Miami Marlins @ New York Mets (game 2)

Unfortunately, it's been very hot and humid this week, and today was worst of all.  Even Jo Konta, playing in her singles match across the way at the US Open was having trouble with the conditions.  I went out to lunch and then walked around Bryant Park, which is just along from my hotel, but I couldn't stay outside very long.  The park has so many hundreds, if not thousands, of chairs just there for people to sit on all around the park.  If it was a little cooler, it would be a lovely place to just sit and watch time go by.

Having skipped the second game of the series to go and watch Serena Williams and Andy Murray last night, this was the third game of the four game series between the Marlins and the Mets, and my last game in New York.  It was still so muggy, but at least the subway trains are cool.  However, my seat location was poor.  It was the back row of the section and a seat on the end of the row, but next to the stadium support, and the overhang from the level about completely obscured the view of the scoreboard.  There was a TV monitor, but it was two sections the other way, so too small to be any use, and in the wrong direction anyway.

Bartolo Colon, a picture of athleticism,pitching tonight

So I watched the game from a variety of locations, including the Foxwoods club area, which was indoors, and air conditioned.  I also walked all the way around, as far as you can go on my level, in both directions.

Ichiro got another hit today - no surprise there.  The Marlins' pitcher and catcher were pretty much introduced on the mound at the start of the game, as Jake Esch made his major league debut start, having only been announced as the starter for tonight earlier this afternoon.  He did OK really, only giving up a 2-run HR early on.  Meanwhile Colon also only gave up 2 runs for the Mets, and the game was tied at 2 in the 8th inning, until Kelly Johnson managed to hit a bases-clearing double to score 3 runs as the Mets finished off Miami 5-2 as Familia closed it out.

US Open: Serena Williams and Andy Murray

In the evening, I took the 7 express train up to Mets-Willets Point as usual, but this time, I turned right and headed into the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center instead.  I managed to buy a ticket for this evening's session in the main arena - the Arthur Ashe stadium.

View over plaza from Arthur Ashe stadium

The wooden bridge seems a bit rickety to me, with uneven planks, but given that thousands of people cross it every day, it can't be that bad.  I had been watching Venus Williams' match on the television before leaving, and when I arrived, she was still playing, so the day session overran a bit, which delayed the start of the evening session by half an hour.

You can wander around the rest of the courts to see people playing, and you are so close to the players.  I saw a bit of one of the other men's matches.  I also met a student, Khalil, who was doing an assignment about the tournament, who asked if he could interview me quickly.  I agreed, and it didn't take very long - questions like "why have you came?", "what's the best thing about tennis?" and at the end, only a couple of minutes later, he thanked me and said it was best interview he'd had all day.

My seat was in row N of section 101.  It's actually an accessible row, with no fixed seating, but fold-up seats that are brought out for you.  I was sitting right in line with the centre service line, at the South end of the stadium and about twice as high up as the level where the TV cameras are positioned for normal coverage, so it was an excellent view.  The umpire was to the left as I looked at it.  There was quite a breeze blowing through the gate behind me, which was a relief given how humid it was.  A couple of other people moved around to behind the next section to get out of the draught, but I enjoyed it.  Players have been asked whether the new retractable roof on the court affects the wind and they all say that it has reduced it down at court level.

Possibly the only downside to the seat location was the official photographers came by a lot and were taking photos of every shot, which was somewhat distracting.

I was surprised how many empty seats there were, given that Serena Williams was the headline act.  I had expected it to be packed to the rafters.  I saw a few other people wearing union flags, or Team GB supporter things, and even some wearing a union flag baseball cap as I was.

However, there were quite a few well-known people in attendance.  I didn't recognise all of the US Olympic medal winning athletes who were there, but I did recognise this man - Andre Agassi.

I know Ivan Lendl was there too, but couldn't spot where the coaches boxes were.

Serena was wearing all black, except for an underskirt which was coloured shocking pink that was revealed as she moved around.  Later on, Andy Murray would also be wearing all black, but without the pink dress.  The opposition both wore plain white, although Rosol changed to a yellow top midway through the match.

Serena's match took just over an hour to complete, with no real scares along the way.  Then after all the interviews on court and waving to the crowd and hitting balls into the crowd and signing the giant tennis balls down in the front row of the stands, a bloke came out and spent 10 minutes fiddling with the two Chase logos attached to the net for the Ladies' Singles match, replacing them with Mercedes-Benz logos for the Men's Singles match.

Andy Murray, at the far end, serving to Lukáš Rosol

Then after a singing performance by someone I didn't know, it was time for the second match to start.

