Happy Rainy Saturday morning from Virginia Beach. I have been traveling for the past two weeks and am eager to share my baseball and life experiences with you. I logged a ton of miles in the air, on the highways of the Northeast, and emotionally between seeing friends, family, and closing on my Rhode Island home. Virginia is now officially my new home. However, Rhode Island will always have a special place in my soul and in my heart and with so many ties there – just a plane/car/train ride away. Okay, since this is a baseball blog, let’s get to some baseball experiences…
The week of March 10th, I was back for my final week of work in Phoenix for ABF Freight. The previous two times I was in Phoenix, I stayed west of the terminal in an area called Tolleson. From a baseball standpoint, Tolleson was conveniently located so I could visit a number of Spring Training sites in and around the city of Phoenix. I succeeded in visiting several, including the Dodgers/White Sox, the Brewers, the Rangers/Royals, and the Angels. For the week of the 10th, I chose a hotel in the Old Town section of Scottsdale, Arizona. And wow, did I hit the baseball experience jackpot during my week in Scottsdale.
After finishing up work around 3pm on Monday, March 11th I parked my rental car and walked less than a mile up to Scottsdale Stadium. Scottsdale Stadium is the Spring Training home of the San Francisco Giants. When I arrived Monday afternoon, the Giants were not playing, nor were they practicing at their facility. The stadium was closed, so I took the time I had to just walk around the stadium, chat with a few parking lot attendants, some other baseball fans who were at the park taking photos, and just soak in all the cool Giants stuff outside the stadium.
Before I get back to the baseball stuff, if you haven’t been to Scottsdale, you should. It is an amazing city with a ton of stuff to do, in addition to the Giants baseball experience. Golf, restaurants, night life, parks, history, great weather, nice people – I was super impressed by Scottsdale. I ate out every night locally and the food was fantastic everywhere I ate. And the restaurant staff, the bartenders, and the welcome feeling I received every place I went was just so incredible. Highly recommend Scottsdale for your next vacation, family or couple or solo!
With the stadium closed, gates locked, obstructions all around, I tried peeking in a few places around the perimeter to catch a glimpse of the park. I walked down a sidewalk, to an alley next to a garage, up a slight incline, past a county jail, and didn’t really get a great view of the park. Mostly just obstructed views of the outfield, some of the bleachers, but nothing worth sharing here. I’ll have more stadium photos in a later blog, stay tuned for that one…
As I have stated previously and will continue to state, I’m not a fence jumper. If the gates are closed and the attendants say no, that’s good enough for me to stay out. There will always be another opportunity to get in the right way and the stress free way and the “don’t go to jail in Scottsdale” way. As I walked the perimeter of the stadium, past the County Jail, and back to the front of the stadium, I knew that I had at least made a small connection with the Giants baseball experience. I hoped there would be a game that I could catch later in the week and I checked their schedule daily after leaving work at 3pm to see if the Giants were still playing. Foreshadowing here, so stay tuned for another Giants experience.
It could have something to do with the scheduled game on the billboard photo above. For now, for this brief Giants experience, I was psyched to visit the stadium and get a look at Giants memorabilia, the perimeter of the stadium, meet some nice people, and just enjoy a beautiful Scottsdale afternoon. I was off to a great start in my baseball experience portion of the trip. And it would get better and better as the week went on…
The Rhiter 