I woke up bright and early at 5:30 to get on my way to IAD. Flew from there to Fort Lauderdale, and picked up the rental car and drove to the hotel in Miami Beach. After check-in, I went outside to check out the pool and the beach. The pool was very nice, and then out just past was the beach. Beautiful place.
Somehow, I didn’t need to get any sleep, and went to the Phillies/Marlins game that night. It wasn’t on the original plan, because I hadn’t scheduled any games on days I flew, but I’m glad I went. One of the baseball highlights of my trip happened in the 9th inning, after the 45 minute rain delay in the 8th. The Marlins beat Brad Lidge, scoring 2 runs in the bottom of the 9th (after a run in the 8th) to win.
…and of course, the stadium shot. Not too thrilled with this one, but they’ll have a new park for me to shoot in 2012.
I spent the day in Washington running errands. Had to make a trip to the bank, and the post office to send some of the things I collected on the trip home, because my suitcase was getting close to the 50lb mark. After that, waited for Jason to get back home and headed out to the game, via the DC Metro. We met up with Ryan, who I hadn’t seen since college, before the game and then went into the park.
The Dodgers destroyed the Nationals 14-2, with Livan Hernandez taking the loss. I did get to see Adam Dunn hit a home run, though. Casey Blake homered for the Dodgers, and they had a 6 run and 7 run inning for most of those 14 runs. Hiroki Kuroda gave up 2 unearned runs in 6 innings for the win.
The Presidents race.
Of course, I got my ice cream helmet. It would be the last one until Seattle, as both the Marlins and Rockies had run out for the season.
Here’s the three of us at the game.
And, as always, my stadium shot.
I’m interrupting posts about my baseball trip to tell all of you to go vote for Evan and Morgan in the Gap casting call. Go vote now! You can vote every day from now until November 17th. Vote often!
How can you not?
This game was not on my original schedule. While I was in Boston I realized that including the four stadiums I’ve been to in California this year, I’d have made it to 14 total ballparks. Adding one more would make it 15, for exactly half of the MLB teams. After some quick schedule lookups, it became clear that the best bet was to go to this game. I had already been to PNC Park before in college, but not since 2001. It’s only a little over a four hour drive from where I was staying in northern Virginia. The whole trip was insane to begin with, so I felt like adding a little more crazy to it seemed like a good idea.
Before the game, I hit the CMU campus just to look around there again. I bought a couple of t-shirts in the campus bookstore (because what I really need is more t-shirts), and got to see the new Gates Computer Science building.
PNC might be my favorite ballpark. It’s certainly up there high on the list. It was sad to see it so empty at the game I went to, though not surprising. Both teams are pretty bad, and neither is making the postseason. It’s a shame to see such a beautiful place so deserted. A week later, the Pirates actually closed the upper deck for a game and gave everyone with a ticket up there a seat upgrade. I’m glad they didn’t while I was there, so I could still get my stadium picture.
But it’s so empty…
The game itself was a pretty good one. Pirates were down early, and came back in the 9th against Heath Bell. Sadly, the Padres scored 5 in the 11th to win 11-6.
I think the view is what really makes this such a great place to watch baseball. Someday, they’ll have to have a good team playing there again.
I checked out of my hotel in the morning, left my car in the parking garage of the hotel next door, and walked back over to Camden Yards. This time, I got there early and the plan was to take some pictures. First, I went to the Sports Legends Museum right near the park. It wasn’t bad, but the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum a few blocks away was much cooler. It was a weird feeling standing in the house where Babe Ruth was born.
His 714 regular season home runs, and World Series homers.
There’s a Babe Ruth statue outside the park, as well.
Inside the park, there are baseballs on the ground marking all the home runs hit onto the street next to the warehouse.
The game itself was another Red Sox blowout of the Orioles. They were up 7-0 before the Orioles scored a run, and the final score was 9-3. The place was mostly full of Red Sox fans, so the crowd was happy with what was going on.