The first point of the match was a typical Murray point, with lots of running about and rescue shots and lobs which, although he lost that point, won him lots more during the course of the match.  It was a slightly slow start, I thought, but he soon got going.  He didn't face a break point in the whole match, and once he was up a double break in the second set, the match was clearly over as a contest, although Rosol fought on.

The accuracy with which all the players aim the ball to the sidelines and baseline is astounding.

The most amazing thing about Murray's play is his anticipation of where his opponent is hitting the next ball.  He's getting to things that he really has no right to, and getting them back to force the opponent to hit another shot - which they sometimes fail to do.

Although the match started after 9pm, it was over in under 2 hours, as Andy wrapped it up

Unisphere, from the World's Fair - not the boy's ball

6-3 6-2 6-2.   The lady guarding the entrance at our section took my photo - several times, as we tried it with the flash, without the flash, and people kept walking in front or coming up the stairs behind.  I had taken my free red headband off and put it in my pocket by this time.

In fact, all the staff were really good and a credit to the tournament.  They would welcome you as you went past and offer help to anybody who didn't look like they knew what they were doing or where they were going.  Just along the row from me were what looked like grandma & grandson, the latter being in possession of a giant tennis ball that had already had several players' signatures.  Seeing the ball and the grandma's infirmity, just as the last game was in progress, one of the helpers offered to escort the young man (aged around 7-8, I'd guess) down to court side to get Andy Murray's signature on his ball, and bring him back up.  

The whole tennis centre looked very smart, and had lots of trees and flowers in the main section.

I'd definitely come again if I'm in New York when the tournament is on again, as I enjoyed it a lot.

Star Wars: Power of Costume

Mirrors and storm trooper helmets

At Discovery Times Square they have a few exhibitions running, and one of the current ones is about the costumes and personal props that played a part in the first 6 Star Wars movies (with a little bit about the 7th tacked on the end)

I found a discount voucher online to save 20%, so the cost was reasonable enough and I went there after lunch at Virgil's.

Leia's disguise - and slave outfit

Han Solo, in carbonite

The exhibition area is extraordinarily large, I suppose mostly because it's pretty much all below ground.  You are only allowed in in batches every 15 minutes, as it starts with a short intro video, but then you are free to walk around at your leisure and take photographs provided you don't use the flash.

They had a huge amount of exhibits, with write-ups from the designers and a handful of interactive bits.

The Imperial Stormtrooper helmet display had lots of mirrors which made an effective display.

The most impressive was the very last part.  They had three large screens that you had to stand in front of, and you saw yourself to start with, but then you changed into an Imperial Stormtrooper.  You could wave,  fire your laser, or with the right gesture turn yourself in Darth Vader, and wave a lightsabre about, or gesture again to turn into C-3PO, and the character's movements mirrored your own.  My video is less than a minute long, and not very good at the start, but you get the idea.

All in all, I spent a couple of hours there, getting my money's worth!

Miami Marlins @ New York Mets (game 1)

It was hot again today, with a warm wind.  I had lunch at the Brooklyn Diner next to Times Square, which was nothing special, and then popped back to the hotel to get my match ticket and set off for Queens.

My hotel is incredibly conveniently located near the 7 line subway stop at 42nd St-Times Square, which makes it so simple to get to Citi Field, especially with express trains running.  The train was so packed, not even Jeremy Corbyn could have found a seat.

My seat was round in section 329 today, in the front row, so no people obstructing the view, although the railing is at an awkward height - you either have to sit bolt upright or slouch in the seat to see the batter at the plate.  The section is up the 3rd base line, just past the bag.  I had a superb view of the planes coming in to land - some of them look so close.

It was still warm throughout the game, although the edge was off the temperature a little, so it was pleasantly warm rather than uncomfortably hot.  For some reason, the game did seem to drag on, yet it was in the 9th inning when the 3 hour mark passed, which is slow but not that slow.
 
Although I'm missing seeing Noah Syndergaard and Jacob de Grom pitch for the Mets (although Jacob did actually pinch hit tonight!), I did get to see Jose Fernandez again.  I saw him a few years ago in Miami when he was a rookie and he looked great then.  Not so dominant tonight, but he pitched 6 scoreless innings although with a lot of pitches.

I also saw Ichiro Suzuki, now playing for Miami.  I saw him in Seattle years ago (in the game that he hit a walk-off home run in the 14th inning)  He had two hits tonight and a stolen base, and he scored the first run of the game in the 8th inning.  His two hits helped continue his climb up the all-time hit list, equalling and then passing Wade Boggs for 27th place.

Sadly for him, Jose Reyes tied the game in the bottom of the 8th inning and after 3 and a half hours, Yoenis Cespedes hit the walk-off home run in the bottom of the 10th inning to send the remaining crowd wild.  As he waited for the post-game interview, together with his interpreter, he was the recipient of the Gatorade bath - given the heat of the night, he was probably glad of it, although his interpreter didn't seem as pleased.  The interview was conducted through the interpreter, and at the end, the interview thanked the interpreter and Yoenis, to which the latter immediately replied "You're welcome!" in perfect English.

