Salt River Fields: Worth Every Penny (Part I)

Here's my photo essay on today's excursion to Salt River Fields. You can click on the photos to enlarge. I guess we'll start with this:

Just a parking lot, at the Pavillions Mall, south and adjacent to Salt River Fields. It's free, with easy access, as are all the other mall lots. Why bother paying $5 for "on site" parking across the street?

I entered the 140 acre facility on foot, from the south, which is the Rockies' entrance. Here's their batting cages. Ten covered bays. It's enormous:

Their public walkway is engraved with cute affirmations:

thrilling climax and denouement >>>

Salt River Fields: Worth Every Penny (Part II)

After getting jerked around the exterior practice fields, I backtracked my steps towards the home plate area just outside the main stadium. This took a while and I was so annoyed I decided to just go home, bag the game and write a scathing review. But then an angel appeared.

This hardened character was gliding around the Will Call windows, warbling "Tickets!" I asked if she was selling and she said, "Oh, you can have it." I must've looked indigent. Seriously, she's a Rockies' fan, very nice and as luck would have it, sits in the lower level.

First row.

Heh.

Anyway, this stroke of luck bouyed my attitude and is why you're now reading  Part II of this Salt River Fields review. Let's go inside.

thrilling climax and denouement >>>

$alt River Field$ @ $ilent $tick

As a rule, I dont have a problem with untelevised exhibition games. Cactus contests should be intimate, visceral affairs - a first hand, bygone departure from the overexposed virtual reality consuming MLB's regular season.  Especially in Arizona, where we enjoy an embarrassing glut of live baseball ten months each year, and where six months of Daron Sutton broadcasts are already five too many.

thrilling climax and denouement >>>

Ball Back, Spring Ahead

Reservations and what amount to advance cover charges to Casino Lounge West are reportedly disappearing as fast as a $20 bill down the street, but betting on baseball fans to attend actual Diamondback games downtown, remains more of a long shot. This surmised from snips of Derrick Hall's painstakingly leading statements, and neither comes as much surprise.

The Cactus League's latest bauble, wedged just west of its benefactor's gambling palace and east of Paradise Valley, is bound to draw its target clientele; Derrick Hall's wealthy neighbors.

thrilling climax and denouement >>>

Dbacks Unveil World's Largest Lounge

The Diamondbacks and HKS Architects disclosed plans today to erect the most expansive players' lounge in the history of professional loitering areas. Dubbed The Colossal Players' Lounge at Talking Stick, the $100M compound located near Indian Bend just west of SR101 is expected to open for stretching and bullshitting sometime before the Diamondbacks travel to Taiwan.

Amenities include whirlpools and massage tables, sofas, flat screen TV's and even an on site post office and pharmacy, late add ons suggested by coach and part owner, Matt Williams.

Grass and bushes (pictured, foreground) will be planted just north of the 75,000 sq ft compound. Contingent on any remaining funds, an under - sized "ballpark" is proposed for the southern third of the property. Ordinary people may squat on grass mounds in this auxilliary area, and pay to watch players scratch and spit after exiting their exclusive, state of the art facility to the north.

Full Schedule Finally Confronts Hinch

Schedules arent always as they appear. Last April, the Dbacks opened with eighteen of 21 at home, but a physically compromised club couldnt win, and Bob Melvin was fired. In retrospect, it was a brutal opening schedule. Twenty three of 27 opponents with winning records (by year end) - and the four games against "losers" were in Milwaukee, who led their division in May and June and finished 80-82.

Nonetheless, my initial reaction is that Arizona's 2010 schedule looks quite tough. Certainly tougher than the pattycake run Josh Byrnes handed Hinch after Melvin's comparative death march. Which intrigues, because a vital thread in the Dbacks' ongoing disinformation campaign is this business about not judging AJ until he's had a full year under his belt - including his own spring training. It's just another organizational conceit; the idea that a non-experienced hire deserves more of a transition honeymoon, when experienced candidates (including Jim Tracy, presumably) were readily available.

At any rate, we're there. This was the spring and this is the full season the Diamondbacks have been pointing towards since last season's debacle. Forget about 2009, they assure us. Chalk it up to bad luck. Watch us be accountable, on defense and with a whirlwind of offseason moves. That was then and this is now.

They're right about one thing. This is now. Ordinarily, I wouldnt take much notice of preseason records, but since Hinch himself insisted that everything suddenly counted this spring, it should probably be noted he went 15-17, sixth among eight NL Cactus squads. Looking forward, they get an 'extra' game against Washington and Atlanta, but in the Central miss one game against Pittsburg and host St Louis for an extra three game set. That would seem a scheduling disadvantage.

