Jacobs Field

Our journey to Jacobs Field will go down in BallparkRoadtrip history as the asterisked park, like Roger Maris' 61* homers in the record books. We certainly did not plan to attend the July 6th game vs the Sox but things don't always work out the way we had planned, sometimes for the worse but sometimes for the better. Our scheduled game for July 5th was a day game at Cinergy Field. After the game we took a ride through Columbus since Cooter had graduated from Ohio State, or "The Ohio State University". He gave us a deluxe tour of the town and university and we realized that the amount of money which OSU puts through their athletic department is greater than the GNP of many somewhat civilized countries. It is absolutely amazing/ridiculous how focused they are on sports. Kinda ironic since Cooter is a pretty smart guy but certainly not gifted in the athletic department. After our grand tour including the predominantly gay neighborhood in which Cooter used to live (never realised that Columbus was a liberal hotbed), we made our way back up to Cleveland where we were spending the night in the Hampton Inn Downtown Cleveland. It was twilight and we were approaching Cleveland from the south, we noticed that the lights were on at the Jake - we had never even considered whether or not the tribe was at home tonight. Lumpy a Red Sox fan quickly remembered that the Sox were in town to face in the Indians. At this time, the Sox were looking like they'd give the Yankees a run in the AL East and the tribe would certainly roll past an overrated Twins team (hindsight is 20/20!), so this was a BIG game. It was about 9:00 and Colon was on fire going into the fifth. We decided, for kicks, to take a trip around the stadium and see if there were any scalpers still hangin out looking to get rid of some tickets. We were the only car on the street and it seemed like this guy came crawling out of the bushes with tickets in his hand. We pulled over and started negotiating through the window. This guy wanted a ridiculous amount of money for a game that was half over. We were standing firm on $10 a piece. He was haggling and haggling and eventually handed us the tickets to look them over or whatever which brings up Rule # 407 of scalping:

If the scalper hands you the tickets in the middle of negotiations, the ball is in your court. He wants you to get used to having them in your hands so you don't back out of the deal. Stand firm on your price.

He was still being fickle and we were missing the game so Mike handed him the tickets back and told Cooter to forget it and drive away. The guy caved we finally had the tickets for $10 ea. Lumpy and Mike hopped out to head in while Cooter and Dauber parked the car. We were so stoked to be able to squeeze an extra, totally unexpected, game into our trip, especially since it was the Red Sox vs. Indians.

After the Red Sox game, we'd spend the night at our hotel right down the street from the Jake, and return on Friday night for the Cardinals game.

Well, you already heard our dramatic story about the Red Sox game. Mike had gotten 6 tickets for the Friday night Cardinals game off of the net. Buying tickets through auction sites and stuff can be difficult but sometimes you can hit the jackpot. Mike started looking months ahead of the game knowing it was a sellout. We expected 5 or 6 people so it gets tough when not dealing in 2 or 4 seats, we figured we wouldn't get 6 together. We got 4 tix off E-bay at under face value and got another 2 off openseats.com where people with tickets just state their price, no auction. All told, we got 6 tickets for $60, all in the upper deck but a bargain.

There were 5 of us for the Cardinals game, Mike, Lumpy, Dauber, Cooter, and this time Pyle was able to go. We had 6 tickets and wanted to try and swap with scalpers to get 5 tickets all together since we had 4 and 2. There were a decent amount of scalpers, seems you have to go about 1 block north of teh Jake, the cops must lay off in that area. We talked to some scalpers but had no luck, we'd just have to sit apart in the park and try and group together if some open seats became available. Overall, it seems fairly easy to scalp seats to the Jake at a decent price. Not bad for a park with such a strong sellout history.

When we originally started thinking about taking on this road trip challenge, Jacobs Field was high on our list of anticipated ballparks and it did not disappoint one bit. The Jake is conveniently located in downtown Cleveland, walking distance from the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame which is more like the Bono Hall of Fame. One thing we noticed right away which is consistent with the "new era" ballparks is that you can see right into the park from the surrounding streets. Perhaps the best decision we made was to take a tour of the Jake on Friday afternoon. We were pleasantly surprised that they give tours on game days. The cost is $6 and you can get tickets at the Jacobs Field gift shop which is entered from the outside of the park (you don't need a game ticket to enter the gift shop). Speaking of the gift shop, it was pretty cool that they had a display case with historic Indians garb with the "politically incorrect" depictions of Chief Wahoo. Was all that controversy really necessary? One journalist wrote that Chief Wahoo was demeaning to Native Americans because of the sterotypes displayed with the red skin and buck teeth. Does Chief Wahoo have buck teeth? His dental work looks pretty good and since when was there a stereotype that Native Americans have buck teeth!?!?

