Tuesday is in the books. Great weather. 80s, partly sunny, no rain. Great day for a ballgame.
We got to Roger Dean Stadium about an hour before game start. (1:05) and the place was already busy.
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We had to hit the Official Team Store and pick up some Spring Training gear.
They did have this generic Grapefruit League hat. I didn't get it.
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I intentionally picked seats in the upper tier (200 level) for this first game. Thursdays seats are row 6, section 102, down the 1st base line. I went online within 5 minutes of single game seats going on sale and the last row was the closest I could get behind home plate. Still pretty good seats.
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We looked at the various food options. Not much variety. BBQ sandwich, chicken fingers, nachos and the "stadium dog". I elected for the stadium dog and nachos. Both were underwhelming. The nachos were a container of chips and separate cartons of cheese, salsa and peppers. You had to assemble it yourself. This was the "Stadium dog". I was expecting a little more with such a big name.
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The Cards started off rough. First pitch from one of our senior starters was a home run to left field. After that he settled down and pitched 4 complete innings. 46 total pitches and no more earned runs. The Cards scored 1 in the first and 4 more in the 3rd and had a solid 5, 1 lead before the Jr leaguers came in. The game finish 5, 4. So it was a good win.
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Ed, the dugout layout was similar to what you saw in AZ. Not enough room for all the players and coaches. The bullpen was along the 1st base line in right field. Manager and coaches behind a screen next to the dugout.
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We had a nice surprise. As we got to our seats, some bearded old guy starts yelling at me that we were in the wrong section. Turns out it was old friends from Branson we haven't seen since their son got married over a year ago. They were 3 seats down. Neither of us knew the other was going.
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The people in between us offer to switch seats and we ended up going out to dinner tonight to catch up
All in all, a great day.
j