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Tom Tresh

Archive for May, 2010

MLB ballparks allowing iPads: The List

May 25

Posted by Tom Biro in Stadiums | 3 Comments

While the New York Yankees have received a bunch of attention for what they’re not allowing at the ballpark (think iPads, not runs, sadly), the same can’t be said across the board for the rest of Major League Baseball. On Tuesday, Bats Both reached out to the MLB franchises not mentioned in previous articles discussing whether or not the iPad was allowed inside their stadiums, and has compiled a list (in progress) of ballparks that fans are permitted to bring iPads into.

The only caveats that have been shared with Bats Both so far are that the devices are available to turn on and be inspected by security if asked, and that they are in bags or cases of the sizes currently permitted into stadiums.

We’ll continue to update the list as we receive additional responses. If anyone is aware of a team’s statement in media or elsewhere, please feel free to send it to tips (at) batsboth.com or leave it in the comments.


League Stadium Team iPads allowed? Source
AL Camden Yards Baltimore Orioles Yes Team
AL Fenway Park Boston Red Sox Yes CenterNetworks
AL U.S. Cellular Field Chicago White Sox Yes Team
AL Progressive Field Cleveland Indians Yes Team
AL Comerica Park Detroit Tigers Yes Team
AL Kauffman Stadium Kansas City Royals Yes Team
AL Angel Stadium Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Yes Team
AL Target Field Minnesota Twins Yes Team
AL Yankee Stadium New York Yankees No AP
AL Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Oakland Athletics Yes Team
AL Safeco Field Seattle Mariners Yes AP
AL Tropicana Field Tampa Bay Rays Yes Team
AL Rangers Ballpark in Arlington Texas Rangers
AL Rogers Centre Toronto Blue Jays Yes Team
NL Chase Field Arizona Diamondbacks Yes Team
NL Turner Field Atlanta Braves Yes Team
NL Wrigley Field Chicago Cubs Yes Team
NL Great American Ball Park Cincinnati Reds
NL Coors Field Colorado Rockies
NL Sun Life Stadium Florida Marlins Yes Team
NL Minute Maid Park Houston Astros
NL Dodger Stadium Los Angeles Dodgers
NL Miller Park Milwaukee Brewers Yes Team
NL Citi Field New York Mets Yes AP, appadvice
NL Citizens Bank Park Philadelphia Phillies
NL PNC Park Pittsburgh Pirates Yes Team
NL Busch Stadium St. Louis Cardinals Yes Team
NL PETCO Park San Diego Padres
NL AT&T Park San Francisco Giants Yes Team
NL Nationals Park Washington Nationals

[ed. note: Props to the hugely helpful Tableizer, which made this post a lot more easy to publish.]

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Around the Horn: Monday, 5/24/10

May 24

Posted by Tom Biro in Around the Horn, Awards, New York Yankees, News, R.I.P. | No Comments

Some links of interest from around the baseball world…

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Yankees confirm iPad security policy with AP

May 24

Posted by Tom Biro in New York Yankees | 3 Comments

iPad image courtesy of AppleOn Sunday evening, Mashable’s Christina Warren reported on a story recently making the rounds of IGN’s forums about iPads not being allowed inside Yankee Stadium due to the policy banning laptops from the ballpark. Currently, there is not an iPad or tablet device-specific policy on Yankees.com, only the one mentioning “laptop computers” as a prohibited item.

When reached earlier today, a New York Yankees spokesperson informed Bats Both that the team had no further comment, but that they had spoken with the Associated Press on Monday regarding this issue. Tonight, the AP published this story, which states that the team’s policy is due to “a security-and-safefy [sic] issue.” It also goes on to state that policies on iPads are a “team-by-team” decision, which surely makes it tricky to even consider bringing the device with you to a game without clarity from each and every team.

