A Goodyear for Baseball

Some of you may remember several months ago when we first started talking about our Odyssey to warmth that the primary impetus for this was to watch the Red Sox spring training game in Florida.  After some internal debate about length of trip and the fact that we've been to Florida many times, we decided to go to Arizona which had the big bonus of being able to visit some very young, old, old friends. Until I did the research, I didn't realize that Arizona is also the heart of the Cactus League.

So on Thursday we drove up to Goodyear, Arizona, just outside Phoenix, to watch a game between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox.  Goodyear Stadium was just beautiful!  It is under five years old, and they have really thought of everything.  The three entrances all lead you to a wide concourse above seats and field, the latter of which is set into the ground in a natural amphitheater .  It has all of the usual food concessions around the top with the addition of margaritas. Those were too much to pass up, so Barbara and I sampled them, while Bob had a Sam Adams.  Bob was smart; the margaritas were mediocre, especially when compared to those excellent ones we had had at Wisdom's a few days earlier. The five dollar personal pizza, however, was not only a bargain but was also delicious!

Every seat in the stadium was a good one since they only seat about 8500 plus berm seating, and every seat has a cup holder.  What else could we want?  The air temperature reached 91° while we were there, and for the first time since our arrival I finally believed everyone's comment about the dry heat.  We were very comfortable watching the game.  I'm sure we were sweating, or maybe glowing, as ladies tend to do, but the cooling evaporation is so quick you never feel uncomfortable. I still think that 110° in the summer would feel hot, regardless of the dryness of the air.

We saw two Red Sox fans, one of them wearing a Trot Nixon jersey, and gave them a high five. I didn't think too much of them a few minutes later when they were dissing A. J. Pierzynski.

And what visit to Arizona would be complete without seeing the Rooster Cogburn ostrich ranch? Alas, we did not have enough time to go in.

Later, I checked my March madness bracket, and found that I had inadvertently selected 22 winners out of the first 32 games.  However, I did not choose either of the 15-2 upsets. did anyone?!