Fear The Beard

Indianapolis 2017

After 4 days we had come full circle on this years Sports trip, the last stop on a trek that began in Indiana and covered 3 different states was Indiana, The City of Indianapolis to be exact. After spending the afternoon watching the luckless Colts the Indianapolis NFL football team squander a lead and lose 20-17 to the Pittsburgh Steelers we took a quick drive to Bankers Life Fieldhouse, the arena where the Indiana Pacers play. The Pacers are a pretty nondescript squad this year with no real star power to speak of so in my opinion the only real thing they have going for them is the actual place that they play their games. First and most importantly the state of Indiana where basketball is like a religion and their fans are intensely loyal and secondly, Bankers Life Fieldhouse which is a pretty nice arena. It's one of those newer Pseudo-Retro kind of arenas where they try to create an atmosphere that makes you feel like you are in a fabled old building with a ton of history but the arena isn't really old enough to actually have that kind of authenticity. Built in 1999 the arena is only 18 years old which is very young for a sports venue. So its not really fabled or even old but that doesn't prevent it from being a pretty cool place to visit and watch a basketball game. 

Bankers Life Fieldhouse Entry Pavilion

When you enter the arena the very first thing you notice is that there are large wooden display cases all over the place. most of them featuring memorabilia from Pacer greats going all the way back to the the team's ABA Glory days in the early 1970's. All designed to give the arena an old school feel. Even calling the arena a “Fieldhouse”is an attempt to trick you into thinking you are in an older smaller style of building.

The only thing people in indianapolis love as much or more than basketball is Indy Car racing. One of the world's most famous racetracks is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway aka The Brickyard which is represented both by the team's name "The Pacers" which refers to the car that sets the pace before races and in the Fieldhouse itself by the brick walls and references to racing throughout the concourses.

it's understandable that the Pacers have to lean on distracting or comforting their fans with references to Indy Car Racing or the teams past success because as I stated earlier their team hasn't had a lot of success in recent years.

A sign over a concession stand displays the jerseys of prominent players from previous decades.

Once you enter the actual court area all the fake old school and nerdy retro stuff ends and the view becomes decidedly more modern. It's at that point that you realize that actual basketball has to be played in the here and now.

 As I stated earlier the Pacers main problem is that they are a young inexperienced team devoid of bonafide star players. Unfortunately for them they were facing one of the best teams in the NBA this season, the Houston Rockets and their superstar James Harden one of the most recognizable and biggest stars in the league. Harden is as well known for his appearance and style off the court as he is for his game on it. He was one of the first athletes to rock a full on jet black meticulously groomed extra thick, extra long beard and it has become his trademark. So even though there are now many players in many sports wearing similar beards Harden’s is the standard by which all of them are measured.

James Harden #13 dribbles up the court.

 As expected the Rockets took control of the game right from the opening tip-off as Harden effortlessly weaved through over and around the Pacers dishing out assist after assist. It almost seemed as if he was toying with them passing almost every time he touched the ball. Simple passes, fancy passes, bounce passes, no look passes, lob passes, every kind of damn pass you could think of. As the Rockets ran the same play over and over with Harden in the middle of the floor running Pick & Roll after Pick Roll after Pick & Roll.

It was like a dance routine

PICK-ROLL-DRIBBLE- DRIBBLE- PASS- DUNK! 

PICK-ROLL-DRIBBLE- DRIBBLE -PASS - 3 POINT SHOT

PICK-ROLL-DRIBBLE- DRIBBLE - PASS - LAYUP

It was an impressive display of unselfishness & basketball skill and that was what I didn't expect. Full disclosure, before this game I hadn't been much of a Harden fan. After seeing him kind of fold in big playoff games and hearing analysts talk about his poor defense and seeing him begin seasons obviously out of shape I viewed him as the typical spoiled super rich but super talented athlete who may never reach his full potential. He may well turn out to be just that in the long run but on this night I realized that he was also something else.

I was expecting him to dribble a lot and hold the ball looking for his own shot but after seeing him in person I realized he is probably the best offensive player I have ever seen. Not the greatest player or the winningest player or the most dominant player but the BEST at creating baskets for his teammates and himself within the flow of the game. He's a 6 foot 6 inch crafty magician that uses herky jerky movements and smooth effortless dribbling to glide by defenders. He sees the entire court, has a feel for what his teammates are going to do at any moment, is a skilled and willing passer and seemingly can get to the foul line or basket at will. 

He has a midrange game,

He can shoot the ball from deep 

And if you crowd him to try to take his outside game away he can drive down the lane and finish above the rim as well.

