text:
Hey dcmath.
If she runs four days a week at x miles a day then the number of miles in that week is 4*x miles. x increases 0.5km per week. The second week will give x = 1.5 + 0.5 = 2.0km. Try using that pattern to get the other weeks.
I have no idea because of the ambiguous nature of the question whether or not the next week includes 7 days or just 3 ''In preparation for the 10km mini marathon , maray starts training. she plans to run 1.5km four days this week. Each week she plans to increase the distance she runs each day by 0.5km(i) write down the distance she plans to run in the second , 3rd and 4th week of her training programme
Maray runs four days a week and 1.5 km each day. So distance covered each week is 1.5 * 4 = 6 km
Increases 0.5 km per day so in a week she increases 2 km
Thus second week she would cover 6 + 2 = 8 km and third week 8 + 2 = 10 km and so on.

subset: commoncrawl


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The United States is in dire need of better leadership. Many former American presidents and leaders implemented active industrial policy geared toward manufacturing at home, and these policies worked. There are inspiring examples of U.S. directorship on both sides of the aisle, and they go all the way back to the birth of our country. Since then, the most successful American leaders have made a point to protect American businesses first and foremost.
Tag Archives: Great Depression
In 1930 They Didn't Know it Was "the Great Depression" Yet
The following excerpt was taken from The Huffington Post. Click here to read the article in its entirety
One in seven Americans now living in poverty
The following article originally appeared on .
What Caused the Great Depression?
I want to present the most balanced and the most professional of views on the impact of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff on the Great Depression of the 1930s. To do that I have turned to the Economic History Association's Encyclopedia. The Economic History Association's Encyclopedia is available online at EH.Net. Here is the background of the Economic History Association's encyclopedia quoted from the home page of EH.Net.
The Impact of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff on the Great Depression
Quotes taken from the essay titled The Smoot-Hawley Tariff in the Encyclopedia of the Economic History Association written by Professor Anthony O'Brien of Lehigh University.


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May 2010
Book update No. 17 — Part Three, baby!
Big news: I finished writing Part Three of the book. I still need to edit it, and then of course my editor will do the same, but I feel great about it. I think it'll be an entertaining read even for people who have no interest in ballhawking because — How can I describe this? — it provides a glimpse into another world. Does that make sense? It's like a whole new way to think about the game. Part Three, as I've mentioned before, is the "how to snag" portion of the book, and it's now 29,499 words. By comparison, my first book, How to Snag Major League Baseballs, was only 23,730 words — but it's not just the word count that'll make a difference. The writing itself is much better.
The whole book is now 68,816 words, and I still have a lot more work remaining. My main job at this point is to write a chapter about the Rawlings factory and all the current manufacturing/testing methods. Then, when that's done, I'll need to fill in a bunch of missing pieces (including the ballhawk glossary, which I'm actually futzing around with this weekend, but I still consider Part Three to be finished).
Remember my last update? It looks like the title is now set and that the book is going to be called:
The Baseball: Stunts, Scandals and Secrets Beneath the Stitches
It was nearly called "The Baseball: Stunts, Scandals, Secrets, and the Madness it Inspires," but my publisher felt that the version with "beneath the stitches" is more intriguing and marketable. I don't think it really matters either way because ultimately, the book will simply be known as: The Baseball. FYI, there's going to be a line of bright yellow text at the bottom of the cover that says something like, "Includes Tips for Snagging Your own Major League ball." And speaking of the cover, my editor sent it to me last week. I can't yet share it here because there's one thing that needs to be tweaked, but I love the overall design. It's simple yet striking.
That's it for update No. 17. Here are all the old updates:
Book update No. 16 — stress & titles
Book update No. 15 — change of scenery
Book update No. 14 — stadium mentions
Book update No. 13 — possible new title
Book update No. 12 — meeting with my editor
Book update No. 11 — Hall of Fame action
Book update No. 10 — George H. W. Bush
Book update No. 9 — first round of edits
Book update No. 8 — first deadline extended
Book update No. 7 — first deadline approaching
Book update No. 6 — questions for Rawlings
Book update No. 5 — ballhawk glossary
Book update No. 4 — famous fans
Book update No. 3 — conquering the 1870s
Book update No. 2 — equipment managers
Best Buy is the WORST
Okay, so this has nothing to do with baseball, but I need to vent. I need the world to know that Best Buy is officially the worst company I've ever dealt with.
Gustavo Watch, Part 22
Guess who got sent down to the minor leagues the other day.
Pitch In For Baseball newsletter
My charity fundraiser for Pitch In For Baseball was mentioned in the organization's recent newsletter. Check it out. The part about me is near the bottom:
5/19/10 at Turner Field
The day got off to a great start, and it had nothing to do with baseball: I saw my very first girlfriend for the first time in 14 years, and it wasn't awkward at all. We met in the lobby of my hotel, went out for a three-hour lunch, and pretty much just caught up and laughed about the past. I was in such a good mood after seeing her that nothing else mattered. Batting practice at Turner Field? Whatever. Baseball was the last thing on my mind — that is, until I walked over to the stadium and met up with my friend Matt Winters:
(In case you're new to this blog, I'm the guy on the left.)
That helped get me back into snagging mode. My goal for the day was to get at least six baseballs. That's what I needed to reach 4,500, and thanks to the dreamlike configuration of the left field stands…
…I knew it wouldn't be hard. It was more a question of how than if.
My first two balls of the day were home runs hit by right-handed batters on the Braves. I'm not sure who. All I can tell you is that the first one landed near me in the seats, and I caught the second one on the fly.
That's when I encountered my first challenge of the day. Another batter hit a homer that happened to land in the gap behind the outfield wall. I figured I'd be able to snag it with my glove trick, but before I could get there, some old guy snagged it with his own funky-looking device. Here he is holding it up:
It's a gigantic roll of duct tape — with additional tape inside the center hole to make the ball stick. On the other side (where the guy is holding it), there was a big/clunky object attached to it, presumably to help weigh the whole thing down.
As it turned out, this guy was one of a dozen fans who'd brought devices into the stadium. There were devices everywhere. It was nuts. Some people even dangled them over the wall in anticipation.
Somehow, I managed to beat the competition and use my glove trick to snag my third ball of the day. I handed that one to the nearest kid, and two minutes later, I sprung into glove-trick action once again.
That's when I encountered (or rather created) another challenge. In my haste to get down to the front row, I rolled my left ankle on the edge of a step, and let me tell you, it hurt like HELL. I felt a sharp twinge on the outside of my foot, and for a moment, I thought I wasn't gonna be able to walk for the next two weeks. It was one of those "what did I just do to myself" injuries; I knew it was bad, but I wasn't sure just how bad, so I decided that as long as I could still stand, I might as well proceed down to the front row and try to snag the ball — and yes, I did end up getting it.
My ankle really hurt after that…
…but the pain was bearable as long as I ran in straight lines and changed direction slowly.
My fifth ball of the day was another home run (not sure who hit it), and the catch itself was anything but routine. I was cutting through the second row to my right. The ball was heading toward a teenaged kid in the front row. It was going to be an easy chest-high catch for him, so I didn't expect to have a chance. That said, I still stuck my glove out for a potential catch in case he missed it, and at the last second, I jerked my head to the side so that I wouldn't get drilled in the face by a potential deflection. Well, wouldn't you know it? The kid somehow managed to miss the ball. I mean, he completely whiffed — didn't even get any leather on it — and I ended up making a no-look, thigh-high catch while running through the seats on a sprained ankle.
That was the 4,499th ball of my life. The next one was going to be a fairly significant milestone, so I wanted it to be special.
Another home run was hit toward the same kid. I was standing right behind him at the time, and while the ball was in mid-air, I could have easily climbed down into the front row and reached in front of him — but I didn't want to interfere with his chance at redemption, so I hung back in the second row. This is how it played out:
The ball smacked the pocket of his glove and jerked his wrist back, but he hung onto it, and everyone cheered and congratulated him.
Toward the end of the Braves' portion of BP, a ball cleared the wall and landed in front of the visitors' bullpen down the left field line. It sat there for a minute, so I ran over to the seats in foul territory, thinking that I might be able to snag it with my glove trick. Once I got there, I realized that the ball was trapped underneath a bench. There was no way for me to reach it, and even if it had been sitting right below me, there wouldn't have been time. A security guard was about to retrieve it. Here he is with the ball in his hand:
There were several other fans asking for it, so he decided to give it away in the fairest way possible: he asked when everyone's birthday was. As soon as I said "September fourteenth," he tossed me the ball.
"When's your birthday?" I asked.
"September twelfth," he replied.
"Cool, thanks so much," I said, and then I asked, "Can I take a picture of the ball with you in the background?"
Either he didn't hear me or he simply ignored me because he promptly exited the bullpen and began walking toward the infield. Meanwhile, I wanted to fully document my 4,500th ball, so I "chased" after him:
(It wasn't exactly a high-speed chase.)
In the photo above, he had stopped walking for a moment to shout something to another guard in the bullpen, and then moments later, he continued marching ahead. I pulled out my camera, and this was the only photo I got:
Meh. A little blurry. But at least it captured the "excitement" of the moment. (It's fun to put "random" words in quotes. I should "do" this more often.)
Here's a better photo of the ball itself:
Now that my milestone was out of the way, my goal was to snag four more balls and reach double digits.