The crusher, though, could be interleague:

Yankees (3)
@ Boston (3)
@ Tampa (3)
@ Detroit (3)
Toronto (3)

Add in eighteen games apiece against the Rockies and Dodgers, supplemented with San Fran's power arms, and it's hard not to get the impression we're looking up at the competition more often than not. That's subjective, very liquid and might not be true as the season unfolds. For example, I'm more optimistic about our offense than most and harbor manifold doubts about the Dodgers. But today, with the number and quality of Webb starts huge unknowns, leaving a rotation of Haren, Jackson, Kennedy, Rodrigo Lopez and somebody else... it's really hard not to form that impression.

Ironically, the schedule commences like another cupcake for Hinch, hosting San Diego and Pittsburg. Beyond that, however, it's a whole new ballgame for our manager trainee - perhaps, all over again.

Everything Counts

Spring ball's never been about the score, but as St Patrick's Day approaches, we note the Dbacks have won a single nine inning exhibition. It's worth mentioning, since manager trainee Hinch suddenly declared everything counts a few weeks back - in an apparent effort to inspire associates, sound leaderish and coyly discount his own farcical dugout debut.

By declaring "everything counts" ten months into the job, can we be forgiven for assuming that less than everything counted before then? Indeed, after Cap'n AJ's "mutineers" brooded and bungled away most of last summer, one might assume nothing counted, beyond making the bosses look bad.

Our flailing franchise went to considerable lengths, tangibly and rhetorically, to distance itself from 2009, ditching three starters - Davis, Scherzer & Garland (late last season) - for Edwin Jackson and Ian Kennedy. They acquired Bob Howry, Aaron Heilman and half a new infield (Kelly Johnson, Adam Laroche). Beyond the overarching hypocrisy of dumping Bob Melvin for resisting an unpracticed "build from within" philosophy, the individual moves have a certain integrity.

The team will hit, by Diamondback standards. Not because the players, aside from Upton, are all that great, but because after five years, Ken Kendrick finally "splurged" on a major league first baseman. That, and Josh Byrnes has artfully aggregated an entire starting eight on the cusps of projected individual primes. Well, Upton's too young and LaRoche ( he of three consecutive 122 ops+ campaigns) is thirty, but it's an impressive mix of demonstrably (if sporadically) accomplished hitters, who are twenty six, twenty seven and twenty eight years old.

These guys' careers might not match the career outputs of Dodger or Rockie counterparts, but baseball is contested in distinct seasons, not careers, and LA tentatively starts three men 35 or older. Furcal is 32. Prudence dictates some declines there. Colorado's not so ancient, but Helton is 36 and Hawpe and Barmes will be 31 by June. The Dodgers and Rockies boast more career talent, but Arizona's positional collection is uniquely poised to peak offensively in 2010.

The countervailing dirt, aside from nagging rotational, defensive and managerial concerns, is that B Webb's not progressing as hoped or expected. Piecoro ominously characterized Brandon's mph as "way down", even after eight bullpen sessions, which at the very least translates to missed starts in April. That wont snuff out Arizona's chances in a weak and declining division, but without a minimum of 100 or so quality innings from Webb, the Diamondbacks as currently constructed should yield too many runs to be a formidable squad.

Everything counts.

Opportunities Galore

It's not enough, apparently, to graciously reap the financial windfall of a coveted Yankee visit in June. No, MLBAM has conspired with the Dbacks to impose one of those faux lotteries on Derrick Hall's dwindling faction of "deeply valued" fans. It's not the kind of generally understood "lottery" where you actually win something. Instead, an undisclosed number of "applicants" will possibly be selected for the humbling opportunity to buy Yankee tickets. At, of course, premium prices. Gee. Bring out the bubbly.

It's also the kind of "lottery" where all the form defaults are set to deluge "applicants" with waves of spam from MLB and the Diamondbacks. Plus, you provide copious personal data with utterly no guarantee of even transacting a sale.

Just to prove they're actually doing this, I screen printed part of their Purchase Opportunity Form (yes, that's what they call it) from dbacks.com before it disappears into the night like a burglar.

This fake contest started back on September 15th (roughly four months after the parent club's fake season began in earnest under AJ Hinch), and ends today, February 19th. Gee, sales have been sluggish since 2005's transfer of power, but does it really take five months to sell Yankee tickets?

The fan friendly Dbacks bestow other ostensible ticket opportunities upon deeply valued followers. Like driving to Tucson($30) to endure exhibitions no one tries to win, and paying $14-18 for each seat with any kind of back to it. Well, $14-18 before various fees and the prevailing privilege of a traffic jam before paying extra for unpaved parking.

These are marvelous opportunities to tell the Diamondbacks, "No thanks." If you love baseball, like I do, the three time defending Pac 10 champion Sun Devils play in a verdant little jewel box in Tempe. An easy walk from light rail, and parking was free the last time I went. Tickets are $7 and $10 for seats right near the action. Players try to win. They care like hell actually, and heated ejections are common. The chattery home crowd is intense and occasionally intimidating, without the benefit of free flowing in-game alcohol or prompts from a giant advertising scoreboard.