In the middle of the game, I moved myself down to field level.
After the game, I drove to Jason’s, where’d I be staying the rest of the time in the DC area.
As always, all pictures from the game in the set.
After arriving at my hotel and settling in for a few minutes, I walked over to Oriole Park at Camden Yards. I wasn’t originally planning to go to this game, but realized I’d be there in time and have nothing else to do. Also, the next game was a day game, so I wouldn’t have been able to get my standard stadium shot. The game was another Red Sox victory, and 11-5 blowout. It was a tie game into the 7th, though, and the Orioles led 1-0 and 3-2 at various points in the game. I didn’t have much time to do other photography before the game, but planned on doing that that next day anyway.
Fans of the Game
Oriole Park at Camden Yards
I drove from Tampa Bay to the airport in Orlando because that was a direct flight to the DC area, and a nice reasonable drive. If I had flown from Tampa Bay, I would have had to connect in New York or Boston and have a long layover, and it really just didn’t make any sense. After arriving at IAD, I drove about an hour to my hotel in Baltimore Inner Harbor. It was a Holiday Inn, and nothing special, but the location was great, just a two block walk from Camden Yards. I wasn’t originally planning to go to the game that night, because I didn’t schedule any games on days I was flying, but once I got there I had no reason not to go. Here are a few pictures from the day of traveling.
The view from the terminal shuttle at MCO. Not the one I was supposed to be on, it went to gates up to number 99. I was gate 101, but jumped on the wrong shuttle. Had plenty of time to get the camera out and get the picture on the way back to the main terminal. Glad I did.
The 6th of 14 planes I will be on during this trip
Sitting in nice leather seats, with plenty of power outlets, in the airport terminal
jetBlue engine
Everything I had been told about Tropicana Field was that it wasn’t a good place to watch baseball. While it certainly doesn’t have the feel of some of the newer stadiums, I thought it was a great stadium where fans can watch and also bet on sites like 해외배팅사이트. It’s unique, and watching the game there was just as nice as watching a game most other places. Maybe it’s because I went in with such low expectations, or because it was too hot outside and nice to get into the air conditioned building, but whatever it was, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
During batting practice, a fly ball hit one of the lights hanging down, and it was shaking for a good twenty minutes. Oh, and I caught another batting practice home run.
I caught that ball one row behind and about a dozen seats over from where Wade Boggs’ 3000th hit landed. He is the only player to have his 3000th hit be a home run.
The ray tank is out past the right center field fence, and is open to feed and pet them until two hours after the start of the game.
Of course, I had to get my stadium shot. It’s a little different since it’s indoors, but it still came out nice. Had to get a shot of me there, as well.
The Rays beat the Jays 11-4, including a 6 run inning and a 2 run home run by Evan Longoria that was just crushed over the center field fence. The game played out pretty much like the final score would indicate, a blowout where it didn’t seem like the Blue Jays had a chance (though they were leading 2-0 early on). It was a meaningless game to both teams, but still fun to watch.
After the game was over, I had a nice view of the park at night. I’m glad I had my tripod sitting in the trunk of the car.
As I was pulling out of the parking lot, it started to rain. All of a sudden, there was lots of lightning. I tried to find a good place to try to get some good pictures, and ended up shooting this out of my hotel window. Glad I decided to put the tripod in the suitcase for the trip.
I’m falling behind on writing these posts. Late nights and early mornings, combined with internet connections too slow to upload images have made it hard. The pictures are now up to date, though.
I woke up way too early, on way too little sleep, and got a ride to Logan. I was pretty much sleepwalking through the day, and just crashed a few hours after checking into my hotel in St. Petersburg. Woke up, had dinner, and then went back to sleep. It was a much needed recovery day. I’ll probably need a few more on this trip. I did get a picture of the nice hotel room with my Pre before ruining the beautifully made bed.
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