Can't See the Forest...

Most of the time I either agree with what I read from the Cold Hard Football Facts or feel convinced enough to at least consider what they write. What they, specifically Kerry J. Byrne, posted on cnnsi.com yesterday struck out with me. (I should also add that something this morning on their own website actually angered me. In this post about the “scrambling quarterback double standard”, Patrick Imig complained about ESPN’s Monday Night Football preview show guys not complaining about a late out of bounds hit on Tim Tebow in overtime on Sunday. I saw the replay at least a dozen times. Tebow was not hit out of bounds. It was proper that no personal foul was called. Sure, he was headed out of bounds, but his right foot was on the ground in bounds. I wish more officials avoided calling late hits on quarterbacks when no foot has yet landed out of bounds. Donovan McNabb stole many yards and caused many penalty flags exploiting this throughout his career.)

Anyway, the conclusion of Byrne’s post was that the Broncos are 5-1 with Tebow starting because he has outplayed the opposing quarterback in each of the 5 victories. To quote Byrne: “Put most simply, Tebow consistently outplays the other team’s quarterback, often by wide margines. This superior play is the No. 1 reason for Denver’s sudden success….But these superior performances seem lost on even the most knowledgeable football minds, like that of Broncos executive and Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway, for example.” Um…what??? By technical definition, you can say that Tebow’s play has been superior to that of the opposing quarterbacks. In technical definition only. Colloquially, however, the use of the word superior is inappropriate here. Tebow’s quarterback play has been far below average, especially considering that the Broncos have scored a total of 4 offensive touchdowns in their last 3 games.

Let’s look at the Broncos’ 5-1 stretch more closely. They have played, in order, Miami, Detroit, Oakland, Kansas City, New York Jets, and San Diego. Those teams currently rank 27, 15, 8, 10, 16, and 7, respectively, most points allowed in the NFL this season. Against those defenses, the Broncos have averaged 19.3 points per game. Considering that Eddie Royal returned a punt for a touchdown in Oakland and Andre Goodman returned an interception for a touchdown versus the Jets, the Broncos’ offense has averaged exactly 17 points per game during Tebow’s 6 starts. The 38 points (31 by the offense) against the Raiders vastly skews those numbers. Eliminating that game and the one loss to Detroit, the Broncos other 4 Tebow-led victories featured a total of 68 points (61 by the offense) for an average of 17 (15.25) points per contest. The Broncos have totaled four offensive touchdowns in their most recent three games, versus the Chiefs, Jets, and Chargers. And I’m only now mentioning that from the 3rd quarter of the game in Oakland through the 3rd quarter the next Sunday in Kansas City, Tebow went 62 minutes of game time without throwing a completed pass. The Broncos scored 34 points during that stretch. It is borderline offensive to use the word “superior” to describe the quarterback play during this stretch.

One might hypothesize that the Broncos’ low scoring is due to their heavy running and spread option offensive attack leading to long, time-consuming drives that drain the clock. One would be incorrect. Only the Rams, Seahawks, and Jaguars have punted more often in 2011 than have the Broncos. Bronco punter Britton Colquitt ranks fourth and fifth, respectively, in net punt average and punts inside the opponents’ 20. And Tebow’s 6 starts represent Colquitt’s 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 8th heaviest punting loads of the season. Only once in Tebow’s starts have the Broncos punted less than 7 times; they never punted that much in a game started by Kyle Orton.

It is fact, though, that Tebow’s performances have been better than his opponents’. That does not imply that Tebow has played well. He has not. The other quarterbacks have played worse. The Broncos defense has completely shut down the last three starting quarterbacks: Matt Cassel, Mark Sanchez, and Philip Rivers. While none of these 3 quarterbacks is having a good statistical year, the Bronco defense held each of them to an even lower level than their personal season average. During the current 4-game winning streak, no quarterback has achieved as high as an 80 passer rating. Carson Palmer’s 79.7 is the highest rating of the 4. Cassel’s 66.5 rating is 10.1 lower than his season rating, Sanchez’s 67.9 is 13.0 lower than his season rating, and Rivers’ 77.1 is 3.7 below his season rating. So, yes, Tebow has outplayed his opponents’ quaterbacks. He’s done it by sucking less. The man deserves credit for that, not praise. How can anyone look at those opposing passer ratings compared to each quarterback’s season rating and write, “This superior play is the No. 1 reason for Denver’s sudden success”? As far as I’m concerned, that statement ignores the clear, obvious, and definitive answer.