When the Braves cleared the field, I headed over toward their dugout on the first base side, and I wasn't allowed past this point:
If you look closely at the photo above, you can kinda see that the arrow is pointing to an extra chair in the front row — a little folding chair with slats on the back. That's how stadium security marks its arbitrary cut-off line; if you don't have a ticket for the seats beyond that point, you can't go there, even during batting practice. Matt and I had tickets in the 3rd row behind the 3rd base dugout, and yet we weren't allowed anywhere near the 1st base dugout. It's such a bad policy — so thoroughly asinine and misguided and anti-fan — but what could I do? I had to stay there and SHOUT REALLY LOUD to get Terry Pendleton's attention. He was standing all the way over near the home-plate end of the dugout. I didn't think he'd even look up, but to my surprise, he finally turned and threw a ball all the way to me. (Take THAT, stadium security!!)
I headed over to the left field foul line when the Reds started throwing…
…and didn't get a single ball there. What's up with that? I was decked out in Reds gear and still got ignored by all the players. Good thing there were a few batters hitting bombs to left-center field — and get this, they were left-handed. Although I'm not sure who was in the cage, I'm pretty certain it was Joey Votto and Jay Bruce. (Maybe Laynce Nix, too?) My eighth and ninth balls of the day were homers that landed in the seats. Here I am scrambling for one of them:
This was my view straight ahead:
See that kid in the front row with the arrow pointing to him? He was standing there because I told him to. Two minutes earlier, he had asked me a for a ball, and I said, "Don't ask ME. Ask the players. Stand in the front row, and when a ball rolls near you, ask them politely for it."
This was the view to my right:
See the man with the arrow pointing to him? He overheard my exchange with the kid and asked me, "How many balls do you have?"
He seemed friendly — I'm usually pretty good at determining when someone is asking me just for the purpose of starting an argument — so I told him.
"Nine?!" he asked. "Do you think that's fair?!"
"Well," I said calmly, "considering that I give away a lot of balls to kids and also do this to raise money for charity, yeah, actually I do think it's fair."
The guy was speechless. He just nodded and walked back over to his spot…however…when I caught my 10th ball of the day less than a minute later — another homer by one of the Reds' lefties — he was not too happy about it.
The kid in the front row turned around and started begging me all over again for a ball. I pointed at the field and told him, "You should be focusing on the players, not on me." And guess what happened soon after? Arthur Rhodes tossed a ball to the kid, who was so excited that he ran back and showed me.
"Now see?" I asked. "Wasn't that better than getting a ball from me?"
"YES!!!" he shouted with a huge smile on his face.
I looked over at the man who'd been giving me a hard time, and I shrugged. He was still stewing. And then, five minutes later, I used my glove trick to snag a ball from the gap and gave that one away to another kid. I don't even think the man saw that, and I don't care.
That was my 11th ball of the day, and batting practice was almost done, so I ran (gingerly) to the 3rd base dugout. None of the players or coaches gave me a ball, but some random equipment-manager-type-guy was dumping all the balls from the bucket into a zippered bag. I got his attention and convinced him to toss one to me, and man, it was a beauty. Here are two different photos of it:
Not only was there a big/diagonal/striped/green mark on it, and not only was the word "practice" stamped in a bizarre spot, but the logo was stamped too low. See how the word "commissioner" overlaps the stitch holes? I once snagged a ball with the logo stamped too high, and I also once snagged one with the logo stamped crookedly, but these are just a few examples out of thousands of balls, so you can see how rare it is.
I wandered for a bit after BP…
…and made it back to the dugout just in time for the national anthem:
Is that an amazing sight or what? I've never seen groundskeepers keep the hose on their shoulders during the playing of the song.
Reds third base coach Mark Berry tossed me a ball after the second inning, and in the bottom of the third, I headed up the steps to meet a 13-year-old kid from Atlanta named Evan. He'd been reading this blog for years, but we'd never met in person, and now finally, for the first time, we were at the same game together. I was planning to head over to the tunnels behind the plate and play for foul balls, but because he and his dad met me in the cross-aisle behind the dugout, I lingered there for a couple minutes to chat. Well, as luck would have it, while were were all standing around, Brian McCann fouled off a pitch from Aaron Harang and sent the ball flying 20 feet to my left. I took off after it (what sprained ankle?) and watched helplessly as it landed in a staircase just behind me. Thankfully, there was no one there, and the ball didn't take a crazy bounce. Instead, it trickled down into the aisle, where I was able to grab it. Ha-HAAAA!!! The whole thing never would've happened if not for Evan, so he gets the unofficial assist. Here we are together:
Evan has snagged approximately 300 balls. (He doesn't have an exact count, but he owns 295 and has given a few away.) That's an impressive number at any age, let alone 13. When I turned 13, I had a lifetime total of four baseballs. He and I hung out after that, first behind the plate, then with Matt behind the dugout, but there were no more balls to be snagged.
The game itself was very entertaining. Braves starter Kenshin Kawakami, who began the night with an 0-6 record and a 5.79 ERA, pitched six scoreless innings and left with a 4-0 lead. Unfortunately for him, his countryman, Takashi Saito, gave up three runs in the top of the eighth, and then Billy Wagner surrendered a solo shot in the ninth to pinch hitter Chris Heisey. With the score tied, 4-4, in the the bottom of the ninth, Martin Prado hit a two-out single, and Jason Heyward plated him with a line-drive double into the right-field corner.
Game over. Final score: Braves 5, Reds 4.
Heyward finished 3-for-5 with two doubles, a triple, and two runs scored. This guy is the real deal. He has unbelievably quick bat speed and a beautiful swing. He's 6-foot-5 and 240 pounds, and he's 20 years old! He has blazing speed, too, and he seems pretty solid in the field. I won't pronounce him a future Hall of Famer just yet, but I'd be shocked if he doesn't end up having a very good/long major league career. Wagner, by the way, two months shy of his 39th birthday, was consistently hitting 98mph on the gun. (I've never felt so athletically inadequate, but damn, these guys were fun to watch.)
After the game, I said goodbye to Evan (who got the lineup cards), then met a guy named Glenn Dunlap (who runs a company called Big League Tours), and caught up with another friend named Matt (who you might remember from 5/17/10 at Turner Field).
On my way out of the stadium, I took a photo of the empty seats…
…and walked past the Braves Museum and Hall of Fame…
…which was now closed.
Oh well.
I'm not a museum person anyway. (I'm more of a doer than a looker.)
Five minutes later, this is what I was doing just outside Turner Field:
No, I wasn't bowing down to my baseballs as part of a religious ritual; I had my camera in my hands, and I was trying to angle it just right in order to take one last photo. Keep reading past the stats to see how it turned out…
• 14 balls at this game (12 pictured below because I gave two away)
• 150 balls in 14 games this season = 10.7 balls per game.
• 643 consecutive games with at least one ball
• 194 consecutive games outside of New York with at least one ball
• 138 lifetime game balls (125 foul balls, 12 home runs, and one ground-rule double; this does NOT include game-used balls that get tossed into the crowd)
• 126 lifetime games with at least 10 balls
• 60 lifetime games outside of New York with at least 10 balls
• 4,508 total balls
• 34 donors (click here and scroll down to see the complete list)
• $5.20 pledged per ball (if you add up all 34 pledges)
• $72.80 raised at this game
• $780.00 raised this season for Pitch In For Baseball
Bye, Turner Field. Thanks for being so awesome. I'm gonna miss you…
5/17/10 at Turner Field
This was my first game at Turner Field in ten years, and I was pretty excited:
The crowd was going to be fairly small. The gates were going to open two and a half hours early. The configuration of the left field seats was going to be ideal. And in my previous four games at this stadium (two in 1999 and two in 2000), I'd averaged 9.5 balls per game.
I wasn't merely hoping to have a big day. I was expecting it. But first, I had some exploring to do outside the stadium.
This is what I saw when I walked to the top of the steps:
That big area is called Monument Grove.
I walked over to the gate in deep left-center field and took a peek through the metal bars:
Two photos above, you can see a blueish wall in the distance. Here's a closer look at it:
In case you can't read it, the words on top say, "THE LONGEST CONTINUOUSLY OPERATING FRANCHISE IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL." (I was not aware of that fact.) Underneath it, there were years and logos and names of all the Braves' former cities and teams: Boston Red Stockings (starting in 1871), Boston Red Caps, Boston Beaneaters, Boston Doves, Boston Rustlers, Boston Braves, Boston Bees, Boston Braves (again), Milwaukee Braves, and finally the current Atlanta Braves. It wasn't nearly as snazzy as any of the Twins shrines that I saw on May 4th at Target Field, but it was still cool to see the Braves honoring their past.
Here's the center field gate…
…and this is what it looked like when I rounded the corner of the stadium:
Meh. Nothing wrong with it, but not particularly memorable.
Here's another look from further down the street…
…and this is what it looked like after I rounded another corner:
Pretty standard stuff, I guess. The street on that side of the stadium was so green and hilly that it didn't even feel like a stadium. Check it out:
I resisted the urge to try to talk my way in as I passed the media entrance…
…and rounded yet another corner:
That's more like it.
