Rare non-baseball post: the Seattle we experienced
To give you some background on why I traveled from Southern California to the Pacific Northwest, my wife and I began an annual tradition that started a few years ago where we would go to a new MLB stadium every year. Just one, not a bunch, because we are not rich. For this year, we decided that Safeco Field in Seattle, Washington/Warshington would be where we’d head, and I have friends in the area, so I knew it would make the trip more enjoyable. In a rare move, I am doing a post not about baseball, but a little bit about what I did in Seattle with my friend and my friends of the Seattle area.
Before booking a hotel in Seattle, it would be best to consult with a local and figure out how close you are to public transportation. The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where most people fly into, has a lightrail that connects from the airport, though you’ll have to walk a bit from the South Terminal. The hotel I booked was about 15 minutes south of the airport, so I wasn’t near the lightrail, but I was near an Amtrak. Definitely not the same thing, especially in terms of frequency of trains coming by.
By the way, we flew Virgin America to Seattle from Los Angeles, and that’s my new favorite airline because the ambiance and they have SFG TV on it, which shows features that the San Francisco Giants have produced, whether it’s specials on the 2012 postseason, or the Town Hall meeting before the 2013 season. There’s about 2.5 hours of programming, so if your flight is longer than that, you might want to have another channel ready to go. I did not like that E! was included, because my wife watches Keeping up with the Kardashians, and that show makes me vomit. Overall though, very happy with Virgin America.
Obligatory picture of the Space Needle. We didn’t ride the elevator to ride to the top, but you can go to the Seattle Center if you feel like you want to experience that. I’ve done it when I was much younger, and remember thinking it was cool.
These are pieces at the Glass Museum and this place was absolutely fantastic. Really, can’t say enough good things about this place, and I’m really not a museum/art type of person.
Here’s a picture I believe my wife took. This is a public park not too far away from a community college near Seattle University. We would hang out near Seattle University for much of Saturday after the game. Went to a restaurant called “Poquitos,” and the beer I had was good. If you go to that place, you go there for the social atmosphere, not the Mexican food/drink… or at least if that drink is a horchata. We’re spoiled down here in Southern California.
That area near Seattle University though, cross streets I’d say around 11th and Pike let’s say, is a place for young people, LGBT-friendly peoples, and is pretty hipster-y. We tried hitting up 8 Oz. burgers, but they couldn’t accommodate a group of seven. Next time. I also heard of other solid spots in the area, and so if we go back, I hope we can spend more time there. We would end up having a great grilled cheese at a place called Skillet Diner, I believe.
On Sunday, we walked from my friend’s boyfriend’s place in that aforementioned area down to Pike Place and that was a good 20-30 minute walk to/from the area, but a solid bit of exercise. Going to the market is downhill, and going back is… not. This is a view under some of the area of the Seattle Convention Center.
This was one of two places my wife really wanted to see (the other being the Glass Museum), and so she was stoked to be here. We strolled through the marketplace, lots of expensive things, the fresh flowers smelled great and were priced pretty low, so that would’ve been a good purchase had I been courting someone that day. We also checked out the very first ever Starbucks even though we don’t drink coffee because we’re tourists, after all.
Pike Place Chowder. This place is the business. Holy moly this chowder was so good. Best I’ve had, and the bread was delicious as well. Wife says $20 in total for two bread bowls, and they have four different chowders you could have decided from on that day, and I think that’s the normal number.
I really wish we would have had a week to play in Seattle, but that probably would have required complimentary lodging somewhere, and asking for that makes me a little uncomfortable sometimes. Anyway, should you make your way over to Seattle, I hope you get to check out the Glass Museum and Pike Place Chowder at the very least (and Safeco Field, of course). Very fun weekend, and the weather was pretty great, with Saturday being absolutely beautiful. Thanks to everybody that provided suggestions or hung out with us that made our weekend what it was.
