ASG2015/1

As reported before, the All-Star Game's week (Friday-Tuesday) of festivities went unscathed by inclement weather save for a brief, light shower during Sunday afternoon's Futures Game.  It was hot and humid most afternoons yet the city's baseball visitors were not inconvenienced by rain, wind or lightning.

That said, on our walk from the All-Star FanFest at the convention center to the ballpark on Tuesday afternoon for that evening's 86th All-Star Game, Lou and I encountered a bit of weather [intentional understatement].

Our plan, as executed, was to depart FanFest, drop off assorted items in our parked vehicle in a lot on Central Avenue (under cover of Fort Washington Way) and then make the five block walk to Great American Ball Park.  While replenishing fluids in our vehicle, with bright sunlight shining down upon River City, we heard ominous rumbles of thunder.  Looking west we then saw an oncoming storm of Biblical proportions.  Black skies, mountainous thunderheads.  Luckily for us, so we then thought, our walk from parking lot to ball yard could be made totally undercover of flyovers, overpasses and then - for the final leg - the city's Central Parking Garage save for about one block directly along the north side of Paul Brown Stadium on West Pete Rose Way.  Lou and I set off whereupon almost immediately entering the only unprotected section of our journey, the deluge hit with a vengeance befitting MLB's punishments of the Hit King himself.  That portion of West Peter Edward Way has no sidewalks but what it does have is a steep, rock-strewn ravine that slopes away from the street and down to a chain link fence around the perimeter of Paul Brown Stadium and - barely - under the cover of an overhead pedestrian plaza.  Lou and I, pelted by giant raindrops and buffeted by a gale-force wind, scrambled down the rocky ravine and plastered ourselves up against a massive pylon that supports the plaza.  There we remained, unmoving, for several minutes as the hurricane-like storm roared around us and through Cin City.  

Above you see the view from our vantage point at approximately 4pm.  My left shoulder is hard up against a towering concrete pylon, the wind and rain is blowing almost horizontally from left to right (west to east) and I'm peering up over the rocky ravine and across West Hit King Way to the north side of the street.  And did you see that?  Look again, through the gap in the shrubbery:

Two Young Urban Professionals were similarly caught in the downpour, across the street from where we were sheltered, but they had no evident overhead cover..... and the rain is so heavy that you can just barely make out their forms.

I turned my camera towards downtown to capture the scene:

Trust me, downtown Cincy is there.  Can you find the venerable old Central Trust Building?

There, inside the red box, about four blocks away.  And nearly completely obscured.  The Carew Tower?  No chance.

Once inside the ballpark, the rain had let up but the skies still threatened:

Worryingly, the tarp remained on the field:

Nevertheless, intensive photo taking commenced!

The field was wet, but players and members of the ground crew milled all around the tarp-covered infield.

Aroldis Chapman was, no surprise, a favorite target of our camera's lenses.

Certainly this most dominant of pitchers was primed and ready for play!

Is the Cuban Missile rubbing his shoulder?!  Ruh-roh!  Trade him before his shoulder blows up or he punches out car windows, fires off gunshots in his house and/or allegedly beats up his mamacita!

Here the Missile pleads his case.  Is that Reds media relations dude Rob Butcher at right?  [Correction:  No.  In fact this was not Butch, as was called to my attention by one of my sources deep within the Reds organization, but rather clubhouse manager Rick Stowe]  And is Rob Rick Stowe reaching for a 9mm tucked into his waistband?  What's up with these gangstas?! strange individuals who I'm somewhat unfamiliar with?!

Todd Frazier sails past, hoping to go unnoticed.

Frazier is, alas, spotted by Rob Butcher Rick Stowe.  Butch Rick Stowe, it turns out, was there to assist in corralling players for their National League team photo do God only knows what.

This gave us our first opportunity on All-Star Game day to photograph many of today's brightest stars:

Pittsburgh Pirates veteran pitcher AJ Burnett, in his last Major League season but his first All-Star Game, walks alongside Los Angeles Dodgers manager Don Mattingly.  Lou and I were, back in Donnie Baseball's playing days (1982-1995, all with the New York Yankees), big fans of his and we remain so today.  And Donnie Baseball, unlike today's players, knows how to wear a baseball uniform!

Say "fromage!"

The defending World Champion San Francisco Giants brought enough guys to field their own team.  Jerks!  In the background, Chicago Cubs youngsters Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo fangirl over Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals, posing for a photo with the eventual 2015 NL MVP.  At right, the St Louis Cardinals also brought a flock of jerks.

Next in ASG2015; On-field warm ups.  Exciting!

Roll the credits!

