June 20, 2011

White Sox vs. D-backs

Friday we got a later start than we intended. We thought we'd make it up on the road, but outside of Kingman, AZ we came to a hault for nearly two hours. A tanker and truck were in an accident that resulted in the tanker catching fire. It burnt the truck to a crisp and the fire spread across the highway. Shutting I-40 down in both directions. All we could do was wait it out.





















As soon as we got to our friend Shane's house we left to head to downtown Phoenix for the game. We grabbed a bite at Crazy Jim's beforehand it was really good. They make their own bread, pita and dough. I had a calzone with chicken, feta and artichokes. We also shared saganaki to start. We'll definitely go back.

We were able to buy tickets for $10 each from a guy selling outside the ticket window at the ballpark. It saved us time in line and $15 bucks. Chase field is a nice park (it's also the sixth stadium we've been to this year if you count Spring Training). The roof was open for friday night's game. We lost, but stayed for fireworks. The first couple shots went off no problem, the third failed to reach the sky before exploding. The top of the garage caught fire. The rest of the show was cancelled due to technical difficulty. Yeah, I'd say.. Our second fire of the day, wtf?

Saturday afternoon we tried a new Chicago-style hot dog joint, FrankNSteins, that opened in Surprise. They have all the right stuff, direct from Vienna Beef. It was tasty, but their fries were terrible. Will never bother with those again, but we'd certainly return for the beefs and dogs.

Saturday and Sunday we had VIP parking and club box seats because Shane's employer holds season tickets. We went to Alice Cooperstown beforehand to get a couple beers. Cool place, large beer garden. Just had to down the beers fast. They get warm quick in plastic when it's 105. Game was great, fantastic seats, the roof was closed so the AC was kicking and we won. Ballpark eats were lacking, for my something special to the park I tried a Nach-yo dog (hot dog topped with cheese, sour cream and jalapeno). I thought it'd be way better. Afterwards, we went to Brookside Bar & Grille we had a couple rounds while playing darts. We got hungry so we moved over to the restaurant. We shared 50 wings and had nearly 20 left over. Their firestorm wings are pretty hot, we washed them down with a couple pitchers of Dos Equis. I suspect we filled up on beer and left little room for food. Shane and Frank played a couple more rounds of darts, I sat out after yet another embarrassing attempt earlier in the night.

Sunday's game drew a big crowd. There were many in attendence to see another White Sox win. After the game, we dropped Shane at home and said so long until next time. Fortunately we had a smooth (fire-free) drive home.

Chase Field has a retractable roof and real grass.





The park's claim to fame is the Party Pool & Spa



D'back mascots







Always funny to see first at bats for pitchers.



We saw Paul Konerko's 17, 18, 19 home runs, they happened on the 17th, 18th and 19th. This was #17.





It was neat that the background for each player was a Chicago landmark. It rotated between 5 or 6 different sights.





2 comments:

Jay said...

Ok, this time I'm really jealous. I was in Phoenix for a full week of training for my previous job about 3yrs ago. It was summer, but lo and behold, the D'backs were on a super long road trip...and no home games *the entire week!*. Similar to your fire comment - "wtf"??? I was super bummed bc from the outside it looked like a really cool stadium. I hope to get back one day.

I hope the folks in that crash survived...it looked pretty nasty.

Kellee said...

It is a great stadium. I do recommend taking in a game if given the chance. It's one of two ballparks with a dirt strip. I've been to both, the other is Comerica Park in Detroit.

Three were involved in the wreck, but there were no reported injuries. It could have been a lot worse.