Safeco Field: The In-Game experience
To give you some background on why I traveled from Southern California to the Pacific Northwest, my wife and I began an annual tradition that started a few years ago where we would go to a new MLB stadium every year. Just one, not a bunch, because we are not rich. For this year, we decided that Safeco Field in Seattle, Washington/Warshington would be where we’d head, and I have friends in the area, so I knew it would make the trip more enjoyable. This post is about our time during the game.
On Friday, I bought us tickets for the bleachers in section 186. First row, too! These tickets ended up being about $30 a pop, and for this series, that price seemed to be as low as you could go unless you had some sort of discount.
Pretty good view of everything from these seats. Only areas that might be hidden from these seats are up against the wall to CF.
This is the scoreboard in action and it feels like all game IT IS YELLING AT YOU BECAUSE IT’S SO CLOSE AND SO BIG
This is the social area down below called “The ‘Pen” where people mingle, drink, and be merry. There was lots of laughing, and the occasional watching of baseball from the folk down there. Front row peoples were pretty good about watching the game.
This was the food my wife and I got this night. My clam chowder hit the spot quite well for me that night, as we were both exhausted from the travel and stressing out of rushing everywhere on Friday. I didn’t think the burger and garlic fries were anything special. I also enjoyed Happy Hour $5 beers (plural) and hoped to enjoy some day-drinking on the weekend, but it didn’t happen, due to playing around Seattle. Happy Hour is every home game and lasts up until an hour before first pitch and is located near The ‘Pen in CF (first floor).
Our row also won free fries and I got on the jumbotron passing the fries down the row. I don’t have the video of that, but pretty cool to say I was on the second-biggest jumbotron in the nation.
Mariners fans also like doing the wave, and like doing so an endless number of times. It’s horrible.
Saturday’s spot in section 333 where my friend got us $15 tickets, which was a fantastic money saver, and from here, the scoreboard wasn’t so threatening. From here we could easily see how empty the RF upper deck seats were.
My food was much better than my wife’s food on Friday. The chicken was pretty good, I thought it tasted a little fishy, and I totally missed an opportunity to yell “I ate the bones?!?”
My wife told my friends I was the “Wave Grinch,” and my friends told me I hate fun. I am working on the divorce papers.
Finally got to meet friend of the blog, Ashley, who does lots of blogging, and lots of scorekeeping. I did not make fun of the Mariners that much with her. She’s good people.
We were in section 331 on Sunday, and this was a Felix Hernandez start, and you can tell because there is a “King’s Court” section, where fans get a t-shirt, a placard, and a seat in that foul area in LF, I believe it starts at $40. These people stand and chant “K” whenever Felix has 2 strikes on a batter. They also have a tradition where someone in the section is given a free turkey leg. The recipient takes a bite of the food item, and then gives it to someone else. Person #2 takes a bite, gives it to Person #3, and so on and so forth. My wife thinks this is disgusting, and I’m inclined to agree.
They did the wave again on this day. I’m guessing they do the wave every home game, even on the sub-10,000 attendees days. There was a really annoying fan next to me on Sunday, shouting “Ra-OOOOOOOOOLLLLLL” in a high pitch howl whenever Ibanez was up, and would give his opinion on the strike zone because you know, he’s got the best view. Some pitches are pretty obvious but others, like the Fampire (credit to Ashley @wcoastfangirl for that nickname) would call, are tough to call from up there. The Mariners would lose, and I got to see Mariano Rivera pitch twice. That was kinda cool.
Lots of people walk to the stadium, and walk away from it. On Friday, we took public transportation to the stadium, on Saturday and Sunday we parked off-site. Parking prices ranged from $5-$25 from what I saw driving around. I think I preferred parking in the International District and then walking 15-20 minutes to/from the yard to my car out of all the options.
