Baseball at its Finest
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by SBells 64.8.8.253
I was lucky enough to pickup some nice tickets for the Indians "home opener" at Miller Park. $10 each scored me 6th row just off to the side of home plate - yet close enough to see Kelly Shoppach's sliders through his pants.
Looking around as the managers met at the plate, the crowd seemed to be similar to a meaningless Nationals/Brewers game in the middle of August - the field level seats were full, and the 2nd deck crowd started fading at the respective bases. A better crowd than most had expected, but not quite impressive - yet. As the Indians took the field, they received a nice pop from those on hand.
By the time Sabathia threw the first pitch, another 1,000 fans or so had trickled into their seats in the 2nd deck. If you haven't been to Miller Park, you can partially see people walking in from the parking lot if you have a seat between the bases. That was the case last night, as there was a continuous flow of fans from the 1st through the 4th when it finally seemed to reach it's peak.
A few highlights, keeping in mind the majority of the fans had no rooting interest:
- Gary Matthews Jr. took a beating for his alleged ties to Steroids.
- Just prior to Blake's HR in the 3rd, fans started filling into the outfield bleachers in both left and right field as the field level seats and the 2nd deck were completely full. 5 pitches later, some lucky guy in the 2nd row picked the ball out of the air.
- Shea Hillenbrand singled in the 4th. He hit the ball to deep left, and it took a bounce off of the bottom of the wall. Rather than bouncing hard back to Dellucci, it spun on the track and Dellucci had to go to the ball. Hillenbrand wasn't showing the hustle, and pulled up at first with a single much to the dismay of the crowd. A very loud chrous of jeers and boos greeted Hillenbrand's retreat to first. Very rarely do you hear EVERYONE in the crowd boo one thing, and this was one of those times.
I was happy to attend the game, and after the solid articles being written on some of the news and sports sites, I wouldn't be shocked if tonight's game outdraws last night's.