Tebow’s success is due to his abilities to take hits while running the ball constantly and to avoid turnovers. His ability to lead Denver’s offense to punts gives the defense some cushion. And, yes, he’s led some great drives at the ends of games, but he has not played well. He has not scored points. As I wrote on Twitter earlier this week, the Broncos scored 20 or more points in 4 of Kyle Orton’s 5 starts while only reaching that mark once in Tim Tebow’s 6 starts. Don’t tell me the quarterback is the reason for the victories. It’s nonsense. And it is dismissive of the defense and the running game, the latter of which happens to lead the NFL at over 150 yards per game. (And if you want to know why the defense has suddenly begun playing better, look at the pass rushers. Von Miller is a rookie; Elvis Dumervil is a veteran who missed all of 2010 and 2 games earlier this season. The lockout prevented OTAs and real training camp, and it took these guys some time to get rolling. Also throw in the brand new coaching staff, including on the defensive side of the ball, and the slow start retroactively seems both logical and inevitable.) Defense, defense, defense with a huge dose of the running game. The Broncos have become Les Miles’ LSU Tigers for the second half of this season. It’s clear, it’s obvious, and there really should be no debate.

Smokin' Joe

When I heard that Joe Frazier had passed on last night, my first thought was about my father. On March 8, 1971, he was a college sophomore and away at school far from our hometown of Philadelphia. He said the only Black people in America rooting for Frazier that night were those from Philly. Far as he was from home, there weren’t too many Black Philadelphians in the theater where he watched the closed-circuit broadcast. With all the other Black folk in the audience looking at him angrily, my dad loudly and proudly cheered on Smokin’ Joe. Philadelphians.

From the moment my dad told me that story—and it’s been about 25 years now—Joe Frazier has been my favorite athlete of all time. I never saw him fight live, obviously, and I’ve only seen 5 of his fights on video. Still, he’s my favorite of all time. He ranks higher than Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, Allen Iverson, Mike Schmidt, Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels, Steve Atwater, John Elway, Ray Lewis, Jerome Brown, Bernard Hopkins, Barry Bonds, Rickey Henderson, Joe Montana, Wilbur Marshall…all of them. For me, Joe Frazier is #1.

And even though he retired before I was born and only fought once after that, I find myself rooting for Joe every time I watch one of his fights. This is especially true when I watch the Thrilla in Manilla. To this day, that is the most brutal, close-to-death for both participants sporting event I’ve ever seen.

The end of that fight, 36 years later, is surreal to me. Both fighters were spent; they were both done. According to Frazier and Ali’s trainer, Angelo Dundee, Muhammad Ali begged Dundee to cut his gloves off. Dundee told him to hold on and looked over his shoulder at Frazier’s corner. In the opposite corner, Frazier told his trainer, Eddie Futch, that he had one round left in him. Futch looked at his fighter, down to about half an eye, and told him that he loved him too much to let him continue. “OK,” Joe said he said. “Shut it down.” Dundee’s hunch paid off, and Ali won the rubber match. Yes, it was that close between them. As the Newark Star-Ledger’s Jerry Izenberg once said, “They weren’t fighting for the heavyweight championship of the world. They were fighting for the heavyweight championship of each other.”

The heavyweight championship of each other. What a perfect way to put it. They killed each other that night in Manilla. To some extent, their minds and bodies held on for decades longer, but neither man was the same after that fight. And the 30 seconds Angelo Dundee waited allowed Ali to go down in history as the greatest heavyweight boxer ever and Frazier left to be considered top 5 or top 10 by most experts. Essentially, he is all but forgotten outside of the trilogy with Ali.

But that’s OK. That’s how it seems to go with Philly’s best. But he’s ours. And we remember him. And that left hook that made Muhammad’s tassels fly in the air.

Joe Frazier lived a good life and hard life, if not such a long life. But he never backed down from a fight and did himself and his people proud. Now, his body told him it was time to shut it down. We remember March 8, 1971; October 1, 1975 (September 30 here in the States); and everything before, between, and after.

