Friday March 10th 2017

Today, I was off to another Baseball Spring Training Game. Today the Brewers played the Diamondbacks at the Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. This is the same field I went to on Tuesday.

Salt River Fields at Talking Stick stadium was full today including the lawn seating in left and right field. 

The ball park is the furthest one from my campsite on the east side of Phoenix. There are several more on the west side of Phoenix that are even further away. I’m drawn back to Salt River Fields because of the ticket prices. I can get better seats, which are real seats, for less at this stadium than at the Tempe Diablo stadium I went to last week or the fields in Mesa. My guess is this stadium makes up the difference with higher concession prices.

What team I’m watching doesn’t make much difference. Since none of these teams are from the American League East, I recognize very few of the players. I’m really going for the experience. Watching baseball on television is not something I enjoy for long. TV puts the focus on the picture and the batter. Everything else may be mentioned in passing to kill time.

I enjoy watching the fielders adjust for the different batters and situations. In these “training” games it can get quite interesting watching the coaches or the senior players try to move the younger guys around. I’ve seen a few really odd maneuvers. Why would the third baseman play short right field and the outfielders all shift toward left? Deep right is empty and third base into short left field is empty. The implication is the hitter can drive it deep to left and is prone to blooping the ball over the infield to right. Does such a hitter exist or was the contradictory shifts a mistake?

At the Salt River Fields they have different “Ball Kids” each game. There are four boys or girls that are assigned two to a dugout. They are introduced before the game in a little ceremony shown on the big screen. I’d guess some are as young as eight or nine up to their early teens. These kids are kept very busy. They manage the on deck circle, collect balls taken out of play, bring drinks to the umpires, keep the home plate umpire stocked with new balls and do the traditional collecting the players bat and equipment after they move on to first base. Some of the kids can barely carry the bats. I’d say the teams and the park get a good deal, but do the kids?

The other fun thing is listening and watching the people in the stands. You can see the full spectrum from avid fans to people that have never seen a baseball game before. The lady a few rows behind me today insisting to her companion that games were only seven innings long is one example. She seem to understand a lot about the game, but the length of the game was a sticking point. The exchange became quite heated. I think they left around the seventh inning.

The final score was Diamondback 6 and Brewers 3.

Today’s game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Arizona Diamondbacks was a shorter game than the last two. The Diamondbacks won six to three. It lasted less than three hours, but it still ended during rush hour. Traffic coming back through the eastern Phoenix suburbs was very heavy but it kept moving. It took an hour to get to the stadium and an hour and a half to get return.