But in my opinion the thing that makes him unique is that he does everything so effortlessly, his game vibrates at a different frequency than every other player on the court he's different than every basketball superstar I've ever seen because he never seems in a rush but he's not quite going slow he's sort of in between EVERYTHING and on this night it seemed that he could do whatever he wanted on the court to whomever the Pacers sent to guard him. He even gave an honest effort on the defensive end of the floor.

Harden defends against Pacer guard Cory joseph in the second half of the game.

Houston Coach Mike D'Antoni diagrams play during time out as Harden..well I don't have any Idea exactly what Harden is doing.

The Rockets under Head Coach Mike D'antoni have been one of the best offensive teams in the league over the last few years. They employ a system analysts have nicknamed " Pace & Space where they strive to take more 3 point shots than 2 point shots meaning they purposely take more shots further away from the basket than closer ones because the longer shots are worth more points.  During the offseason they made a big splashy trade and added Superstar point guard Chris Paul. which should take some of the playmaking pressure off of Harden in the playoffs and provide leadership for them in tough games during the season but what I think will be the difference in their playoff run this year is their improved team defense. which had been a weakness in the past.

3 Rockets converge on Cory Joseph in the first half.

As expected the Rockets ended up blowing the Pacers out 118-95 but to my surprise the Pacers did have a couple of bright spots in the game. During the offseason they traded away their best player to the Oklahoma City Thunder for 2 younger players, Victor Oladipo, a high flying guard who played his college ball at Indiana University and Domantas Sabonis the son of Lithuanian international basketball superstar Arvydas Sabonis. They both played well during the game providing a few exciting moments for the Pacer fans.

Oladipo soars in for a dunk during the second half of the game.

Victor Oladipo slashed and soared for 28 points to lead all Pacer scorers.

Domantas Sabonis (in the bright yellow sneakers) provided energy and had 17 points and 5 rebounds in the game.

Oladipo & Sabonis were the only real reasons to pay any attention to the Pacers at all unless you count Brooklynite Lance Stephenson, who is worth paying attention to for a lot of reasons that don't always have something to do with actual basketball.

The not always effective but always interesting Lance Stephenson (Google him you'll enjoy his story)

Harden finished the game with 26 points, 15 Assists and 5 Rebounds but I felt he could have scored much more if he wanted to. In the 3 following games he had 38 points 11 assists & 6 rebounds against the Raptors, 48 points against the Suns and 29 points & 7 assists vs the Grizzlies. Harden currently leads the League in total points scored and total assists which has only been done for a full season once in NBA history by the man pictured below:

Nate "Tiny" Archibald averaged 34 points & 11.4 assists per game in the 1972-73 season for the Kansas City-Omaha Kings (photo source SI.Com)

Indiana has their love of basketball, a team named after a Pace car & a weird little mascot named Boomer but not much of a team right now.  

Pacer mascot Boomer in his "INDY" car

If you believe the Pacer's slogan "WE GROW BASKETBALL HERE" you're probably crazy, from Indiana or both. but if you are a team that plans on winning the NBA championship this year you better.....

FEAR THE BEARD!

The Bay Area Boogie

November 2015, Destination : San Francisco /Events- 5 /Role call: Bernard, Ed, Lou, Riis

As usual our 2015 annual sports trip was a doozy, our flight touched down in San Francisco on Thursday and we visited 6 cities, saw 7 stadiums and went to 5 games in 4 days. This is what I remember. I apologize in advance for the length of this post but I think you will enjoy it, we sure did..

Sacramento, California

"Capital City?"

After spending the first day of the trip just kind of driving around San Francisco we set out on the first of our scheduled events, an NBA Basketball game in Sacramento. Sacramento is the capital city of the State of California which in and of itself seems pretty strange to me. The reason I think so is that the state of California is home to so many interesting, unique and world famous cities you wouldn't think that the state's capital would be in a place that is so exceedingly normal. Don't get me wrong Sacramento is a beautiful city and I'm sure it's a wonderful place to live and create memories but Sacramento itself is not memorable , at least not in a way that will stay with you visually after a short time there. It just kind of looks like every other beautiful scenic place to me. If you’ve seen beautiful trees and rivers anywhere else you’ve kind of seen Sacramento. Sacramento is nice but that's kind of ALL it is, it just doesn’t seem special to me. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. To sum it all up I'm no expert but visiting Sacramento for a couple of hours is like having an ok slice of pizza. Because even if it’s not the best pizza in the world a decent slice of pizza is always worth eating.

We were going to Sacramento to see their basketball team the Kings play in a place called "Sleep Train Arena" let me repeat that "Sleep Train Arena"  honestly, what kind of name is that for a place where exciting things are supposed to happen ? Leave it to the Sacramento Kings to sell their arena naming rights to a regional mattress company who's only goal is to help you sleep comfortably. Once inside the arena it doesn’t take long to realize that the name is the only unique thing about the place. I've never been inside a more nondescript arena, it was kinda small, plain and the concourses were devoid of any visual reference to the Kings. No murals, no signs, no statues, not even team colors or a logo. Well thats not entirely true they did have one life sized cardboard “standee”of their star player DeMarcus "Boogie" Cousins which looked like something you would see inside of a Dunkin Donuts or a convenience store.

