350 hours until Opening Day!

Maryvale!

Over the last two days, I had another fantastic baseball experience. Planning to spend two days in Phoenix to enjoy three Cactus League games, I left Saturday morning and arrived at Maryvale Baseball Park to enjoy the Cincinnati Reds and Milwaukee Brewers. This was a park we didn’t go to last year, so it was nice to walk around a new ballpark (they’re all great, just varying degrees of great). I enjoyed a brat (it is Milwaukee’s home park, after all) and a beer, and hung out by the Reds bullpen. We had pretty solid success with that last year (re: Brock’s conversation with Bronson Arroyo) and this year was pretty great also. I got to watch Aroldis Chapman warm up! He was like 8 feet from me! Also, I said this to a few people, namely Colleen and my Dad, but watching major league players toss baseballs to kids is never not the best thing ever.

Aroldis!

After that game, I was going to check into the motel I had booked and then head to the Dodgers and White Sox. Well…the hotel was, um, sketchy? I didn’t feel comfortable staying there, so I cancelled my reservation (and got refunded) and figured I would head down to the night game and then head back to Bullhead.

The night game was sold out.

Oops. Headed back to Bullhead and was home at a reasonable hour last night. Score one for a great experience at Maryvale and disappointment elsewhere.

This morning, I drove up to Las Vegas to see the Mets and Cubs play at Cashman Field, where the Las Vegas 51’s play. The 51’s are the Mets AAA affiliate, and I was struck by the ballpark. The Phillies A affiliate in Lakewood play in a nicer facility. The walls were high (to combat winds? Because they didn’t want to spend the money to grow grass to have a berm in the outfield? Because Vegas?) and not padded, and the park only sat about 9,000 fans.

The party area and field at Cashman

But the Mets brought mostly starters to the desert including David Wright, Travis d’Arnaud, Curtis Granderson (who struck out…Mets fans need to get used to that) and defensive whiz and center fielder Juan Lagares and the Cubs brought a lineup filled with guys trying to latch on and top prospects. So I can say I’ve seen the Mets play this year (AAA jokes, anyone?) and seen some of the top prospects in the Cubs organization, including Javier Baez and Kris Bryant.  And I scored a baseball! Mostly because I was alone in my section. Bearded guys always lose out to kids.

 

So it wasn't what I had planned, but it was pretty great anyway. Some observations from the road in no particular order:

1.       Two tumbleweeds

2.       A plastic bag blowing around that blew right into a trash can

3.       A guy facetiming and driving

4.       Someone parasailing out the back of a pickup truck on a dirt patch off the highway

I got a cap!

Last year was more fun, because these things are always more fun when you have friends to share them with. But I’m pretty pumped I got to do it again.