So we got tickets to go on the Jake Tour and it was awesome! We thought we would get a cheezy tour of how they refill the mustard bottles and change out the hockey pucks in the urinals but we were in for a treat as we had access to almost all parts of the Jake except for the grass on the field. We started out in the press box and the tour guide explained that they give the best seats in the box to the newspaper reporters because that was the medium that originally gave coverage to baseball. We spent a decent amount of time getting loads of info from the tour guides. They both knew an awful lot of about the Jake were able to pull loads of stats off the top of their heads. She said that the Jake had the biggest scoreboard in baseball until Comerica opened. Now, take look at the scoreboard and explain how they can actually call all of those ads "scoreboard". It may be a big board but there ain't much scoring being displayed on it! There are older parks with scoreboards which give much more info. There are a few other dynamic displays in the stadium. One which you can't see in the photo is a circular monitor right behind one of the window columns which always shows a photo of the current batter. One of the guides also explained that they have a contract with the MLB Umpires Association to not show replays which contain umpire decisions of a questionable matter. This is so lame! The NFL refs would love to not have 60,000 people booing them as they watch a replay on the MEGATRON showing a blown call; then the coach gets to appeal via the instant replay rule and prove that the ref blew the call. Players are analyzed via every statistic a sportswriter can think up yet we never hear of any accuracy stat for umpires.

They took us into the luxury box area in right field, we were surprised the cost was not as high as expected; if you could actually get a big group together the price was around $100-$150 pp which isn't too bad since it includes food and beverage delivered right to the suite. They have a playground for the kids set up, you don't need specail tickets to enter. The concourse is very wide and has great views of the field so you can still see the game while waiting in line at the sushi counter. This trait is common among the new parks as is the standing area that they have behind the lower level seating. If you are sitting in the upper deck you're welcome to come down and get a better view from the standing room area to see some of the different angles at the park. From the right field concourse you can see the players parking lot. We were told that Jim Thome is always the first one there driving in his Hummer as he arrives at 2:30 for a night game to begin his warmups.

The tour brought us down to the Indians clubhouse and we saw the warmup area right behind their dugout which included several batting cages, one of which has the first pitching machine to throw knuckleballs. An interesting fact, the Indians DH warms up in the batting cages behind the dugout before his at bat, like a reliever in the pen, should be a decided advantage for the Cleveland battery. We were then able to walk into the dugout and out onto the track in front of the dugout, just don't go on the grass! We asked if we could pick up the bullpen phone to pose for a photo but were denied because some bigshot with the front office was there. We were surprised that we were even allowed into the Indians dugout which, against tradition, is the 3rd base dugout. We were told that the plans for the stadium simply called for the better facilities to be on the 3rd base side so the Indians has to file for permission with the League to use what is usually the Visitors dugout. The tour talked in detail about all of the aspects of the park which were borrowed from other stadiums like their "green monster" and the center field bleachers being borrowed from Wrigley Field, etc. They also boast that the lighting on the field is engineered to maximize the visibility of the ball under all conditions in all directions. If you get the chance to go to a game at the Jake, take the time to go on the tour. From now on we will probably try and hit more stadium tours hoping that they are half as thorough as Jacobs Field.

Pros: Stadium design, food selection, ballpark tour, town of Cleveland, views from seats, featured team of movie Major League, witty advice from local cab drivers.

We were in town for the 4th of July and headed down to "the Flats" for the fireworks show. We went to a bar/restaurant called Shooters which has an outdoor deck right on the water. It rained heavily on and off but eventually they got the fireworks show in. We had an interesting ride in a cab on the way to Shooters. We were asking the cabbie what the party scene was like and he went into a very detailed yet PG-13 description.

So we catch a cab from downtown and ask the cabbie "where to go, what to do." He starts telling us about the Flats and how all these "ho's lookin' for a rich dude" are there. He goes on and on describing the situation and concludes with, "they'll go home with 'em thinkin'
they've got themself a nice rich dude now, but they all just end up with stank ass!" We'll have to add "stank ass" to the dictionary.

After the Red Sox game we went to a restaurant called Red Fish, across from the Jake on the right field side. It's a seafood joint combined with ablues club. The food was decent and they had several local brews available. The next day we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame which is about 1/4 mile from the Jake. Tickets are $15 but we were with Pyle who works for the Cleveland Museum of Art so he was able to get some sort of discount which amounted to about half price. They don't allow you to take any photos inside and it seems like Bono owns the place because it is just overstuffed with U2 memorabilia. If you're a music fan you will have no problem being entertained for a few hours but there's only so much of David Bowie drag queen outfits that one can handle. They have a movie which shows clips of every artist inducted into the hall, this was the best part of the exhibit. In true baseball fan fashion, this led to a heated debate over whether these artists were worthy of induction and whether they should, in fact, even be considered Rock 'n' Roll. Groups like Parliament-Funkadelic and The Supremes would be quite the controversy. The conversation would gradually migrate to whether or not people who have never played in MLB should be elligible for induction to Cooperstown. Maybe this will be a future poll.

After the Friday night game at the Jake, we were out looking for somewhere to eat/drink and came across the Winking Lizard, a few blocks north of the park. They had great chicken wings in many different flavors and wide selection of beers. You couldn't get any better than this! We had some wings that were very hot and Cooter offered Dauber and Lumpy free beer for the rest of the trip if they would eat a huge spoonful of the spicy sauce straight up. They were up to the challenge and ingested the concoction without the need for immediate medical assistance and Cooter lived up to his bet.