Two-thirds of the way down the street, a bunch of autograph collectors were waiting for the Mets players to arrive:
See the guy standing on the right with the red ESPN shirt? His name is Pete Gasperlin (aka "pgasperlin" in the comments). I had met him on 5/6/10 at Target Field. He's a huge Twins fan. He's the founder of the Denard Span fan club on Facebook. And he's the guy who took my girlfriend Jona into the Metropolitan Club when she needed a break from the 40-degree drizzle. Yesterday, while I was talking to him, Jose Reyes, Johan Santana, and Oliver Perez were dropped off right in front of us. There were a dozen people begging for their autographs, including one guy (as you can see above) who was wearing a REYES jersey. It would have taken the players a minute or two to sign for everyone, but instead, they headed inside without even looking up or waving. It was pathetic. (David Wright, by the way, had stopped to sign on his way in shortly before I got there. Pete showed me a card that he'd gotten autographed.)
Here's what the stadium looked like just beyond the autograph collectors…
…and this is what it looked like when I rounded the final corner:
I was back to where I'd started, and I still had some time to spare, so I headed into the parking lot in order to get a look at Turner Field from afar:
Then I walked even further (about a quarter of a mile) and checked out the remnants of Fulton County Stadium:
Fulton County was the home of the Braves from 1966-1996. I was there for one game in 1992 and snagged one ball. It was thrown by a (now totally obscure) player on the Padres named Guillermo Velasquez. I remember it well. It was rainy. There wasn't BP. I was in the left field corner with my family. I didn't have a Padres cap. I was 15 years old at the time. And…what else can I say? The whole thing was lucky and feels like it happened in a previous life.
In the photo above, do you see the little random piece of wall on the little random patch of grass? Let me take you closer and show you what that is:
It's the spot where Hank Aaron's 715th career home run landed. (At the time, Babe Ruth held the record with 714, so this was a big big big big BIG big big deal. And of course it was more than just the numbers. There was the whole issue of race, too. Big deal. Very big.) Very cool to be standing so close to where such a major piece of history went down.
After that, I headed back to Turner Field and claimed at a spot just outside the gates:
The photo above was taken by Pete. The guy sitting on the right was the first person I had seen while wandering around the stadium earlier. He had stopped me and asked, "Are you Zack Hample?" Most people who recognize me are like, "Hey, aren't you that guy from YouTube," but this dude actually knew my name. (If I'm remembering correctly, his name is Matt.)
Five minutes before the gates opened, this was the line behind me:
When I ran inside and headed down to the front row in left-center, I was rather excited to see this:
Glove trick heaven!
Even more important, perhaps, was the fact that the seats extended all the way from the foul pole to the batter's eye. In other words, I was going to be able to position myself in all sorts of different spots based on who was batting and where the crowd was clustered.
My friend Pete unintentionally got the assist on my first ball of the day. It was a ground-rule double that kinda handcuffed him in the front row, and when it dropped down into the gap, I was all over it. Then I caught a home run on the fly, hit by a right-handed batter on the Braves that I couldn't identify. Nothing fancy about it. It was pretty much hit right to me. All I had to do was drift a few feet to my right and reach up for the easy, one-handed grab. Two minutes later, I saw a ball drop into the gap in right-center, so I ran over there. I reeled that one in and then discovered another ball in the gap, just a few feet to my left:
The problem with the section in right-center is that it's really far from home plate. Check out the view:
The batters basically have to hit the ball 400 feet just to reach the seats, and because the front row is always crowded, you're talking 410 to 420 in order for them to reach a spot where you'll have some room to run.
I ran back to left field and snagged a ground-rule double that bounced into the seats near the foul pole. I was proud of myself for this one because the ball had been hit really high, and I was all the way over in straight-away left field. I knew that it wasn't going to clear the wall on the fly, but instead of giving up on it, I kept running in case it bounced over. Two years ago, I wouldn't have made that play. I wasn't as good at judging fly balls, and didn't have The Vision. I don't know what's happening, but my instincts are suddenly improving. I can feel it. It's awesome.
I ran all the way to the seats in straight-away right field (it takes an effort to get there; the path is anything but direct) and caught a home run hit by Melky Cabrera. I had to move a full section to my right for it, and when I looked back up for the ball, I found myself staring right into the sun — so I felt good about that snag as well.
The gap in right field is partially blocked by the backside of the LED board:
It's still possible to use the glove trick there, but balls don't drop down too often.
When the Braves finished their portion of BP, I raced over to the seats behind their dugout — and was told by various ushers that I wasn't allowed down there.
Seriously, what kind of Citi-esque nonsense was that? Braves hitting coach Terry Pendleton was throwing ball after ball into the crowd, and since I was already halfway down into the seats, I started yelling to get his attention. He threw a ball to a nearby female usher, presumably for me, and when she dropped it and it started rolling toward me, she yelled at me to get away from her ball. Then, after she "ran" over and grabbed it, Pendleton threw her another, which she kept.
"Are you kidding me?!" I yelled.
"Theesa fo' my keeeids!" she insisted.
"Are you really competing with me for baseballs," I asked, "and kicking me out of your section an hour and a half before game time?"
That IS, in fact, what was happening. As this usher was guiding me up the steps, however, I managed to get Pendleton's attention, and he threw me my seventh ball of the day (which I caught right in front of her face).
Unbelievable. Does anyone have Ted Turner's phone number? I need to have a word with him.
When the Mets took the field, I was once again prohibited from entering the seats behind their dugout — or even next to their dugout. The closest I could get was shallow left field!
I got a ball tossed to me in the left field corner by one of the trainer-type-strength-and-conditioning-coach dudes. Then I moved to straight-away left and fished a home run ball out of the gap. (That was my ninth ball of the day, and there was some competition from other fans with devices.) Less than a minute later, I caught a homer on the fly. I'm not sure who hit it. All I can tell you is that I was in the third row, and there was a guy around my age in the second row. When the ball went up, he misjudged it and moved back. This enabled me to carefully slip past him and drift down to the front row, where I leaned over the railing and made the catch.
Check out the ball:
It was a Citi Field commemorative ball. I'd snagged a bunch of these last year, but it was still great to get another. Commemorative balls are sacred to me — even the ones like this with poorly designed logos.
The Braves had been using standard balls with the word "practice" printed under the MLB logo; the Mets were using balls that had "practice" stamped sloppily on the sweet spot. Check it out:
("We talkin' about PRAC-tice!")
The left field seats got pretty crowded…
…but that didn't stop me. I snagged a David Wright homer that landed near me in the seats and then ran over to right field for the next group of hitters. It was either Jose Reyes or Luis Castillo — I just wasn't paying close enough attention — but whoever it was hit a home run right to me. I mean right to me. I could sense that someone was running toward me in the row below me, so I reached up with two hands to brace for a potential collision. The ball cleared this other guy's glove by three inches, and then he tripped and fell headfirst over his row. (Yes, I caught the ball.) Don't feel bad for him. He was in his 20s and looked/acted like he belonged in the mosh pit at a punk rock show. Thirty seconds later, I saw him scramble for another ball and grab it right in front of a little kid, who looked pretty devastated. The kid's father tried to plead with the guy to turn the ball over, and when he refused, I tapped the kid on the shoulder and handed him the one I'd just caught. The kid (as you might imagine) was thrilled, his father thanked me for a solid minute, and I got a bunch of high-fives from other fans.
Back in left field, I went on a mini-snagging rampage during the closing minutes of BP. Pedro Feliciano threw me my 13th ball of the day. Then I used my glove trick (No. 14). Then I grabbed a home run in the seats that some grown-ups bobbled (No. 15). And then used my trick again for a home run ball that landed in the gap (No. 16). I managed to get down to the Mets' dugout at the end of BP, and as all the players and coaches were clearing the field, I got Howard Johnson to toss me No. 17.
I'd been planning to go for homers during the game, but now that I was so close to 20, I decided to stay behind the dugout and pad my numbers. For some reason, the Mets never came out for pre-game throwing, so that cost me an important opportunity, but there was still the chance to get a third-out ball. This was my view early in the game:
Yunel Escobar grounded out to Mets first baseman Ike Davis to end the second inning. Davis jogged in and tossed me the ball. Pretty simple. The ball, it should be noted, had the Citi Field commemorative logo on it, which means it wasn't the actual ball that had been used during the game; Davis had obviously kept the gamer and tossed me his infield warm-up ball instead.
As I jogged up the steps, I happened to see Kevin Burkhardt, the Mets' sideline reporter, sitting at the back of the section with his SNY microphone. I had gotten to know him a bit over the past few seasons, and once I started snagging baseballs for charity last year, I'd been asking him if he'd interview me about it someday. Long story short: the interview finally took place last night during the bottom of the 4th inning.
The whole thing only lasted a couple minutes, but I think it went pretty well. Here's a screen shot (courtesy of SNY) before the interview started. It shows Kevin pointing out the camera that was going to be filming us:
Here's another screen shot (courtesy of my friend Howie) during the interview itself.
Yes, Howie actually photographed his TV.
Kevin asked me two main questions:
1) How do you catch so many baseballs?
2) Can you tell me what you're doing for charity?
It was great to get to give a plug on-air for Pitch In For Baseball. Big thanks to the Mets for letting me do it. (The Braves, as I mentioned three days ago on Twitter, denied my media/charity request.)
Here I am with Kevin after the interview:
I still have yet to see a tape of it, but according to Howie, when Eric Hinske homered the following inning (to a spot where I wouldn't have been anyway), the Mets announcers mentioned me.
