Dragons Are Real

Thursday, April 12, 2018: Nagoya, Japan

Chunichi Dragons 9, Tokyo Yakult Swallows 4

I sampled a baseball game on my first-ever trip to Japan.

It was a cultural experience, aided by my own incompetence.

As easy as it is for a foreigner to use Japanese public transit, it is tricky as hell to navigate something like a baseball game.

Bear in mind that I do not speak or read Japanese, and had spent all of four days in Japan.

I wandered up to the Nagoya Dome on a weeknight, entering the situation cold. My first mission: how to buy a ticket and get in.

Figuring out where to buy a ticket: simple enough.

Now where do I go?

What do I do when I get to the front of the ticket line: not so simple.

My goal: getting a ticket in the 2000-yen range (roughly 20 bucks). Through a series of very bad mime moves, pointing at the ticket price chart, and displaying two 1,000-yen bills, I did end up with a ticket.

Which turned out to be in the supporters’ section.

 

Talk about your full-on cultural experience.

This is one of the key things that makes Japanese baseball a bit different from the North American Way. These supporters’ sections, in the outfield, are constantly drumming, and singing, and chanting a series of chant-songs, following the cues of a cheer-master at the front of the section.

So this was interesting. I must have stuck out like sore thumb, but I went along with it, stood when everyone stood, cheered when everyone cheered, even high-fived my neighbor when Zoilo Almonte hit a first-inning home run as the home team put up three runs in the first frame.

This was not at all a sold out game, so after a couple innings trying to fit in, I snuck off and returned to one of the neighboring, non-supporter sections to take up my normal fly-on-the-wall observer role.

Other things that are different in Japan:
Pregame (and in-game) dance team.

Look out for the wall!

No warning track; just a painted line one would miss is looking up for a fly ball.

And the most civilized of all: the team offers paper cups at the entrance for people to carry their canned beer in. Can you even image that in the U.S.? At 700-750 Yen, the stadium beer is pricy for the local market, though obviously cheaper than in MLB.

Things that are similar:
Japan has video replay review, and it also takes forever in the Far East. All to overturn a bunt out with a 6-1 lead.

Pace of play — the game took more than three-and-a-half hours. So it’s understandable that after six, with the home team ahead 9-1, Dragons fans headed en masse for the exits, echoing the Dodgers look of their team’s uniforms.

Rueful observation: This would have been a great night for outdoor baseball.

Recap here.  Archived here.

Box score here.  Archived here.

The Heat is On

Sunday, February 25, 2018: Stockton, Calif.

Stockton Heat 4, San Diego Gulls 2

I can’t believe it’s been 11 years since I last ventured to Stockton for a hockey game.

Things have changed a bit.

The old Stockton Thunder of the low-minor-league ECHL are gone, replaced by a Calgary Flames farm team as part of the 2015 realignment of minor league hockey that put five members of the highest-level minor league, the American Hockey League, in California.

The AHL team came with a new identity, the Stockton Heat, with uniform and logo closely aligned with the Flames’, um, flame motif.

Despite the higher quality of play, I wonder if the bloom has gone off the rose somewhat for hockey in Stockton.

Attendance was announced at 3,370 — hopefully it was just a slow Sunday. Maybe they should have offered more Andrew Mangiapane  bobbleheads. I was there early but not early enough to get one.

Anyway, the game was proficiently played, in the way that has made pro hockey a little boring to watch, in which effective defensive disruption in the neutral zone made it hard for either team to maintain much in the way of interesting puck possession. On the other hand, most of the goals, as I recall, came on fast moving breakout plays.

The pest: Watching the warmups, I pegged the Heat’s Ryan Lomberg as a bit of a wise-ass. True to form the player, who was up and down from Calgary all season, was exactly that kind of on-ice pest you want on your team and hate on your opponent’s. His heads-up play netted him two assists.

A long road from Moline: Backup goalie C.J. Motte, signed that very day, wore a helmet painted for the Quad City Mallards.
The Heat starter, Ryan Faragher, had only been signed two weeks earlier.

