Las Vegas 51's

We got an opportunity to go see a pro baseball team thursday night.  The Las Vegas 51's, Triple-A farm team of the Toronto Blue Jays!  We got tickets through Tanya's work and were seated in the 'Party Zone' right down the the third base line.  The Party-Zone could also be called the 'killer-foul-ball-zone' for all the baseballs that landed in the area.  We were warned as we went in, and it didn't disappoint.  Next time I'll be bringing my glove.

Cashman Field is located in North Las Vegas in an area that we hadn't been to before.  This is 'old Vegas', the decayed and decrepit part of town that progress moved away from and left for dead, the part we were warned not to venture to.  Every city has their run down areas with low income housing and hollowed out businesses and buildings that house all those sorrowed souls.  It is an unfortunate fact of life that for some to rise to such heights, civilization will pay their ultimate price.  

You can always count on a baseball game to get a true, cross-sectional representation of the community.  I don't think there would be many tourists at Cashman Field unless they were huge baseball fans.  North Vegas ain't your touristy part of town.  The stadium was filled up with locals, and I felt for the first time here that we were now part of it, part of that local showing coming out to support the team.  And its just too funny that the 51's are Toronto's farm team. 

You get a good sense of the local pulse at a baseball game.  Even more so than hockey, per say, because you don't get all walks of life at a hockey game, and the vibration isn't there like it used to be.  In baseball, its a social engagement in the stands and the babble of the crowd is ever present above whatever is happening on the field.  A hockey game is more serious and confined.  Most eyes are glued on the action all the time and the social babble is doused by the newly adopted arena policy to gag its audience with shitty loudspeaker music in between every whistle.  Shitty music to gag the rowdies and prompt some kind of crowd response, as if they didn't have anything to say, just there to react.  I hate that.  In my day, when we went to the Campbellton Tiger games as kids, the crowd was rabid.  Teams hated playing in Campbellton because it was OUR rink.  If the Tigers didnt' get you, the crowd would eat you alive.  The crowd is part of the overall energy of a game and a huge part of the home team's identity, but when they are not allowed to let their voices be heard it loses a part of that community vibration and character.  Hockey has gone to great lengths to clean up their show to make it a family-friendly event by keeping the rowdies out, gagging the breaks, keeping beer prices insanely high, and pushing the promotional gimmicks to sell the corporate ticket, hammering everyone in attendance into submission.  In baseball, I get a sense that the riotous spirit is alive and well within the community.  Dollar-beer nights, unleashed fans, the free spirit to smoke a doob and enjoy the night.  In baseball you can still yell insults at the opponents and at the officials and everyone will cheer to back you up.  Hockey has adopted the facade of some corporate, goody-two-shoe'd event which hides what every hockey fan feels in their heart... only to suffer another round of 'Cotton-Eyed-Joe'.  Its a good thing the game is so entertaining.

Cashman Field

People in the States love their baseball!  I never understood their fascination with it.  Its a boring sport really, so much sitting around and waiting.  I could never watch it on TV.  But the game last night was pretty cool to see.  Cashman Field is very nice, as are all the ballfields here.  Finally I understand that a bit more... that here in the States, you can play ball year-round, their fields don't get wrecked by winter, so the game is deeply engrained in their psyche.  Now it makes more sense to me.  Even the little league fields here are immaculate.  Now I understand. 

Our seats in the party zone were a little too close to the action for me to watch the game, but still really cool to be there right up close to see the guys warm up and work on the little things, the things that make their game special.  It was cool to be right there when one of the guys at bat drove a line drive past the 3rd baseman which hit about a foot inside the foul-line and rolled way back to the corner of the fence, the left fielder scrambled it up and ripped it in to the shortstop in a flash.  Holy shit!  The arms on those guys!!  Wow!!!  It was just neat to see the whole field in motion at the crack of the bat and the team working like clockwork to make the play at the base.  One foul-ball of many came into our area and it was dropping right at us, no one at our table was paying attention ...  I watched this ball dropping and let out a warning ...  it landed just behind us, a chubby fellow with a ball glove reached over top of the elderly couple sitting there but missed the ball completely and it smashed into the table right in front of her, knocking her water bottle flying.  Holy fuck, that was too close!  Why don't people pay attention when they're at these events!!  People must get hurt all the time at ball games.  I don't think there's enough safety netting at the Cashman Stadium.  Not so much in the area where we were, but back in the stands many low foul-balls rocketed into the stands and into the concourse of people.  Crazy!  We moved up to the bleachers for the last 3 innings to get a better view of the scoreboard and the field and a better feel for the crowd.

Too bad we couldn't have enjoyed dollar beer night like we would have liked, we had a long drive to get back home.  It was a damn'd great night for drinking beer too, the warm Las Vegas night is sooo comfortable, like a big warm blanket of air surrounding you!  The crowd was having a good time, so I was happy to live the experience through them.  A couple parties were making cracks at the Colorado boys but they just shirked it off and didn't pay them any attention.  It was a beautiful night for a ballgame.  The home boys couldn't bring it back though, and lost out 6-3 in the end.

After the game, as the crowd filtered out, the stadium lights all went down and the sky lit up with a fireworks show that lasted way longer than expected.  I don't know if they do this every night or not, but what an amazing show!  Maybe they have a fireworks sponsor or something, because it was way more elaborate than I would expect for just an after-the-game sorta display.  Pretty cool.  We then made our way back to our car and had no problems getting out of the area.  The cops were everywhere making their presence known.

One thing I think I'll never get tired of is driving down the highway past the Strip at night.  The night lights of Vegas are spectactular, such a beautiful city.  Its a long drive past the strip, and you get a better sense of how big it all is when you're cruising by at 55mph and the city just keeps going and going.  From the distant hills the Strip sits like a jewel set amidst a sea of spotted gold, everything is shimmering.  But perspective is one thing that's tricky here in the valley.  It may look close, but its not very close at all.  I gotta get a better camera to capture some of that magic. 

That was our first trip to North Las Vegas, probably a 25 minute drive home.  I think we'll be back to see more ball games, I really enjoyed that.

Thanks for reading.

TRJ