Ballgame Number 2

A few weeks ago the Believe team was able to see the Atlanta Braves take on the Washington Nationals (and watch John Smoltz pitch). This past Sunday I enjoyed my second Major League game of the season. Josh, Krystle and I were driving down from Indianapolis to Gatlinburg, TN and what better way to enjoy a pit stop than to go to a baseball game.

Let me first say that I have never been a big fan of the town of Cincinnati - every time I am there it just seems cold and bitter. Not that the game changed my opinion about Cincy, but it was nice to actually enjoy the town for at least one day in my life.

The Philadelphia Phillies were in town and it was a beautiful day in Cincy to enjoy a ballgame. Below I have listed my observations of the ballpark, the teams and players, attending a baseball game in general and so on. Hopefully there will be many more games this season to come.

- Picking up tickets at will call was about the easiest thing I have ever done. There were kiosks (like at an airport) - you walk up, scan your credit cards and out pops your tickets. Stupid easy.

- You can get Skyline Chili at the ballpark.

- Bringing young children to a baseball game can be a bad idea. I felt so bad for Tommy (the boy in the row behind us) because he couldn't do anything right. My favorite was when he asked his mom for some water and she snapped back, "I drank it all!" Poor Tommy.

- Obtain seats where you can see the large scoreboard. It will make the game much more enjoyable.

- The Lemon Ice is good, but man is it sour!

- You don't help your team's chances when you give up 2 runs before your teammates even gets to bat.

- If you want to make a lot of money, go get some coolers, fill them with ice and bottled water you bought from Wal-Mart, stand on the sidewalk after a game and sell them for $1. It will seem like a steal after everyone have been paying $4 a bottle inside the park.

- The Reds are bad, but they can still beat the Cubs.

Opening Day Predictions

As far as I can tell, this is the first time in human history that three important dates happened on the same day. Palm Sunday, April Fools Day, and Opening Day of Baseball.

This year, like every other year of my life, I plan to get more into baseball than the year before. I also plan to attend as many games as humanly possible without losing my job, wife, house, etc.

With the excitement of the upcoming season, here are my fearless predictions:

• The Royals will be one of the hottest teams in baseball until mid may when they realize they are not suppose to be this good...they get rid of their up and coming franchise player (ex. Carlos Beltran, Johnny Damon) and finish last in their division.
  
• The St. Louis Cardinals will finish 23-139 (this is more of a hope/prayer).
• Barry Bonds will break Hank Aaron's record at home in San Francisco after sitting out a 8 game road trip because everyone outside of the Bay Area knows he cheated.
• Mark Prior and Kerry Wood will be on the disabled list 12 times.
• Sammy Sosa comes back with a fury and sets the single season home run record even after being drug tested everyday for the last two months of the season.
• Tony LaRussa, the Cardinals manager, will be arrested for drunk driving (oh wait, this already happened during spring training).
• The Yankees will spend a lot of money, the will make the playoffs, ARod will all of a sudden strike out every time, make lots of errors and they will lose before the World Series (this is almost a guarantee - it happens every year).
• The Cubs will beat the Indians in 5 games in the World Series. (Hey, it’s April, no games have been played yet, and there is still at least 3 weeks before the Cubs can be statistically eliminated)