5/ 4 Sunday afternoon, Newark

Newark Bears 5 Bridgeport Bluefish 3
In attendance- Sujan, Jamie, Abby

Rickey Henderson! The only reason Daniel R. would go to Newark on a Sunday afternoon.

Upon entering the game, Daniel R. saw that there was a line to get autographs and pictures of the Newark Bears. At one end of the line, Jose Lima, on the other end-Rickey! Daniel R. snapped a photo of Sujan and Lima Time and Lima Time’s diamonds. As Daniel R. moved up in line, he overheard one man telling his young son that Rickey is the greatest leadoff hitter in the history of the game. Daniel R. noticed the kid could care less. Jamie took a nice photo of Rickey, Sujan, and Daniel R. Daniel R. was super excited to have a picture of his girl, a legend, and Daniel R.

Daniel R. was disappointed when Rickey wasn’t even starting the game. Daniel R. was perturbed that Rickey already needed a day off when Rickey was only a week or so into the Atlantic League season.

Daniel R. was excited to see Chico Lind and Bill Madlock had found jobs managing and that Prettyboy Billy Ashley had found a job as a third base coach.

Daniel R. was excited to see Rickey and Lima Time dancing from their perches of the top steps of the dugout during the game. At one point, Daniel R. heard a fan yell from the crowd to Rickey imploring him to play, "Rickey, we’re here for you!" Rickey turned around to see who yelled up to him, pointed, and cried out, "Hey, how’re you doing?" Daniel R. knows that Rickey is all class.

5/ 10 Saturday afternoon, Shea

Mets 4 Padres 2 (10 innings)
In attendance- Sujan, Jamie, Alex B.

A Brit’s first Mets game. Alex began his first full baseball season in the U.S. with a game at Shea. By season’s end, he will have gone to many more, including a game by himself! At this game, he was ready to learn. He was ready to talk a lot about cricket and football. He was ready to eat a lot of sausages and hot dogs. He was ready to drink a lot of expensive beer. He was ready to talk to his wife on the cell phone every fifteen minutes or so as she got drunker and drunker on Bloody Marys with her friends at Central Park.

We saw a 5 or 6 year old kid who looked like the spitting image of a miniature Balgavy. The kid behind us took the head off of his Mo Vaughn bobblehead doll. There was something perfectly appropriate about the gesture.

There was a lot of explaining of rules to the Brit. At one point, we noticed that Jamie and I were explaining things to Alex as the father to our left was explaining the same things to his young son. He tried to make sense of the game by comparing it to the few games of softball he had recently muddled his way through, "So when the ball is hit in the air to an outfielder, they will catch it? As opposed to when we play softball, there is a good chance it won’t be caught?" We decided to just say yes to his questions without confusing him with talk of Roger Cedeno.

Alex called the Mets’ third base coach Matt Galante "a little fat man over at third." You haven’t lived until you’ve heard a foreigner describe your third base coach so eloquently.

Sujan noted that the no smoking Mr. Met sign in one of the ladies rooms had one screw missing and that maybe the 6’5" Alex could get it for us in a covert mission? But alas, a year-long mission for a Mr. Met sign would not end on this day.

The game and the crowd had no energy. Alex compared the aura to two crappy football teams playing a meaningless game in England saying, "Hell, I never even heard of the Padres until yesterday." The game was dull until the very end. Armando and Cedeno were booed mercilessly all day, but I wondered why Alomar was given a free ride.

As rumors swirled about the imminent firing of the Mets general manager, Steve Phillips, Mike Piazza came to the plate in a tied game in the bottom of the tenth inning. Alex asked, "Should we be hopeful here even though we don’t think they’ll score?" Jamie told me that if Piazza didn’t do anything in the at bat, he was available for trade in our fantasy league. My chance to get Piazza from Paquette? I’ve been trying to pry Piazza from Jamie since 2000! Next pitch- homerun! I was happy for the Mets but sad for my fantasy team.

This was the last time I saw Piazza play before he injured his groin and was out for over three months. At least, he didn’t have to hear about how he should move to first base for a few more months. Steve Phillips had a job for at least a few more days. Timo and Shinjo walked off the field with their arms around each other. How cute.

On the subway platform after the game, Alex said, "I could get into this baseball thing."

5/25 Sunday afternoon, Pittsburgh

Pirates 8 Cardinals 7
In attendance- Eric P., Amie, Sujan, Jack, Kara, Eric H., Carmela

In town for Memorial Day and it is a must to catch a game in the one of the finest parks in baseball. It is the fans of Pittsburgh who are missing out that they can’t pack such a beautiful place on a nice day on a holiday weekend. Oh well, more Primanti Brothers for us.

We went to the game only a few hours after the dance party (Archies, Ohio Express) at Eric H. and Carmela’s apartment which shouldn’t be too surprising because we all know that everywhere Eric P. and Amie go turns into a dance party at one point or another. It was also the night I heard Dexter Redding’s (Otis Redding’s teenage son) amazing song about love being bigger than baseball and sweeter than cotton candy. I got drunk, tripped over couches, and proclaimed to the boys that I was going to soon propose to Sujan. They were pleased to hear this but had to convince me in my altered state not to do it on a roller coaster.

It was Plumley’s first time at PNC Park and he loved it even more than Camden Yards. I keep going back and forth on that issue of which one is better. He had a few minor complaints revolving around things like the scoreboard and the pieorogi races which he declared "jive" and a poor rip-off of the sausage races in Milwaukee.

I loved the super hero like drawings of the Pirates displayed on the scoreboard. I also enjoyed the Q and A session of some of the Pirates players played in between one of the innings. We learned that Kris Benson’s favorite ice cream is Neopolitan which disgusted Plumley.

I declared the Soft Serv at PNC Park the best Soft Serv anywhere 3 years and running but Sujan wasn’t impressed.

Eric H. got all dressed up in team colors wearing black jeans and a bright yellow Rezillos shirt.

And the most perplexing issue of 2003- Pittsburgh plays "Thank God I’m a Country Boy" these days at games, but not in Baltimore. Anyone care to explain that to me?

Plumley sent me this great article from a Philadelphia paper later in the season. I include it here because it really sums up well my dislike of the Cardinals much more eloquently than I can:

Oh yeah, the Pirates scored 6 runs in the 6^th and 7^th innings to erase a big deficit to win the game. Kenny Lofton extended his hitting streak to 23 games.

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