God bless you, Smokin’ Joe.

OJ Simpson & the NBA Lockout

The way I see it, this NBA Lockout—and the NFL Lockout that ended a few months ago—is very much like OJ Simpson murder trial. In both the cases of a lockout and the murder trial, there was a legal dispute between two sides. We, the general public, believe, by and large, that we know what has happened, what should happen, and what is “right”. However, we, the general public, are not in charge; we are not the final arbiters of the disputes. Instead, there is an actual system in place. As part of that system, there is one party on whom the burden of proof lies. During this current lockout as well as the OJ trial, the public spoke and acted as if that burden does not exist. I find that naïve, destructive, and very dangerous.

First thing is that, yes, the burden of proof is on the owners’ shoulders. Like the NFL, this is a lockout, not a strike. It is the owners who want things to change. If things really do need to change, then the owners need to convince the players of it. There is no logical reason for the players to just accept that things need to change. The owners need to answer the question “Why?”

One thing the NBA owners have in common with the NFL owners and the LAPD investigators of the OJ case is that they lied while the burden of proof was theirs. The current NBA structure may not be viable in the long-term. I know that many people are out there saying it’s not, but I don’t know for myself. I haven’t seen the teams’ financial papers. I haven’t seen the models for the next few years. I don’t know. Somebody would have to show me. I would not take the owners’ word for it.

Back in 1995, we learned about many of the shady things Mark Fuhrman did in Brentwood. I admit that I did not watch a single second of OJ’s trial, so I don’t know all of the details that many of you do. I do know, however, that nothing with Fuhrman’s name on it was trustworthy beyond a reasonable doubt. Essentially, what the prosecutors wanted was for the jury to see beyond Fuhrman’s shadiness. For the past 16 years, I’ve figured that those twelve men and women did not think the rest of the evidence was enough to overcome the doubt created by Fuhrman. For the general public, though, it was enough to just “know” that OJ did it.

Similarly, we know that the NBA owners have been lying about team finances. People in the media and the public know this, but don’t really seem to care. They acknowledge that the owners aren’t being honest, but they still “know” that the model is failing. Bill Simmons, for example, keeps writing about how the compromises are obvious and “need to happen.” Why? He doesn’t offer any actual evidence to support his claim. He gives reasons, but backs his reasoning up with nothing to let me know that he’s actually speaking fact—he doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt since he was the primary creator of the LeBron went to play with his biggest rival nonsense—instead of just treating some idea of his as if it is actually truth. Yesterday, he did a podcast with Blake Griffin in which he said that the players need to understand that game attendance will continue to grow as a problem in this big screen HDTV, internet, iPad era. He might be right—he’s probably right—but where are the projections? Plus, who knows what those effects will be? As of right now, no one. Basically, he believes the players need to give some money back and his rationale is that we don’t know how the assumed dwindling numbers at the gate will affect the league’s revenue stream.

What kind of logic suggests that players should give back money because no one knows how much money there will be? It’s the players’ money. It’s theirs right now. The owners need to prove to them that they need it.

But, no. people want their basketball, players need to understand that the system isn’t working, and it doesn’t matter that the owners have been lying about many things throughout the entire process. Knowing it isn’t enough. And it shouldn’t be enough. It should never be enough. We’re talking about people’s lives and livelihoods here. “I can’t see any way it could have been anyone other than him.” So what? I don’t feel comfortable damaging people on the strength of someone else’s lack of imagination, insight, and creative thinking. Get out of my face with that nonsense.

2011 Phillies - The Morning After

Yes, there is the desire and passion for immediate pleasure, but one of the more overlooked important things about sports is that they exist for the purpose of making memories. Memories. Times, good and bad, to look back upon as we get older and further removed from the days when the games were played. I have always felt this way, which is why I have never understood the “we have nothing to lose” and “all the pressure was on them” mentalities—you have the chance to make a happy memory right in front of you, and you say you have nothing to lose? I wouldn’t want to look thirty years into the past and say, “You know what, we were closed, but nobody expected us to get that far anyway.” Don’t get me wrong; I can appreciate how close I came to accomplishing a goal while acknowledging that the odds against me were strong. But I do not want to enter the situation expecting to be happy with a so-called moral victory. Looking back…that’s what it’s about. Validating your era.