While ESPN’s iScore application might not have caught on with every iPad user just yet, it’s surely an attractive option for those fans who enjoy scoring the game – but it looks like the printed program or paper scorebook will live another day – at least at Yankee Stadium.

[update 5:48pm] Aside from the Mets, Angels, and Mariners being three teams the AP story states would allow iPads in their stadiums, CenterNetworks reported on May 20 that the Boston Red Sox also let fans bring them in.

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Mariners open interleague play with Padres blowout – 5/21/10

May 22

Posted by Tom Biro in Game recaps, San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners | 4 Comments

On Friday night, the Seattle Mariners finally unloaded on someone, and the Padres were the unfortunate recipient of a 15-8 drubbing. DH Mike Sweeney put together a 4-5 night, including 2 home runs and six RBIs, and all but one starter (3B Jose Lopez) had at least one hit against the Padres, giving Cliff Lee his second win of the season (2-2) – even after he gave up all eight runs (seven earned).

A month and a half into a season filled with less-than-stellar pitching, a trip to the restricted list for OF Milton Bradley, a rough start to the season for Ken Griffey, Jr. and a few trips to the DL for some players, the Mariners seemingly deserved the last two days. Thursday’s afternoon tilt against the Jays ended with a walk-off single by Griffey, putting a halt to a five-game losing streak, a hit that MLB.com’s Jim Street noted as being well needed.

It was the 10th walk-off hit of Griffey’s Hall of Fame career. He left the building without commenting on the hit, but several of his teammates said the hit was something he and the entire team needed.

After having spent the better part of the last few spring weekends at this park, I could definitely see a little bit of deflation start to enter into the crowds’ attitude recently. But on a night when Cliff Lee appeared to be hitting the mark with his pitches only to be swatted around by some free-swinging Padres, however, “the wave” was still in full force, beach towel promo night items were being swirled about all over the stadium, and 3-2 counts got fans off their backsides, in the hope that the bottom frames of each innings would result in more offense – and the rewards kept on coming, for most of the game.

For the moment, all that matters is that fans walked out of Safeco in high spirits, transitioning their beach towels from over-the-head swinging position to over-the-shoulders to stay warm on a chilly May evening. Will Sweeney keep his recent power surge going? Will that single by Griffey open up his season a bit more? Who knows. What’s definitely apparent is that if a little bit of consistent pitching were to come about, the M’s certainly have enough bats still around to make the scoreboard light up.

The Seattle Times‘ Geoff Baker nailed it in his game story when talking about whether or not this would stick around, however.

One could forgive the 24,139 shivering fans at Safeco Field for being a little skeptical that what they witnessed was anything permanent. For thinking that this 15-hit blitzkrieg was more in the spirit of every dog having its day, or even the blindest of squirrels happening upon a jar full of Planters premium.

But for the optimists among them, there were other signs of hope besides Sweeney falling just one RBI shy of his career best.

For now, let’s see if the Mariners can take at least one more game this weekend and put a series win behind them.

5/22/10 Game Notes: Ian Snell (0-2) v. Clayton Richard (3-2)

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Yanks Keep Birthday Presents Coming

May 20

Posted by Jerry Milani in New York Yankees | No Comments

Growing up, it seemed like the Yankees never won on my birthday.   My memory fails me a little bit there, as they did manage to win twice on May 17 from 1977, when I became a fan, through 1982.  Worse, when I looked up players born on my birthday, I’m sure I’d see some famous stars like Billy Martin (nope, May 16) or Reggie Jackson (sorry, May 18).  Best I could do with the 17th was Carlos May, and that wasn’t really going to cut it, even if by having worn #17 with the White Sox he proudly proclaimed our shared birth month and year on his back.