To be fair 2015 would be the last year the Kings would play in "Sleep Train" before they moved into a brand new arena in 2016. Maybe that’s why it was so bland but I doubt it. The Kings have historically been one of the NBA's moribund franchises so it’s not inconceivable that the Arena they play in wouldn’t be cool. They haven’t had much success on the court in a while either. The franchise has had Hall of fame players in its history but Oscar Robertson (Royals) and Nate Tiny Archibald (Kings) played for the team when they were based in Kansas City in the 60's & 70's. So the only real successful period the team can point to without getting laughed at is the handful of years when they had an exciting and contending team with Chris Webber, Peja Stojakovic, Bobby Williams, Mike Bibby & Vlade Divac in the early 2000's.

Besides that time the only thing the Sacramento Kings are known for is losing, a cool blue throwback jersey (which they happened to be rocking the night we were there) and the sweet hairdo Reggie Theus rocked in the 1980's.

The Brooklyn Nets had come to town to play the Kings, whose best player was the aforementioned Boogie Cousins, a 7 foot tall stick of dynamite that is just as likely to blow up his own team as help them win. Cousins is extremely talented but also extremely immature and prone to misbehaving on the court (Surprise, surprise who would expect a grown man who calls himself Boogie to be immature?) True to form, Boogie spent more than half the game scowling and talking back to his coach, yelling at his teammates, taking bad shots and turning the ball over. So much so that Ed and I spent the entire first half complaining about what an ass he was, how hard he must be to coach and how difficult it must be to play with him. But all that changed in the second half, all of a sudden out of nowhere Boogie started to ...(forgive me for this)... Boogie  he blocked shots and stole the ball on defense and scored points in every conceivable way on offense, throwing down power dunks, making acrobatic layups and hitting long range 3 point shots. The game was close and once Boogie's Barrage (sorry again) was underway the crowd went wild! So wild the entire Arena was rocking as the fans started chanting Let"s go Kings! Let's go Kings! over and over. it was all very cool and fun except for one thing. there was one fan, a man probably in his late 30’s that was sitting directly behind me yelling LOUDER! in between the chants.  So every single time they chanted Let's go Kings this dweeb yelled LOUDER directly in my ears.  It wouldn’t have been so bad if he would have yelled different things but repeatedly yelling louder in rhythm for at least an hour made me want to turn around and just punch him face! At one point Boogie scored about 19 points in a row for the Kings and the crowd started to listen to the idiot behind me and got louder & louder after every basket. It got to the point that you couldn't hear anything but the roar of the crowd and that knucklehead behind me yelling. The game was so good and the crowd was so into it that you would think it would be impossible to sleep in Sleep Train Arena. It was for everyone except one person, Bernard, the ringleader of our 4 man traveling circus somehow found a way to sleep like a baby as Boogie blew up the Brooklyn Nets and about 17,000 fanatical Kings Fans screamed their lungs out for close to 45 mins straight! all that noise and all that excitement but somehow Bernard unbelievably slept though it all! it really was a great game and to top things off the Kings won the game on a last second shot in overtime.

So in the end Sacramento turned out to be memorable after all. We will always remember our trip to Sleep train, that idiot screaming LOUDER behind me, that Boogie Cousins is good at basketball, that Kings fans absolutely love their team no matter what and that Bernard can sleep though anything!

 If you don’t believe us just ask Bernard Titley

Arena rules didn't allow me to bring my professional camera inside so the only photo that I posted is the cellphone pic of the Boogie standee. the other photos were taken from the internet and credit for the photos is unknown. I've attached a link to highlights from the game below enjoy.

http://www.nba.com/games/20151113/BKNSAC/gameinfo.html

Part II San Francisco Treat

San Francisco, California 

"THE ROCK"

Alcatraz Island from across San Francisco Bay.

During our stay in San Francisco the guys in the crew thought it would be interesting to ferry over and take the tour of Alcatraz Island to see the famous Prison in San Francisco Bay.  Unfortunately we grossly underestimated the tour's popularity and found out that the tours were booked for weeks in advance and the only way we could get tickets was to get to the box office before 7am the next morning and wait in line for the chance to get 4 of the small amount of tickets they make available every morning at that time. The guys were really interested in the tour so we decided to give it a try. We got up at the crack of dawn in order to get there early enough to get tickets but some genius among us decided that 2 of us should make a Starbucks run while the other 2 waited on line. Well that plan failed miserably because in order to receive tickets you had to actually be present on the line! Because we didn’t anticipate that perfectly understandable rule we only got 2 tickets so we decided not to go. But fear not, thanks to google I won't let our lack of forethought deprive you of some facts about Alcatraz island.