Imagine that.

Proud As A Ruse-ter

If Derrick Hall is "proud" of something, watch out. This gushing sentiment of his almost invariably heralds choreographed ambiguities designed to distract and dupe the public. There was the time, for example, when inveterate abuser Alberto Callaspo knifed his common law wife, hurled their one year old into a headboard, and wore Sedona Red a mere nine days later, prompting Hall to express widespread organizational pride. Or the time Hall cheekily exonerated degenerate Dback fans for throwing bottles at Rockie players in the 2007 NLCS. Or when a fan bemoaned the discontinuation of Jerry Colangelo's popular $1 seats, and Hall responded that he was "extremely proud" of the most deceptive pricing campaign in major league baseball.

So be forewarned. Derrick Hall is proud again. Not quietly prideful, like knowing parents who discretely scrimped to put their kids through college. Proud in the papers, and on radio, of his 'creative' front office that didnt bill those taxpaying parents for the club's latest edifice-on-demand. He's trying to contrast the Dbacks with the Cubs, who are lobbying to impose taxes and ticket surcharges pursuant to a new Mesa complex.

Hall:

They [The Cubs] do draw well, as do we, yet we were creative in our search for a new site to identify a partner willing to finance the entire project without public dollars"

- and -

"....we [Dbacks] can take pride in knowing that the taxpayers are not building it [the Scottsdale stadium]."

Except that's exactly what's happening. According to the Phoenix Business Journal (subscription only), the Salt River Pima-Maricopa tribe:

"... is taking a $23M loan, backed by federal stimulus money, to help fund the $100M project."

Sounds as if taxpayers are integral to the Dbacks' venture, after all. Maybe the tribe is, in Hall's words, "willing" to finance the project without public dollars, but what's more germane, it seems to me, is that they will not actually do so.

Hall's Blackjack Ballpark is backed with A) taxpayer stimulus money, presumably spirited away from projects like hospitals, schools and roads - and B) "private funding" - Hall's highbrow euphemism for gambling profits. Little old ladies throwing away social security checks at the slots - that sort of thing. An industry that, apart from alcohol and drugs, undermines more Arizona marriages, families and dreams than any other addiction. Here, in the middle of a regional depression, that addiction enables the Dbacks' wholly discretionary $100M practice complex, in addition to welcome political cover for their third taxpayer financed stadium in fifteen years. These are the creative funding streams Derrick Hall is "proud" of ? Seriously?

I get how stadiums are financed nowadays. No illusions about that. And I dont begrudge the Diamondbacks, or any other club, their right to oppose the Cubs' latest wrinkle on getting others to spring for their spring home away from home. What rankles me are the adjunct allusions advanced by Hall about his organization's motives and actions - and the generally passive Arizona press that let's him do it, virtually unchallenged.

It's not enough for Hall to simply oppose the Mesa legislation, on grounds it's an unprecedented funding mechanism that would raise Cactus League ticket prices. He has to float the broadly inaccurate dichotomy that the Cubs aim to rely on public funding(!), whereas the Diamondbacks did not. Since when is a $23-30M loan backed by federal stimulus not public funding? Well, technically, I guess it's an indirect subsidy, as the money goes to the tribe, or the bank that loans to the tribe, but it's taxpayer dough facilitating, perhaps even enabling, the project. Does Hall limit himself to that rather sly construction? Not with earnest reporters scribbling away.

"It is frustrating to know that state money was used for the last few complexes that opened, yet funding is now dry for the home team" he said.

Ah, the "home team". Nice. The injustice of it all. Of course Arizona taxes should benefit the Phoenix home team, right? Well, no. Not really, actually. The taxing authority (AZSTA) was established to (among other things) seed the economic engine that is the Cactus League - not Arizona's regular season home team. Indeed, our indigenous Diamondbacks may warrant very low priority in terms of AZSTA funding, for several reasons:

1. Our fans are primarily local and dont drive ancillary spending (entertainment and travel).

2. These "last few complexes" Hall cites, enticed brand new teams to Arizona, generating more games and entirely new interest and revenues to the state. To equate the benefits or investment rationales for Goodyear and Camelback Ranch, with the Dbacks' intrastate move from Tucson to Scottsdale, is highly dubious.

3. The Diamondbacks chose to abandon a taxpayer funded stadium in Tucson that is barely a decade old for "greener" pastures. Hohokam is older. Since the early 1990's, the Angels, Padres and Mariners have managed to survive and/or thrive in older parks than TEP. Phoenix Muni was built in 1964 and the Athletics have called it home for 29 years (although it did get a $8M facelift in 2005). Does the "home team" deserve priority consideration over these clubs, just because Diamondbacks brass contracted a shameless case of Camelback Ranch envy?