We arrived to the unoffical game* on Thursday night in the sixth inning where Bartolo Colon had a no-hitter against the Red Sox and took it into the 7th. Upon arrival, Lumpy started rooting for the Sox and heckling the Indians fans with lines like, "What do you expect from a team who lost the World Series in '97 to the Florida Marlins? What's up with that?" and "Jim Thome looks out of breath to me, maybe he should lose a few more teeth so he can get more oxygen." Colon would give up a run in the 7th and Trot Nixon would hit a 2 run blast in the 8th. Lumpy was making a lot of enemies but there were a few Sox fans starting to join in the rally. Wickman would bail him out and Rocker would take the mound in the 9th for a save op in a 4-3 ballgame. The P.A. thundered with "Rock You Like a Hurricane" as he charged out to the mound. He'd get "rocked" all right as Jose Offerman would single home 2 runs with 2 outs. Seeing Rocker blow a save was awesome! Derrick Lowe, who is also blown-save prone sealed the deal in the bottom of the 9th and the Sox would steal a victory from a gem of an outing by Colon. This was an exciting game and we were excited that we were able to squeeze this one into our schedule.

We'd return on Friday for the night game against the Cardinals and were looking forward to this hot rookie Albert Pujols. We had 2 tickets behind home plate and 4 tickets in right field. There were enough empty seats next to Mike and Lumpy to accomodate all of us but one lady refused to give up one empty seat so we could all sit together. Lucky for her the Tribe would win this one handily otherwise she would have gotten a massive dose of heckling.

We'd get a big treat tonight in a rare blowout game that was actually thrilling. Jim Thome would hit 3 homers tonight, the most amazing was the last, in the 7th off Mike James, which was right down the left field line and barely over the wall. They diplayed a graphic on the scoreboard which called him "Thomenator T2000" with a Terminator-esque feel to it, pretty cool! Pujols delivered a disappointing 0 for 4 night with a very good outing by Nagy. You really got the feel for Thome being the hometown hero at this game, he was a monster at the plate!

ST LOUIS	ab	r	h	rbi	bb	so	lob	avg
Vina 2b	5	0	2	0	0	0	3	.299
Renteria ss	4	1	1	1	0	0	2	.225
Edmonds cf	5	0	2	0	0	0	1	.297
M Mcgwire 1b	2	0	1	0	2	0	1	.188
Pujols rf	4	0	0	0	0	0	4	.329
Bonilla dh	4	0	1	1	0	1	3	.211
R Lankford lf	3	0	1	0	1	1	5	.231
M Matheny c	3	0	1	0	0	1	0	.244
Marrero c	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	.281
Paquette 3b	4	0	0	0	0	2	4	.241
Totals	35	2	10	2	3	5	23

BATTING: 2B - Edmonds (20, Shuey); Marrero (3, R Rincon). SF - Renteria. RBI - Bonilla (17), Renteria (25). 2-out RBI - Bonilla. Runners left in scoring position, 2 out - Vina 2, R Lankford 3. GIDP - Pujols, M Mcgwire. Team LOB - 10.

BATTING: 2B - J Gonzalez 2 (21, M Morris 2); W Cordero 2 (8, M Morris, Kline); E Diaz 2 (21, Hackman, James); Lofton (8, James); Vizquel (12, Ge Stechschulte). HR - Thome 3 (25, 1st inning off M Morris 1 on, 2 out, 3rd inning off M Morris 1 on, 1 out, 7th inning off James 1 on, 1 out). RBI - J Gonzalez 3 (81), Thome 6 (62), E Diaz 2 (37), Jolbert Cabrera (17), Lofton (25), Vizquel (21). 2-out RBI - J Gonzalez, Thome 2, E Diaz, Vizquel. Runners left in scoring position, 2 out - Lofton 1, E Burks 1, Fryman 1. Team LOB - 5.

FIELDING: E - Shuey (3, throw). DP: 2 (Vizquel-Jolbert Cabrera-Thome, Fryman-Jolbert Cabrera-Thome).

WP - Nagy, Ge Stechschulte.
Pitches-strikes: Nagy 96-64; Shuey 20-13; R Rincon 16-10; M Morris 66-41; Hackman 43-24; Christiansen 7-7; James 27-13; Ge Stechschulte 8-6; Kline 17-10.
Ground balls-fly balls: Nagy 15-4; Shuey 1-0; R Rincon 1-1; M Morris 2-4; Hackman 1-5; Christiansen 1-0; James 0-1; Ge Stechschulte 1-0; Kline 1-0.
Batters faced: Nagy 28; Shuey 6; R Rincon 5; M Morris 15; Hackman 11; Christiansen 3; James 8; Ge Stechschulte 2; Kline 4.

UMPIRES: HP--Hunter Wendelstedt. 1B--Jim Wolf. 2B--Angel Hernandez. 3B--Randy Marsh. T--2:54. Att--42,394. Weather: 73 degrees, clear. Wind: 7 mph, left to right.