Gary Cohen said, "Zack did not get the ball," to which Ron Darling replied, "He's probably negotiating for it."
I spent the rest of the game chasing nonexistent foul balls behind the plate. This was my view for right-handed batters:
There's a cross-aisle that runs through the entire field level, so it's easy to run left and right. The only problem is that the protective screen is rather tall, so balls have to loop back over it — something that doesn't happen too often.
If you've been reading the comments on this blog, you may have noticed a bunch over the years from someone known as "lsthrasher04" and later "braves04." The person who's been leaving those comments lives in Atlanta. His name is Matt. We'd been in touch for a long time, but we'd never met in person until yesterday. I saw him briefly during BP, but I was so busy running all over the place that we barely had a chance to catch up. Late in the game, he came and found me, and we finally had a photo taken together. Here we are:
Matt had kindly given me some pointers about Turner Field in recent weeks. I returned the favor last night by signing his copy of Watching Baseball Smarter.
By the time the 9th inning rolled around, I still needed two more balls to reach 20. My plan, since the Mets were winning, 3-2, was as follows:
1) Go to the Mets' dugout.
2) Get a ball from home plate umpire Ed Rapuano.
3) Get another ball from the Mets as they walk off the field.
4) If that fails, get a ball from the relievers when they walk in from the bullpen.
Good plan, right? It gave me three chances to snag two balls. Well, Rapuano took care of the first one, but then the Mets let me down. None of them tossed a ball into the crowd as they headed back in — and get this: the relievers never walked across the field. They must've headed from the bullpen to the clubhouse through the underground concourse.
So that was it.
My day ended with 19 balls.
(Yeah, I know, poor me.)
The Mets held on for a 3-2 win, so my Ballhawk Winning Percentage improved to what would be a major league best: .792 (9.5 wins and 2.5 losses).
Before heading out, I caught up with Pete…
…who generously gave me a new Braves cap. (My old one, circa 1992, was crinkly and fugly and being held together at the back with duct tape.)
Good times. Good people. Good baseball. Can't wait for the next two games here. I'm hoping to snag 23 more and hit 4,500…
• 19 balls at this game (18 pictured on the right because I gave one away)
• 119 balls in 12 games this season = 9.9 balls per game.
• 641 consecutive games with at least one ball
• 192 consecutive games outside of New York with at least one ball
• 124 lifetime games with at least 10 balls
• 4,477 total balls
• 31 donors (click here and scroll down to see who has pledged)
• $4.95 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)
• $94.05 raised at this game
• $589.05 raised this season for Pitch In For Baseball
5/12/10 at Camden Yards
It started at 5pm when I ran inside the stadium and saw this:
It was just starting to drizzle. The groundskeepers were just starting to roll out the tarp. The Orioles, who HAD been taking batting practice, were walking off the field. Why was this a big deal? Because the last two times I was at Camden Yards for batting practice, I snagged 22 balls the first day and 25 the second.
Normally, I would've raced out to left field to look for balls in the empty seats, but instead I stopped by the dugout to talk to Jeremy Guthrie (whom I've gotten to know quite well over the past two seasons). Why was this a big deal? Because a fellow ballhawk named Matt, who had entered the stadium 10 seconds after me, ended up running out there and finding ELEVEN balls!!!!!!!!!!! (That's one exclamation point per ball.)
My friend Brandon showed up soon after with his fancy camera. Here's a photo he took of the batting cage being rolled away:
Five minutes later, Ichiro started playing in shallow left field. This is how I wore my Mariners shirt to get his attention:
As he finished throwing, I waved to get his attention…
…and he threw the ball to me. Here I am reaching out for it:
I adore Ichiro. Getting a ball from him was the highlight of my day. It would've been the highlight of my month if he hadn't thrown one to me on 5/10/05 at Yankee Stadium.
Brandon takes amazing photos…like this one…of my reaction to the weather:
(Note the raindrop on the upper right.)
In the photo above, you can see someone on the Mariners playing catch in the background. It was Jack Wilson. He was throwing with the team's strength and conditioning coordinator. At least that's who I think it was — and that's who tossed me the ball when they finished. Here's the ball in mid-air, heading to me:
See the guy to my right in the tan cargo shorts? That's another fellow ballhawk named Avi. He's the one who visited the Camden Club with me the day before.
A few more Mariners came out to play catch. Here's a photo (taken by Brandon) of Sean White:
In the photo above, the orange seat indicates where Eddie Murray's 500th career home run landed.
My third ball of the day was thrown by Brandon League, and my fourth ball, pictured below in mid-air, was tossed by Mariners bullpen catcher Jason Phillips:
Even though it was raining, a bunch of Mariners signed autographs. Here I am getting David Aardsma on my ticket…
…and here's the ticket itself:
As you can see, I got four guys to sign it, and they all (sloppily) wrote their uniform numbers. Aardsma (53) is on the upper right, Jesus Colome (37) is in the middle, Ian Snell (35) is on the left, and Sean White (46) is on the lower right.
Brandon gave me his ticket, and I got John Wetteland to sign it:
Wetteland was talking (to all the fans who were willing to listen) about electro-magnetism and atomic radiation and the big bang theory. And that was just the beginning. It was weird and funny — although he wasn't trying to be funny. He was being totally serious, which made it funny…to me.
Eventually, when it really started raining hard, I took cover under the overhang of the second deck and pulled out my tickets to have a look. The nearest usher thought I needed help finding my seat, so I explained that I was merely checking out the autographs that I'd gotten. He and a couple other guys gathered around to have a look at them, too:
Brandon photographed everything, including this:
It's a shot of me giving away one of my baseballs to a little kid — something I try to do at least once or twice at every game.
I headed down to the front row for pre-game throwing…
…and got a ball from Josh Wilson. The following eight-part photo shows the ball from the time it was in his hand until I caught it. You might want to click it for a closer look:
The game was delayed 24 minutes at the start.
And then…look how small the crowd was:
You'd think I would've caught 17 foul balls and five home runs, right?
Yeah, not exactly.
And guess what? Ken Griffey Jr. wasn't in the starting lineup. He was THE reason why I took this little roadtrip in the first place. Things just kept getting worse and worse.
This is where I positioned myself for most right-handed batters:
Over the course of the game, two foul balls landed less than five feet from me. In both cases, I was the closest fan to them — and in both cases, the balls ricocheted wildly off the seats and ended up getting grabbed by other people. If the balls had simply stayed where they landed, these would've been easy snags.
NOW do you see why this game was so frustrating?
Well, there's more…
In the bottom of the fourth inning, Luke Scott connected on the game's lone home run. I was at the back of the standing-room-only section. The ball was heading right toward me, but falling short, so I raced up toward the wall and reached out at the last second to make the catch. It was THAT close to me. I actually squeezed my glove in anticipation. The ball never touched my glove, however, because the guy standing directly in front of me stuck his bare hands up and deflected it. The ball didn't hit me in the face — I do have THAT to be thankful for — but instead it bounced directly over my head and rolled back to the exact spot where I'd been standing.
I was doing everything right, but couldn't catch a break. Not to sound overly dramatic, but in all seriousness, my horrendous luck really made me question things. I can think of several instances where I've been angry inside major league stadiums, but this game, by far, left me feeling more frustrated than ever.
After the top of the 6th inning, I got a third-out ball from future Hall of Famer Nick Markakis. He had caught a fly ball hit by Jose Lopez to end the frame, and when he tossed it into the crowd, it got bobbled and then started trickling down the steps. During the mad scramble that ensued, I grabbed the ball out of puddle underneath a seat in the front row. I scraped my knuckles in the process. The whole night sucked.
Griffey pinch hit in the top of the ninth…
…and hit a sacrifice fly to right field — right in my direction, but about 75 feet too short.
After the game, I got my seventh ball of the day from home plate umpire Joe West, but I still felt like crap.
Final score: Orioles 5, Mariners 2. At least I notched another win for my Ballhawk Winning Percentage, which now stands at .850 (8.5 wins and 1.5 losses).
• 7 balls at this game (6 pictured on the right because I gave one away)
• 95 balls in 10 games this season = 9.5 balls per game.
• 639 consecutive games with at least one ball
• 190 consecutive games outside of New York with at least one ball
• 4,453 total balls
• 31 donors (click here and scroll down to see who has pledged)
• $4.95 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)
• $34.65 raised at this game
• $470.25 raised this season for Pitch In For Baseball
5/6/10 at Target Field
Game time: 7:10pm
Arrival-at-the-stadium time: 1:00pm
Yeah, it was another monster day at Target Field, this time thanks to a certain Twins employee, who gave me (and my girlfriend Jona) a private tour of the stadium. (As I mentioned in my previous entry, this employee wishes to remain anonymous, so let's just call him Kirby.)
Because the tour began more than four hours before the stadium opened, the concourse was empty…
…and so were the the seats:
Kirby took us inside Hrbek's bar…
…and pointed out that the ceiling is decorated with every different Twins logo in team history. Then he led us into the uber-fancy Champion's Club, which is located directly behind home plate. Here it is from the outside:
(That's Jona in the green jacket and Kirby in the blue shirt.)
This is the reception/entrance area:
(That's me sitting at the desk-like podium thing.)
Note the "TC" logos all over the place, including the huge one on the floor and the smaller ones on the logs.