4. A paid for, alternative Phoenix venue is at the exclusive disposal of the Diamondbacks - namely Chase Field. The club insists it's an unacceptable spring facility, and it's true there arent the necessary practice fields, but potential fields are nearby at Papago Park and easily upgraded elsewhere, and the Dbacks host a pair of spring games every year at Chase.

If Hall's stadium quest was truly confined by organizational pride not to soak the public, couldnt such a 'creative' FO manage the above or similar arrangement? Sure, but they're confined instead by a minimum threshold of conscience. As they've aggressively lobbied the public that both gifted facilities (Chase and TEP) are now completely unsuitable to their "needs", it's easy to make a case the Diamondbacks are among the greediest, least grateful outfits in baseball.

Hardly news to this page, or here and there. Somebody's got to be the greediest MLB team this spring. It might as well be Arizona's duplicitous "home team", applauding itself for years as a singularly fan-centric, virtual non-profit. The point is that neither greed nor gaping inconsistencies - between what is and what the Diamondbacks so often want us to believe - are qualities to be proud of.

Play Ball...or just Play

As if their first half play didnt taint baseball enough, the Diamondbacks have baldly positioned the first ever major league stadium next to a burgeoning strip of casinos.

Ninety years after the Black Sox scandal nearly destroyed the game, and twenty after Pete Rose divided it, reknowned moralizer Ken Kendrick has conspired with Corrupter-In-Chief Selig to push beyond invasive casino advertising and physically link the national pastime with slots, blackjack and "numerous televisions for viewing sporting events".

Sufficiently torn about funneling baseball fans of all ages towards their tax protected gambling mecca, the SRP/MI tribes bankrolled the $100 million Dback playpen with 'winnings' unassigned to their $400 million auxiliary casino being built down the street. Both projects shadow Casino Arizona, one of the state's largest, already located at the Indian Bend and 101 site.

Less conflicted, Derrick Hall and the Diamondbacks methodically undermined their legal marriage with Pima County to abut and abet this Scottsdale gamblers' paradise. On behalf of loyal Tucsonans, who've supported spring ball for sixty consecutive years, the jilted county has threatened to sue the Diamondbacks for multiple breaches of contract, presumably excluding adultery and prostitution. Mr Kendrick shouldnt lose much sleep over legal expenses however, since his model organization is now in bed with casino interests - to a degree unprecedented in the history of baseball.

Goodyear, Arizona

I've been choked up over the loss of traditional spring training for years now, the way old men still ask for Beef Wellington, long since removed from the menu.

No point rehashing details, just thank God the calendar ended this latest vernal iteration of MLB's ostensible largesse, so that fat white drunks can fly home to Chicago and aimless latinos in Manram threads can lowride their chubby families back to Norwalk. Attendance was down about a thousand per game from 2008, up overall due to a couple new teams (LAD & CLE) and stadiums (Camelback Ranch, Goodyear).

By now, the primary beneficiaries of these publicly financed temples shouldn't surprise. Players, coaches and team execs uniformly love the new digs, fans not so much. Indian rooters likened "their" shiny Goodyear complex to a prison, a metaphor begging for more general application in and around MLB.

The paradox is that enough alcoholics and dopes still flock to these overpriced slammers to politically eke out their construction. Goodyear's penal colony, for example, exceeded 99K, well shy of our state's largest holding cells, but a spring mark for visiting Indians.

Club spokesmen call Goodyear an unqualified success. $1.6M in ticket revenue, about that much in beer and junk. How much fry bread does that bring the city? Let's be generous and say Cleveland fans spend six times more outside the stadium than in. That's $3.2M x 6 or $19M, which sounds about right if the Cubs bring Mesa $25. Let's call it $20M. What's the local tax yield on $20M? A million? Toss in a fancy Keynsian multiplier and call it two.

Goodyear residents and tourists, most of whom will never enjoy the venue, let alone benefit from plush clubhouses and opulent weight rooms, paid $108M in taxes to finance it. Sounds like Redistribution of Wealth, my friends. Away from decent, unlicensed, sporadically working Americans like Joe the Plumber.

Sounds like a job for the senior senator from Arizona

Muni Field Trip

After Monday's shuttle snafu, I made it to the Dbacks - A's exhibition today on the electrotrain, and have pictures of my day at Muni. But first, let's get any baseball news out of the way.

Conor Jackson hit a line drive as hard as you can, Mark Reynolds has shortened his stroke with two strikes and James Skelton, the Rule 5 C-IF pickup, who played second today, is really, really small. What does that mean? It means that Jackson is still the team's best hitter, which is not a particularly good thing; it means that Reynolds wont strike out more than 170 times, and it clarifies that Augie Ojeda is short - not small - and Skelton, like Augie, should be alot of fun to root for.

Haren walked three and Jesus Christ Q-perstar gave up a run. Who knows what that means. Jason Giambi and Matt Holliday both play for the A's now. That means the A's will score runs. If you care who "won" Thursday's exhibition, you're in the wrong place. ( OK, it was 6-1 Greenies).