When I look back at the Phillies, the first sports team I ever loved in life, I will smile whenever I think of this current era. In the year my mother died, the Phillies rallied in the midst of a historic collapse by the New York Mets and won the National League East Division title on the last day of the season, which happened to be on my mother’s birthday. Yes, the Rockies swept them out of the playoffs, but nobody outside of Colorado really remembers that anymore. The next season, they again trailed the Mets. They also trailed the Brewers in the wild card standings. They entered a four-game September series at Citizens Bank Park against Milwaukee trailing them by four games. They swept them. And then the Phillies kept winning, this time clinching the division on the day prior to the last day of the season. How could I ever look back on these years and not think about Brett Myers fouling off four CC Sabathia pitches in a row before drawing a walk that set up Shane Victorino’s grand slam (or, for that matter, Jamie Moyer doing the same thing to set up a Victorino grand slam off Johan Santana on Sunday Night Baseball in 2010)? I’ll remember dramatic two-run homeruns off Corey Wade and Jonathan Broxton in Dodger Stadium (“Stairs hits one deep into the night!”). Joe Blanton’s homerun off Edwin Jackson…the Game 5 rain...Pedro Feliz’s RBI single…Utley’s heads up throw to home…Brad Lidge vs. Eric Hinske…Ryan Howard’s game winners in Games 3 and 4 at Coors Field…Rollins’ double off Broxton…Lee’s Game 1 in Yankee Stadium…the perfect game…the no-hitter against Cincinnati…Chase Utley hitting the first World Series homerun in the history of 2 different stadiums.

On a personal level, I got to watch my team play as the first defending World Series champion to play in the new Yankee Stadium, and I did it on my honeymoon. I went up to Citi Field and saw our ace throw 8 shutout innings against the hated Mets. I was able to be there in person as Doc Halladay threw a complete game 2-hit shutout in Nationals Park to clinch the division in 2010. This season, I went to Opening Day for the first time in my life. Later, I sat in the stands as Clifton Phifer dealt a 12-strikeout, 3-hit shutout on only 99 pitches. And I was able to take my sister to a game on her birthday and watch her favorite pitcher, Cole Hamels, toss a gem. This was a great era for me.

Of course there were some bad times. Brad Lidge vs. Johnny Damon. Pedro vs. Matsui. But overall, this has been a great time. And I’m OK with it

In the Wild Card era, there have been 12 seasons (20 total teams) from the National League to win 97 games. Only three times has one of those teams made the World Series. On two of those occasions, all three division winners were 97-win teams. The playoffs are a crapshoot. The Phillies’ loss last night means that 2011 is the 13th season out of the last 15 in which the top seed in the National League playoffs did not win the pennant. Neither of them won the World Series. Meanwhile, the National League Wild Card team has gone on to the World Series 6 times in the last 14 years (the Cardinals can make it 7 out of 15) and won it all twice. These statistics are not offered as excuses. No, they show how much harder it is to achieve postseason success in the modern era. They show how difficult it is to validate your era in modern Major League Baseball.

We saw the Phillies win a World Series and then go back to the Fall Classic the following year. I know it hurts for us Phillies fans right now, but we all know it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as 2009 or 2010, especially 2009. With everyone getting older and Ryan Howard’s injury, I’m pretty sure this is the end. It was a great run. And we did more with it than most teams would have. The Cardinals were a bad matchup, and they out-hit and out-pitched the Phillies. It happens.

I’m proud of my team and what they have accomplished over the past five years. And what they did for me the summer my mother died and my wife was in chemotherapy cannot be overstated. This group will always be my boys.

MLB Awards

One of the biggest problems that I have with Major League Baseball’s regular season awards is that the voters tend to take the entire season into consideration when the last 3 or 4 weeks of the season are actually irrelevant to many award contenders. Very often, September games are formalities. Let’s take the American League MVP race, for instance. The top 5 contenders for the award seem to be Jose Bautista, Jacoby Ellsbury, Curtis Granderson, Dustin Pedroia, and Justin Verlander. Today, Granderson is viewed as less in contention for the MVP than he was at the end of August. Why? Because his numbers fell off. To that, I say “So what?”

