Baseball in the Bronx

If you take perfect spring weather (which we've had for a week now) and combine it with perfectly groomed, beautiful baseball fields...

If I wasn't sure I'd get arrested, I'd hop that fence in a heartbeat.

...(which we're not allowed to play on yet - not until Fall), you get an irresistible urge to play ball. So Isa bought some baseballs to go with the gloves that have been sitting in our closet, and we played baseball with our cub scouts this afternoon. Yay!

One of them didn't know how to throw overhand. And I'm so proud of myself, because I taught him. I showed him out to lead with his elbow, follow through with his forearm, and then flick his wrist at the end. I showed him out to hold the ball and how to stand/step forward. And he was awesome! Before long, he was throwing 30+ feet on target! And this one moment made me confident that I'm going to be an awesome Dad. Somehow, I fell like if I know I can teach my kid how to throw a baseball, everything else will be just fine.

But wait, there's more! We headed up to Franz Sigel Park, which is just up next to the courthouse, and Isa and I threw the ball around some more.

It's amazingly difficult to take a picture and catch the ball at the same time. I'm glad Isa didn't aim at me because I would have still been looking at the camera when it hit me in the chest.

Isa took several pictures of me catching, and in not one of them am I looking at the ball. My eyes were trained on the camera the whole time. So much for keeping your eye on the ball.

Isa, however, kept her eye on the ball the whole time. Because she's awesome.

I can't wait for Heritage Field to open up so we can play there. Although the fields look great, they won't let the public in until they finish the comfort station and all the facilities and pathways around the park. Here's a video of Heritage Field from the downtown 4 train:

An Actual Post About the Mets

I know, weird, right?

The Yankees are playing the Red Sox just a few blocks from my apartment, and I can hear the crowd shouting every few minutes, even over the Lisa Loeb that I'm currently blasting on my laptop. (I've got the blog playlist playing in the background. Yeah.) It's tied in the bottom of the 6th right now, so it must be an exciting game. I don't know. We don't have tv. For realsies. (Honestly, Yankee games are the only time I miss tv. For everything else, there's Hulu.) I'm limited to googling "Yankees" every once in a while to see the score, or "watching" it on mlb Game Day or via twitter updates #yankees.

But whatever. This post isn't about the Yankees. And definitely not about the Red Saux. *Bleckh!*

It's about the Mets! The Amazin's! Flailing around in dead last place. Poor guys. I saw this ad for Manhattan Mini Storage on the subway this morning:

It's one of my favorite subway ads (all of their ads are really funny, especially this one). I've been trying to get a picture of it for weeks, but it's awkward to take my camera out during rush hour. I could be dressed in business casual, reading amNY, heading downtown at 8:45 in the morning, but somehow I feel like I'd still look like a tourist if I took out the camera. So I stealthily switched from Angry Birds on my phone to the camera-mode, prayed that I didn't have the flash on, and silently snapped away (no flash, whew).

If you're not a baseball fan, let me catch you up on the Mets real quick. They started in 1962, and set a record that year that has never been broken: 120 losses. That's epic. At one point they lost 17 in a row that season. They ended up winning the World Series in '69. And then again in '86. And then in 2000, they made it to the WS, but got swept by that other team in New York (you know, the ones that play in the Bronx?) It seems that they're good every 15 years or so, and then everything in the middle, not so much. Now is one of those times. That's all you really need to know. Oh, and they lost $300M in the Bernie Madoff scheme and they're really hurting for money now.

So I had an idea.

I think they should change their marketing plan. Their ads are trying to appeal to Mets fans, which are limited to the population of Queens. They should market themselves not as, "Come see the Mets!" but "Come watch baseball!" I love baseball, but I can't afford to watch the Yankees very often. I would love to watch more baseball, and I could care less about the Mets, but if they pitched $10 tickets for a fun night of America's favorite past-time, I'd really consider it. And I bet there are a lot of other people out there like me. Because if I just went to watch baseball, I wouldn't care who won. I'd cheer for strike-outs on both sides, and amazing plays, and extra-base-hits from either team. It'd be fun.

Tangent: I used to live close to a little league field, and my roommates and I would go over and cheer. No, we'd CHEER. Like, make up chants and learn the kids' names and go berserk when they'd get a hit kinda cheer. And people would think one of them was our little brother or something, but no. We had no connection to any of them. We didn't care about them, we just wanted to have fun at a baseball game. And who knows, maybe watching a Mets game would be really similar to little league.

And I've heard the new Citi Field is nice.

Plus, it's got a Shake Shack! So it's gotta be good. :)

So let's go watch some baseball! Who's with me? Who's been to a Mets game/Citi Field? What'd you think?

Play Ball!!!

Tomorrow officially starts Yankee season. Err, baseball season. There are technically six games tomorrow, but do you honestly know who is playing besides the Yankees? I didn't think so. Isa's not even a huge baseball fan, but she came home today and told me how excited she was as she walked by them setting up the tents outside the Stadium.

I'll be working all day, and since the game's at 1:05, the entire crowd will be gone by the time I come home, but it's still exciting!!

If you haven't been by the Stadium in a while, or seen what they're doing across the street where Old Yankee Stadium stood and Heritage Field is now taking shape, watch the video below. It contains pictures and video over the past year of the Stadium demolition and the creation of Heritage Field, with my thoughts about the whole thing too.




Let me know what you think.