• Alcatraz Island served as a military prison from some time in the 1850s and was used to house Civil War Prisoners of War as early as 1861
• Alcatraz Island became Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, a maximum security facility in 1934 and was designed to hold America's most dangerous criminals who continuously caused trouble at other prisons. Infamous criminals such as Al "Scarface Capone, Robert "the Birdman of Alcatraz" Stroud  & James "Whitey" Bulger were all imprisoned there at some time.
• Even though a few prisoners attempted to break out over the years no inmate ever escaped from prison nicknamed "THE ROCK" which closed in 1963.
• Alcatraz Island became a National Historic landmark in 1986

It was 7:30am when we got the bad news so the guys decided to take the 40 minute drive back to our hotel and relax. I decided I would stay out and see how much of San Francisco I could see before I had to take the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) in order to meet them on the way to our first planned stop of the day. That morning I just wanted to be a typical tourist so here are some of my typical tourist photos.

The Embarcadero

"Cowboy on a fish" statue outside Hillstone Steakhouse

Sea Lions basking in the sun on Pier 39 K-dock off San Francisco Bay.

Sail Boats docked in a Marina in San Francisco Bay

My man Mike and his 2 friends at Guardino's Seafood on Fisherman's Wharf

Old fashioned Trolley Car parked on Market street,

Neon sign for Blue Mermaid Chowder House and Bar located in the Argonaut hotel in Fisherman's Wharf because I love Neon Signs!

The Golden Gate Bridge

Cable Car on Market Street with the iconic San Francisco Ferry Tower in the background

BART train

I really enjoyed being able to take my time and actually see a city we visit. We usually are zipping from one event to another when we go places so this was a welcome change. I walked all of Fishermans Wharf, took an old fashioned Trolley Car ride up the hill to Lombard street, through Chinatown and walked through downtown San Fran back to Market Street and caught the BART to Dublin/Pleseanton to meet up with the crew by 1:30 pm and it was well worth it.

Part III Micro Chips And Mean Girls

Santa Clara, California

"Silicon Valley"

Levi's Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers

Our next stop was Levi’s Stadium, the San Francisco 49ers new home. There was no game there that day and we didn’t have time for a full tour but that won’t stop me from being a useful source of information or a huge pain in the ass, so let the google fest begin! Levi’s Stadium is located in the part of California nicknamed “Silicon Valley” it was originally called this because there are a large number of silicon chip manufacturers in the region but now the area is home to many of the worlds most successful and innovative high tech information technology corporations and their headquarters. In short a lot of really really smart & really really rich people work and live there. So quite naturally the stadium designers formed a mutually beneficial partnership with the tech companies to create the most high tech stadium in all of sports. Built in 2014 Levi’s Stadium has WiFi infrastructure that can accommodate 70,000 fans all at once. that’s one WiFi router for every 100 seats in the stadium so that fans can get the same online experience that they get at home while in the stadium. I live with 3 people and my WiFi router at home barely reaches me in the bathroom so the WiFi experience in Levi’s stadium is definitely better than the WiFi in my crib. In addition to excellent WiFi signal there are 2,000 Sony TVs placed all around the stadium and 70 Sony 4K TVs in most of the Luxury suites. The stadium has a bunch of other cool nerdy shit I can't explain or don’t care about enough to write about here but I have to tell you about this...

They created a smartphone & tablet app that offers these cool features :

• The app can guide fans by GPS from the parking lot to the entrance closest to their seats and once they are inside the stadium guide them to their seats as well.
•  Fans can watch up to four replays at once during the game as if they were watching on TV at home, they can also get stats and other game related info on the app as well.
•  Fans can order food and drink from any seat in the stadium and it will be delivered directly to their seats.
• Lastly and I think most importantly the app can guide fans to the closest bathroom with the shortest line.

Now anyone who has ever tried to go to the bathroom at a live sporting event knows that last one is pretty damn innovative!

oh yeah, I almost forgot we did have time to visit the 49ers team store and Hall of Fame while we were there: 

Joe Montana & Bill Walsh

Jerry Rice

Steve Young

Bob St. Clair

49ers 5 Super Bowl trophies

"The Farm"

Palo Alto, California 1884

Leland Stanford SR. Jane Lathrop Stanford & Leland Stanford JR. (image Credit Stanford University Archives)

As one of his many interests and business endeavors Tycoon and railroad magnate Leland Stanford Sr. bred and trained some of the world's fastest trotting horses on his farm in California. Unfortunately tragedy struck his family when Leland and his wife Jane lost their son Leland Jr. to typhoid fever in 1884. As a memorial to their only child the Stanfords decided to deed all 8,180 acres of Leland's Palo Alto Stock Farm to be used as the campus for Leland Stanford Junior University which opened in 1891. The campus in Palo Alto has been nicknamed THE FARM ever since and is now known simply as Stanford University.