This is what I saw when we headed through the back door of the reception area:
Normally, when fans enter the club, an auxiliary wall blocks the service tunnel from view, but in this case, since we were there so early, everything was open.
As we wandered through the tunnel, I saw the Twins Family Lounge…
…and then found myself standing right outside the Twins' clubhouse:
Tony Oliva walked by. I said hello and shook his hand. Ho-hum. Just your typical three-time batting champion.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to go inside the clubhouse, but hey, no biggie, at least I got to explore the Champion's Club. Here's the first thing I saw when I opened the door:
See those wooden cabinets on the left? This is what was in them:
Yep, the two Twins World Series trophies from 1987 and 1991.
Here's a four-part photo that shows more of the Champion's club:
All the food is free there — that is, after you've spent your life savings on the tickets — including the candy.
This is how you get from the club to the seats…
…and once you reach the top of the ramp, this is the view of the field:
Not bad.
From that spot, you're closer to home plate than the pitcher is.
Justin Morneau was doing some sort of TV shoot just to my left. Meanwhile, out in right field, another Twins player (I think it was Kevin Slowey) was working out with a weighted ball:
Kirby took us up to the club level and showed us one of the suites:
Here's another look at it:
Reminds me of IKEA. Still pretty nice, though. But it's not how *I* would ever want to watch a baseball game.
One seriously cool thing about the suites is that they're all connected, you know, sort of like hotel rooms that have conjoining doors. Check it out:
If you rent out one suite, there's a door that shuts and seals it off from the next one, but if you rent two (or all ten), you can open them up.
(In case you didn't notice, the suites alternate colors — blue and red, the Twins' colors.)
Here's what it looked like when I walked out the back door of the suite:
The next stop on the tour was the Metropolitan Club down the right field line:
(The previous day, I had wandered all over the stadium on my own, but because of my limited access, there was only so much I could see. This tour completely made up for it and filled in all the missing pieces.)
Here's one photo that I took inside the Metropolitan Club…
…and here's another:
The club is named after Metropolitan Stadium, the Twins' home from 1961-1981.
Check out the view of the field from inside the club…
…and from the outside:
Check out this lovely view of the standing room area:
Back inside the club, I took a good look at a display case with some old Metropolitan Stadium memorabilia…
…and then followed Kirby to the nearby (and equally exclusive) Delta Club (aka the "Legends Club"). Here's the entrance…
…and this is what it looked like on the inside:
The club has a whole area dedicated to Kirby Puckett (not to be confused with Kirby the tour guide):
See the balcony? That's the suite level. (There's a difference between the suite level and the club level, although both levels have suites. Don't ask.) More on that in a bit…
Here's a four-part photo that shows some different stuff in the Delta club:
TOP LEFT: a fancy-schmancy hallway
TOP RIGHT: a wall with famous Twins play-by-play quotes
BOTTOM LEFT: a bar/lounge with a staircase that leads to the suite level
BOTTOM RIGHT: a deli, located in the concourse
Before we went upstairs, I checked out the seats in front of the press box:
(That cross-aisle, if you can ever get there, is great for game foul balls.)
Here's the hallway and balcony on the suite level:
The area down below, dedicated to Rod Carew, is part of the Delta/Legends club.
Here's what the truly fancy suite-level suites look like (as opposed to the slightly-less-fancy club-level suites, which you saw earlier):
Kirby told me that these suites go for "six figures" per season, and that there's a "five-year commitment" required.
(Ahem, excuse me?!)
Here's the suite's outdoor seating area. I've drawn arrows pointing to a) a heat lamp and b) a flat-screen TV:
Here's another section of the suite-level hallway:
(Six figures? Seriously?)
Kirby led us up to the upper deck, and then we headed toward the Budweiser Party deck:
Here's what it looks like up there. The big rectangular thing in the middle of the photo is a fire pit:
(Can you imagine if they had one of these at Yankee Stadium? Red Sox games would be so much more entertaining.)
Here's the partial view of the field from the third row of seating:
Here I am with Jona:
That was pretty much the end of the tour, but even on the way out, there was interesting stuff to see:
(To the anonymous Twins employee who gave me the tour, thank you SO much. It was one of the most special things I've ever done inside a major league stadium.)
It was 3pm. Jona was starving (and bein' all vegan), so we found a Mexican restaurant where she ordered beans and rice (which somehow had a piece of beef buried in it).
At around 4pm — 90 minutes before the stadium was going to open — we headed over to Gate 34. I could see that the batting cage was set up, and half an hour later, the Twins started hitting:
Ten minutes after that…
…I managed to snag a ball outside the stadium. A left-handed batter on the Twins crushed a home run down the line. The ball cleared the bleachers and was bouncing right toward me across the standing room area. As I reached through the gate to prepare for the easy snag, a young usher hustled over and scooped up the ball. I made such a big fuss about it (in a friendly way) that he ended up tossing it to me — but his throw was off the mark, and the ball clanked off one of the bars and started rolling to my left. He chased after it, then returned and apologized for the bad throw and handed the ball to me.
Once the stadium opened, I went to the corner spot down the left field foul line. Jona hung back in the bleachers so she'd be in a good spot to take photos with her own camera. Here she is…
…and here are some of the photos she took:
I got Jason Berken to toss me my second ball of the day, and then I promptly booted a grounder that was yanked down the line. In my own defense, let me say this: it was a three-hopper, hit hard with a ton of topspin. Not only did I get an in-between hop, but the ball came up on me and deflected off my wrist. (It came up so much that it completely missed my glove.) It was the kind of bad hop that the casual fan wouldn't notice, but anyone who's ever played infield knows how tough these balls can be. After I booted it, Will Ohman (who was shagging balls in left field) started making fun of me. I got the last laugh, however, by snagging three ground balls in the next 20 minutes. Here's a photo that shows me leaning out of the stands for one of them:
On this particular grounder, I leaned WAY out of the stands as soon as the ball was hit. Then, when it ended up hooking back toward me, I didn't need to reach out with full extension. The day before, I had actually reached past the foul line for a grounder, but Jona wasn't there to document it.
I ran over to the Orioles' dugout at the end of BP and called out to Jeremy Guthrie.
"Hey, what's up, Zack?" he asked.
Very cool. I knew he'd remember me (from all the Orioles games I'd attended last year), but this was the first time he'd actually said my name.
Here I am talking to him:
We chatted for a couple minutes, during which time he asked me if I'd gotten a ball yet.
"Yeah," I'm all set, I told him, "but thanks for asking."
He's awesome. Case closed.
After BP, I posed with my Target Field commemorative balls…
…and met a season ticket holder named Richard (aka "twibnotes") who's been reading this blog for quite some time. He and I hung out for half an hour — and then I had to take off and try to snag a pre-game warm-up ball.
Cesar Izturis tossed one to me at the dugout. The following photo shows the ball in mid-air:
As you can see, the stands were packed, but there wasn't any competition. Everyone else was pretty much sitting down, patiently waiting for the game to start.
It rained during the game for the third straight day, but that didn't affect my plan. I just stayed out in the standing room area, hoping that a lefty would get a hold of one and pull it down the line. The following photo shows where I was standing:
(I was still wearing my bright orange Ripken shirt.)
This was my view from that spot:
My friend Bob (aka "Big Glove Bob") came out and found me in the standing room area, and we chatted on and off throughout the game. Another guy who's been reading this blog also found me. His name is Pete Gasperlin (aka "pgasperlin"), and he's the founder of the Denard Span fan club on Facebook.
Here's a photo of Jona with a ball that she'd snagged earlier in the day:
Yes, that's the right, the young lady grabbed her fourth lifetime baseball during BP when a home run landed in the camera well down the left field line. The Tigers, it should be noted, were using a combination of regular and commemorative balls. Also, in case you're wondering, in the five Twins games that I've attended this season, I have not seen a single Metrodome ball.
As the game reached the middle innings, Jona got really cold (because it was really cold). Pete came to the rescue. He had season tickets that gave him access to the Metropolitan Club, so he took her up there. He and I hung out for a bit after that. Turns out that we'll both be at Turner Field on May 17th. Weird.
With three outs remaining in the Orioles' 2-0 victory, I got tired of the standing room area and headed here:
The move paid off. Look what I ended up getting:
Home plate umpire Tony Randazzo tossed me a rubbed-up commemorative ball as he headed off the field, and then Orioles manager Dave Trembley gave me his Twins lineup card. Here's a better look at it.
Of all the lineup cards I've gotten over the years, this is one of my favorites because of Trembley's notations. Did you notice what he wrote next to Nick Punto's name? It says, "NOT GOOD RHH .083," which obviously means that Punto, a switch-hitter, is terrible from the right side. Directly above that, Trembley noted that Alexi Casilla is better against left-handed pitching. And who knew that Jim Thome was 0-for-3 against Will Ohman?
My day of snagging wasn't done. Orioles reliever Matt Albers threw me my eighth ball of the day when he walked in from the bullpen, and then Alan Dunn, the bullpen coach, tossed me another less than 60 seconds later. (If I hadn't dropped that stupid grounder during BP, I would've hit double digits — something Bob had said would be impossible at this stadium.)
Before heading back to our hotel, Jona and I stopped by Smalley's 87 Club for one final meal, this time with a gentleman named Albert (and his kids), who had helped two days earlier with the media.