In fact, a team of Major League players born on my birthday is a mediocre lot at best:

C – Wiki Gonzalez (b. 1974, .239 avg., 17 HR, 103 RBI from 1999-06)
1B – Carlos Pena (b. 1978, .245, 207, 590 from 2001 to present)
2B – Lou Chiozza (b. 1910, .277, 14, 197 from 1934-39)
SS – Harry Riconda (b. 1897, .247, 4, 70 from 1923-30)
3B – Ozzie Virgil (b. 1932, .231, 14-73 from 1956-69)
LF – May (b. 1948, .274, 90, 536 from 1968-77)
CF – Dick Smith (b. 1939, .218, 0, 7 from 1963-65)
RF – Jose Guillen (b. 1976, .271, 203, 835 from 1997 to present)
DH – Jack Voigt (b. 1966, .235, 20, 83 from 1992-98)
SP – Hal Carlson (b. 1892, 114-120, 3.97 ERA from 1917-30)
RP – Billy Hoeft (b. 1932, 97-101, 33 saves, 3.94 ERA from 1952-66)

Let’s just say that, in my adulthood, the Yankees have more than made up for it.

First came David Wells‘ perfect game on May 17, 1998, which I missed because my friends and I were celebrating something even more important than my birthday – our college friend’s ordination as a Catholic priest.  Then four years later, Jason Giambi had his “welcome to the Yankees” moment, a 14th-inning Grand Slam between the raindrops to beat the Twins.  I was at that game, thought not the 14th inning, having left after 13 to catch the last train to Newark.

Carl Pavano actually pitched a complete-game, five-hit shutout with no walks and seven strikeouts on May 17, 2005, in Seattle, in what must have been his finest performance as a Yankee.  I don’t recall that one at all, and since it was a late-night West Coast game I doubt I saw the finish.

Three straight walkoff wins in a three-game series with the Twins last year culminated in Johnny Damon’s game-winner on May 17.  And on Monday night, Alex Rodriguez and Marcus Thames brought a finish to an exciting win over the Red Sox with two-run home runs in the ninth.

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Ads Could Put SNY Viewers Over The Edge

May 15

Posted by Jerry Milani in Announcers/Broadcasting, New York Mets, New York Yankees | 4 Comments

If you watch enough baseball games on any regional sports network, you’ll start to get way too familiar with the commercials that run over and over and over, night after night after night.  One company invariably buys up a bunch of inventory and after every inning, it seems, the same ad keeps appearing.  For sure, this is true of YES and SNY, the Yankees’ and Mets’ RSNs.

Three years back, it was hair tonic ads featuring someone named Giuseppe Franco and “stars” like Gary Busey that YES viewers were treated to endlessly.  “Hey, I’m Giuseppe Franco.  I’m not putting my name on something that doesn’t work.” For such a scammy advertiser to get such play, there must be a lot of 40ish and 50ish guys falling for it.

Then YES upgraded to Ford’s Derek Jeter commercials, the ubiquitous “That Jeter, he’s got an Edge” phrase annoying fans as the Yankees closed out the old Stadium.

Last year didn’t have a “signature” ad that I can recall easily, but this year the Jeter Edge ads are back.  But not just on YES.

I’ve seen the ads played a lot on SNY during Mets games.  Now, if I were a Mets fan, I’d be chapped.  If as a Yankee fan I saw David Wright sugar water ads over and over on YES, that would hardly ingratiate me towards that company.

I asked a couple of Mets fan friends at Foley’s the other night what they thought of it, as the commercial played on the screen above us, and while one agreed with me I was surprised to find that the other wasn’t too upset.

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Springtime Reading

May 11

Posted by Jerry Milani in Shopping, books | 3 Comments

I’m so far behind in books I want to read and that are staring mockingly at me on my shelf that the last place I should go to kill 20 minutes before my train is the Borders on 34th St. by Penn Station (with the possible exception of the rest room on the 8th Ave. side).  But here I am — the bookstore, not the john — and no sooner do I get in the door that three baseball books make their presence felt immediately, front and center on the New Hardcovers display rack.

