Baseball Tour 2012 - page 3, Thursday - Saturday
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| Thur June 21st - Minnesota Twins at Pittsburgh Pirates 7:05 Start | ||
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| First, we went to tour the Phillies park. | View from the dugout. | This is where Lee, Halladay, Hamels, Pence all sit, waiting for their turn to make a difference. |
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| In the club section, a cover of Millwoods no hitter in 2003. | Cliff Lee - need I say more? | View from the Press Box. |
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| After Halladay's perfect game, they made a cast of his hand and have this display with the game ball. Cool and creepy at the same time. | Enjoy the view! :-) | |
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| Now we are in Pittsburgh. Nice view of the city from outside the park. (Clemente bridge on left.) | View from the walk outside the park. | Statue of Roberto Clemente. |
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| View of park from Clemente bridge. | Plague on bridge. "Thanks Great One." | Front entrance of park. Statue of Honus Wagner. |
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| View inside of park. | Pittsburgh is only city to host 3 All Star games in 3 stadiums. (Forbes Field, Three Rivers and PNC.) | Onion tour continues - Jalapenos are making frequent appearances! |
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| They had a very cool feature with the Negro League history area. They had statues and kiosks where you coud view video (with audio), take quizzes, view a biography, etc. of the person the statue represents next to the kiosk. This was "Cool Papa" Bell. | View of city from inside the park. | From the seats. This was probably my favorite park on the tour. HUGE upgrade from Three Rivers. |
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| Not only do they report the speed of pitch, but the horizontal and vertical breaks. My head was about to explode trying to comprehend. | The right field wall is 21' tall - Roberto Clemente played right field, and his number was 21, which you see bracketing the National League and American League headers. |
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| The pierogi race. They were running like crazy - it did not appear as the usual staged race. | As the sun set the view just got better.... | Pirates win! James Mcdonald first major league complete game! |
| Fri June 22nd - Minnesota Twins at Cincinnati Reds 7:05 Start | ||
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| First, we visited the former site of Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. There is still some of the brick wall (see in the back you can see the number) and the green pole is the flag pole from the field. The foul line is also on the sidewalk in brick. | The sign marking Forbes Field. | Inside the law school near the location is home plate. |
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| And this cool picture from LIFE magazine in 1960 (view of the World Series from a rooftop). | Our tour guides knew a local guy who spoke with us about growing up in Pittsburgh and 'living' at Forbes Field. He also had very nice things to say about Roberto Clemente. | |
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| After Forbes, it was on our way to Cincy. This is the outside of the park. | Driving into the bus parking, Johnny Bench Way and Pete Rose Way. | Main Entrance to the park. |
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| Onion tour - NO onions.... 2 kinds of mustard, but no onions. No one could tell me where they were (but I only asked 2 people). | View from the outfield. | View from the back concourse of the park. Like Pittsburgh, this is also on a river. But the view belongs to Pittsburgh. |
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| Nice batting cages and recreation area for kids. The yellow slide looked VERY tempting. | Next to the play area was a rose garden to honor Pete Rose. Good thing his name wasn't Pete Beetle. | Nice tile mosaic honoring the home of the first professional baseball club. |
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| Starting lineup. | My view for the evening. (Just kidding, Greg!) | Brandon Phillips making friends. |
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| They had these 'banners' that were also digital boards where they put up the batters number, results of each hitter that inning and the hitters (or pitcher's, when appropriate) stats. Very cool. | The 'boat' in outfield at night. | Whenever the Reds struck out the opposing batter (not too often this evening) the smokestacks shot out flames. |
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| Bronson Arroyo in the dugout. His expression foretells the next image. | Yep, Cincy lost. Good game, tho. | |
| Sat June 23rd - Milwaukee Brewers at Chicago White Sox 6:05 Start | ||
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| Before we went to the game, we stopped for a bit of sightseeing and a nice buffet. Part of the sightseeing was the Billy Goat Tavern. | Among other things, it was the inspiration for the SNL skit. | Love this door. |
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| The courthouse where the Chicago 'Black' Sox were coming out and the kid supposedly said to Shoeless Joe - "Say it ain't so." | Dinner at Harry Caray's in a bit.... | But in the meantime, I get to walk around Chicago a bit. Nice city. |
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| Harry Caray's has the welcome sign out for us. | Finally, on to U.S. Cellular (or New Comiskey). This is the tribute to the 2005 World Series win. Very nicely done, I thought. Original. | The onion tours final stop. Ends on a good note! Final tally - |
| Real with crank - 3 Real with spoon - 2 Calling ALL Onion lovers - 1 (Cleveland club level) Packet - 1 (Fenway - so disappointing) Something odd - 1 at Yankee Stadium MIA - 1 Cincy (really - WHERE are the onions?) |
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| View of field. | I like this statue - if you can squint - you can see the ball about to be passed by the 2nd baseman. | Louisville Slugger was represented - showing how bats are made. |
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| They were also there with a bat Shoeless Joe used in the 20's. 36-inch, 36 ounces.... | And the autographed bat Hank Aaron hit 700 with.... 32 inch, 32 ounces. My how times change. | |
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| Randy Wolf warming up. It is a wonder all pitchers don't have arm problems. Look at the arm. | View from the seats. | The Sox welcome us. |
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| Bernie Brewer made the trip and was socializing with the Sox mascot - Southpaw. | Robin Ventura sighting!!! (right) | Sox Win! |
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| The celebration swirlies and fireworks. | Final. | |
| Sadly - back to the real world now. *sigh* | ||
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