Fashion notes: I saw an Erik Karlsson Senators jersey.
I saw a Teemu Selanne Jets jersey.
I saw many people wearing Heat jersey.
I even saw someone wearing a San Francisco Bulls jersey.

I did not see a single Stockton Thunder sweater.

The media today: The press row was largely deserted except, I think, for a couple people who work for the Heat.

My wife will be happy to read this: There were no fights. Though there was a third-period roughing incident that came close …

Game reports: here and here.

Box score: here

Highlights: here

Words and Music

Friday, Oct. 20, 2017: Slim’s, San Francisco

Paul Kelly 

It was ‘Darling it Hurts’  that grabbed me. I don’t recall what exactly inspired me to pick up ‘Gossip’ by Paul Kelly and the Messengers back in 1987 (on cassette!) but that was the song that immediately grabbed my attention, with its upbeat roadhouse rock married to a downbeat tale of a fellow who sees his ex walking the streets.

That terrific tune turned into my gateway into a terrific record, and indeed a musician I have followed ever since, even through the pre-Internet times when it was hard to track a musician from far-away Australia who never quite cracked the States commercially.

‘Darling it Hurts’ isn’t quite at the highest level of the Paul Kelly canon — it wasn’t on the greatest hits collection that cemented his position as an Australian icon — and I don’t know that I’ve hever heard it played live.

So what a damned treat and complete, grin-inducing surprise that Paul Kelly and the band closed the pre-encore part of their San Francisco set with that song.

Kelly has a career with rare staying power. After more than three decades of recording, at age 62, he’s still in a position to open a concert by playing his brand new album (it’s very good) in full, in order, and command the audience’s attention.

And then we were treated to the hits.

The band was in terrific form; the highlight for me watching guitarist Ash Taylor. With his red pants and flopping hair, he looked like he’d been time-machined from a Faces show in the 70s, but played much more cleanly, suiting the material. Longtime collaborators Vika and Linda Bull also added their vocals the range of the performance, which ranged from subdued and quiet tunes to all-out rockers.

Kelly has appeared regularly on this side of the Pacific, but typically in an acoustic setup with maybe a single sideman.

This may have been the last Paul Kelly show in North America before this tour. It was a cracker.

This tour was a special treat because its the first time in years — since 2002 I believe — that he has toured North America with a full band.

I’m not sure how the economics of this work; moving a seven-piece band around the United States to play club gigs may not pencil out that great. So it may between a long time and never before we see Paul Kelly in North America with full-band setup again. I’m glad I had the chance.

The Green Grass of an Old Home

Monday, Sept. 5, 2016: Oakland, Calif. 

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 10, Oakland Athletics 7 

It had been too long since I’ve seen an A’s game.

Admittedly, Billy Beane and Lew Wolff have done their best to discourage anyone from keeping up with the A’s, but that never-ending roster reshuffle and a .423 winning percentage resulted the availability of a nice seat near third base for a mere $20 on StubHub, so there I was.

IMG_9448The Coliseum experience remains what it has long been — the place is less than ideal for baseball — though the presence of gridiron lines on the field let me know my seat would have been excellent for football as well.
But the fans are great, their passion and timing more than making up for their relatively small numbers, an announced 18,149 on Labor Day against a team that was equally disappointing this year.

A Latino Nuke LaLoosh: It was the major-league debut for A’s pitcher Raul Alacantara, who marked the occasion by hitting three batters in the first, on his way to giving up five run in two innings that also featured a home run and a run-scoring balk. No where to go but up.
His shaky start helped put the A’s down 8-2 after the top of the third, but give them credit for fighting back to get to within 8-7, stranding 11 runners in the process.

No excuse: After all the recent trades, Stephen Vogt is the only name I recognized on the roster, but I should have known about Khris Davis, who entered the game with 34 home runs and added a 35th in the seventh.

EckheadNew and Maybe Improved: Since my last trip to the Coliseum, they’ve either put in new scoreboards or gave them a software update, delivering high resolution through what tech critics would call a crowded, confusing UI.

They’ve also added a mascot race, in which giant-headed versions of Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Finger and Ricky Henderson raced around the infield. Eck won, but I suspect the event’s result may be predetermined, unlike the dot race …

Game recap here and boxscore here.

