Tuesday, March 22, 2011

March 21: Scottsdale Arizona -- Spring Training Game Day

This morning we woke up to rain. Everyone in Phoenix was standing outside, looking up to the sky like turkeys in a barnyard asking, "What is that?!" -- we were afraid they were all going to drown. We explained it was rain and tried to find someone who could tell us what would happen if the ballgame was called. No one seemed to know as it has never rained before in Phoenix.

Deciding to will it into good weather, we got ready, packed up the dog, and made the 25-minute drive to his carefully selected dog sitter for the day. Karen, who owns a little business called Always Unleashed, lives at the far east side of town and on the last road before the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Community, a huge Indian reservation that runs just south of her house. The houses in her area are all very nice, big, with creative landscaping and architecture. We made our way through the double gates to Karen's front door, rang the doorbell, and were greeted by at least a dozen barking on the inside. The house is outrageous, with high-end southwestern decor, a pool in the backyard (which the dogs are welcome to swim in), a huge lawn that runs up to the desert, and a special ground-level trampoline for the dogs to play on. The big dogs have the run of part of the house; the small dogs get the other half. Pepé immediately ran off to do the perimeter search forgetting about us entirely. We got him signed in, said a quick goodbye, and left for our ballgame.


Next stop was a Starbucks, where we uploaded most of our blog postings, had the first good cup of coffee we have had in two days, and split their breakfast sandwich. Pepé wasn't there to share it with us as he usually does, so we both ate a little more than usual. We then made the short drive over to the ballpark, found parking in a church parking lot for $5 (which we considered to be a good sign for the weather perking up), then walked the three blocks over to the ballpark. All in all, the weather actually looked pretty good. It was supposed to be raining by now, and people around us seemed fairly optimistic, so we settled in, rustled up some Gordon Bierch beer and food, and marveled at how incredibly good our seats were. Although we were right along the autograph side of the field, the Giants didn't really check in with the fans today. And they didn't even come out until the last minute (with the exception of Pablo Sandoval and Cody Ross, who warmed up on the field), so I didn't get the two baseballs I brought along signed. Probably just as well as I forgot the Sharpie I had brought all the way from California for the occasion in the hotel room....

All of our favorite players were on the field today: Lincecum was pitching, Ross, Huff, Posey, Sanchez, Sandoval.... It was great, even though they weren't doing too great. It was kind of sloppy wet out there.... We watched two-and-a-half innings and the Giants were down 4-0 when they stopped the game, covered up the field, and called a rain delay.

And it was raining pretty darn hard. We were both soaking wet, the french fries were not even edible, and a cold wind blew in as it really started to come down. We debated whether or not to wait it out, but since it was supposed to rain until 5:00 at least, we decided to call it a day and go find a warm place to thaw out. (Remember, this is Phoenix....)

We ended up having a glass of wine at the Marriott Resort in Paradise Valley, the perfect spot to end this afternoon of anticipation, except that they charge you $12 to get online, which is not cool. But we have warmed up and are going to go fetch our dog who hopefully had a more successful experience than we did today. Can you believe we drove 800 miles for a ballgame that got rained out?? We're thinking sushi for dinner. We figure we deserve it, but are wondering what our odds are with sushi in the desert on the one day it rains....

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