Aside from the lack of game home runs, my time in Minnesota could not have been any better.
• 9 balls at this game (seven pictured on the right because I gave two away)
• 82 balls in 8 games this season = 10.25 balls per game.
• .813 Ballhawk Winning Percentage this season (6.5 wins, 1.5 losses)
• 637 consecutive games with at least one ball
• 188 consecutive games outside of New York with at least one ball
• 4,440 total balls
• 29 donors (click here to learn more and get involved)
• $3.85 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)
• $34.65 raised at this game
• $315.70 raised this season for Pitch In For Baseball
5/5/10 at Target Field
I was convinced that there wouldn't be batting practice. The weather was iffy, and the game had an extra early start time (12:10pm). I mean, if ever there was a day for the players to sleep in, this was it. Right?
Well, when I ran inside the stadium, the cage and screens were all set up, and players from both teams were throwing in the outfield:
I hurried down to the left field foul line and quickly identified the two Tigers as Brad Thomas and Phil Coke. I was hoping that Thomas wouldn't end up with the ball because he had thrown one to me the day before. I assumed he'd recognize me, so I was glad when Coke ended up with it instead — and when he did, I asked him for it.
He walked over to me and said, "You're the guy with the running count, right?"
(Crap, I was busted. I had to come up with a good answer.)
"Yeah," I told him, "and you know I'm doing this for charity, right?"
(I wasn't only doing it for charity. I was doing it for fun, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to mention that.)
"Yeah, I know," he said. "I saw the thing about you on TV yesterday."
(Cool! Now I just had to convince him to give me the ball. Think! Say something! Anything!)
"Well, it would be an honor to get a ball from you," I said.
D'oh! As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt like an idiot. It was actually true — why wouldn't I want a ball from a major leaguer who recognized me? — but felt kinda phony. Evidently, however, it wasn't too phony for Coke because he walked even closer and placed the ball into my open glove.
I raced around the stadium to the right field side…
…and got Carl Pavano to throw me a ball five minutes later. It was commemorative and worn out and beautiful. Have a look:
Once the Tigers started taking BP, I ran back to the left field side and grabbed the corner spot along the foul line. This was the view:
I had decided to go for grounders instead of homers because the left field bleachers were crowded:
I caught two baseballs during BP (bringing my total on the day to four). The first was tossed by Johnny Damon, and the second was a grounder that a right-handed batter yanked down the line. In between these two snags, some random guy approached me in the stands and introduced himself. He said he'd been reading my blog, and that he enjoyed keeping up with my baseball travels, and that he was a big baseball geek, too, and that he appreciated how much I enjoyed the game. I appreciated his kind words, but didn't think much of it until he handed me his business card:
He told me that if I was free the next day, he'd give me a tour of Target Field before it opened. (Stuff like this never happens to me in New York.) He even said I could take photos and blog about it — Twins management gave its stamp of approval — as long as I didn't use his name. I thanked him profusely, told him I'd give him a call, and then began my own tour.
The previous day, I'd wandered all around the outside of the stadium. Now it was time to explore the inside, and I started behind the 3rd base dugout. Check out the cross-aisle that runs through the stands:
Some people have been referring to this as "the moat," but I don't think it should be called that. Moats keep people out. Yankee Stadium has a MOAT. Dodger Stadium has a MOAT. But here in Minnesota, fans are allowed to go down to the dugouts until the end of batting practice. Once BP ends, the ushers start checking tickets, but after a few innings, you can pretty much wander wherever you want.
I headed up the steps and into the field level concourse. Naturally it was packed…
…so it took me a few minutes to make it out to the left field foul pole:
In the photo above, the glassy area on the right is a New Era cap store. The balcony around it is open to everyone. If you want to stand there for the entire game, no one's gonna stop you.
I kept walking around the field level. Here's what it looked like at the back of the bleachers in left-center field:
You see those low-hanging lights in the photo above? Know what those are? Heat lamps. Great idea. The Twins/architects paid close attention to detail when designing this ballpark. It was truly a pleasure to walk around and take it all in.
Fans were streaming into Gate 3 — the Harmon Killebrew gate:
Here's a look at the bullpens and bleachers:
There's absolutely no chance to use the glove trick behind the 'pens because the video board juts out too far. (You can see it better two photos above.) In fact, there's no chance to use the trick in most outfield sections.
Here are the seats in right-center field. Note the flower bed in front and overhang up above:
As you can see, it's impossible to use the glove trick here, too, and if you're hoping to catch a home run, your only chance is in the front row. I don't care if the seats are made of real wood; there's basically no reason to ever set foot in that section.
Here's what the batter's eye looks like from there:
I decided to walk to the end of the front row and peek over the edge — you know, just to see what the trees looked like from above. This is what I saw:
Well, how about that? There was a ball sitting 15 feet below me. I looked around. There were no ushers or security guards in sight, so I pulled out my glove, set up the rubber band and Sharpie, and went in for the kill. It took a minute to knock the ball closer, and then I successfully reeled it in…so I take back what I said a minute ago. There IS a reason to set foot in that section, and you just read about it.
I headed out to the standing room area behind the right field foul pole:
Want to guess who was outside the gate?
Waldo, of course:
(I wrote about him in my previous entry.)
The Twins had won the first two games of the series, so he was rooting for a sweep.
There was still a lot more for me to see. I knew I wasn't going to finish wandering before the game started — and I was okay with that. I decided to take my time and walk all around Target Field, and if I missed a few innings, so be it.
I rode an escalator to the upper deck and took a photo of the standing room area from above. Check it out:
See that big brown-ish building on the other side of the standing room area? (It's a garage.) See the gray-ish translucent thing with random white blotches in front of it? I don't know what to call it — it probably has an official name — so all I can tell you is that it's a gigantic piece of art. It's made out of thousands of shingle-sized metal flaps that wiggle back and forth in the breeze. It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, and no, that's not an exaggeration. The flaps move in unison, like a massive school of fish, creating a hypnotic illusion which, from afar, looks like steam rising and swirling. You have to see it in person. It's freaky and amazing, and you'll never forget it.
As the umpires walked out onto the field, I wandered from the right field corner toward the plate and discovered a narrow walkway in front of some windows:
Here's another look at the walkway from the other end:
See the guy holding a clipboard on the right? That was the public address announcer! There was a big microphone hanging down near the upper right corner of the window, and as he spoke into it, his voice boomed out across the stadium. HOW COOL that the Twins designed Target Field to give fans such incredible access. They actually made it worthwhile to be in the upper deck. And wait, there's more…
Directly behind home plate, there was another/longer enclosed area with windows overlooking the field:
As you can see in the photo above, there wasn't a walkway in front, so I had to head around the back of it in the concourse. Here's a photo of it:
It's called Twins Pub. You don't need a special ticket to get inside. Anyone can go hang out there to enjoy a beverage and/or escape the cold. Here's what it looks like on the inside:
Ready for the coolest thing of all? This might be my favorite photo from the whole trip. Inside the pub…well, here, take a look:
Yes, the Target Field organist was sitting right there for everyone to see.
Just wow.
Behind the pub, there was an unusual, elevated walkway that the people sitting high up above the plate had to use to get to their seats:
I headed up there to take a few pics that I later combined to make a panorama:
I love how the lights are actually tucked into the roof of the upper deck. I'm telling you, every inch of this stadium is glorious.
Here's what it looked like at the very back of the upper deck:
(Okay, so maybe THAT shouldn't be classified as "glorious," but there's certainly nothing wrong with it.)
Here's a look at the field from the 3rd base side…
…and here's some more upper deck weirdness:
I'm talking about that last elevated row of seats.
Funky, don't you think?
As I approached the left field corner, I got a nice view of the party decks:
I was looking forward to seeing the Budweiser deck at the very top of the building. There was a staircase at the end of the concourse that appeared to lead up there:
Unfortunately, it just led to the regular portion of the upper deck, so I had to settle for checking it out from here:
I headed down to the club level…
…but couldn't get past these doors:
The left field corner of the club level was open to everyone, so I headed in that direction:
The "Captain Morgan deck" was situated at the very end (directly above the New Era store):
(There should be an "Alcoholics Anonymous lounge" to go with it.)
This was where the people who didn't care about the game seemed to congregate. As you can see in the photo above, only one guy was even bothering to watch the nearest TV, and if you look closely, you can see that he was really just taking a quick break from playing with his phone. Sad. But hey, all these people paid to be in the stadium, so whether or not they were watching the game, they were at least supporting it.
Here's the view from the deck — no, not of the field, but more importantly, of the stands and beams and concourses behind it:
Here's the view from the top corner of the left field upper deck:
(I really did wander everywhere.)
I loved the combination of metal, concrete, and glass. I loved the angles. I loved the sleek design. But I didn't love the wind. It was so gusty up there that I was nearly blown off my feet. It was freezing and a bit scary, so I made sure to hold onto the railing whenever I got near the edge. (For once, I was glad to have gained 11 pounds this past off-season.)
This was the view to the left:
Here I am with my five baseballs:
Three of the balls had black magic marker streaks across the logo like this. That's how the Tigers are marking their balls. (If you want to see all the different types of marked balls that I've snagged over the years, click here.)
Here's what it looked like from the deepest part of the ballpark in left-center:
There's a standing room area directly behind the batter's eye…
…but because the wall is so high (shoulder-high if you're six feet tall) and has a metal drink shelf jutting out, it's nearly impossible to peer over for balls that might be hiding in the trees below.