All-Star Summer: HR Derby Part The Fifth

For myself, personally, the highlight of the Home Run Derby came during the semi-final round when the Dodgers' outfielder Joc Pederson jacked a ball - foul - into my section of seats.

As opposed to a lazy fly ball that drops lightly into the stands, the lefty Joc ripped a low, wicked line drive screamer that had a hideous, malicious amount of spin which motivated many fans to scatter for cover.  Some fans were manufactured from sturdier stock:

Pederson's thunderbolt began its malevolent approach to my right but was rapidly curving towards me like a heat-seeking missile.  Reacting solely on reflexes honed on the dusty ball fields of Reily Elementary, I raised my glove and brought it across my chest, reaching to backhand the hurtling horsehide.  Seemingly countless calculations of wind, elevation, trajectory, radii, coefficients of drag and yaw-rates - among others - triggered my legs to flex as my ocular receptors observed deleterious effects gravitational forces were having on trajectory.  I think I just explained that the ball was sinking fast.  So fast, I wasn't certain that it had the legs to reach my position and so to better position myself I began to lower my whole body.  I was seated in Seat 3, third from the aisle with Lou to my left in Seat 4.  Seat 2 in the row directly ahead of me had for several long minutes been vacated by the wife of the fan seated on the aisle creating a fortuitous gap, practically right in front of me, among the excited fans.  It was into this gap, lower and to my right, that I reached, making a valiant attempt to backhand the sinking line drive.  Hands of fans went up, obscuring my field of vision.  After the fact, I learned that in lunging to my right I had blasted the Reds fan seated directly next to me, a six and a half foot linebacker with 50+ pounds of muscle on me, spilling his full cup of beer tither and yon.  Mostly upon me.  I stabbed at the ball and got leather on it but, in deflecting off the outstretched hands of others, the baseball's last-second line of descent was vectored too rapidly for me to fully adjust and the ball tipped off the fingers of my baseball glove.  Bouncing off my glove, the ball fell straight down onto the concrete floor of the row ahead of me, into the space vacated by the absent fan in Seat 2.  The ball bounded upward but hit the underside of the empty seat, deadening the last remnants of its malicious energy, and the baseball came to rest there under Seat 2.  Having been in the physical act of lunging that direction, I dove over the seatbacks of the row ahead of me and, with my free right hand, quickly reached for the ball.  A vicious scrum ensued, worthy of Roman gladiators.  I got my hand on the ball but before I could clasp the sphere tightly a fellow combatant pounded my arm, knocking the ball free.  

But only for an instant.  

With bodies crashing down on top of me, and with cat-like reflexes, I re-aligned my arm, grasped the ball and gripped it as tightly as was humanly possible.  With this death-grip applied, and me in a nearly upside down position, I began to become extracted from the scrum by Lou who was pulling me up, over the seatbacks, into my own row and into an upright position on my feet.  As I regained my feet, I turned slowly towards Lou and showed him the Home Run Derby baseball.

Heroic victory was mine!

As was the baseball commemorating the 30th anniversary HR Derby:

The gentleman you see in the gray, collared shirt turned up at the next night's 86th All-Star Game with a finger in splint, the digit having been fractured in the Joc Pederson HR Derby melee.  I myself had an array of - in some instances, baffling - contusions:

My right kneecap and shin evidently blasted a seatback.  Or, perhaps, my knee was ground into the concrete.

My right forearm (above) displayed the crushing force which it was subjected to by the scrum of fans reaching - and battling - for the baseball.

My left forearm (above) had contusions on opposites sides.  The cause of these two bruises remains unknown.  However, the greatest mystery of all my injuries was found on the upper portion of my right calf, just below the knee:

On the back of my right knee..... I'm at a loss for explaining this massive deep tissue bruise.  And while I'm not a board-certified physician..... yet .....the pattern of bruising around the break in my skin leads me to think that was a puncture wound.  At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So I paid for my Home Run Derby baseball.  And I did so by subjecting myself to and withstanding forces which would destroy weaker men.

It would have been so much easier - and painless - to just have caught the blasted thing.

Soon thereafter, I also discovered that my nifty All-Star Game lanyard - a Christmas 2014 gift from My Dear Elderly Mother - also was in a damaged state:

The metal clip had torn through the lanyard's central eye hole requiring me to reattach through an adjacent opening.  This lanyard was tucked in under my shirt throughout the hand-to-hand combat, further illustrating the immense forces I had been subjected to and conquered!

Roll the credits!

All-Star Summer: HR Derby Part The Fourth

A photographic essay of Todd Frazier's final round Home Run Derby triumph!

A storybook ending!

Cue the smoke machine!

Roll the credits!