First picture. The Poles! Supposedly shipped from New York's Polo Grounds, and considering the preseason Giants have called Arizona home since the fifties, it's probably true.



The Muni stadium website advertised $6 tickets, but the friendly lady behind the glass doesnt sell those (standing room) until every seat's sold, so I paid the $10 minimum to stand up most of the time anyway.

Next picture! Here's Arizona's new first baseman - Williams...I hear he's a great "clubhouse guy" and has a marvelous Floridian dentist. Incidentally, expand these pix (just click on each one), to fully appreciate.



The hackneyed shot of players warming up...zzz . Guy on the left is Marte, the Valverde look-alike.



Below is just prior to first pitch. Empty towards each foul pole, but a very respectable Thursday turnout. Muni is Metro's most centrally located field, so there was plenty of Dback red, holdover purple, and less Kelly green than usual - no doubt due to curtailed out of town travel. Fans typically arrive late here due to the ugly parking and logistics, and by the third or fourth inning, the park was close to full. I enjoy spring games more when it's not packed. The metal bleachers are always hot and there's more room to aerate or seek shade as needed. People seem to mellow out a bit too.



Here's my lunch, below. A showy husk of corn that you can take home and dry for the autumnal table. This was a plus - healthy, tasty, a little different and less than four bucks. Food prices came down a tad, drinks not so much. The $6 lemonade was $5.75, a hot dog $4.50 - hardly bargains, but at least they jettisoned the patently offensive $7 slice o pizza. Some of the beers were $8-$10 and a thing of Gatorade was $5. Pass.



Civilian Daron Sutton (black shirt, center right) held court, attached at the hip (or shoe) to some beefy handler in a red shirt. Sutton went to his mouth during the anthem and let's just say he enjoys a beer...it must be hell being famous.



The misleading Cactus League and Chamber of Commerce want you to know it was a beautiful 76 degrees, but that's in the shade. There are only a few shaded seats (Daron's section) -everyone else battles the sun.



This lady (seated, center) lost the battle, vomiting into a plastic bag. (WARNING: Expand this photo at your own risk. You can really see the vomit.) Lucky for her it was a balmy 76'. Kidding aside, this was my first spring game in some time where a fan didnt have a life threatening, heat related emergency. It's an increasing problem that baseball dreads talking about.



You cant see the game from here, but this is a nifty little shade area off the left field line, with picnic tables and green grass for the kids. I ate my corn here, under this tree. Several ants crawled up my ass. They were really small, even for ants, smaller than James Skelton, and I didnt know they were on me until they were basically up there.



That's about it.

******************
Song of the Day - I'll Take You There - Staple Singers

Petty Heartbreak

It's a beautiful 70 degree day, and I had the afternoon to myself. So, I impulsively planned to catch my first spring game, down at Phoenix Muni. The parking there is a headache, so why not relax on the bus and light rail instead?



This time of day, most Phoenix routes run on the half hour, and three lines stop near my house and head towards light rail stations. My first two choices, the 32 and 70, both are scheduled to stop at 11:25AM. The 39 bus, which kinda takes me out of my way, stops at 11:32.

I get to the bus stop at 11:21, confirmed digitally. Neither bus arrives at 11:25. The 39 arrives right on time (11:31), but I wave him by, hoping one of the other two is running 5-10 minutes late. 11:40...nothing. 11:45....11:50 nothing.

At this point, I'm half an hour late. The bad news is, I havent purchased a game ticket yet and will have to stand in line at Muni and miss the first part of the game. The good news is I havent purchased a ticket and can just forget the whole thing.

It's a pleasant day and I brought a good book. If I had to get to the game, I could, but this is a pleasure trip and my sneakers have already been breezed by pickups and semis doing fifty up Glendale Avenue for half an hour. There's plenty of other things to do and it's still a beautiful day.

As I walked home, the next 70 arrived at 11:52, three or four minutes early - a double accordion transporting almost no one. Gee, cant imagine why.

************

The Waiting is the Hardest Part (Tom Petty)

The Waiting is the Hardest Part (Kodak)

Spring Training

Bumped into the Padres/ Mariners facility today, but not in the usual way. It was barely 11 AM, and I was on my mountain bike, on the backside of Peoria's complex of well watered fields, bouncing along Skunk Creek's rocky berm.

The bike's too small for my 6'3" frame and the gears stick, but it was a Christmas gift, so I've taken up riding. My journey started, as it typically does, around Granada Park (pictured),



near 20th St and Maryland, and today I was flying - under Glendale Ave and 16th, past the Italian-American Club on 12th, and the stately grove of eucalyptus hugging the water just beyond Northern.

Swooping through Sunnyslope Park between the Central and Dunlap underpasses, the first street level crossing was a quick one, several miles into my ride, across 7th Avenue. From there, it's a long asphalt straight to 19th, along the Army Corps of Engineeers' overflow channel, past Hatcher's scrap metal junkyards and the chorus of condemned howls from the back lot of the Arizona Humane Society.