Palo Alto, California 2015

It's a pretty short drive from Silicon Valley to Palo Alto, about 12 minutes to be exact so it didn't take us long to get to the Stanford campus. We parked in the lot at Palo Alto High school and walked the few blocks to the campus. It was game day on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and I was anxious to experience game day on The Farm. A few minutes later we hit the parking lot on campus where the fans tailgate and the first thing that struck me was how quiet it was. Don't get me wrong there was energy but not the usual energy you find at a college tailgate. College fans are usually a bit more intense & loud and their tailgates in the parking lot are a bit more energetic. There usually is loud music playing, fans with painted faces & elaborate outfits in their team colors and a couple of boisterous drunk people. And the fans of the two teams don't usually mingle unless they are teasing each other. The Stanford tailgaters were laid back. I didn't really see any painted faces or elaborately costumed fans. These fans were wearing their team colors but a lot of them were tailgating together! It was all very grown up and civilized almost like a picnic or a family barbecue. They even took the time to speak to us as we passed by. The only way you could tell it was game day was that people were wearing team apparel.

while we were walking towards the stadium we heard music playing in the distance then suddenly out of nowhere the Oregon Band appeared! they were playing music and kind of singing.

Oregon Band playing and chanting as they walked toward the stadium.

In case you didn't know the 4 of us are geniuses so we figured out that they were probably headed to the game so we just decided to follow them and they led us to the stadium. Our next order of business was to find a will call window and pick up the tickets Stanford had left for us. when we got to will call we waited on the wrong line and they sent us to another area. When we got there the entire oregon band was in line ahead of us but as we lined up behind them security pulled us off the line again. We all looked at each other and figured we were in the wrong line again but boy were we mistaken.

Once again Stanford & Oregon fans together at Stanford Stadium

Before I go on let me give you a better idea of how all this works. The 4 of us in the crew are High School Football coaches so when we want to go to a college football game usually all we have to do is call the home team, tell them how many tickets we need and most of the time they will provide us with free tickets to any game we ask for. The only 2 things we kind of worry about are whether the tickets will be there or not when we arrive and the fact that we have no idea or control over where our seats will be. So when we were pulled off the line the second time we figured there was a problem. To our surprise there wasn't a problem at all they pulled us from the behind the huge line of band members and directed us to an empty table where they handed us these...  

Yes, Stanford gave us tickets and pregame field passes! when they handed them to us we all tried to look like we expected them just in case it was mistake. I don't know how the other guys felt but as we left will call I was walking towards the field with my camera feeling like I had stolen something! And even though I had the field pass with my initials on it around my neck I was still a bit nervous every time I passed a stadium security guard, avoiding eye contact and fully expecting someone to tap me on the shoulder and say it was a mistake! I guess thats how shoplifters feel as they walk out of a store with shit they didnt pay for hidden in their pants. But once I passed the last gate and actually stepped out on to the field it was on!

This wasn't the first time I was on the field for a college pregame but it was the first time I was on the field with a camera. Bernard, Ed and Lou soaked up the atmosphere, took pictures with Billionaire Nike CEO Phil Knight & Super Bowl winning QB Jim Plunkett who won the Heisman Trophy at Stanford in 1971  but I didn't care at all about them I just wanted to be like this guy!

So while those guys basically stayed in one place on the sideline I tested the limits of that damn field pass! I got as close to the players as I could without getting in their way I walked around the entire field doing exactly what the cats in the white media vests did. Sometimes even kneeling next to them and talking to them while shooting. Bernard & I had visited Oregon for a couple of days during the spring so a couple of their coaches and even a player or two recognized me and came over to say hello which gave me an excuse to kind of get further out on the field and talk to them. But mostly I just walked around taking as many photos as I could.

Once both teams were on the field it was kind of cool to see the physical and athletic difference between the players on each team. During our visit to Oregon in the spring their coaches explained how they recruited speedy skill guys regardless of their size and how they recruited taller lean players and built them up for their front lines. That approach to recruiting was evident when you looked at their players. Oregon puts a premium on speed and athleticism and that fits the style of football they play.

Conversely the first thing you notice about the Stanford players tells you what their coaches value. Because most of their players are tall and thick and look strong as hell!