I didn’t even know about two of them, which makes my visit even more enlightening.  The Steinbrenner biography by Bill Madden has gotten some play, and the arc of the Boss’s Yankees ownership begins just before my fandom, so that’s a must read for me.  Bios on Hank Aaron and Reggie Jackson were right next to Big Stein’s — Aaron has always been a huge favorite of mine, so there’s a must.  Reggie will have to wait.

I think it’s interesting that these three would have such prominent spots among the many books of all types — political, humor, cookbooks — that are featured in the most important real estate in the store.  All are famous baseball characters for sure, who transcended sports to everyday life in their time to one degree or another, probably Aaron (the Last Hero, says the subtitle) the most, although I wasn’t aware of his accomplishments and their cultural significance until later, followed by Steinbrenner (the Last Lion), by whom all sports owners are now measured.  But Jackson (the First Hot Dog?), whose impact was inextricably connected to that of the Boss, also changed the way sports stars and celebrities connected with press and the fans, hitting the nascent free agency era while in his prime.

There were actually two other baseball books on the same display, though on the back side, facing into the store.  Satch, Dizzy and Rapid Robert about those 1930s-50s star pitchers looks right up my alley, and a volume about baseball’s unwritten rules that seems well-timed with all the recent silliness regarding A-Rod’s unfortunate path back to first base on future perfect game artist Dallas Braden’s mound in Oakland.

So the Steinbrenner and Aaron tomes made it into my collection.  If I ever actually get through them both before I’ve forgotten how to write, I’ll post some thoughts… I’ve been midway through a quite good biography of Harry Houdini for a couple of months, the beginning of the baseball season and other factors conspiring in its gathering bedside dust.

I could use a Yankees rainout or two, like tonight in Detroit, and perhaps a game ending before midnight to get these cracking.

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A few baseball card thoughts, links

May 11

Posted by Jerry Milani in Collectibles-Memorabilia | No Comments

In March I worked the Toronto Comic Con event, part of a convention series which features a lot of different facets of pop culture — movies, TV, music, Sci Fi, games, collectibles, and even some sports.  Tucked away in the corner was a small sports memorabilia dealer with displays of autographed photos and magazines among the offerings.  And on one side, almost an afterthought, were three or four boxes of baseball cards, separated into $.01, $.25 and other prices.  The $.01 box had a variety of cards, mostly from the 90s, but some from the 70s that looked just like the Topps cards I had collected as a pre-teen.

Only they were produced by a company called O-Pee-Chee, which for a time produced licensed versions of the Topps cards, looking similar except for their own logo and some different info on the reverse.  I found some 1977 cards, the first year that I collected, in pretty good condition, grabbing a Thurman Munson, Reggie Jackson, Ed Figueroa and some others.

Whenever I come across one of these setups, I hope they are at least organized by year, so I can take a quick look to see if there’s a Miguel Jimenez or Pete Harnisch, the two Fordham entries from my era.  Luckily, I found one of each, including a ‘94 Upper Deck Miguel card.  A quarter well spent, indeed.

If you haven’t seen this site by Josh Wilker, be careful… you might get lost in it.  Josh has a new book out, Cardboard Gods, which will go on my list as soon as the pile of 20 or so unread volumes taunting me on my bedroom shelf is reduced some.

For a well-done piece on baseball cards and how they can help illuminate a life, check out this piece by Jason Fry on his excellent Mets blog Faith and Fear in Flushing.

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Mariners drop 8th in a row, 4-3, to Angels – 5/8/10

May 8

Posted by Tom Biro in Game recaps, Seattle Mariners | No Comments

On Saturday night, less than 24 hours after an 8-0 trashing at the hands of Jared Weaver and the Angels, the Mariners took the field at Safeco looking to end an seven-game skid with Doug Fister on the mound. From our seats in section 213, down near the right field foul pole, I was hoping that the streak had culminated the night before, in a game that included a three-homer-in-four-batter inning and 6 2/3 of no-hit ball by Weaver, before Ken Griffey, Jr. was able to bust a single to right – the first of the Mariners’ two hits for the evening. You’d think that would be bad enough, but you’d be wrong.