You reach more ballfields, and a dog park, at the Rose Mofford complex (canal is bottom left in picture, below), then descend beneath I-17. On the far side of the freeway, a recorded carnival barker echoes across the midway of Castles N Coasters. Before today, the farthest I'd ridden was up to 43rd Avenue and back, but I felt so good, legs efficiently pumping, barely changing gears through the steep underpasses, I decided to extend on this beautiful spring morning.



There's a confusing tunnel underpass beneath 51st Avenue (slightly shorter than the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel), that spit me out on an unpaved equestrian trail, on the wrong side of a wide, bowl shaped green belt. Eventally, I found a trail to traverse the steeply-sided bowl to the busy asphalt bike path on the opposite ridge. Took a pitstop near 67th, for a cold drink and dipped back down into the vast Thunderbird recreation area, into this planned floodplain of underutilized playing fields, below trickling ducts and federal cataracts high on the sidewalls, feeding the now skinny waterway bisecting the length of the park.

The rec area ends in the mid seventies, and the bike trail deteriorates, especially if you dont know where you're going, and dont see particularly well, both of which apply. One senses a faint scent of sewage. Now, within sight of the Padre/Mariner light towers, I veered too far right and wound up in a subdivision, before reversing tracks back to the Skunk Creek berm, which abuts the rear of the verdant MLB complex. This is the less traveled Cactus League, and was deserted, except for an old man walking east towards me along the rutted escarpment. Embarrassed to be confronted in such unpromising environs, we exchanged the nervous "Hiya's" of lost souls on unspoken roads to nowhere.

Up a bit, my power shifting juggernaut flushed out a middle aged man and woman from the canal's thick brush. They sprang across my path like jackrabbits, but neither acknowledged me. He held a stick of some kind in his hand. Farther west, behind a nondescript warehouse, an even younger couple was having a snowball fight. A swimming pool-sized pile of snow lay in this weed strewn Peoria alley, enabling their childlike cold war.

This westward soul wasnt getting any younger, however, so I turned left, to the south side of Skunk Creek, past a wire fence warning No Tresspassing, and headed home. For the first time this morning, a breeze hit me in the face. I was having trouble pushing through the higher gears all of a sudden, so ratcheted down to the middle family. Turns out, I hadnt noticed the nice tailwind riding west. It took a good 15-20 minutes just to get back to 75th Avenue. I labored by three Hispanic girls pushing perambulators, and made two decisions. First, I would steal another drink at the rest stop on 67th. Second, I would hug the Thunderbird ridge and not descend into its bowl, to avoid exerting energy pushing up the sidewalls.

I took the promised drink, and wobbled and walked around. My lower back and rump were starting to stiffen and numb, which happened on shorter trips, so I lingered, tired but unalarmed. Took another drink. Stretched. Only 87 avenues to go.



When I hopped on the bike, the first thing I noticed was the wind. This wasnt going to be easy. The greenbelt that bustled with bikers and walkers just an hour ago was almost empty. I struggled back through the 51st avenue tunnels, and moreso under 43rd, grinding gears, so I stopped and dismounted. I was a little dizzy, my rear was numb, so I walked around, sat down and made two more decisions. First, the next time I rested, there would be shade. This place had no cover, but was where I got tired. It also dawned on me that it was getting pretty hot in the sun. I conceded that all future arterial crossings (there would be about a dozen), except the interstate, would need to be at street level - stop, look and listen style - as I no longer had the aerobic resilience to drive through underpass inclines.

Fortunately, it's a flat course, so I ducked my head into the wind, and eeked across 35th Avenue towards the I-17. It's a long tunnel and the incline wasnt as severe as I feared (ie I didnt have to walk the bike), but I was very fatigued. Despite frequent grip changes on the handlebars, the hands, arms and shoulders ached. Legs just about gone, and I was making miserable time, a long way from home.

I pulled in front of the dog park and took a long drink. Sat in the sand, under a shade tree, not caring if I was sitting on years of dried dog pee. It felt good to sit down, in the shade and I could've taken a nap, were there not promises to keep. I felt homeless, ragged, by the park's double gated entrance, as if happy, peppy dog people were afraid I'd ask them for money or a ride. Each time I stood up, I felt a little dizzy, but knew I'd feel more balanced on the bike. So, I took another drink and got on, against the wind.

The sit down helped some, propelling me to 19th avenue, past the condemned dogs off Hatcher, all the way to Sunnyslope High. Seeing the school was a lift, as Central Ave borders the property's far side. Once there, on the east side of town, I would feel "almost home." I waited for traffic to clear on Central and leaned ahead, but already, recuperative benefits of my canine siesta were spent and I set the bike down just shy of Seventh, under the last acacia tree, across the canal from a mortuary.