Barry Sanders Jr the son of Lions hall of Fame Running Back Barry Sanders

The other cool thing about being on the field is getting to see players you've heard about or only watched play on television up close in person. When we were in Oregon the staff talked about this QB who was coming in to play for one year after graduating from Eastern Washington University. His name was Vernon Adams and he had put up great passing numbers at EWU but he wasn't eligible to practice in the spring so we weren't able to seem him then. It was obvious that they thought he would give them a better chance to win than their current QB Jeff Lockie so it was cool to see them both on the field. 

Oregon Starting Quarterback Vernon Adams

QB Jeff Lockie, the guy Adams replaced

Full disclosure I like Oregon their program is cool, their many uniforms are flashy and they stay on the cutting edge of everything but I love Stanford. I like and admire their coach David Shaw, one of my favorite college players Christian McCaffrey plays for them and I prefer their more traditional, physical style of play. I mean they use 3 or 4 tight ends on plays sometimes. who wouldn't love that.

Stanford head coach David Shaw talks to the officials prior to the game.

Christian McCaffrey is the son of former Stanford and former NFL player Ed McCaffrey

Christian McCaffrey was the runner up in the Heisman Trophy voting in 2015

Austin Hooper is now one of the 6 Stanford Tight Ends currently playing in the NFL.

It was getting close to game time, pre game was winding down and the stands were starting to fill up. So the vibe down on the field was starting to change. Both teams pregame drills were starting to get more physical, the referees where starting to get loose and practice their positioning and even the pretty Fox Sports sideline reporter had her game face on.  

But to me the coolest part of the entire pregame experience was watching Stanford Head coach David Shaw just before his team took the field. when you see him do interviews he's always calm and composed but in the few minutes just prior to leading his team onto the field he was pacing back and forth like a caged tiger. He even smacked his laminated play sheet in his hands and talked to himself as he paced. His intensity surprised me not only because it seemed out of character for him but as a coach I always try to remain as calm as possible leading up to games. It was at that moment that I remembered Shaw played for Stanford and the football player in him was taking over.

Coach Shaw ready to lead his team out on the field looking like he was ready to hit someone.

it was finally game time and we had to leave the field and head up to our seats. all in all being on the field was a really cool experience. We all really appreciated the fact that Stanford went above and beyond just giving us tickets and let us go behind the scenes to experience how their team prepares on the field. Our seats weren't bad they were section 104 in the lower bowl in the south end zone in the student section called the red zone.

Once again we were treated to a exciting game as Oregon jumped ahead early but Stanford mounted a comeback that fell short and Oregon won 38-36 in overtime. The loss knocked Stanford out of the playoff picture but it was a really cool night & the only annoying thing was that we had a run in with some

Mean Girls

"WE GO HERE" was the common excuse the stuck up stanford girls gave us for their behavior

I mentioned earlier that we were sitting in the student section. Unfortunately in this case that means students were sitting with us. We were on the Stanford campus for roughly 5 hours and everyone we encountered was super pleasant and nice except for the female Stanford students we encountered in the student section. The row of seats in front of us was empty at the beginning of the game and periodically throughout the game students would come sit there and leave which wasn't a problem at all. the problem was that almost every female student that sat in that row was rude or obnoxious. it was crazy, wave after wave of spoiled entitled pretty young ladies behaving poorly! Come on Stanford you can do better!

Part IV The Home of Oski

Berkley, California

After the Stanford game we made our way to our last stop of the night the Cal Oregon state game by this time we were pretty beat and the weather up in Berkley which is further north than Palo Alto was pretty chilly no make that COLD. I realize that this post has been pretty long so I will try to rap it up here with a few things I remember about this part of the night.

• The Cal campus is pretty interesting it is almost entirely made up of hills with the stadium at the very top. 
• 2016 NFL #1 Draft pick Jared Goff #16 in Blue is good at football he shredded Oregon State for 453 passing yards and 6 touchdown passes.
• Conversely Oregon State ( below in orange and white) is not very good at football but they always have nice uniforms.

And last but not least.

Cal has the absolute worst mascot I have ever seen! His name is Oski, I'm pretty sure he is supposed to be a bear but he looks like an old man wearing a sweater and a hood. Most college mascots dance and entertain the crowd but all Oski does the entire game is slowly walk back and forth hunched over with his arms folded behind his back and this stupid high stepping strut. The ONLY time he unfolds his arms is to touch the end zone pylons! Without a doubt Oski is the most boring mascot ever!

Well thats it for this post guys we went to 2 more events the next day, An Oakland Raider Football game at the O coliseum that i will post about later and a College Basketball game at Stanford but I've taken up too much your time already with my silly stories about our trip to the Bay Area and the thousands of useless photos I took thanks for taking the time to read this and look at the pictures. 

So until next time be well.

Yo somebody wake Bernard up!