The Yankees have been a virtual postseason lock since the All-Star break. The second half of the season has only strengthened their hold on a playoff spot. Essentially, their place in October was sewn up before Labor Day. Why should anything that happened after that point count for or against Curtis Granderson’s MVP case? It makes no sense to me.

During the early portions of the season, everyone has—or appears to have—the same goal of trying to make it into October. That changes by the end of August. Don’t get me wrong. I am not arguing that only players for contenders should be considered for the league MVP. What I am saying is that players on teams fighting for playoff berths have different September goals than those on teams already assured of playoff spots and those on teams just playing out the string. The Yankees woke up on September 1 with a 8.5-game lead on Tampa Bay for the American League Wild Card. Honestly, can you count anything against any Yankee player—A.J. Burnett excepted—for their play from then to now?

The same thing can be said about the National League Cy Young Award. Clayton Kershaw is a clear and deserving winner this year. He would get my vote. I know some voters, however, will pay attention to how Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee closed the season. Again, why? The Phillies swept the Braves in a three-game series from September 5-7. The sweep increased the Phillies’ lead in the National League East from 7.5 to 10.5 games. The race was over at that point. The last 3 weeks for the Phillies was about getting & staying healthy and keeping everyone sharp for the playoffs. It was not about going out there every fifth day and shutting down opposing offenses.

These awards should be judged based upon the contending players’ effective seasons. To me, it makes no sense to do it any other way.

Stream of Thoughts on the NFL

The other day, Cold Hard Football Facts made a post defending Eli’s claim that he was on the same level as Tom Brady. They weren’t arguing that Eli is at the same level as Brady, but rather that he led both the greatest upset and greatest championship drive in NFL history and, therefore, needs to take a back seat to no one. After reading that column, I felt the need to go back and rewatch the 4th quarter of Super Bowl XLIII because I thought both Kurt Warner and Ben Roethlisberger had led pretty great drives themselves. Let me tell you: both of them are amazing to watch in real-time, especially Roethlisberger’s game-winner. Thinking about those drives got me thinking about other things, too. Here’s how my thought process went:

• During my rewatch, I got to see Larry Fitzgerald’s long touchdown catch-and-run that put the Cardinals ahead. I remember watching the game live and seeing James Harrison run with every ounce of energy he had to try and catch Fitzgerald until Troy Polamalu ran over to him and tapped his shoulder. “Give it up, man. They got us,” was the message in that tap. Every time I rewatch that play, that tap is what sticks with me. That play, if you really think about it, embodies everything that four players personified during their careers. The perfect placement of the pass by Warner that led Fitzgerald into the opening of the defense; Fitzgerald’s great hands and perfect route, and perfect stride; the relentless pursuit of James Harrison; and Polamalu putting himself in awful defensive position by jumping to the outside and leaving the middle open, then coming back and trying to make a play, and finally taking care of his teammate. Great, great play. It’s the most memorable play from that Super Bowl to me, and yes I remember Harrison and Santonio Holmes’ touchdowns.
  
  
• On the television broadcast, John Madden remarked how the game was in the Steelers defense’s hands and they failed to come through. When the Steelers came back to win, people commented how Roethlisberger was actually a part of that Super Bowl team. There is a myth out there that he rode the defense’s coattails to the 2005 championship. That’s false. Roethlisberger had a historically bad Super Bowl, but look at the rest of that playoff run. The Steelers offense passed in the first half to get leads and then ran the ball in the second half kill the clock. People are letting the horrible Super Bowl XL he played cloud their memories of the other 3 playoff games Pittsburgh played that year. Roethlisberger threw 2 touchdown passes in the first half of each of those other 3 games and totaled 7 TDs and 1 INT total. His quarterback rating in those games were 148.7, 95.3, and 124.9, respectively. One dreadful game does not equal riding the defense’s coattails during a playoff run.
  
