what about the plastic animals?

All-Star Blimp

Yankee Stadium is almost exactly two miles away from my apartment.  Over the weekend the Goodyear Blimp started making daily appearances in anticipation of tonight's All-Star game.  Walking home this evening I spotted no less than five airplanes towing advertising banners.  There was also one hot air balloon.  What I did not see was the blimp.

The All-Star game will be getting all the attention this evening, and rightfully so, but it may not be the biggest event going on in town.  The Philharmonic is giving a free concert in Central Park this evening.   Those concerts usually draw at least 50,000 people.

I wanted to go but forgot about it until I went for a bike ride in the park.  It was easy to distinguish the concertgoers from the regular park users.  Classical music fans, remember your Safety City lessons and look both ways before crossing the park drives!  I'm not one of the intense spandex-clad cyclists who ride to experience pain as a way to face their inner demons and who would rather scream at pedestrians than slow down ruin their precious workout, and yet I nearly ran into several people as they obliviously stepped into traffic.  For the record I do want to commend the parks department guy who advised me to watch out for the pedestrians well after I had come to a complete stop.

Hilltop Park

Greg is right! Yesterday's pictures were taken 99 years and about 80 feet apart.  The photo I took was up the third base line from near home plate in the little courtyard park on the grounds of the Columbia University Med School/New York Presbyterian Hospital.  The medical complex replaced Hilltop Park, which was the home of the New York Highlanders, now Yankees, from 1903-1912. 

In addition to being the site of the famous picture of Ty Cobb stealing third base, Hilltop Park was also the location of perhaps the greatest sustained pitching performance in baseball history.

On Friday September 4th 1908 Humboldt, Kansas native Walter Johnson, then 20 years old, gave up only five hits to the Yankees in a 3-0 victory by the Washington Senators.  The next day Johnson blanked the Highlanders again, this time giving up only three hits.  Baseball in New York wasn't legal on Sundays back then, so it took until Monday for Johnson to throw his third shut-out.  This time he allowed only two hits in a 4-0 victory.  Four days, 27 innings, ten hits, and three shutout victories.  That's beyond impressive.

Quiz

Ty Cobb sliding into third base, photo by Charles M. Conlon

Today's quiz question:  What do these two pictures have in common?

Mets Van

Is Johan Santana moving into the neighborhood?  While cleaning my apartment windows this morning I realized it was plenty warm enough to go for a bike ride.  I got the bike out of storage, pumped up the tires and rode over to the East River.  The bike path along the river is falling apart!  More on that in a future post.  I was also only a couple of blocks from today's building collapse but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary happening.

On the Edge

Mr. Met is on the edge of his seat on the last day of the season.  He hopes everyone cheers the team on today as they battle the Marlins.  He's been chanting "Remember Tom Maine and do it again!  Let's Go Mets!" all morning.

Yankee Stadium

Mr. Met refuses to speak to me.  I went to a Yankees game last night.  The Yankees won 6-2.  The Yankees pitchers actually pitched well.  A glass of Peroni from Mike's Deli inside the stadium cost $10.  Greg has a photo of the first nitwit that ran onto the field in the 9th inning.

Bay Area Baseball

While in San Francisco I managed to see two baseball games. 

On Sunday I took BART over to Oakland to see the A's play the Yankees.  That game had the greatest ending I've ever seen in a game.  The A's are down 4-2 with two outs in the bottom of the 9th.  Two men are on base.  Marco Scutaro, who was 1-22 so far on the season is at the plate facing Mariano Rivera, perhaps the greatest closer in baseball history.   With two strikes on him Scutaro hits a shot to left field.  It hits way up on the foul pole.  Three-run homer.  The crowd goes crazy and Scutaro goes crazy as he circles the bases.  Awesome!

A few nights later Jeff and I go see the Giants play the Cards at chilly AT&T Park.  Barry Bonds is playing!  In the eighth inning Barry Bonds hits a solo home run (home run # 738) into McCovey Cove to tie the game.  In the bottom of the twelfth, Rich Aurilia singles in Randy Winn to win the game four hours after the game began.

I've now seen a game in fourteen different stadiums (stadia?).  In no particular order:

1. Shea*, New York
2. Yankee, New York
3. Fenway Park, Boston
4. Cleveland Municipal* (R.I.P. - nothing like 3,000 people in an 80,000 seat stadium)
5. Riverfront, Cincinnati (R.I.P. - not really, it was an awful stadium)
6. Metrodome, Minneapolis
7. SkyDome, Toronto
8. Candlestick, San Francisco (no longer used for baseball but still there)
9. Kauffmann Stadium, Kansas City
10. Tiger*, Detroit (R.I.P.)
11. Dodger, Los Angeles (accidentally drank beer in the alcohol-free family section.  Oops.)
12. Coors Field, Denver
13. MacAfee Coliseum, Oakland
14. AT&T, San Francisco

*multiple games