Overall, Safeco was a fantastic place for a game, and I wouldn’t mind going back another day for a game here. This is the ninth stadium I’ve been to, and I will attempt to rank the stadiums here based on experiencing a baseball game:
1. AT&T Park (surprised?)
2. Chase Field (employees were very friendly, and the stadium was comfortable and nice)
3. Fenway Park (historic, but I haven’t taken the stadium tour and only saw one game here, so I’m thinking this will move up eventually)
4. Petco Park (I like the pricing of things here, and the scenery is pretty cool)
5. Safeco Field
6. Coors Field (something about getting to say you sit up a mile above sea level plays into my ranking)
7. Angel Stadium (ticket prices are market price, which is reasonable, but I don’t know)
8. Dodger Stadium (possible bias, but these other stadiums are pretty good)
9. O.Co Coliseum (notorious garbage spot)
And because you didn’t ask, my wife’s rankings, and I promise she gave them to me without seeing my rankings:
1. AT&T Park
2. Chase Field
3. Dodger Stadium (she’s a Dodger fan, could explain this high ranking, and she has confirmed that hypothesis)
4. Petco Park
5. Safeco Field
6. Coors Field
7. Angel Stadium
8. Fenway Park
9. O.Co Coliseum
Maybe she’ll do a guest blog post explaining her rankings. So that was Safeco. We’re not sure where we’re going next. Could be a Texas Two-Step to Arlington and Houston, or it could be off to the Big Apple to check out the Yankees and the Mets. Only time will tell.
Safeco Field: The Stadium (lotsa pix)
To give you some background on why I traveled from Southern California to the Pacific Northwest, my wife and I began an annual tradition that started a few years ago where we would go to a new MLB stadium every year. Just one, not a bunch, because we are not rich. For this year, we decided that Safeco Field in Seattle, Washington/Warshington would be where we’d head, and I have friends in the area, so I knew it would make the trip more enjoyable. This is a post that’s about the tour we took, because what kind of baseball touring would we be doing if we weren’t incorporating an employee-led tour into our travels? Bad touring, that’s what.
This picture above makes it look like that there is snow/ice coming off the “D” in “Field,” but fear not, the highs for the weekend ranged from the high-60′s to mid-70′s.
Stairs and banners.
This is largely composed of materials from the beaches of the Pacific Northwest, and the silver dots are signed by players that participated in the first season of Safeco. You might see what looks like scribbles in the outer white circle, and yes, those are quotes about baseball.
Bats.
View from the field. That giant black board above the CF bleachers is the jumbotron. Second-largest jumbotron in the nation (world? forgot. Cowboys Stadium in Dallas has the largest).
What you’ll see when you look to LF.
To the RF. Yes, that is a retractable roof. And those are banners of their AL West championships, and the blue banner is from when they were in the ALCS.
Where the media type seat themselves, those glass doors can be raised garage-door style. Worker doing his job is totally ruining this pic.
Visitor’s dugout.
The replay station for umpires, which contains a small television. You know, Safeco does have some extra 42″ Sanyo’s sitting around…
The interview room, where I’m guessing all the Mariners 1B/DH/corner outfield types are introduced with great fanfare.
These are the suites, and they are named after Hall of Fame players, from Aaron to something near the end of the alphabet probably (we didn’t go that far down the hall)
This man, Mr. Yamauchi, is a fine man, and the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners. Originally tried to buy the team and give it back to the city, all the owners were like “LOL Non-American!” and shut him down. So Mr. Yamauchi became a minority stakes owner, worked his way up, and did what he originally intended to do. If you’ve heard of Nintendo, that’s this guy. Tour guide referred to him as “Mr. Nintendo.” He has also never been to Safeco Field, nor did he see the Mariners when they were in Japan. Tour guide said his health prevents him from travelling, but I hope he gets to see what he saved and has built in person some day.
Picnic area and other views from the stadium. The Seattle Seahawks (booooo) and the Seattle Sounders play right next door.
Inside the press box. I can only get inside of press boxes in tours… hoping to change that someday.
This is the back of the scoreboard in left field, in case you were curious. We did not find out who those kids were, but they seemed to be friends of the manager.
Now that you’ve have a tour of the Safeco Field stadium, I have just saved you $12, but you should really do it yourselves, also. There’s no substituting the experience.
Second Round Action: 64th Pick, say hello to Ryder Jones (@jonesy_56)
After surprising the masses and drafting SS Christian Arroyo with their 25th pick, the Giants selected with the 64th pick Ryder Jones, a prep player from Boone, North Carolina that can play 3B and pitch with the right hand. Jones is a Stanford commit, and was ranked #197 by Baseball America. There are a couple videos of him on Youtube available… at least I believe they’re him, since I’m not sure how many other Ryder Joneses that play 3B/RHP.