Fish Story

Monday, January 18, 2016: San Jose, Calif. 

Bakersfield Condors 5, San Jose Barracuda 3

This year, five western NHL teams conspired to move their American Hockey League affiliates to California, with the idea that they’d be able to keep closer tabs on their prospects.

Four teams took the logical route, and located their new teams either in cities that already had teams in the lower-level ECHL or had a minor league hockey history.

The Sharks simply moved their Worcester Sharks into their own rink in San Jose to become the Barracuda.

A good look at the SAP Center's seat-color patterns
A good look at the SAP Center’s seat-color patterns.

 

The game experience was as desultory as my previous AHL experience, for entirely different reasons.

 

A lot of the things I hate about the game experience were the same: crappy loud rock was blasted at every. single. moment the puck is not in play; vast realms of empty seats both in front of and behind curtains lowered to hide even more empty seats.

San Jose added the pain by brightly flashing a strobe-type light throughout the arena every 10 to 15 seconds, perfectly timed to give me a headache. And the in-arena PA announcer substitutes volume for ability.

Adding to the desultory nature of things is the way the Sharks set up the Barracuda game experience at SAP Center.
Almost every concession stand was closed.
But the few that were open charged full NHL prices.
It took me until the third period to find the table where they were handing out game roster sheets.

The actual hockey game itself was good, and I appreciated being able to afford a ticket to see it up close (in contrast to Sharks games) but the environment in which I had to watch it sucked.

Crash Davis minor league echo: San Jose coach Roy Sommer – a more interesting character than the fictional Bull Durham slugger – was looking to tie the AHL record of 636 coaching wins.

Fashion note:  San Jose played in orange uniforms that looked like practice jerseys. That allowed Bakersfield to play in their smart Edmonton Oilers-based white jerseys, further proving that I am correct in believing home teams should play in white.

Strong argument for white home jerseys
Strong argument for white home jerseys.

Music criticism: Playing ‘Even the Losers’ sounds a bit desperate after the opponents’ fourth goal.

Attendance: claimed to be 5,872. Seems optimistic.

Name of the Game: Rob Klinkhammer of Bakersfield. The Name of the Game honor is strictly for most interesting-sounding name, but the Colonel potted two goals and an assist.

Say something nice: No lines for the restrooms.

Game reports here and here.

 

Up Canada Way

Sunday July 12, Vancouver, B.C. 

Salem-Keizer Volcanoes 10, Vancouver Canadians 5
I’ll cut to the chase; Nat Bailey Stadium was a pretty cool place to watch a baseball game. We were in Vancouver on vacation, and I was pleased to find that the Canadians had a homestand during our stay.

Pandering to one of my biases, it’s an old stadium (though they’ve updated a little bit recently).

I was struck the most by its resemblance to another venerable minor league venue closer to my home: Municipal Stadium in San Jose.
It’s of a similar vintage, built to a similar design, is similarly unfussy, has a similar location in a park outside the city center, and proudly displays its history along the interior corridors.

IMG_0723

To make this Californian even more at home, British Columbia was experiencing a severe drought.
The stadium has come down a peg from earlier decades when the home team played triple-A ball; the Pacific Coast League packed up in 1999 and moved to Sacramento.
Happily a Northweast League team arrived the next year, and I think the less high-falutin’ nature of the short-season single-A suits the homespun nature of the stadium anyway.
Short-season A is where new draft picks often get their first taste of the pros and, from the evidence on hand the Blue Jays (Vancouver’s parent team) didn’t maybe draft all that well. The Canadians started well but their bullpen was catastrophic and more than gave away the lead the team had put together through the first six innings. The lowlight was back-to-back Salem-Keizer home runs in the seventh.
One Vancouver player stood out, first for his awesome name — Earl Burl III — and then by playing aggressive and effective baseball, stroking a first-pitch RBI in his first at-bat.
He used his speed to force an error to reach base in the seventh, then hustled to break up a likely double play.

Salem=Keizer may have played better, but the Canadians looked better — the Salem-Keizer uniforms looked like T-shirts.

