Ballpark Proposals

Perhaps when you read the title of this post you thought I would be writing about the awful oft-witnessed marriage proposal at MLB diamonds across the country (Two diamonds for the price of one!), but alas, I am not.

On Sunday I drove up to Seattle with one of my kids, his best friends, and his best friend’s dad to watch the Mariners play the Rays. Because of the Providence Bike Pedal, we were routed around Portland using I405 instead of shooting straight through on I5. As we crossed the Fremont Bridge I looked north to the proposed site for a new stadium to be built which would be the location of Portland’s first ever MLB team. The remaining three hours of the drive made me long for the day when there will be a team (hopefully!) in Portland so that I don’t have to traipse all the way to Seattle to catch a game.

The long drive was made better by two things:

1. This weekend the Mariners celebrated Edgar Martinez’s induction into the HOF. Before the game on Sunday they had a cadre of former players, and Edgar himself, sitting on the field having a discussion over the PA about Edgar and his amazing accomplishment. Even The Kid was there, hat backward and all. (Do you know that Edgar could come back and go for 0 for 385 and still have a career OBP over.400?) As part of the festivities they gave everyone in attendance an aluminum Edgar Martinez Dr. street sign which is, I must confess, much cooler than I anticipated it would be. That made the drive worth it.
2. The game lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes! After one hour the game was already into the 5th inning, and I leaned over to the other dad and said, “I’ve been at Red Sox-Yankees games when they aren’t out of the 2nd inning after one hour!” The game finished 1-0 (the Mariners lost) and neither team walked a single batter the entire game. One fascinating moment came on the bottom of the 9th, when Nate Yarbrough was one batter away from pitching a complete game shutout. He had only thrown 97 pitches to that point, and was due to face Domingo Santana with two outs and no one on base. Just when I thought I was going to potentially see a Maddux in person, out walked Kevin Cash from the Rays dugout to remove Yarbrough from the game. Can you imagine? I later saw a post where Yarbrough said, in fairly gentle terms, that he was so angry at Cash for removing him, though he understood why. Cash brought in Emilio Pagan, Scott Servais pinch hit Omar Narvaez for Santana, and he promptly grounded out to Eric Sogard (whose HR was the only run of the game) to end the game.

One the way home as we passed the 405 exit I again thought about how wonderful it will be (one day?) to have an MLB team in Portland (sign the petition here!), and to only have to drive/take public transportation for under an hour to see a game. But until then, I’ll continue to find my way to Seattle a few times a year, hoping for good baseball like I witnessed last Sunday.

PS: the photo is a rendering of the initial ballpark plan when/if it ever gets built in Portland.