  
• The moment when Polamalu tapped Harrison’s shoulder reminds me of a similar moment that took place a year earlier. After Randy Moss caught the touchdown that put the Patriots up 14-10 in the Super Bowl against the Giants, Tedy Bruschi and Junior Seau hugged on the sidelines. Those two moments were the exact opposite of each other. Whereas the Steelers’ moment was consoling, this was triumphant. Ironic how the Steelers came back to win and the Patriots’ defense let the game slip through their fingers.
  
  
• Speaking of slipping through fingers, have any good players ever had worst Super Bowl 4th quarters than Asante Samuel and Rodney Harrison did against the Giants? Harrison, of course, couldn’t get the ball off of David Tyree’s helmet. The Giants’ first touchdown drive began with Kevin Boss beating Harrison for a 45-yard gain. Samuel, you remember, failed to intercept a pass that went through his hands on the play before the helmet catch. Earlier in the quarter, a few plays after Boss’ big gain, David Tyree caught a touchdown pass when Samuel was too slow to react to him in the end zone.
  
  
• He wasn’t a good player, but Anthony Dorsett had a pretty bad play in a Super Bowl 4th quarter when he misplayed a ball in the air. That turned into Kurt Warner’s 73-yard game-winning touchdown pass to Isaac Bruce. Of course, the Raiders signed Dorsett to a free agent contract that offseason. He repaid them by misplaying a pass over the middle to Shannon Sharpe that the tight end turned into the longest touchdown pass in NFL playoff history.
  
  
• Isaac Bruce’s touchdown overshadows two of the greatest drives in history. Everyone remembers the nearly 90-yard drive that ended with Kevin Dyson at the Rams’ 1-yard line. Earlier in that half, though, the Titans were on the verge of getting blown out. The Rams had just scored to make the score 16-0, and my father and I were wondering if we were about to witness the first shutout in Super Bowl history. The Titans then marched on to the first of what would be consecutive 7+ minute scoring drives that would help them tie the game. The first one was a beauty, though, encompassing everything the Steve McNair-era Titans were all about. Only three men—other than the center—touched the ball during that drive: McNair, Eddie George, and Frank Wycheck. It was a 12-play, 66 yard touchdown drive that made the score 16-6, and the only play that went longer than 9 yards was a McNair run that went for 23. You don’t see teams trailing by double digits in the second half commit to running the football, but the Titans did, and they came all the way back to tie the game. It was a great drive, and we’ll probably never see another one like it in a Super Bowl situation again.
  
  
• I don’t think people realize how great Mike Jones’ tackle of Kevin Dyson on the game’s final play really was. Watch it again. Jones wasn’t supposed to be able to make that play. He must have seen Dyson from the extreme limit of his peripheral vision. It is, without hyperbole, the most important tackle in Super Bowl history.
  
  
• And all this makes me think about how lucky football fans in their mid-20s and younger are. When I was growing up, the Super Bowl was always an awful game. From the time I was 6 years old through my freshman year in college, the Super Bowl scores were as follows: 38-9, 36-16, 46-10, 39-20, 42-10, 20-16, 55-10, 20-19, 37-24 (24-0 midway through the 3rd), 52-17, 30-13, and 49-26. From Super Bowl XXX on, they’ve been pretty good, and people who grew up watching these games are very fortunate. Look at the scores from the last 16 Super Bowls: 27-17 (Steelers trailed by 3 and had ball at midfield with a few minutes left), 35-21, 31-24, 34-19, 23-16, 34-7, 20-17, 48-24, 32-29, 24-21, 21-10, 29-17 (Chicago trailed and had the ball nearing midfield in the 4th), 17-14, 27-23, 31-17, and 31-25. That’s a pretty good run of Super Bowls.

Ballparks

Last night, my wife and I enjoyed PNC Park in Pittsburgh for the First Time:. It was nice, but not nearly as nice as I had been led to believe. Throughout the game, I had the feeling I was in an oversized minor league park. Maybe that’s what people like about it. For me, that was a negative. But I did like the place. As long as I live in the East, I could see myself making an annual or biannual trip there.

It was the 11^th Major League ballpark she and I have visited together. I hope we can add Progressive Field in Cleveland next year. Or even Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati—then we could go to the aquarium in Newport, Kentucky, my favorite aquarium in America.

