Here’s tonight’s report: a sequence of random observations.
Not an auspicious start to the game: no one realized that the National Anthem singer’s mike wasn’t on. But the fans gradually began to sing along with her, starting with the ones closest, and by the end, the whole stadium was singing. So that turned out well in the end.
Jones (Jacques Jones–I don’t think there are any other Jones’ on our roster?) had a long chat and a lot of hugs and handshakes from the Astros manager and coaches before the game.
Arroyo looked good, but I’m glad he didn’t have to go more than 3 innings, as I suspect he was tiring at the end of the 3rd inning.
I wished I’d had a radar gun reading on Gott–his warmup pitches looked really fast to me (but apparently not fast enough to avoid that home run).
It was good to be back in Space Coast Stadium for a game: nothing like the sound of a foul ball clanking off the roof of the two tiny sun shields over the back of the 200 sections. If a ball hits the roof of the press box and suite building, it’s more like a clunk. Either way, the ball is probably surprising someone who was just going for a hot dog on the concourse, since the balls generally bounce out, not back into the seats. One foul almost made it into the press box.
The guy sitting behind us met his wife at a baseball game in 1982 . . . over a roll of toilet paper. He was working a minor leagues stadium assignment, and she came to him in the 3rd inning to say that the ladies’ room was out of paper. He got the paper, but then had to ask her to take it in because all the female staff were working concessions. Needless to say, she gave him a hard time about that. He noticed that she came to a lot of games, and sat in the section for their biggest sponsor. So he wanted to keep in her good graces, and brought her little things at each game. Eventually he needed a date for a baseball award event, and one thing led to another–and a long marriage. All over a roll of toilet paper!
Tony dived for a ball headed for left field–and missed. But he didn’t appear to hurt himself. It’s Spring Training–I’ll take that compromise.
We’d heard all about that communication between the players, but the only “I got it” I heard was from the beer vendors. And there were some plays where I thought some calling would have been appropriate. Hmmm. But there weren’t any collisions nor any balls that dropped between players.
Espi did connect once with the ball, but on his strike-out, I swear the ball was up at his eyeballs. Sigh.
Drew comes up to bat, and I say to spouse: “He’s that all-glove, no-hit back up middle infielder we got.” He proceeded to get a hit.
The wind did make things more challenging: but denDekker playing right field was up to the challenge: he had two great catches back-to-back in the 8th inning.
Enough for tonight–back at it tomorrow!