My acacia spread from its elevated bed, contained by a concrete barrier about a foot wide. I lay on the barrier, on my back for the first time, as if in a stretcher or coffin. It felt peaceful, and my face welcomed the shade of yellow pistils swaying overhead in the beneficent breeze.

My wife rang me on the cell. At least I brought that. I'd been gone three and a half hours. She asked if I needed a ride. The thought had crossed my mind. "Not yet" I said, but cautioned I might need one soon. Her call was a comfort and challenge. I could go a little further, with the upcoming water fountain at Northern, and told her I should be home within the hour.

I needed ten more minutes under the tree, then gingerly traversed Seventh St, three lanes at a time, and was pretty sure I'd stop before Northern, which I did. The fountain there barely dribbled and was hard to drink from. I sucked in air with coolant, and sat in the rest area, and lay on my back once more.

A model and photographer exited a Porsche and she posed by the magnificent stand of eucalyptus. My last leg had been too brief and I wasnt feeling well. I thought about calling home and pulled the phone from my shorts. A rescue would be nice. Help was only ten minutes away and I visualized sitting right there, being brought waters and a banana, and my kid hefting the bike into our SUV. I'd already ridden farther than I ever had. A hundred avenues out, and nearing ninety back. Maybe that was enough. But I'm 48 years old, and even though (and perhaps because) it's painfully obvious this ride was a mistake, I dont know if I'll ever venture this far again. This was either the long bike trip where we rescued Dad, the one he quit, or the long trip Dad finished against the elements.

I had just seen a doctor for the first time in a decade, and there was nothing seriously wrong in the basic physical. Thirty years and forty pounds ago, I had run high school cross country.





Even then, I was predisposed to heat stress and stomach cramps, occasionally vomiting after the finish line surge. I never won a race but had always finished. I put the phone back in my shorts.

It took a long time to cross Northern. Traffic both ways, plus my feeble pace required additional seconds to cross. Twelfth street was skinnier and easier to span and 16th more difficult. Normally, at this juncture, I cross a tiny bridge, zip under Glendale Avenue and follow the canal past my neighborhood, down to Granada Park. I didnt have the strength nor stamina now. My sunburned face was cool and dry, caked with salt. I would cross the six lanes of Glendale Avenue, hopefully before delerium set in. Three lanes first, camp in the turning lane and wait. And wait. I pushed hard for the far sidewalk and made it.

Now I could take my shortcut, a hundred shady yards east, completely level, to the 51 freeway overpass. I beat a minivan across the southbound on ramp to the overpass bridge. At the off ramp ahead, two lines of westbound cars idled, close enough I could touch them. I tried to catch my breath and wits from my concrete perch. The pole position car motioned for me to take the crosswalk before his light turned green. I motioned him forward instead. I needed the blow. He smiled and led the gassy procession past. I looked around the off ramp bend - and bolted - then dipped behind a white pickup, across the last of the four freeway crosswalks.

It was downhill from here, coasting down 19th street, leaning into a left before punishing my dead weight over the final, steep lip of the driveway. Home. Thirsty and hyperventilating, I dispensed a tall water and fell into a plastic backyard chair. My wife said something about our summer vacation plans and I grunted. Another glass of water and the best banana ever. A couple of small oranges. I lay in bed soonafter, achy, half beathing-half groaning, shrouded with a beach towel, once I got the chills. I asked for the big red plastic bowl, and vomited the fruit.

Then a warm, wobbly shower and I put on fresh, loose clothes slowly, like an old man. It had been more than four hours in the sun, and thirty five, perhaps forty miles, on an unseasonably warm and gusty day, by one normally hard pressed to jog by five or six consecutive telephone poles. A couple hours later, after modest sips of Gatorade and licking the salt off crackers, there were stories to be told.

I am a loud vomiter, and when my body eventually progressed to the living room, the teen belatedly asked - in sarcasm more than query - if I "was going to die". I am, of course, but not today. I smiled sheepishly at the involuntary cachophony and assured him I'd be alright.

Two weeks ago, at his parents' request to get more involved at school, the freshman tentatively joined the track team. He thinks the coach runs them too hard, but he's dabbling with the discus and shot, for the time being. Now, I asked him to pick my bike off the driveway and put it in the shed. This was the better rescue, for him certainly. I am a jaded soul on an unspoken road to nowhere, but he's still young. At least I had brought it home. A few more crackers, and Providence, and maybe we'd both find our legs.

Picnic

As NL West brethren take BP, workout and improve, Bob Melvin, the game's premiere communicator with a losing managerial record, is intently prepping to address one of baseball's five largest workforces - three hundred Diamondback employees not selling tickets.

It's Derrick Hall's idea and here's his money quote:

"We have a great group of players, and we want our employees to get to interact with them so they can see that first hand"

Peculiar the feted 300 dont currently see that first hand, because after spring ball, they and the players basically work in the same building for six months. You'd think if the club simply instructed players not be A-holes half the year, say "Hi" once a month, the org might quietly bond without the expense (and pretense) of a media-driven feel trip.

