of the station concourse.  I sat and waited instead and during boarding, just went through alongside people who had lined up.

 The train ride was through forests, in the main, so not an awful lot to see.  I arrived at Baltimore Penn Station and went down to the light rail, missing the ticket machine for pass validation, but fortunately, the ticket inspector was on the platform and before I got on, asked him if my ticket was valid (it wasn't) and he said he'd help me make it valid when I got off (which he did).

It's really hot and humid here.  Even when I went out to dinner at 6.30pm, it was 32C/90F, with my phone telling me that it "felt like 96F".  It's going to be like that here this week, so I'll be looking for museums and other indoor attractions this time, although I'm looking to take it easy today after sleeping 11 hours last night.

London Heathrow

My driver picked me up on time at 4am and the journey to Heathrow took just an hour and a quarter

The new Terminal 2 is very posh and new! The security was very efficient, with my pass being checked electronically instead of by hand.   It's quite a long way to the 'B' gates where the United lounge is, though.  Fortunately, the flight also leaves from a B gate so I don't have to walk all the way back again!

It looks like they're expecting a slow flight today as our estimated arrival time is already 30 minutes late.