SAINT_MICHAEL

Happy opening day to all who care! Two questions for baseball fans.

1) Since Louisiana doesn't have a major team (leaving me no local teams to grow up with), who do you root for?

2) What was the first major league baseball game you went to?

Mine is the Mets. I lived in South America for a few years as a teenager and we happen to pick up the television broadcasts of the Mets on the tube. It was the first team I ever got to watch play games day to day, so they stuck.

My first Major League game was the Padres hosting the Cardinals in 1983.

Belair57

living in seattle I root for the Mariners, they are like the old Saints of MLB anyway. Im an underdog fan so I gotsta. My first bball game was when Arod came back to seattle for the first time after leaving the mariners for the rangers. I fell in love with all the booooing and fake million dollar bills being throw, it rained fake money every time he got up to bat. Then he took one DEEP and it shut the whole stadium up...LOL

SAINT_MICHAEL

Ha Ha! Nice first game to see! Good memory. My brother lives in Renton and I've been to a few games in both the old King Dome and at Safeco field. I was really impressed with Safeco. Very nice. It seemed like every place in that stadium had a good view of the field. I was in line for the restroom and I swear I could turn around and see the game.

Srgt. Hulka

My first major league game was a Boston Red Sox at Texas Rangers at the old Arlington Stadium back about 89-90. I don’t even remember who won the game. Obviosly it wasn't a real impressive game. However, my second major league game was Cubs game up in Chicago. I think they were playing San Diego, but I’m not sure. It was the year that Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa were having the homerun race. A couple of co-workers and I were in Chicago for some classes for my job, and some of the reps took us to the game. It was the first and only time I’ve been to Wrigley Field. I was enjoying the game, kinda soaking in the day and the atmosphere at the ballpark. The park was full. I spent about half the time walking around watching the game from different parts of the park. Sammy Sosa had struck out his first two times at bat. At the seventh inning stretch everybody I was with decided to ”beat the crowd” and head over to a bar across the street from the ballpark. I didn’t want to go, I wanted to stay and watch the game. But since they had the car, I gave in and left with the rest of them. And I can remember the sound to this day, we had just walked through the gates out of the ballpark and we could hear the announcer call Sammy Sosa at bat. I think he took one pitch and let it fly out of the park…and I missed it. The crowd was going crazy. I was pissed. I got to see a rerun of it on the TV in the bar. As Archie Bunker used to say: “Woop-te-doo”. The biggest sporting news in the country at the time, and I had an opportunity to witness a small part of it, and I missed it to go to a bar. Yep, I was pissed. Have not had an opportunity to go to a major league game since. I do look forward to going to another game though. I want to take my daughter to one. She will really enjoy it.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, ...

SAINT_MICHAEL

Another great (but painful) story. I remember the year of that chase well. I've never made it to Wrigly, but it is high on my list. One of my "bucket list" things (still way too young, I hope, to worry about it now) is to see a game at all the major league parks. I was about half way there until a few teams built new stadiums! Now I'm only at about 12. My daughter made it to her first at 17 months when we went to see the Nationals in Washington.

RaginCajun83

Coolest baseball story I have, in 2002 the brothers and I took a trip around the eastern part of the USA. Got to see Astros/Cubs at Wrigley Field and was at Fenway Park a week or so after Ted Williams died and they had his number cut in the grass, to bad the Pirates suck cause they have a nice stadium

breesfan27

No MLB teams in NOLA or SoDak. Plus I don't really watch baseball. All I know is, the Yankees suck.

SAINT_MICHAEL

skymike

I love football and baseball, and played both. Growing up in the Houston tv viewing area, (but in the sticks) it was Astros all the way, even though, like the Saints and Oilers, they sucked too.



I wasnt just a casual fan. When I was a kid, if the game wasnt on tv, I would listen to the entire game on radio, pitch by pitch. I was glued.
Now you tell me, what kid today has the attention span to listen to baseball on radio?

But I remember being excited about the game just coming on the radio. And whenever we would just drive by the Astrodome, I was ready to jump out of my skin with excitement. I was stoked just going to the stupid Rodeo-- because it was in the Astrodome. (although seeing Sonny & Cher was a life experience.)

So you can imagine how pumped I was as a kid to actually get to go IN the Dome and see a game. It was all I could do to not explode when we walked into the concourse, and I could see the turf. Every player was a
movie star to me. We had Bob Watson, Cesar Cedeno, and my favorite, Jose Cruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuz. Going to an all-white school , I looked up to Cruz, who showed me it was ok to be Spanish. (not that I care what color anybody is, but just think like a kid for a moment -- no kid wants to
be different, not in the 70s. Every boy needs a man he can look at and say, "Oh, I'm like him. Ok.")

Knuckleballer Joe Niekro pitched for us. (His brother Phil was a Brave.)Our opponent was the San Francisco Giants, with Willie McCovey-- wow!
Every pitch, every inning. I didnt go to the can. I didnt want to eat. Between innings, I watched the players throw warmups. If there was absolutely nothing happening on the field, I marveled at the spiderwork ceiling of the Astrodome, and the giant flags, and the giant scoreboard-- all colored bulbs, and this one weird part of the Dome that looked like the bridge of a ship. I wondered what went on in there. To this day, the Astrodome is the most interesting building on earth. (Reliant Stadium sucks large green donkey.... I hate- hate - hate it. )

We sat in the mezzanine, (orange section) home plate. Best seats you can get, though I've sat everywhere and love every seat there thats not under an overhang.

So the game was tight, but the Astros led till the 9th, when the Giants scored two, then we didnt score, and --- the game went extra innings!!!!!! I was the happiest person in the building. A scoreless 10th, scoreless top-of-the 11th, and then guess who came to the plate. Jose Cruz. It was like a dream when he launched a bomb to left-center. (this is the old Astrodome dimensions -- even fewer homers than the updated walls of the 80s-- and it was still a pitchers park afterward!) It was gone! Astros win. Cruz is the hero. I have the program.

So that was then. Minute-Maid is just ok. Lots of bells, whistles, yuppie stuff, and stuff to distract kids, so maybe they'll sit still. Mostly, like Reliant, its named after a corporation, and the fans look like "clients" to me. I dont recognize these brick-colored uniforms, supposed to look like an east coast team in the '30s. That was never us. Sometimes they even wear pinstripes. And I dont know when black became an Astro color. Its supposed to be orange and blue. And later the rainbow rocket blast, with the space-odyssey 2001 lettering.

Worst of all, the Astros, who had Nolan Ryan, Mike Scott, Neikro, J.R. Richard, Larry Dierker, Don Wilson, Joaquin Andujar, and Ken Forsch, no longer have pitching- and havent since they moved to MM.

The Astros are terrible and hopeless again this year. And there wasnt a damn thing wrong with the Astrodome or the Rainbow Jerseys.

But I cant wait to go to the ballpark.

SAINT_MICHAEL

Nice thought!

What about the Red Sox start to the year? That's a bit of a suprise, no?