Odds & Ends

Here is a wrap up of some odds & ends that I've encountered during the past few weeks.

Mathematics win!

The ketchup sachets at the Washington Navy Yard Courtyard Marriott are proudly labelled: 27g - 3x as much ketchup as 9g packets

Safety

The coffee jug in Toronto had a label informing me that it was compliant with various standards, such as: ANSI/BSF STD18 Manual food and beverage dispensing equipment I felt much safer thanks to knowing that the pot was standards-compliant!

Sound business advice

Many office units house several different companies, whose names are listed on large signs outside the premises. On Central Avenue in St Petersburg, there's one building that houses two businesses: Financial advisor PSYCHIC Would you trust this financial advisor?

San Francisco Giants @ New York Yankees (3)

The blog entry all about the Mariano Rivera ceremony will appear later in a separate entry once I've had a chance to go through the hundreds of photos that I took.

After all the festivities had concluded and the ground crew had done the final preparation of the field, we were about 45 minutes after the supposed first pitch time! So after the final part of the ceremony in which in a role reversal, Jorge Posada threw out the first pitch to Mariano Rivera, it was time to get down to the serious business of the day which was that the Yankees were desperate for a win to keep pace in the AL wildcard chase.

Today, the crowd said goodbye to another hero as well, as Andy Pettitte went for the Yankees in his final regular season start at Yankee Stadium. The crowd support for him was also tremendous, and he received a long standing ovation when Joe Giradi removed him in the 8th inning, followed by two curtain calls. Of course, Mo may well pitch in the upcoming series against the Rays before the Yankees end the regular season on the road in Houston, but Andy won't pitch in Yankee Stadium again, barring a miraculous run into the play-offs.

I've been following major league baseball since Channel 5 started up in 1997 and started covering ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball. That year was Mo's first as the full-time closer for New York. It really does make me feel old to see players retiring who I've seen as rookies or almost-rookies and had a complete career.

The Giants started Yusmeiro Petit, who I saw pitch against the Mets a few days ago. Yet again, a strong performance from a Giants starter, as he only gave up the solo home run in the early innings which, combined with some excellent defence, throwing runners out at the plate and completing a really close inning-ending double play in the 8th, meant that the Giants two runs were enough to secure the victory.

It looks cloudy in the photos, but it was a beautifully sunny afternoon throughout the ceremonies and the game. My seat was in the back row of section 121a, which was in the shade right from the start, which was nice as it stayed cooler there.

So in the end, it was the Giants celebrating on the field, although it was a quick affair and the stadium emptied relatively quickly, save for those waiting around to take some last photos of the special day.

This really has been a fantastic day, and yet a day of lasts. Mariano Rivera's final season, Andy Pettitte's final home start, and the final game of my 20-game road trip.

And then, just like the shopkeeper appearing at the end of each episode of Mr Benn, my phone went ping just before 7.30pm this evening, whilst I was on my way out to dinner, telling me that I had been automatically checked-in for my flight home tomorrow evening. And as for this special series? Well, fortunately, I have the signed photo of #42 and a Yankees programme to remember it by.

San Francisco Giants @ New York Yankees (2)

The penultimate game of my road trip was an afternoon game, eventually. The time of this game was only decided a few days ago once Fox had decided what time it wanted it to be.

The stadium is impressive - this photo was taken from the subway station, which is on an elevated section of the line, so is the best place to get a good photo.

My seat was in the Jim Beam suite up in the third level today. You get a great view of the game from fairly high up, but at a sensible height rather than right up in the top deck. My ticket also gives me access to the facilities and food area behind the section, which is only for people in the few sections in this area, so the queues are minimal. This year, they even have a little outdoor patio cordoned off with comfy armchairs that you can sit in in the shade to watch the game.

From here, I can see right down in the Giants' dugout on the third base side, too.

The Yankees started Ivan Nova against the Giants' Ryan Vogelsong. This was the weakest starting performance by a Giants pitcher that I've seen on my trip this year, as the Yankees took the game 6-0 in the end, with Nova completing the game giving up just 6 hits. There were a few visits to the mount by Dave Righetti, the Giants pitching coach, himself a former pitcher for the Yankees.