I, of course, am not related to him, though it’d be cool if I was.
The assigned slot amount for this pick is $872,100, but with Arroyo’s selection, the Giants should have room to overpay if they want with this pick, or in future picks.
The Giants have no more picks today, but will have a pick in each round from here on out. The third through tenth rounds will make up tomorrow’s action, which MLB.com will air beginning at 10AM PST. The rest of the rounds will air on Saturday.
With the 25th pick in the MLB Draft, the #SFGiants select SS Christian Arroyo (@arroyo_c)
Thursday’s Draft has finally come, and the Giants have selected shortstop Christian Arroyo with their first pick of the Draft, whom scouts say profile best as a catcher, per MLB Network.
Christian Arroyo’s scouting report from Keith Law, because I don’t have access to other reports:
“Arroyo has received some late-spring buzz as a potential first-round pick, although his offensive upside is somewhat limited and he’s not going to stay at shortstop.
At the plate, he overstrides and shifts his hips early, keeping his hands back and making up for some mechanical inconsistencies with quick hands and good bat speed.”
Arroyo was ranked near the #100 mark of most lists I could see, with him being at #102 overall for Baseball America, and #99 for Keith Law’s list. There is no doubt the Giants will save money with this pick, but it’s a wonder who will fall to them in #64. I am not going to say this is a “bad pick,” because I haven’t done the scouting, but I would not be surprised to see evaluators call this pick a “reach.” We’ll see what the front office has to say about the pick of Arroyo, and I have no doubt they are happy with nabbing Arroyo.
The Giants have ten picks within the first ten rounds and have $4,712,200 total budgeted for them for these rounds.
Last year, with the 20th overall pick, the Giants picked Chris Stratton, whom is pitching in Low-A Augusta right now.
As for division rivals, the Rockies selected RHP Jonathan Gray 3rd overall, Padres OF Hunter Renfroe (13th), D-Backs RHP Braden Shipley (15th), and Dodgers RHP Chris Anderson (18th). The Padres, Rockies, and Diamondbacks have two more picks today, while the Dodgers and Giants have one each left for the day.
#SFGiants pick 25th and 64th today
MLB Draft Day is today, and the drafting will get going at 4:00PM PST with the Houston Astros making the first pick. Picks won’t go down one right after another like they will on Day 3 of the Draft, so if you tune in at 4, get comfortable. There will be 73 picks made total today, with the Giants picking 25th and 64th in the first and second rounds, respectively. Some links and article to get you ready:
ESPN Insider Top 100
MLB.com Top 100
Baseball America’s Top 500
Grant Brisbee’s conversation with Chris Crawford
As for names that MLB Draft experts have linked the Giants to, there has really been one name that’s appeared more often than others, but with the Giants front office so good at keeping their movements (understandably) quiet, don’t be surprised if/when they go another direction:
Matt Krook (ESPN Insider req’d for link) – lefty from St. Ignatius Prep in San Francisco is right in their backyard. Has been taken by the Giants in every Baseball America Mock Draft, and two of Keith Law’s mock drafts.
Eric Jagielo — Two way player outta Notre Dame, went in a Keith Law mock in May, and is a Top 20 player in Baseball America’s Top 500 list.
Hunter Harvey — A high school prep arm of the right-handed variety, one of five players named “Hunter” in the draft, and likely won’t even be the first one off the board. Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com has had him going to the G’s in both of his mocks.
For those wondering how the Giants have done with their draft for the past five drafts, here are some names from the first two rounds (overall pick in parenthesis):
2012 1st Round (20) — Chris Stratton, pitching in Low-A Augusta, and #3 prospect in the organization per Jonathan Mayo and Baseball Prospectus
2012 2nd Round (84) — Martin Agosta, also pitching in Low-A Augusta, and a Top 10 prospect according to previously named evaluators
2011 1st Round (29) — Joe Panik, playing in Double-A Richmond, but evaluators don’t project his ceiling to be much more than a second-division player
2011 2nd Round (49) — Kyle Crick. Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Giants draft prep-pitcher, becomes highly regarded prospect. Pitching in High-A San Jose and has been the consensus top prospect for the Champs, estimated time of arrival (ETA) in 2015.