The little girl in the row behind me was busy proving that sometimes, children are too young to understand the game.  I listened to Dad explaining fair and foul balls, which seemed to be a bit too advanced for her.  She thought about for a bit, before asking:

Girl: "Who's winning?"
Dad: "Nobody - it's zero to zero still."
Girl: "Yes, but who is winning?"

Dad was a bit lost for words at that point.



Fortunately, the trip home was quicker and more comfortable.  I was on a Super-Express 7 service with even fewer stops than a normal express service, so it got back to Manhattan in about 20 minutes.  This was despite the very bad timing of the Mets and Novak Djokovic both wrapping up victory at about the same time, so both venues were emptying onto the subway at the same time!

Late summer trip

I spent a lot of time trying to organise my September trip, and finally managed to work things out so I can visit some places I've not been for a while, and whilst this is primarily a baseball trip, I've squeezed in another couple of sports too.

This year, I'm going to New York, Seattle, Denver, Santa Clara and San Francisco.

I'm starting in New York, where I'm seeing 2 games of the Miami Marlins series at the New York Mets.  I'm going to miss seeing Noah Syndergaard pitch, as he went last night, but I will see the big man pitch when Bartolo Colón goes on Wednesday.    I do have a ticket for Tuesday's game, but I'm going to attempt to sell it on via the official website, because Monday morning, I managed to pick up a ticket for the event going on on the other side of the subway tracks from Citi Field: the US Open tennis championships.  I have a ticket for the evening session tomorrow night.  This features Serena Williams up first against Ekaterina Makarova, followed by Andy Murray taking on Lukas Rosol.

Then it's on to Seattle to see the three game series between the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, who I visited in southern California earlier this year, against the Seattle Mariners.  It's been seven years since I last visited Seattle - I hope the building works around the stadium are finished now!

After that, it's down to Denver, which I've not been to for 5 years, surprisingly.  In the past, it's often a place I stop as a staging point between the east and west coasts.  I'm going to see the last two games of the series between the San Francisco Giants and the Colorado Rockies, before having a couple of day trips out into the mountains with Gray Line tours.

Then it's a shorter flight down to San José, where I'm staying, in order to catch the second game of the Monday Night Football double-header featuring the San Francisco 49ers hosting the newly-relocated Los Angeles Rams, formerly of St Louis.

After a quick train journey up to San Francisco, I'm ending my trip with three games at AT&T Park, seeing the Padres on Wednesday night, then the first two games of the 4 game series between the St Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants, the second of which is Star Trek night!

Heathrow (again) and hotels

After the last time I flew out of Heathrow, this time I was picked up at 8am for a midday flight!  The journey took an hour and a half, even on a bank holiday's Sunday morning, and I walked straight through security and over to the lounge at the 'B' gates.  Although the gate wasn't showing on any of the screens, the United app can tell you where your plane is coming from, and it told me it had arrived at gate B48.

I had a light breakfast, and then checked my e-mail, to find an e-mail from the Hampton Inn in New York, sent at 9.40am UK time, where I'm staying saying that they had failed to charge my credit card for my stay and that if I didn't contact them by 5pm US East coast time, they were going to cancel my reservation!  I pointed out in my e-mail reply that I wasn't exactly happy about either them charging me in advance, or threatening to cancel the reservation with such short notice when I couldn't reasonably respond!

After being randomly selected for 'additional screening' at the gate, I boarded.  My seat was a middle seat, with aisles both sides, with the 2-1-2 seating arrangement.  This works incredibly well from a food point of view, as you get served by whichever aisle's crew is first to get to your seat.

The journey was exceptionally quick, as the flight pushed back 7 minutes early, and was mostly smooth.  We touched down 40 minutes ahead of schedule at 2.25pm.  I disembarked at 2.32pm.  I was through immigration and customs and in the main terminal at 2.41pm.  This allowed me to catch the 3.07pm train to New York, even after helping another European couple buy their train tickets.  It took 40 minutes, with the engineering work on the line delaying us 15 minutes, and then one stop along the subway to Times Square and I was in my hotel before 4.30pm.  So that was just 13 and a half hours door-to-door.

The lady on reception apologised for the e-mail, and indicated that they wouldn't have really cancelled the reservation, especially as I'm a Hilton HHonors silver member.   I was pleased for bottles of water that gets me too, as it's quite warm here.

My room is on the 27th floor, looking south over the somewhat boring rooftops, although there is a roof garden on a one a couple of blocks away.