Eight games. Eight losses in a row.

Coming from the land of the Yankees, I’ve woken up to my share of morning news that hitting coaches have been fired, as Alan Cockrell was this morning, or that a player was cut or sent to the minors, as happened a week ago today when the Mariners let Eric Byrnes go, and sent three others down. But I can’t say that I’ve seen it happen this way in a span of a week.

When I’d first gotten our weekend season tickets, I’d heard a ton about how this team was “built for Safeco” – which clearly has its drawbacks – and I was certainly among the many excited about a pitching staff that contained Cliff Lee (pre-injury) and Felix Hernandez (pre-shellshocking). After about a month of the season, however, it was pretty clear that there was a bit of lacking in the power department, and the pitching wasn’t exactly stellar. Plus, Lee was on the shelf for a few weeks. Not fun.

Ichiro continues to be a bright spot for the team, as does Jack Wilson’s defense at short (pre-hamstring injury). Slow starts for Mike Sweeney, Ken Griffey, Jr. and others have sent fans to the exits on the regular, and it’s unclear as to what the next best steps are. No one’s going to be trading a whole team, and replacing four players on a Sunday should be enough of a roster shakeup to a group of 25, shouldn’t it? Maybe not.

On Saturday night, a lot of us who stuck around the stadium were excited about being “in the game” as the sun went down, especially as manager Don Wakamatsu brought closer David Aardsma into the game for his 12th appearance of the year. But with Mike Sweeney leaving the bases juiced in the bottom of the ninth and Aardsma giving up a hit to Hideki Matsui in the 10th, it was yet another “well, at least we were in this one” feeling as we headed out of the park. Let’s hope this doesn’t continue to be a trend – or the high hopes that the team and their fans had for 2010 join “Wall Street” and “the auto industry” as things we all thought were “too big to fail.”

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There used to be a Stadium…

May 5

Posted by Jerry Milani in New York Yankees, Stadiums | 2 Comments

I took my first subway ride of the season to Yankee Stadium last night for Yanks-O’s.  I exited the station as always, turned to cross 161st St., as a year in the New Yankee Stadium had programmed me to do, the large blue temporary walls standing in their normal spots along the south end of the roadway.

Only this time, they weren’t serving as they did in 2009, as a barrier between the sidewalk and the old Stadium.  They were instead blocking a huge open construction expanse.

I wasn’t until I crossed the street to wait for my friend at Babe Ruth Plaza that it hit me.  It’s really gone.  All that’s left of the old Stadium as I write this is a small segment, maybe six seating sections worth in what used to be the right field corner, about where my friends and I shared a season package for the past decade.  The rest has been demolished by the wrecking cranes.

It’s been 33 years since I went to my first game there, a year after the Old New (or is it “New Old?”) Yankee Stadium opened in ‘76.  The past few years it had become more and more obvious that the House that Ruth Built (not the “REAL House that Ruth Built,” as proclaimed the Stan’s Bar tshirts on the young ladies giving out fliers in front of the namesake’s Plaza) was at the end of its life cycle.  It’s only a building, I’ve told myself, and pretty much believed it.

True enough, but as I looked at the remnants across the street, in the context of the fans streaming past, on their way to the huge new facility behind me, I reflected more on why the building was so significant.  It’s because people lived through happy moments, sad moments, but mostly uniting moments there.  It’s where history happened, the kind that brought friends together, that brought fathers and sons together, that introduced sweethearts, that made memories.

I’m fine with the new Stadium, like watching the game there just as much, enjoy the experience as much.  Reflecting on the old place isn’t an indictment of progress, or of what had to happen.  It’s the Yankees’ new home.

Somehow, though, it won’t ever quite be mine.

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