Spring Training, Day Two

True Believers

Dia de dos of our trip to Phoenix started very similar to day one–we again had to wait for John B to take care of his “errands” which apparently involved some sort of high finance, and by high finance I mean something that you can’t just do at an ATM.  Who actually goes into banks?  I don’t think I’ve been inside of a bank in probably 10 years.  John B is crazed.  When he finally got back to the hotel to pick up The Mexicutioner and myself it was a short twenty minute jaunt out to Peoria, where the Mariners and Padres share a nice facility that is oddly enough in the middle of a strip mall.  No joke, you could foul a ball off and have it land in either a Hooters or a Famous Dave’s, no problem.  We kept our streak of missing the first inning alive which is no big loss except for the fact that we had lawn seating for the game, which meant that by the time we found a few square yards of grass the sightlines were somewhat limited.  I think normally it wouldn’t have been too bad but since the Mariners were playing the Brewers there were a lot of people from Milwaukee there which roughly count as 1.5-2 people based on their sheer mass.  CC Sabathia really should have just stayed there.  To be honest I’m not really sure who even ended up winning the game but Ken Junior did hit a two run bomb in his final AB and got a standing ovation every time he came to the plate, which was nice to see.

After a quick lunch (and by quick I mean roughly 90 minutes to get our enchiladas but again we had to wait 30 minutes for John B to attend to meeting someone that he knew was in town) it was back on the freeway to the 6:00 Royals-Dodgers game in Surprise Stadium, aka THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.  Sadly you cannot take a freeway to THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE but have to drive in stop and go traffic for 45 minutes on surface streets along with every single other person from Southern California who thought going to THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE sounded like a good idea as well.  Of course we arrived in the second inning but the complex itself was gorgeous and I would put it on par with Cambel Back if there was only a freeway that made access easier.  It’s probably just that the Royals aren’t used to crowds and have no idea how to prep for them.  KC pounded the Dodger pitching and ended up running away with the game and you should consider moving Coco Crisp up your draft board a round or two–guy looks good for 10 HRs and 40 SBs, all while playing plus defense too.  The same can not be said for someone named Xavier Paul, who the Dodgers had plugged into left field, he took arguably some of the worst routes I’ve ever seen to fly balls.  Surprise probably had more Dodger fans than Royals on hand but all the KC people we sat with were great and everyone seemed to enjoy the FLO TV that was providing us with all of the NCAA games, a must for travel these days.  Oh, and speaking of KC fans, is the picture above not the saddest thing you have ever seen?  Were the Ross Gload T’s all sold out?  God bless you, KC fans.  The Mexicutioner and I are up and ready to roll to our last game today at 1:00 (Dodgers-Indians) but do you want to put money if if John B is up yet?  I’ll take the under.