I call it "constructed narrative." Here's an unconstructed narrative, unless I have MAD video-editing skillz:
Our seats on Friday were right next to the Cubs bullpen, allowing us to catch Sean Marshall's warmup and giving us the opportunity to see a very skinny Kerry Wood hit on ladies in the stands. Tres exciting. Here's Kerry and Marmot hanging out, Jacque Jones (actually, that might be Cliff Floyd, no jersey number and I can't really tell, so let's just call him "black lefty outfielder" and reveal my white cultural failings) warming up with Soriano, and our view from the seats in one of the multiple occasions that the Cubs came up with he bases loaded and no outs and failed to score:
The scene was pretty hilarious. There are a TON of Cubs fans down here, some because of the ridiculous importation of Chicagoans, some because of the long-standing coast-to-coast Cubs games broadcast on WGN, and some because the Cubs play their Spring Training games here. So both games had a nice intense atmosphere, less because the two teams were in first place of their respective divisions and more because Cubs fans are drunk and pretty obnoxious, especially when they are occupying half of the stadium. I was not drunk or obnoxious, relatively reserved in my pleasure at seeing the Cubs win on Friday, and I will fully grant to the DBacks that there were some Cubs-heads who were being primo jerks. But all in all a fun (FAMILY) (I said FAMILY) time - lots of battling cheers of "Let's Go (Team name)" from both sides, and a whole lot of enthused cheering from reds or blues depending on which way a given play went.
Each game had a fantastic highlight: on Friday, Theriot, he of the best nickname in all of baseball, made a RIDICULOUS diving catch and throw to the plate to stop a mid game run for the DBacks, and given that Arizona averages about 0.33 runs per contest that was a death blow for them. On Sunday, we saw Derek Lee hit about a 425 foot shot that kicked off the overhanging balcony in CF and bounded away from Young and Byrnes; all 6'7" of him scampered around the bases for an inside-the-park homerun, awesome to see in person. Chris Young also rocketed two shots out to left field in the Sunday game, and then whiffed mightily for the remainder.
I am going to eschew any kind of game by game breakdown or detailed description of the social experience, other than to muse on an old quote. Some reviewer said that Grateful Dead concerts were "half baseball game, half church service," and that Phish concerts in comparison were "all baseball game." I don't know how accurate that is (maybe give Phish 90-10?), but I get the point; there's a whole lot of a goofy "entertain us," get-silly-on-drugs-or-otherwise, non-"serious music" appreciating contingent Phish shows. Well, the DBacks stadium experience, imho, is all Phish show. There are obviously serious baseball fans here and there, but so much of the experience of the game there is overwhelmed by between-inning entertainment, loud banners, give aways, mascots, blond DBack hussies, advertisements in general, arrows of neon and flashing marquees that the baseball game as baseball game element is effectively drowned out. Not that it's necessarily unique to Arizona; I got the exact same vibe from the new park in Houston. All the rip-off of eight dollar beers and five-dollar bourbon-laced hot dogs is there, too; it's a marketing sham job of epic proportions, though you would be hard-pressed to miss that fact. It's not the presence of the sham, it's the lack of the baseball - I just didn't get any sense that people around me were delving into the subtleties. Again, this could be just because I recently read Pafko at the Wall and breathed in all the pastime nostalgia; that's clearly a long gone idea(l). Seeing a baseball game in person - the reason I try to go early and take in BP and all - is whatever holy element exists in baseball the game and all of its parabolas. I wasn't feeling that this weekend.
(Another Phish parallel - I used to find myself sitting at Phish shows thinking how great it was going to be to listen to this show later on CD when I could actually hear it and process what was going on. I had the same thought on Friday - you just can't analytically see anything from the perpendicular view of the 1st base stands. Every pitch looks the same but for the speed, unless it is WAY outside or whathaveyou. So I saw that stab by Theriot and couldn't wait to check out the replay at home. And at home I told everyone how I was there, I saw that live.)
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