Nice minor league touch: $1 root beer Sunday.

And the grounds crew danced for the seventh inning stretch.

IMG_0721

Recap here, here and here:

Inside the Great Red Hockey Machine

It’s not unusual to see near-identical ideas result in films released at the same time.

Save the world from a killer asteroid. Terrorists attack the White House.

Usually, it’s simultaneous schlock.

It’s happened again, but it isn’t schlock — it was my unexpected pleasure to enjoy two high quality documentaries about Soviet hockey in a three-day period.

It’s hard to imagine that the directors and producers of ‘Red Army’ and ‘Of Miracles and Men’ weren’t aware of each other’s efforts — particularly since the great defenseman Slava Fetisov pays a pivotal role in both documentaries.

It’s not a repetitive journey — each film uses a different lens to tell the story of Soviet hockey.

“Of Miracles and Men,” an ESPN 30 for 30 production, has a higher concept at its disposal: looking at the 1980 Olympics’ ‘Miracle on Ice’ contest from the point of view of the Soviet players who were on the losing end.

The film’s storyline runs through Fetisov, who agreed to revisit Lake Placid to be interviewed there.

‘Red Army’ tries to paint a broader picture — explaining how the Soviet hockey program worked, trying to unravel the seeming contradiction of how such a brutal and rigid system produced such beautiful hockey.

VFK
Slava Fetisov is the key figure in both documentaries. Credit: Sony Classics

The answer to that question, in another irony, lies in the efforts of one individual in a collective society: Anatoli Tarasov, the father of Soviet hockey, who developed the intricate passing system that Soviet teams rode to world domination.

Both films tell his story, though it’s featured more heavily in ‘Red Army’ which traces the rise of hockey in the Soviet Union, and also its fall, centering largely on Fetisov, who largely through the force of his will forced open hockey’s Iron Curtain, which had kept Soviet stars from playing abroad.

Both films are well worth anyone’s time; they’re not just for hockey fans.

By happenstance, I saw ‘Red Army’ first, and if one has a choice I
think that’s the best order to watch them in, as it paints a larger canvas that provides context with which to appreciate the specific moment ‘Of Miracles and Men’ revisits.

‘Red Army’ is in theatrical release around the U.S.; ‘Of Miracles and Men’, which debuted on ESPN, is now available on Netflix.

Can’t Go Home Again

Dec.  7, 2014: Hartford, Conn.

Hartford Wolf Pack 4, Binghamton Senators 2

This was my first visit to what I knew as the Hartford Civic Center for 22 years. It was disheartening.

The last time I was there it was because I made a point of seeing a Hartford Whalers game on a trip home. The team had five more years left before nefarious manipulations ended its Hartford run, but I already had a sense that the team’s future was precarious.

About my relationship with the Whalers: it’s complicated.

Always have been a Buffalo Sabres fan, and will be as long as they remain there. But I moved to Connecticut before fifth grade, and my life as a hockey fan became entwined with the Mighty Whale, from games at the Civic Center (many, but not all, against the Sabres) to “Hockey Night in Hartford” on Channel 30.

I’m not looking it up, but in all the years, the Whalers and Sabres shared the five-team Adams Division, which had four playoff spots, I don’t think they both made the postseason in the same year.

So it was pretty easy to adopt the Whalers as my second team, enjoying their triumphant, parade-worthy run to the second round (I attended game three in Hartford) in 1986, (damn you Claude Lemieux) and their division championship the next year as the Sabres were busy, um, rebuilding.

Anyway, to me the Civic Center scene meant buzzing crowds, big-time players, and games that meant something. It had atmosphere.

Everything that was lacking at what is now known as the XL Center.

IMG_6816
A small gathering at the former Civic Center.

 

The year after the Whalers were moved, the New York Rangers moved their farm team into the arena, and there it has remained ever since. The Wolf Pack is in its 18th season in Hartford, matching the number of NHL seasons the Whalers spent there. (But don’t forget the WHA!)

The arena is visibly the same. And in all honesty, the quality of the AHL game wasn’t bad. But the whole experience was as flat as a four-day old cup of soda.

