On March 7th 2006 I was in Phoenix at Chase Field (the new name for Bank One Ballpark aka BOB) for the World Baseball Classic game between team USA and team Mexico. Even before the doors open two hours before the game it was very festive outside. Both USA and Mexico were well represented. Some people had drive up across the boarder for the day and some Mexicans had flown in from places like Los Angles. As soon as the door opened I headed into the team store but they were already out of many items like fitted caps (on the website there was a 5 week delay to get one). I headed down and hung out behind the team USA dugout but they were already done with batting practice so all there was was team Mexico players around.
All throughout the game there were cheers for Mexico and USA. The announced attendance was 32727 for the game and that meant that a fair part of the upper deck was empty. Also I would say less than five of the suites were open and they have around 40 suites I would think. One thing that became a pattern for the week was the scoreboard woes. I think each day they had something messed up in the batting line-up listings. Take a look through the photos for evidence of this. Today they had "Diamondbacks" listed for team USA when it first came up. The other strange thing was that they roof was half closed or rather half of the roof was open on the right field side and on the left field side it was closed and really cast a shadow over four fifths of the field. It was a nice day in the 70s and I was bummed that I would not get a tan with the roof closed. Ken Griffey Jr.’s son, Trey, was the bat boy for team USA. My seats were really good, seven rows behind team Mexico dugout and inside of first place. One thing I noticed was the ushers were much worse at Chase than at Safeco. They do a good job at the very top of the section only letting people in that section in but there was no one stopping me from getting on top of the dugout.
The game itself was great and a close battle. Jake Peavy did a great job as the start for USA and Timlin came in for the win. The Cub’s Derek Lee and the Brave’s Chipper Jones had home runs for the 2-0 win. On defense Jetter really struggled getting the ball to first base. It really look like he had not been practicing much.
Some of these photos were taken by Gretchen S.
A digital recording of my life 