Circus Circus

Detroit 2012

On one of our annual sports trips my friends and I were scheduled to visit Detroit to take in a baseball game. Detroit was only one of 5 or 6 planned stops on this particular trip and isn't really considered a travel destination but I was excited to see the city for 2 reasons. The first reason was that for years I had heard stories about the economic downturn that both Detroit and many parts of the state of Michigan had experienced in recent years. So I was kind of interested in seeing how those circumstances would present themselves once I got there if they did at all. The second reason I was excited to be in Detroit was the fact that we were going to see the Tigers play at Comerica Park, a fairly new stadium that was built in 2000 to replace Tiger Stadium, one of the historic American league baseball stadiums that was built in 1912, almost exactly 100 years before we were in town.

Old Tiger Stadium photo by Andrew G.Clem

We hit downtown Detroit in the early afternoon and parked my friend Ed's spanking new & surprisingly cool minivan in a lot a few blocks away from the stadium. When we started our walk through the downtown area toward the ball park I don't quite remember what I was expecting to see at the time but I do remember being surprised to see that the streets weren't dirty and there weren't any rundown or boarded up buildings anywhere. As a matter of fact the streets and sidewalks were relatively clean and all the buildings were pretty much intact. The only real evidence of economic distress that I noticed was that almost all the buildings and storefronts were eerily vacant. There wasn't any signage on the buildings or shops, no curtains or shutters on any windows just building after building with empty windows and doors. What made it even more unusual was that there weren't many people on the streets which when combined with the fact that it was close to 100 degrees out that day made downtown Detroit seem as if the city was in a state of suspended animation, lying dormant as if it was waiting for things to get better before showing any signs of life.

After a short while we reached Comerica Park and a couple of things immediately signaled to me that this experience was going to be a little different than most stadiums we have visited. First of all the parking lot directly in front of the stadium was home to a car show that was filled with beautiful classic cars and more unexpectedly the first person I encountered walked up to me and yelled "Eat em up Tigers eat em up!" right at me! Once I realized he wasn't crazy which is debatable or being mean to me I took a good look at him and one glance told me that he was a stadium regular because he was wearing a weather beaten T-shirt with a picture of himself on it that also had his name and his slogan on the front.  The most interesting thing is if you look closely at his shirt you can see that he has a personalized website with a url address directly under his logo/picture! So even though he didn't appear to be computer savvy he was definitely a business man. (Oh yeah you know I tried to check out his web page and link it to this but sadly it no longer exists)

Meet the Homie & Entrepreneur Eat em Up.

Once my encounter with my man Eat em up was over (after I took photo of him and put a dollar in his cup of course) I started toward the entrance to the stadium and immediately noticed the first thing you immediately understand about Comerica Park is that the people who designed it really want you to know exactly what team plays there,

 The DETROIT TIGERS with an extreme emphasis on TIGERS.

There are snarling, roaring, clawing tigers everywhere you look, on almost everything you see and they aren't subtle about it.

Tigers Tigers Tigers, everywhere! The most prominent of which greets you at the main entrance

Beating the Heat, Smart little girl chilling in the shade of the tiger statue with a cool drink

My friends and I have been going on these sports trips every year for a while so we've had the opportunity to visit many stadiums old & new and out of all of us in the crew I'm the one who kind of obsesses over the design and features of each of stadium or arena. When we arrive at a venue I usually leave the group to walk the entire stadium and check out all the features and design elements and try to photograph the things that I think are cool or unique. So once I survived Eat em up and all the menacing tigers all over all the walls and entrances of the park I was eager to get a look at what was inside.

Once inside the very first thing you notice is that the stadium is HUGE! Most newly built arenas or stadiums are designed to try & create an atmosphere or feeling. Some seem like sleek new shopping malls with many different shops, attractions and a variety of concession stands or  swanky resturants or corporate sponsored club sections designed to appeal to people who like brand names and exclusivity. Some try to create a Retro experience with simplicity, economy or old school signage, design flourishes and building materials, others try to do all of the above. At first glance its tough to tell exactly what approach the people who designed Comerica were taking. The concourses are huge wide and dark, framed with old school green girders almost like a subway EL station and everything else is kind of plain and simple almost totally devoid of an actual design sensibility. The only real obvious attempt at connectivity was the color of all of the signage, Navy Blue & Orange the Tigers team colors.

A view of the main concourse from the second level

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack.....

At most stadiums they come up with clever names and themes for the concession stands but all the concession stands I saw at Comerica were generic in design and kind of boringly named. The only real brand name I saw was Little Caesar's Pizza which makes sense because Mike Ilitch the late owner of the Tigers franchise founded Little Caesar's Pizza as well.

Big League Grill? How boring and generic can you get.