The stands in deep right-center were strangely configured. There was some weird railing/platform/standing-room action at the very back:
I headed down toward the main standing room section in right field…
…and then went back up to the club level on the right field side. There was a sizable area that was open to all fans, which included a model of Target Field and a long hallway with photos of every current major league stadium:
Finally, at some point more than halfway through the game, I finished wandering and caught up with my friend "Big Glove Bob":
I spent the next few innings hanging out in the standing room area, and then I grabbed a seat behind the 3rd base dugout. Orlando Hudson flied out to Tigers right fielded Ryan Raburn to end the eighth inning, and when Raburn jogged in, he flipped me the ball. That was my sixth of the day, and since there was a little kid standing nearby with a glove, I handed him my lone unmarked/non-commemorative ball from BP. (Yeah, I kept the game-used ball with the Target Field logo and gave him a regular practice ball. So? He didn't know the difference, and he was thrilled to no end.) Then, with one out remaining in the game, I moved over to the staircase behind the umpires' exit…
…and got my seventh and final ball of the day from Derryl Cousins as he hurried off the field.
My last two baseballs were perfect, game-rubbed, commemorative balls:
Final score: Zack 7, Twins 5, Tigers 4. (This improved my Ballhawk Winning Percentage to .786 — 5.5 wins and 1.5 losses.)
I had no idea what happened in the game until I looked at the box score, and you know what? It doesn't even matter.
• 7 balls at this game (6 pictured on the right because I gave one away)
• 73 balls in 7 games this season = 10.4 balls per game.
• 636 consecutive games with at least one ball
• 187 consecutive games outside of New York with at least one ball
• 4,431 total balls
• 29 donors (click here and scroll down to see who has pledged)
• $3.85 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)
• $26.95 raised at this game
• $281.05 raised this season for Pitch In For Baseball
After the game, I met Jona at Smalley's 87 Club. We both had our laptops and used the free WiFi. She had a Boca burger. (Yeesh.) I had the boneless BBQ chicken wings and a side of onion rings. (She'd say "yeesh" to that, so we're even.) Roy Smalley made a post-game appearance (as he often does) and signed a ticket stub for me:
(Are they still called "stubs" even though they no longer get torn?)
5/4/10 at Target Field
I woke up in Cleveland at 5:15am with three hours of sleep. By the time I checked into my hotel in Minnesota, I was so tired that my eyes hurt. I should've taken a nap, especially considering that I was going to be on TV later that evening, but I was too excited about Target Field. To hell with sleep. I had to get over there and see it. This was my first look at it:
(Did you notice the HUGE Target logo on the walkway?)
I could tell from afar that the place was gorgeous, and once I got closer, I noticed that the Twins (unlike the Mets) did an amazing job of honoring their past. One of the first things I saw was a long, wall-like display featuring the team's former stadiums:
Right nearby, there was a fence with pennant-shaped tributes to important players and executives in Twins history…
…and then I saw Gate 29:
That's kind of a random number for a gate, right? Well, it was named after Hall of Famer Rod Carew, who wore uniform No. 29 for the Twins for 12 seasons. Target Field has five gates, all of which are named after Twins players who've had their numbers retired. Genius.
I walked clockwise around the outside of the stadium. Here's the team store…
…and here are some of the many team-related banners:
Nice, huh?
FYI, there are service ramps behind those long wooden boards. If you look closely at them, you can see a door on the lower left that swings open.
Check out the view through Gate 14 (named after Kent Hrbek):
It was one o'clock. First pitch was scheduled for 7:10pm. That's why there weren't many people around.
This is what I saw when I walked past Gate 14 and turned the corner:
The fence on the left was lined with poster-sized replica Topps baseball cards of Twins players, past and present. Brilliant.
At the far end of the walkway, I passed a Light Rail station…
…and turned another corner:
Here's another sneak peek inside the stadium through Gate 6 (named after Tony Oliva):
I felt very welcomed, indeed.
I kept walking. Here's more of what I saw:
I passed some artwork (officially known as the "5th Street Panels at Target Field") on the far end of the building:
This piece in particular is called "A History of Minnesota Baseball."
I risked my life to take the following photo:
Okay, not really, but I *was* standing awfully close to the train tracks.
(Gate 3, which you can see in the photo above, is named after Harmon Killebrew. I later learned that on Opening Day, Killebrew stood just inside the gate and greeted fans as they entered. That's how to run a major league organization.)
Here's where it gets weird. I'd been walking around the stadium without any problems. Everything was beautiful and clean and simple. But when I passed Gate 3, this is what I saw:
What the–???
Where was I supposed to walk? Into the tunnel? Was it even possible to walk all the way around the outside of the stadium? I crossed the street on the left side and headed onto a narrow walkway. I had no idea where I was going. There were no signs. There was nothing but a pair of unmarked glass doors:
Just when I was was preparing to retrace my steps and head back toward Gate 3, two guys walked by and gave me directions. They said I had to enter the doors and walk through a long hallway and follow the signs and head upstairs…and…what? I was so confused, but they seemed convincing, so I did what they said.
This is what it looked like just inside the doors:
Was this a trick or a scam? Perhaps a hidden-camera TV show? Should I have been concerned for my safety?
I walked quite a ways down the hallway and eventually saw this:
What was the Target Plaza? Was that connected to Target Field? Ohmygod, what was going on? I hadn't researched the stadium beforehand. I intentionally showed up knowing as little as possible so I could explore and discover things.
There were escalators at the far end of the hallway:
I headed up to the second level and saw this:
Uh…was I supposed to go up to the 3rd level?
It looked like there was a little sign on the door, so I walked over for a closer look. This is what it said:
Hooray! Thank you! Finally, there were clear directions that applied to what *I* hoped to find. Target Field, through the doors. Right?
Umm, not so fast…
This is what I saw when I opened the door:
I figured the sign had to be right, so I walked across the garage and encountered another set of doors. This is what I saw on the other side:
I walked past the Kirby Puckett statue. This is what was on the right:
Now we're talking.
Gate 34…the right field gate…just behind the standing room area. I hurried over for a peek inside:
Oh yeah.
The giant "gold" glove was sitting nearby on the right:
Just how big is it? Here's my backpack:
I still had a little more exploring to do, so I continued heading around the stadium:
Is that a slick design or what?
In the photo above, do you see the fan wearing red sleeves? More on him in a bit, but first, I have to show you even more Twins history that was on display. Check this out:
You know what those things on the fence are?
Twins rosters:
There was a roster from every single season since the franchise moved to Minneapolis.
Even the team store was exquisite:
Back outside, I walked right past Justin Verlander and two of his teammates:
One fan approached Verlander and asked for an autograph.
"Not today," said the Tigers ace.
(Ballplayers are so friendly nowadays.)
Okay, remember the guy wearing red? His name is Greg Dryden, but he's known simply as "Waldo." He's the No. 1 ballhawk in Minnesota. He used to sit in the front row in left-center at the Metrodome, and he always wore a helmet. That was his thing. I'd been hearing stories about him for years — some good, some bad. Everyone I knew who visited the Dome had something to say about the guy, and here he was. I knew it was him because the back of his jersey said "WALDO 13," so I walked over and introduced myself, and as it turned out, he had heard lots of stories about me, too. Here we are:
I knew that we were only going to have a few minutes to chat, so I asked him the basic questions about how many baseballs he'd snagged over the years. He told me that he only kept count one season and ended up with 352. (He was a season ticket holder and attended all 81 of the Twins' home games.) He said that was probably a typical season for him and that he'd been ballhawking regularly since 1999.
"So you've probably gotten over 3,000 balls?" I asked.
He shrugged and said, "Yeah, I guess."
"How many game home runs?"
"I don't know," he said, "probably 40 or 50…and I've gotten about 20 ground-rule doubles."
Not too shabby.
At 2pm, two attractive women (who looked to be in their mid-20s) started walking right toward us. Waldo's jaw literally dropped, and when they got closer, one of them asked me, "Are you Zack?"
"Catherine?" I asked.
She welcomed me to Minnesota and introduced me to her twin sister, Laura-Leigh. Then, as the three of us headed off together, I turned toward Waldo and shouted, "I'll see you back here in an hour!" The look on his face was priceless.
The ladies led me to a nearby mall called Butler Square. Here's the main entrance:
See the arrow in the photo above? There's a restaurant in the mall called Smalley's 87 Club:
That's where we went. It's named after former major league All-Star Roy Smalley, who played nine of his 13 seasons with the Twins. Now get this…
1) Roy Smalley just happens to be their father.
2) Roy Smalley is the president of Pitch In For Baseball.
3) Roy Smalley is a commentator on FSN North.
See where I'm going with this? In case you're new to this blog, I've been raising money for the last two two seasons for Pitch In For Baseball — a charity that provides baseball equipment to needy kids all over the world. Roy was planning to interview me live on the Twins' pre-game show about it, and he was at the restaurant. Here I am with him and his daughters:
(Catherine is on the left, just above my red-and-white Pitch In For Baseball cap, and by the way, I should mention that both plates of food were mine: chicken strips and a caesar salad. The food there is great.)