There was a group of rowdy fans that chanted semi-obscenely behind one of the goals. They tried. There was all kinds of the blaring loud music Kevin Dupont refers to as audioporn blaring from the P.A. system. But it echoed off the sea of empty seats.

IMG_6783
Many more empty seats are hidden behind the curtains.

 

There’s a big problem with AHL hockey. The team isn’t really set up to win. Winning’s nice, no one complains, but the team exists to serve the needs of the big-league team, and if those needs weaken the AHL team, so what?

Even if I lived in Connecticut I don’t think I’d ever attend another Wolf Pack game.

I doubt the NHL will return. The league doesn’t have that much class and good sense.

But there is a silver lining for Connecticut hockey fans.

There are three Division I teams in the state. Two of them met in the 2013 NCAA final.

The third, UConn, joined the powerhouse Hockey East conference this year. Given the deep support for UConn sports in the Nutmeg state, I won’t be surprised if the halls of the former Hartford Civic Center buzz and its rafters rattle with cheers from fans watching high-level hockey that counts for something.

Worth Every Penny: Thanks to the Boy Scout leader who offered their extra tickets to me and others standing in line. 

Hank
Henrik Tallinder, top, wearing #7, staring down the prospect of retirement.

Bloodlines: The Wolf Pack dressed two Bourque brothers and a Vaive, all sons of well-known NHLers.

Where Have You Gone, Hank Tallinder? To Hartford, where the former Sabre was playing on a professional tryout deal.

He looked like a steadying influence on defense, but the Wolf Pack cut him loose a week later.

Game Report: Here and here.

More photos here.

Soccer City PDX

May 17, 2014: Portland, Ore.

Portland Timbers 3, Columbus Crew 3

It was a weird, but wonderful birthday present.

Get out of town, my wife said. Go see a soccer game in Portland.

So I did.

Now I’m not a Portland Timbers fan. But I am a soccer fan. And I am a fan of Portland. And the two go very well together.

A lot has been written about the fan experience in Portland. The Timbers Army, et al. It’s pretty much true, and I won’t repeat it.

 

Timbers Army -- European style tifo, without the fascism.
Timbers Army — European style tifo, without the fascism.

 

 

What really pushes the experience over the top, and where Portland and its soccer team got a little lucky, is the stadium.
I first set eyes on what was then Civic Stadium in 1990, the first time I visited Portland, and I was enchanted even then. It was a baseball stadium, but something about the way it was tucked into the Portland street grid connected with me.
But I’d never seen a game there until now.
The Timbers owner persuaded the city to pour some money into the old stadium help induce Major League Soccer to town, and part of the former outfield has been converted into a modern stand on the west side.
But the rest of the stadium is delightfully (unless your view is obstructed) retro.
The layout of the stadium combines with the raucous Timbers fan base for a spot-on live experience. Nirvana for a soccer fan.
The game itself was quite entertaining, with a mix of over-the-top fouls, spectacular goals, and gutsy comebacks.

When all was said and done, though, I wasn’t sure how much of a deep impact the Timbers have made on the larger community. Was this support deep, but narrow?
I think I got an answer the next morning, when I stopped at an industrial size breakfast operation, out in the suburbs near the airport, far from the yuppies of the Pearl and the Portlandia characters in Southeast.
I had my Sunday Oregonian open to the sports section, reading about the game, and the server started chatting about the game, and how the Timbers were struggling this year.
I don’t think that would even happen in an eatery across the street from the San Jose Earthquakes’ stadium
On that basis, I’ll say the Timbers have broken through.

Hard proof not everything was updated when Portland renovated the stadium.
Hard proof not everything was updated when Portland renovated the stadium.

The Bad Side: After Powell’s brutal foul, had to spend the next hour listening, over and over, to the bozo behind me complain to his friends about how the ref had blown the call and was biased against the Timbers. This is why Portland supporters are the Vancouver Canuck fans of Major League Soccer.

Postgame Quote of the Year: Portland’s Will Johnson: “We have the heart of the lion, but the brain of goldfish.

Game report here.