Anyway, I figured I should rank the ballparks I’ve been to so far in my life. I’ve been to 15 overall. * denotes parks I’ve been to with my wife…for the 2 of you who care. For the record, I also saw two games at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, but they were in the Olympics.

1. *AT&T Park, San Francisco, California
   First Time: April 6, 2005
   Favorite Memory: Seeing Willie Mays when the Giants celebrated their great outfielders during their 50 years in San Francisco celebration
   Best Game: August 9, 2008—Giants 3, Dodgers 2 (10 innings)
   
   
2. Yankee Stadium II, The Bronx, New York (retired)
   First Time: May 17, 2008
   Favorite Memory: The last time we were there, my father, sister, and I stood by our seats for an hour after the game ended and trying to savor the moment.
   Best Game: July 5, 2008—Yankees 2, Red Sox 1
   
   
3. *Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
   First Time: May 29, 2004
   Favorite Memory: Walking through Ashburn Alley with my sister on Opening Day 2011 and discovering that the Phillies were going to parade into the stadium and having a front row view.
   Best Game: April 1, 2011—Phillies 5, Astros 4
   
   
4. *Wrigley Field, Chicago, Illinois
   First Time: August 6, 2011 (only time)
   Favorite Memory: Walking through the tunnel from the concourse and into the seating area, finding our seats in right field foul territory, looking out over the right field stands, and knowing that Lou Gehrig had hit one over that wall as a high schooler.
   Best Game: August 6, 2011—Cubs 11, Reds 4
   
   
5. *Yankee Stadium III, The Bronx, New York
   First Time: May 23, 2009 (only time)
   Favorite Memory: John Mayberry, Jr.’s first Major League homerun off Andy Pettitte.
   Best Game: May 23, 2009—Yankees 5, Phillies 4
   
   
6. Fenway Park, Boston, Massachusetts
   First Time: April 15, 1994 (only time)
   Favorite Memory: Seeing Frank Thomas hit a homerun off Roger Clemens
   Best Game: April 15, 1994—Red Sox 5, White Sox 3
   
   
7. *Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, California
   First Time: May 25, 2008
   Favorite Memory: Realizing I was going to see the Major League debut of a top pitching prospect (Clayton Kershaw)
   Best Game: May 25, 2008—Dodgers 4, Cardinals 3
   
   
8. *PNC Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
   First Time: August 20, 2011 (only time)
   Favorite Memory: Seeing Aroldis Chapman hit 101mph on a fastball
   Best Game: August 20, 2011—Pirates 5, Reds 3
   
   
9. *Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, Maryland
   First Time: July 31, 1993
   Favorite Memory: Going to my first doubleheader
   Best Game: August 10, 2011—Orioles 6, White Sox 4 (10 innings)
   
   
10. *Citi Field, Flushing, New York
    First Time: August 14, 2010 (only time)
    Favorite Memory: Seeing Roy Halladay pitch for the First Time:.
    Best Game: August 14, 2010—Phillies 4, Mets 0
    
    
11. *Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
    First Time: April 8, 2010
    Favorite Memory: Being in the park for Roy Halladay’s complete game 2-hitter to clinch the 2010 National League East for the Phillies.
    Best Game: July 31, 2010—Nationals 7, Phillies 5
    
    
12. Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California (retired)
    First Time: April 23, 1994 (only time)
    Favorite Memory: The First Time: my father and I saw a game together outside of Philly
    Best Game: April 23, 1994—Giants 10, Mets 1
    
    
13. *US Cellular Field, Chicago, Illinois
    First Time: June 26, 2009 (only time)
    Favorite Memory: Seeing the wedding congratulations the my in-laws paid to put on the big board for my wife and me
    Best Game: June 26, 2009—Cubs 5, White Sox 4
    
    
14. *McAfee Coliseum, Oakland, California
    First Time: May 16, 2005
    Favorite Memory: My First Time: seeing a Philadelphia team play outside of Philly
    Best Game: July 7, 2008—Athletics 4, Mariners 3
    
    
15. Veterans Stadium, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (retired)
    First Time: Who knows? I was young.
    Favorite Memory: Seeing Dwight Gooden and Steve Carlton face each other. I will never see a better pitching matchup.
    Best Game: April 19, 1985—Mets 1, Phillies 0