Spring training, day fourteen

Day 14, Spring Training. McKechnie Field, Bradenton. Game 2 of 4 to see the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Like the Reds, the Pirates also have a “premium” game system. The “Gold” games are against the Braves, Indians, Red Sox, Tigers and goddamn Yankees. If you buy a ticket to one of these games, you must also buy a ticket to a specific “Red” game (also known as a “crappy” game). These tickets go on sale a week before the single game tickets. The goddamn Yankees and Red Sox I can figure, but what’s the attraction of the Tigers, Indians and Braves? Checking the Reds’ schedule, their games against the Tigers and Indians were also premium games. (The Braves don’t play at Sarasota this year.) I guess these teams must be popular locally and draw well. This is my “premium” game seeing the goddamn Yankees.

McKechnie was full, as expected. About half the crowd was rooting for the goddamn Yankees. The goddamn Yankees wore dark blue uniforms that were almost indistinguishable from the Pirates’ black. The only way to tell them apart was that the goddamn Yankees wore traveling gray pants while the Pirates wore home white pants.

Although I bought my ticket the instant they went on sale on the Internet, I was still in the top row of box seats a little to the left of home plate. This whole section is covered, so it was a shady seat. The support poles for the roof are at row 13. My view from row 22, first seat in, had a support pole block part of the first base line between home plate and first and a strip of right field. A mild nuisance, but still a good view. From the top row, I could watch a guy retrieve all the foul balls that were hit over the top of the stadium onto the used car lot across the street. All the cars in this lot looked like real junkers, so it wouldn’t particularly matter if any got hit by a foul ball. The neighborhood doesn’t appear to be the ritziest section of Bradenton.

No Jeter, ARod, Posada or Giambi. That severely limited the players I could boo at. Only the outfield of Abreu, Damon and Matsui was intact. Giambi probably never plays in NL road venues where there is no DH.

There was a stiff breeze blowing in all day that knocked down all fly balls. Pirates win 3-2. Reserve catcher Humberto Cota doubled in the go-ahead and eventual winning run in the 7th. I don’t care that it was spring training and mainly minor leaguers playing, I still enjoyed watching the goddamn Yankees lose.

It’s back-to-back seeing the Bucs as I go back to Bradenton on Monday.

Dad