With such a large lead, there was no need for Mo today, but we've been asked to be in our seats by 12.30pm for tomorrow's 1.05pm game, as that's when the ceremonies will begin.

San Francisco Giants @ New York Yankees (1)

This game opens the Yankee's final homestand of the regular season and should be a good inter-league matchup. For travel logistics, it is obviously a good idea that whenever the teams do meet in New York, the Giants should also play a series against the Mets. The Giants and Yankees only play every three years under the current rotation system, and it is fortunate that it is in September when I am able to visit too. I'm looking forward to Sunday's game in particular, as it should be the Yankees' Andy Pettitte's final career start in New York (assuming they don't make the play-offs!) as well as the celebration of the career of Mariano Rivera (pictured right)

The Giants sent Tim Lincecum to the mound to open the series against the Yankees' ace CC Sabathia and it was a close game at 1-1 until the Yankees managed to load the bases against Lincecum. At this point, much to Tim's annoyance, Bruce Bochy replaced him with George Kontos, who promptly gave up a grand slam to Alex Rodriguez - the 24th of his career, making him the all-time leader in grand slams. Up until that point, even the local fans had been booing him during his appearances at the plate. The biggest cheers of the night were reserved for #42 though, as even the Giants fans stood and applauded his entrance into the game in the top of the 9th inning.

Since the Yankees do not sport orange colours like the Mets, it was much easier to see how split the crowd was between the two teams. There was a significant number of Giants fans in the crowd, perhaps 20% or more.

San Francisco Giants @ New York Mets (3)

The final game of this 3-game series was an afternoon game, so although I was glad of it for last night's game, I didn't take my coat with me today.

The final game saw Madison Bumgarner pitching for San Francisco against the Mets' Jon Niese. It was a warm sunny afternoon at Citi Field, so in the of the 4th inning, I went to lunch in the Delta Sky360 Club, which is a nice, cool place to eat whilst keeping up with the game on the numerous TVs around the seating area. I thought the gourmet burger, nice as it was, was a little overpriced at $16. I'd left it until the game had started to avoid the queues. However, I took my chocolate chip cookie and coffee, both good, back to my seat, which was at the home plate end of the Mets' dugout. I had an excellent view of everything from there. Buster Posey played at 1st base instead of catching, so I was able to get a good photo of him. The game was quick, over in just over two and a half hours. The game went very similarly to the previous 2 games in the series - scoreless early, Giants score a few, Mets claw their way back into the game later. This time, Bruce Bochy removed Casilla before he could lose us the game - bringing in Javier Lopez for the save, which he managed to do despite putting the winning run on base! Three excellent starts from the Giants' starters, two of which were converted into wins. Bullpen inconsistency would seem to be the problem.

The good seats meant I could get photos of Angel Pagan (the right-handed hitter) and Pablo Sandoval (the left-handed hitter). However, whenever sitting in the sections, it is important to pay attention, as balls do fly into the seats, often in a high arc, but sometimes as low line drives. One person was hurt a few sections to my right by a ball because she wasn't watching. It amazes me that the vendors don't get hit by balls often, as they have their backs to the game all the time. One of the good things the vendors at Citi Field will do, though, is crouch down, or sit in a seat whilst taking somebody's order so that they don't block the view for everybody else. That doesn't necessarily happen in some other places.

All throughout the series, I've had the impression that the Giants had about as many fans in attendance as the Mets did. However, with today being a weekday afternoon game, the Giants fans definitely outnumbered the Mets fan. On the subway, it was crammed full of people wearing San Francisco tops and hats, with barely a Mets supporter to be seen. There was no difficulty in finding somebody to take my photo.

San Francisco Giants @ New York Mets (2)

Today, I had seats in the Metropolitan Gold section, which is right behind the Mets' dugout on the first base side. I'm at the far end of the dugout, in the 4th row. This also means I can use the VIP entrance at the Seaver gate, named after Met pitching great Tom Seaver, whose bust is on display in the lobby area where you wait for the lift to take you up to your level - oddly, I have to go up to the third level - which is "Field Level"! Then you walk down through the rows of seats to get to the front.

