I may be feeling lonely and homesick, but I did find some time to have a little fun tonight. I went to a baseball game at Bank One Ballpark in downtown Phoenix, and saw Arizona beat Cincinnati 5-3. Arizona's bullpen cost Randy Johnson his 19th victory, but the Diamondbacks came back with two runs in the bottom of the eighth to take the lead back.
I was impressed with the BOB, but it's nowhere near as nice or as aesthetically pleasing as Minute Maid Park. My first impression when I walked in was "airplane hangar". It's also a fair bit smaller than I had expected. Still, it's a good place to watch a baseball game, and it did have the best selection of good quality food of any ballpark I've been to. Like any ballpark, the prices suck, but the quality of the food was generally very good.
Fans in Phoenix are fortunate enough to be able to watch one of the best teams in the game night in and night out. The Diamondbacks are the defending World Series champion, and they're demonstrating why on a daily basis. It must be nice to go to a Diamondbacks game knowing that your team will likely find a way to pull the game out. This is different from going to an Astros game and wondering how the team will manage to seize defeat from the jaws of victory.
As you walk into the stadium on the 4th Avenue side, the team has the World Series trophy and the ball that Luis Gonzales hit to drive in the winning run on display. Everywhere you turn, you're reminded of the Diamondbacks' World Series victory, but it's done in a way that isn't boastful. Hey, at least they have that to hang their hat on, unlike the Astros, who seem destined to be at best a first-round-and-out second-tier team.
On top of everything else, I got to see Adam Dunn strike out five times while going 0 for 5. How often do you see that??