Besides, what quality of "interaction" can one reasonably expect from this controlled, public relations picnic? Two hints:

the D-backs manager has invited the entire front office to sit in on the talk, which will be held outside at the Team's Minor League complex.

Team employees will be bused down to Tucson in the morning and following the meeting will watch the workout, have lunch and then head back to Phoenix.

So, underlings will "sit in" at a large outdoor gathering, "watch" a workout, be fed and return home on a bus. Not exactly a petri dish for lasting relationships. Meaningful communciation with a player can probably be ruled out under such circumstances, unless diddling the gal from payables behind the pavillion, accrues any added significance this spring.

***********

Song of the Day - Day Tripper (The Beatles)

Renaissance

The car drank half a tank, delivering my young teen and a couple of his boy friends to the Arizona Renaissance Festival, somewhere between Apache Junction and Guatemala. Only after returning to the rural highway, after dropping the kids off, could I appreciate the festival's tallest structure, the medieval jousting stadium, magically lifting thousands of enthusiasts into the bright, sparsely clouded Sonoran sky, transporting them to an earlier time.

I made the trek back towards Phoenix along impossibly linear State Route 60, accompanied by Joni Mitchell on the radio.

***

I've looked at clouds from both sides now,

From up and down and still somehow.

It's cloud illusions I recall,

I really dont know clouds at all.

***

Free of the kids, pointed straight along an endless sunny highway, losing count and care of spindly light towers, like aluminum mantises preying in a row. East of Phoenix and far from Eden, the 60 finally and fully arcs into grim, loud Interstate 10 near a place called Diablo, where drunken Tempe chafes devout Guadalupe and brushes up against muscular Phoenix.

It is at this devil's triangle, where so called Angels play a lazy practice game, and where a voyager, navigating asphalt curves at 72 mph, is struck by how full the stands appear, compared to the half empty hangar due west on Jefferson Street, host to unsplit squads actually try to win.
This is spring ball's renaissance. At Diablo, the vermillion crowd of 8000 is packed like new cherries in a crate, and up the road in Scottsdale, the cheapest seat from which to catch Giants flounder is $13. Well, that's standing room; an actual seat costs extra. The thrill of watching Dan Ortmeier ground out, at those prices, drew ten thousand Saturday.

Many more than the time before television money drove our entertainments, and baseball stands were made of pine. When Scottsdale had no clubhouse, and players - star players - casually filed into the one parking lot, postgame, with the entire scarcity of sun baked cognoscenti, separated only by an equipment bag or a young autograph seeker's timidity. At today's secure and "improved" MLB proxy complexes, chances of bumping into a star are as distant as at MLB games - and astronomical compared to hanging around Congress.

Inside the bustling Renaissance Fair, the boy ate a six dollar turkey leg, then ate up the comic stockaded prisoner hurling salty insults at passers by. The festival was rife, he told me later, with lonely fellows in their twenties and thirties, many clad like medieval Trekkies, more eager to exit their century than unrequited conversations.

Today's ballyards also brim with those in their twenties and thirties, instructed largely by television that it's the place to be - and be seen - wired hounds and gadflys openly courting the scene rather than any subtle romance with a game many of them never played.

From the highway, I've looked at crowds from both sides now. From a Renaissance Fair to the teeming Cactus League. Two corporations cashing in on the present, one by unapologetically immersing itself in the past, the other alternately harkening and ignoring its past at its calculated convenience.



(photos courtesy of danieloates.com)

Selling The Old Fashioned Way

The dozen Cactus League clubs just announced their respective guidelines for purchasing spring training (ST) tickets. Ten intrepid teams, wielding experimental, late 20th century technology, provide for so called "internet" sales. Only the Texas Rangers and Diamondbacks dont offer tickets online.

Maybe the ticketing software on dbacks.com is simply, as the techies say, "down"? Or is this a conscious repudiation of modernity, heralding homey Western nostalgia previously associated with the distant, increasingly charmless Cactus League? Here's hopin' the Dbacks swap my ol' weathervane fer a shady bullpen pair agin' them Colorado. Or this here right nice saddle for a mess a them thar box seats down Old Pueblo way. Nothing screams western hospitality like old time Arizona - at least until both Afro-American fans are pelted with rotting winter grapefruit at the turnstiles, courtesy of local registered voters.

The good news is that, today, valley Dback fans, white and theoretically black, may purchase ST tickets in person, at the TEP box office conveniently located north of Nogales. Or those with an inkwell, blotter and the appropriate stamps, may instead write a letter to The Arizona Diamondbacks Baseball Club, and presumably receive some kind of reply.

Finally, tech savvy fans with spare time between cattle drives may hunt down tickets via electronic telephone.

"Thank you for continuing to hold. Your call is fairly important to us."