Saturday afternoon, Alex Rodriguez hit a three-run homer in his first at-bat, to become the youngest player ever to hit 500 home runs. That night, Barry Bonds hit a solo homer in his first time at the plate, to tie Hank Aaron with for the all-time lead with 755. In between those two home runs, I went to a Mets game in Chicago, with Russ.

There was nothing particularly special about that game. It was my first time at Wrigley Field, and we had some pretty good seats (view here). John Maine breezed through the first two innings, before giving up 6 runs in the third. The Mets were only able to score 2 runs off of Ted Lilly, both on Moises Alou solo homers. It was a fun game, but disappointing.

Sunday, though, was a different story. I went to the game with Matt, who has season tickets. Tom Glavine was the starter for the Mets, making his second attempt at getting win #300. I had been planning this trip since the season schedule came out, but I realized when he was at 297 wins that I’d have a decent shot to see him go for 300. In his last try, last Tuesday, he left the game with a 2-1 lead, only to have Guillermo Mota blow it in the 8th (and the Mets lose in extra innings). Sunday, Glavine pitched great, giving up 2 runs in 6 1/3 innings, and also drove in the first run of the game with an RBI single. He’d finish 1-2 with a walk and a sac bunt. He left the game with a 5-1 lead, and saw it get to 5-3 before the 7th inning ended. It took three relievers (Mota, Feliciano, Heilman) to finally get out of the inning, but Glavine’s lead was intact. The Mets added 2 in the 8th, and 1 in the 9th, and Jorge Sosa and Billy Wagner both pitched a scoreless inning to close it out, for a final score of 8-3, and Glavine’s 300th win!

I decided at the start of the game that I’d keep score to have a nice souvenir if the game did end up being his 300th. Our seats were good, but I wouldn’t have been able to do much good photography from where they were anyway. The cable holding up the screen would have been in the way of a lot of it, and they weren’t terribly close (view from seats here). I haven’t kept score at a game since Game 5 of the 2003 ALDS in Oakland. I was a little rusty to start, but got back into it pretty well, and managed to keep at it the whole game. I need to do it more often. It’s a lot of fun, and keeps me really focused on the game. Click the image to see the scorecard bigger.

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