MEMORY LANE

The Detroit Tigers Franchise is one of the oldest in Major league baseball and like most sports franchises they take great pride in their history and make an effort to display evidence of their success throughout their stadium. Most newer stadiums and arenas have team focused Hall of Fame sections were they highlight their historic teams and star players and proudly display their memorabilia. They also use these hall of fame sections as added attractions that can be seen even if the team is not currently playing in the stadium at the time. I'm not sure if Comerica Park has a Tigers Hall Of Fame inside it but I didn't see one which is a shame. Because even though most of the Tigers' better players aren't household names to sports fans around the country man, is their stadium full of memorabilia! But like everything else about the stadium the way they chose to display that memorabilia is really unique.

One of the weird contraptions that are positioned all throughout the lower concourse of the stadium

All throughout the lower concourse of the stadium they have these huge weird looking structures that are part sculpture, part time capsule and part junior high school art project. They are almost 2 stories high and on wheels which makes them seem even more peculiar. The other thing I noticed was that there were so many of them, At least one for every decade of the team's existence filled with pictures and memorabilia from dozens of teams, players and moments in Tiger history.

Below are a few examples of what I call "Memory Mobiles".

Now don't get me wrong, I love memorabilia so I enjoyed looking at and trying to photograph each structure and the cool stuff inside of them but I found the structures themselves to be kind of crude, outdated, amateurish and quite frankly a little beneath what a professional sports franchise would use to display it's prized memorabilia and rich history. Especially in a stadium that was only 12 years old.

"A man from Hamtramck will go home with that one"  a popular Ernie Harwell catchphrase.

As I continued to explore the concourses I came across another statue. The statue of Ernie Harwell the longtime Hall of Fame Tiger announcer who passed away in 2010. He announced Tiger games almost every year from 1960 through 2002 and was one of the most well known and respected baseball announcers in baseball history. I kind of found it strange that the statue was roped off to keep people from getting too close to it because its usually tough to get clear photos of statues in and around stadiums without people getting in the shots but when I was there no one was actually paying attention to Ernie at all.

Child's Play

A lot of new stadiums make great concessions to children and people who aren't quite fans of the game on the field by adding areas where kids can actually play. Video game stations, pitching areas, batting cages, miniature fields and even playgrounds are quite common in most new stadiums but once again Comerica Park went with the unusual.

Comerica Park has BIG CAT COURT a small rotunda with some food shops set around an old fashioned Carousel.

Tiger themed of course. 

As I explored further I came across a picnic style eating area outside a barbecue place that was adorned with you guessed it MORE SNARLING TIGERS!

Picnic Area

Ferris Wheel

Directly behind the picnic area was an actual Ferris Wheel with compartments fashioned after baseballs. As you can see its pretty corny looking and like the Carousel and the picnic area it was totally empty because of the extreme heat that day. 

After leaving the ferris wheel area I decided to head up to my seat. We had seats in the upper deck of the stadium and the heat was starting to get to me so all I wanted to do was grab a cold soda and a Bratz and watch some of the game. 

The view from our seats

From the old fashioned path leading from the pitcher's mound to home plate to the weird batters box area shaped like a huge home plate Comerica Park is quite different in many ways

The Tigers were playing the Royals and for the life of me I don't remember one detail from the game. I remember watching it but all the game's details escape me as I write this, which is unusual for me. I guess I was just too interested in the ball park and trying to describe it. Looking back now I finally realized what the designers might have been going for intentionally or not. Because Comerica Park's design elements and decor remind me of the Circus.

CIRCUS, CIRCUS

Circuses are weird, they rely on spectacle and odd performances that people in modern times aren't even sure they want to see until they see it. Their design aesthetic is a mismatch of bright colors, kitsch and disparate things that don't quite seem to fit together for the purpose that they serve. Circuses sort of exist outside of time, are filled with weird old entertainment and traditions that don't quite work today. Thats what Comerica Park feels and looks like to me. A Circus or Carnival that seems old and out of place but you can't place how old it actually is. You're never quite sure if you totally like it or not but somehow you have fun there and end up kind of glad you did see it because you know you aren't likely to see anything quite like it again. For those reasons I enjoyed seeing Detroit and exploring Comerica Park but I'm not quite sure there is enough there for me to go back again. if you are a baseball fan or a fan of seeing stadiums I would definitely recommend seeing Comerica Park at least once because its best quality is that it is definitely unique.

Just like the circus once you you've seen it you've seen it, after that the only real reason to go back is to share the experience with someone who has never been there before which is what I think i'm doing now by sharing this.

Here are some more shots from the game and the stadium

Enjoy.

Relief pitcher Phil Coke cooling fans off with a hose

The statue area for all the Tiger greats with their retired numbers painted on the wall

Willie "The Wonder" Horton

Comerica Park, Detroit, Michigan 7/7/2012