I had a fairly stressful week at work, since a project is nearing completion but the conclusions are still being changed day by day. We're supposed to pre-brief our leadership tomorrow and, frankly, I'm not sure yet what we're going to tell them since the charts are going to be revised yet again tomorrow morning.
I got away for the weekend to check off another major league ballpark, namely Tampa Bay. I now have only one American League ballpark to go, though that will increase since the Heart of Darkness is closing and there will be a new home of the Source of All Evil in the Universe to visit.
Anyway, the trip was not the smoothest. The flight down to Tampa was about 20 minutes late and featured an Airbus 320 without working lavatories. Two hours is about the limit for a flight on which that is acceptable. Enterprise tried hard to upsell me on the rental car. If I reserve an economy car I don't want a minivan. Don't tell me it's the same price with gas prices what they are. And, no, the "but we sell our gas at $2.99 a gallon with our prepaid option" is not a deal since: a) I have moral objections to letting you sell the same gas twice and b) I'm not going to use anywhere near a full tank of gas so it isn't a deal. Not all that surprisingly, by insisting that I should get what I reserved, they actually did have a perfectly good Chevy Cobalt available. I will note that another person at the desk was having a similar conversation, with eventual capitulation on their part.
I found the hotel (Courtyard by Marriott, Tampa Airport) without much trouble. It was adequate, but rather noisy (highway noise, that is). I suppose that's why it was cheaper than the other options. I didn't get quite as much sleep as I'd have liked to, but that's to be expected when traveling.
The ball game was at night, so I needed something to do during the day. Fortunately, there was a choice of Volksmarch events and I settled on the Northeastern Saint Petersburg walk, which covered various areas around the bay, the Pier, and the Old Northeast residential neighborhood. The main reason I did this walk versus one of the Tampa ones was that I've still got a few events to go to finish off the "Walking Europe in the U.S.A." special event program, by the way. It was pleasant enough for the most part. But I probably should not have bothered with the extra 3 kilometers for walking out to the end of the pier and back as I got a blister on my little toe, making the last bit of the walk painful. This is what I get for forgetting to bring blister block with me, sigh.
Tropicana Field posed a different sort of challenge - namely, total gridlock. I lived in Los Angeles for 17 years and the traffic jam trying to get to the ballpark was worse than anything I ever experienced there! It took me roughly an hour and 15 minutes to go the last half mile. There were maybe 2 police officers along the route and they were doing nothing, nada, nil, zip to direct traffic, making me wonder why there were even there.
Tropicana Field proved to be unimpressive in most other ways. Domed stadiums are typically bland and mall-like and so it was. There did appear to be a wider than usual range of concessions and there is an exhibit area that pays tribute to Ted Williams (and a handful of other great hitters), though it never explains his connection to the area. The truth is that Florida's baseball history is really linked to Spring Training and the sport is just not a natural one for the region.
I should also note that there was a cowbell giveaway, limited to people wearing Rays gear. This may qualify as the most dubious promotion I've seen yet, since real fans can get by perfectly well with our voices and hands and feet. There did appear to be some enthusiastic and knowledgeable Rays fans, but there were also plenty of my tribe present and cheering for the Red Sox.
The game was fairly enjoyable, but had disappointing results. Clay Buchholtz pitched well, but gave up a two-run homer in the 8th, so the Sox lost. The good news is that the Sox definitely have some young talent. It's not just Jacoby Ellsbury - Jed Lowrie had a pretty good outing, too.
The gridlock leaving the ballpark was not quite as bad as going there, mostly because I took the desperate measure of turning away from the stadium as soon as I could, leading to a far more convoluted way of getting back to I-275. Saint Petersburg is gridlike enough that one can get away with doing that.
The trip home went smoothly enough, except for track work on the Orange Line, which had me waiting at West Falls Church for half an hour for a train. That would not have annoyed me nearly so much had the information signs at the station been working correctly and told me that, versus indicating that a train would come in 3 minutes. I suspect they were screwed up all around as three east bound trains came while I was waiting. Two of them were nearly empty but the middle one was completely packed, beyond rush hour crowded, suggesting that folks thought there wouldn't be a train for a while.
Bottom line is that Seattle is now the only American League ballpark I haven't been to. I have more of the National League to go, though I will get to at least 2 more of those this season. So far I'm only further convinced of the perfection of Fenway.
Copyright 2007 Miriam H. Nadel