2010 1st Round (24) — Gary Brown, playing in Triple-A. Former Top 50 prospect, but the hype has tailed.
2010 2nd Round (74) — Jarrett Parker, playing with Double-A Richmond, hasn’t been gracing the prospect lists, but MiLB.com just did a nice article on some recent success he’s been having.
2009 1st Round (6) — Zack Wheeler, playing with the Mets, and is a top prospect in their system and in baseball as well. He should be getting called up within the month. Was traded for Carlos Beltran in 2011.
2009 2nd Round (55) — Tommy Joseph, playing in the Phillies minor league system, helped bring in Hunter Pence, and flags fly forever.
2008 1st Round (5) — Buster Posey. Complete bust of a pick. Never did anything for the organization.
2008 Supplemental 1st Round (37) — Conor Gillaspie, now a member of the Chicago White Sox.
You see how important the first two rounds of draft picks can be, whether they become the centerpieces of the organization, they become pieces to bring in help to the 25-man roster, they don’t provide the depth you hoped they could, or they give the organization hope for the future. That building for the future will get going on a formal basis today at 4:00PM. See you there.
Where #SFGiants Draft Picks Rank in bWAR
Baseball Reference has a nifty tool where you can check out how Draft Picks rank based off positions, names, years, rounds, franchises, and you can sort it by hits, home runs, stolen bases, whatever. I’m going by BR’s version of Wins Above Replacement, or what some call “bWAR” or “rWAR.” BR has data from 1965, which is when the Draft was first implemented, so I’m going to go as far down as I can to see how high overall Giants Draft Picks have performed at the MLB level, which is difficult to reach itself. I’ll start from the first overall pick and tell you some of the notables and progress all the way to the 30th pick. The Giants will be selecting 25th overall, then 64th overall on Day One of the MLB Draft, which you can see on MLB Network. Their coverage of the Draft will begin at 3PM PST.
1st overall pick — Never picked 1st overall
2nd — Will Clark (2nd overall to Reggie Jackson, 53.2 bWAR, 1985 Draft)
3rd — Matt Williams (3rd overall, 43.5, 1986)
4th — Jason Grilli (a bit down the list and traded with Nate Bump for Livan Hernandez, 3.0, 1997)
5th — Buster Posey (8th overall, 14.4, 2008)
6th — Johnnie LeMaster (last place of players that made the MLB, -6.8, 1973)
**The Giants signed a pretty good 6th overall pick once upon a time, he wore the #25 for them, you’ve probably heard of him?
7th — Calvin Murray (down the list, 1.9, 1992)
8th — No 8th pick made the Majors
9th — Alan Cockrell (0.0, 1984) had 8 AB in the bigs
10th — Tim Lincecum (8th overall, 22.8, 2006) and Madison Bumgarner (9.3, 2007) are the stars of the show.
11th — Steve Stanicek (-0.1, 1982) had 16 AB, but it wasn’t for the Giants since he was traded to Milwaukee for Rob DeWolf
12th — Never picked 12th overall
13th — Never picked 13th overall
14th — Al Gallagher (2.2, 1965 — the Giants’ first ever amateur draft pick!)
15th — Royce Clayton (5th overall, 16.4, 1988) and Scott Garrelts (9th, 8.8, 1979)
16th — Mike Remlinger (9.5, 1987), though he was traded for a pitching package of names with an old star to the Seattle Mariners in ’91
17th — Gary Matthews (3rd overall, 27.3, 1968)
18th — Dave Rader (3.5, 1967), and two other guys were just above 0.0.