As you can see, I had an excellent view from my seat. The crowd was about the same as it was last night. However, as the game went on, people kept turning up and sitting in the seats at the front, and then leaving an inning or two later and other people then came. Perhaps I should not have bothered paying for a good seat but just gone in and sat wherever I liked as well!

I had an excellent side on view for right-handed batters, such as the Giants' catcher and star Buster Posey. Matt Cain started and went 7.2 innings, leaving only on when the Mets finally put a run on the board with a sacrifice fly, after a throwing error by Posey, to finish with just the one unearned run and a 3 run lead with just over 100 pitches. I suspect that the Giants' manager, Bruce Bochy, did not want to use Romo again today, so asked Casilla to close out the game instead, which he wasn't able to do. With the tying run coming to the plate, Romo was summoned and eventually, after a lot of tension, gave up the winning hit. Just before the winning hit, the Mets' third base coach and the runner had, between them, just decided not to try to score the tying run on a fly ball to right field, much to the displeasure of many of the Mets fans in the crowd. However, the Giants' right fielder, Hunter Pence, is one of the best at throwing out runners from the outfield and he had made an excellent throw that would have cut down the runner at the plate and lost the Mets the game.

Being near to first base, I could get good pictures of the runners and fielders there. Here is Brandon Belt, having just reached base, with Lucas Duda of the Mets fielding. The Giants' first base coach Roberto Kelly.

I nearly got a Mets T-shirt during one of the T-shirt Tosses. Here's a picture of Mr Met with his T-shirt shooter - it's really powerful and can fire T-shirts into the upper deck of the stadium!

San Francisco Giants @ New York Mets (1)

My first game of six in New York to finish my holiday was the opener of a three-game series between my San Francisco Giants and the New York Mets. I made my way down to 42 St and then onto a 7 out to Citi Field. The subways didn't appear to be filled with fans going to the game though, which I thought was odd. The train did get very full once into Queens though, and since the driver noted to the people trying to cram on that there was an empty train waiting just behind - and you could see it waiting just outside the station - I decided to get off and wait about a minute for the next one, which I got a seat on.

The stadium is as I remember it, pretty when lit up by the setting sun. You can also see that LaGuardia air traffic is taking off to the South this evening, so we'll be getting a good view of the aeroplanes.

This was the one series that I didn't have any tickets for, except for a rain check from 18th September last year which had to be exchanged for a game "within 1 year" of the original game, which by my calculation meant I had to use it tonight! This caused momentary confusion at the ticket window, as the ticket vendor couldn't understand why I was trying to exchange a ticket with tomorrow's date on it as a rain check, until I pointed out that it was a 2012 ticket and not a 2013 ticket! Once he understood that, there was no problem and I was able to have exactly the same seat as it should have been last year. I also went to the advance ticket window to get tickets for Wednesday and Thursday, which means that I now have bought all the tickets for this year's trip, finally!

Unfortunately, neither team has anything left to play for this season and the crowd was decent, but not huge. There were quite a view Giants supporters, including what seemed to me to be a whole section over in left centre. The pictures here weren't taken when the crowd was at its largest - there were quite a few more people, but it certainly wasn't crowded in my section. Whilst most people started off in their assigned seats, as everybody went in for food and drink and came back, people ended up in different places to avoid having to squeeze past other people.

In this game, the second inning got off to a good start, with the Mets' pitcher Wheeler walking 4 batters, including our pitcher Petit. We scored 3 runs on 1 hit. The Mets battled back, but the Giants kept stretching the lead back again until it was 8-4 going into the bottom of the 9th inning. Sergio Romo came on to close it out and loaded the bases. Fortunately, the Mets only got one run before Romo could get the final out. This game went on for nearly 4 hours - it was quite chilly by the end. I stood and talked to the usher in my section for quite a while towards the end of the game, and even he was saying that he wanted to go home and no longer cared who won the game, just as long as somebody won it and it didn't go into extra innings! He took some photos of me as well.

After forgetting to take my gilet with me in Cleveland, I did remember to take it tonight and I was glad of it, but I shall be bringing my full coat to tomorrow night's game. The Northeast is currently in something of a cold snap this week, but it's going to return to high temperatures for the weekend. Fortunately, the weather looks set fair for Sunday, which is the day the Yankees are doing their big celebration of Mariano Rivera's career.