19th — Rob Dressler (2.0, 1972), though he wasn’t with the professional club long
20th — No 20th pick made the majors, though 2012 pick Chris Stratton hopes to change that
21st — Brad Hennessey (2.3, 2001)
22nd — David Aardsma (1.7, 2003) whom is still active, and only pitched in 11 games for the Gigantes
23rd — Never picked 23rd overall
24th — Terry Mulholland (6th overall, 8.4, 1984), but fellow 24th overall pick Gary Brown hopes to do better
25th — Matt Cain (2nd overall, 31.5, 2002) and might get his spot taken by the AL Rookie of the Year some day
26th — Never picked 26th overall
27th — Never picked 27th overall
28th — Never picked 28th overall
29th — Ted Wood (near the bottom, -1.1, 1988) didn’t do so well, but hopefully Joe Panik (2011) and Wendell Fairley (2007) do better, though the public really never hears anything on Fairley from scouts
30th — You remember Noah Lowry, don’t you? (9.5, 2001)
Marlins “won’t forget” Dom Brown’s celebration, will probably hit him
Domonic Brown has been on a tear of late, winning two consecutive Player of the Week awards, a Player of the Month award for May, thanks in part to a twelve homer May and he hasn’t been slowing down this month, either. Yesterday he hit this bomb (make sure you pay attention to the end of the video):
As you can see, even in slow motion, it’s confusing whether Brown is going back to the dugout, or to first base, and the bat flip — the bat flip — it was one that celebrates homers, for sure. The Marlins, not ones to disappoint, have brought about some bulletin board material:
Some on #Marlins thought Domonic Brown celebrated a little too much on his HR last night. “We won’t forget,” said one.
— Joe Capozzi (@joecapMARLINS) June 4, 2013
Hooray. So because Brown celebrated in a manner that some deemed excessive, the Marlins might throw at the 26 25 year old. Hopefully, the umpiring crew takes control of the matter by warning both benches beforehand and stopping any intentional violence towards a hitter in the first place. All it takes is one HBP to the head for things to become awful, and all because the Marlins had their feelings hurt by a celebration. You wanna stop the celebration, Miami? How about you stop making mistakes up and away from the intended location and start executing your pitches to their target around home plate where your catcher is setting it, not at another human being. Immature and pathetic, in my opinion, but I know there are others that feel this is necessary. Clearly, I disagree with that school of thought.
NL All Star Game Vote Counts Released — Posey and Panda lead the way for SF
Yesterday the counts for the American League were released, and so today the home National League’s vote count is out to the people where you can view here. Some facts and reactions:
NL @allstargame voting leaders:1B: Votto2B: Phillips3B: SandovalSS: TulowitzkiC: PoseyOF: J. Upton OF: Harper OF: Braun
— MLB (@MLB) June 4, 2013
Surprises for me are Pablo Sandoval at third, Bryce Harper gets the celebrity vote, as you could argue Carlos Gomez, Carlos Gonzalez, and Shin-Soo Choo are among those more deserving with the stats, but I’ll let that slide.
Posey leads all NL with 1,275,956 votes, J. Upton is second w/ 1,184,249. Upton leads all OFs. Would be 1st fan selection for 2-time AllStar — David O’Brien (@ajcbraves) June 4, 2013
Buster Posey is the story of the day with the amount of votes he’s getting, but he’s not blowing away the competition.
Beltran 4th among OF but trails third by 100,000 votes. Heavy Giants participation apparent. — Joe Strauss (@JoeStrauss) June 4, 2013
It’s true, when Angel Pagan is 8th and Gregor Blanco is 11th, and neither is having an All Star caliber season, that is a fair statement. Giants fans are at it again.
Three #SFGiants in second place in All-Star voting: @bcraw35 (behind Tulowitzki), @bbelt9 (behind Votto) and Scutaro (behind Phillips)
— Alex Pavlovic (@AlexPavlovic) June 4, 2013
Brandon Crawford is about 350,000 votes behind Troy Tulowitzki, Brandon Belt is about 500,000 behind Joey Votto, and Marco Scutaro is 200,000 behind Brandon Phillips. I really feel like Matt Carpenter needs to be getting more of a look, as he’s quietly put up a pretty valuable year.
Giants fans vote a lot. Belt 2nd, Scutaro 2nd, Sandoval 1st, Crawford 2nd, Posey 1st; Pence 6th, Pagan 8th, Blanco 11th in OF
— Eric Stephen (@truebluela) June 4, 2013
The challenge for other clubs is can they get their fanbase to vote their one guy (for the Brewers two guys) in to out do what the Giants fans are doing for all their outfielders.
This will be a real test for Giant fans — to see how many unworthy players they can vote into the starting lineup
— Ray Ratto (@RattoCSN) June 4, 2013
Right now, I’d say Posey is the only ASG starter I could argue that the Giants have. Yadier Molina winning that over Buster would not be a problem by me, he’s really good as well. We saw what Giants fans did last year, voting in Melky Cabrera in addition to Panda and Posey, and Matt Cain took the bump for the NL. There were many unhappy within the NL, although the NL would end up winning, with the Giants players providing plenty of production, in a shutout victory over the American League, giving the Giants of all teams home field advantage in the 2012 World Series.
The 2013 All-Star Game will be played at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, on Tuesday, July 16.
Dodgers put on networking event before Puig gets LA going
As someone that’s been looking for work for over a year in the educational industry without much success, expanding my options has become a consideration, and after seeing some tweets from the Dodgers and LA Times about a networking event at Dodger Stadium, I thought it would be good to give the event a shot, and maybe give me a shot at a job. The event was to open two hours before the game started, and I made sure to arrive before that time. The fact that the parking gates did not open until two hours before game time provided a small inconvenience, but since the ticket gates didn’t even open until I was able to walk from my car to the loge level gate in LF, no regrets of “I should have parked on the streets” were had by me. That would have been a painfully long walk in a shirt and tie anyway.
Once I got in to the event, I had choices from different employers in the sports industry to choose from — the Dodgers, Angels, Padres, Stubhub Center (formerly Home Depot Center where the LA Galaxy play), LA Galaxy, Clippers, LA Sparks, LA Kings, LA Live, UCLA, and the Rose Bowl. Every organization had one or two representatives for the aspiring entry-level cold callers to speak with, and the lines for the most popular organizations turned into lines you might see at a bigger amusement park. I was lucky I was able to speak with the Dodgers early, since they would have the longest line of all the organizations at the event despite three people serving up the same speech to three people at a time. After speaking with the Dodgers, it turned into a game of “which line is shortest” and I was able to speak with all the organizations I wanted to, which was good for me to get my face seen by those clubs. I doubt anybody that arrived more than a half hour after the event started had the chance to cover as much ground as the people that arrived when the gates opened.
The space for the event was cramped, and in speaking with the main contact for the networking gig, I was informed that the Fire Marshall ruled that the original size for the event was not acceptable and the parameters would have to be downsized. I don’t know the dimensions of every nook and cranny of the stadium, but cramping a couple hundred people into a space did not make much sense to me, and I cannot imagine that decision did not make the event organizers very happy. With the turnout there was, hopefully the organization will be able to get more clubs to come in, and they will be granted a bigger area to hold an event that would likely continue to bring in a couple hundred applicants every time.
On to the game — and this will be a quick recap — since Carlos Quentin would be out of the lineup, this turned in to the night of Yasiel Puig. The cheers for him were the loudest of any Dodger that night, his at bats made the stadium stand still — beach balls were down in number, nobody even thought of starting the wave — balls that were taken garnered applause, while strikes taken were met with “ooooh” or an unsettling mumble. Heck, there was one section of Dodger Stadium that was standing for Puig’s very first at bat. You know the story by now, Puig did not disappoint the faithful that showed up, including a fantastic throw from the warning track in RF for a double play to Adrian Gonzalez that ended the game.
A pretty good night at Chavez Ravine for me, getting to speak with a lot of nice people (both inside and outside of the event), and for those that followed me on Twitter last night, you know I got to have a pretty good view of the game for a little bit as well. I think I’ve fallen in love with a spot I’d get to watch a professional game from… and to make that spot happen more often, I’m gonna have to get some work.