We all hung out for a couple hours, during which time Roy let me play with his 1987 World Series ring:
Here's the ring with Roy in the background…
…and here are two close-up shots of it:
(His championship ring is slightly cooler than mine.)
My lack of sleep was killing me, but I was so happy that it didn't even matter.
By the time I made it back to the Target Field Plaza (that's the official name of the area outside Gate 34), there were quite a few people milling about:
At 5pm (half an hour before the stadium opened), look who showed up and found me:
It was my girlfriend, Jona.
As I'd mentioned the day before on Twitter, there was a chance that she wasn't gonna be able to make it to Minnesota, but everything ended up working out, and here she was.
Remember the small crowd waiting outside the gate on 5/1/10 at Progressive Field? If not, click here to see what I'm talking about. Here's the difference between Cleveland and Minneapolis. Ready? Take a deep breath and brace yourself:
Holy mother of GOD!!! And don't forget that this was just one of five gates. My biggest gripe about the stadium is that it doesn't open earlier. I think it's a real slap in the face to the fans that they can't even get inside early enough to watch the Twins take batting practice. Every team should open its stadium two and a half hours early. Not just for season ticket holders. Not just on weekends. Always. For everyone. Forever. And especially when it's the first season of a new stadium and the crowds are extra large. Seriously, Twins: duh.
Shortly before the stadium opened, I learned that FSN's cameras were going to be filming me from afar during BP. I wasn't going to be miked up. They didn't need any audio. They just wanted some B-roll footage that they could later use during my interview with Roy. Catherine (who helped set up the interview) told me to call the producer as soon as I ran into the stadium. She said I needed to let him know where I was so he'd be able to make sure that the cameras were following me — and if I ran to another section, I was supposed to give him another call.
You know what I did instead? I handed my phone to Jona, who offered to make the phone calls for me.
I was so stressed and tired, and at 5:30pm it was time to roll. I raced inside and peeked at the right field seats and quickly decided to head for the left field bleachers. Jona chased after me and called the producer.
"Where do I tell him we are?!" she shouted.
"Ohboy," I mumbled loud enough for her to hear me, then yelled, "Tell him I'm running behind the batter's eye!"
It was nuts, and yet Jona somehow managed to take photos while all of this was happening. Here I am in the bleachers:
The bleachers were awful. Too steep. Too crowded. Too many railings. Tucked underneath an overhang. And because of the flower bed down in front, there was absolutely no chance to use the glove trick:
If someone asked me to design a miserable section for catching home run balls, I probably would've come up with this. Oh…and the sun was in everyone's eyes, too.
The bleachers got crowded pretty fast:
Things were NOT looking good.
At one point, I had a chance to catch a home run ball:
(In case you can't tell, I'm wearing the dark blue jacket with a Tigers shirt.)
Here's that same moment captured by an FSN camera:
Want to see how it ended?
Yeah, the short guy in the front row jumped up and caught the ball two feet in front of my glove. Then, five minutes, later, I got robbed once again by a guy who reached out and made a bare-handed grab as I was cutting through the second row:
The reason why I wasn't looking at the ball is that I didn't want to take a deflection in the face. That's what happened to me on 4/22/08 at Champion Stadium, and it wasn't pretty.
My overall assessment:
My friend Bob (aka "Big Glove Bob" in the comments section) made an appearance in the bleachers:
He had kindly picked me up at the airport that morning, and he'd given me lots of tips on Target Field and Minneapolis in the previous weeks. It was great hanging out with him — this was the first day that we had ever met in person — and I foolishly neglected to get a photo with him. (Random coincidence: he was interviewed on TV that day, too.)
I was getting desperate. I still didn't have a ball. I was worried about my streak. And I was embarrassed to be putting on such a lousy ballhawking display for the cameras, which were evidently capturing my every move.
After what felt like an eternity, I finally got Tigers reliever Brad Thomas to throw me a ball. He was in left-center field. I was standing near the slanted railing next to the bullpens. His throw fell short. I nearly had a panic attack. I reached way out — full extension — and caught the ball in the tip of my glove. It was a true snow-cone. Here's an FSN screen shot…
…and here I am pointing at Thomas as if to say, "You're the man. Thank you."
I was so relieved at that point. My streak was alive, and I had snagged a ball in my 47th different major league stadium. Here I am with the ball:
I wasn't sure what type of balls the Tigers were going to be using during BP; in 2008 they used Pacific Coast League balls and in 2009 they used International League balls. As you can see in the photo above, the ball that Thomas threw me was an official major league ball, but check out the logo:
The Tigers had marked it. Many other teams have done the same thing over the years, but never on the logo itself.
My phone rang. Jona handed it to me. I answered it. It was Roy. He asked me to swing by the FSN set down the left field line, and since BP was such a colossal waste of time, I didn't mind sacrificing a few minutes of it to go check in with him:
He asked me to be back there by 6:25pm. The pre-game show was going to start at 6:30. I was going to be interviewed during the second segment, and I needed to get miked up…so for the time being, I was free to run around a bit more and try to snag a few additional baseballs. Unfortunately, there weren't any more to be snagged — at least not during BP. The bleachers were dead, and when I ran over to the Tigers' dugout at the end of BP, I didn't get anything there. The look on my face tells the whole story:
I had snagged ONE pathetic baseball during batting practice. I was sweaty and exhausted…
…and I wanted to go back to Cleveland.
It was time to head over to the FSN set, so I cut through the seats with Jona. I stopped along the way to photograph a fugitive hot dog:
Here's what it looked like from my perspective:
Remember the random sausage I photographed on 4/27/09 at Miller Park? Yeah, I don't know what to say. It's just one of those things that needs to be documented.
I made it to the FSN area as Roy and his fellow commentators were finishing up the first segment:
He and I caught up for a moment during the commercial break…
…and headed into the left field bleachers:
(Roy is adjusting his ear piece in the photo above, and if you look closely, you can see The Ring on his right hand.)
See those two women sitting behind us? When we walked into the bleachers, the blonde one said to Roy, "You look like you're famous."
"Umm, that's because he IS famous," I said.
"Oh," she said, half-excited and half-embarrassed, "should I know your name?"
I turned toward Roy and said, "Would you like me to to be your spokesperson?"
"Smalley," he said to the women. "I used to play for the Twins."
The women were like, "Smalley…Smalley…oh! Yeah!" but they had no idea who he was.
The interview itself went pretty well…I think. Here's a photo that Jona took while it was in progress:
We were being filmed by the camera behind home plate in the upper deck.
The interview flew by — they always do — but I got to talk about Pitch In For Baseball. That was the most important thing, and I ended up getting a few new pledges as a result.
I still have yet to see the interview itself, but I did manage to get a screen shot. Here's what it looked like to the folks watching on TV, and for the record, I did NOT write the text that appeared below my name:
The interview ended just in time for me to make it down to the front row along the left field foul line for pre-game throwing:
I ended up getting a ball from Scott Sizemore, and then less than 60 seconds later, because there wasn't anyone else competing with me, I got another from Adam Everett. That made me feel a little better, but of course the FSN cameras weren't on me anymore, so as far as the general public in Minnesota was concerned, I was just some random putz who happened to catch ONE ball during batting practice and then talked about some charity thing.
I spent most of the game in the standing room area down the right field line. Here's that section from above. The red "X" marks the spot where I was standing:
Here's what my view from that spot looked like:
Yeah, it was rainy and nasty and cold — about what I expected.
Here's a photo from the back of the standing room area, with my back against the inside of Gate 34:
(I can't explain that random box, so don't ask.)
Waldo was on the outside looking in:
He's "protesting" Twins management because he feels he got screwed over on his season tickets. Long story. Go to Target Field and ask him about it. But anyway, as part of his protest, he's refusing to enter Target Field this year. He also wants to catch the first home run that either flies or (more likely) bounces out of Target Field, so in that sense, his spot just outside Gate 34 is actually ideal. Personally, I would go crazy if I had to spend even one game outside a stadium with such slim odds at snagging a homer, but he seems content (relatively speaking) out there, and he doesn't seem to be hurting anyone, so I say hey, why not?
Jona and I sat in a few different places throughout the game. Here's one…
…and here's another:
I thought it was going to be really tough to move around, but a) there were empty seats to be found and b) the ushers were really laid-back.
After the bottom of the 8th inning, I got Miguel Cabrera to throw me a ball as he jogged off the field:
Although it had a commemorative Target Field logo, I knew it wasn't the actual third-out ball that'd been used in the game because it was kinda beat up.
In the photo above, do you see the kid on my right, reaching up with both hands? It was a girl who was probably about 10 years old. Even though she didn't have a glove, I just felt that giving her a ball was the right thing to do, so I pulled out a regular/non-marked/non-commemorative ball from my backpack and handed it over. I ended up sitting next to her and her father for the last half-inning, and they thanked me about a dozen times.
The Twins won the game, 4-3, on a run-scoring wild pitch in the bottom of the ninth. That made a winner of starter Nick Blackburn, who went the distance. It also meant that I notched a rare "tie" in the Ballhawk Winning Percentage category. My record moved to 4.5 wins and 1.5 losses, so my percentage is .750, second only to the Rays, who lead all of baseball with a .759 mark.
Jona was freezing her you-know-what off, but I was not in any rush to leave. (Sorry, baby.) I took more photos of basically everything around me, including the beautiful MLB logo atop the visitors' dugout:
And then I had to stick around and watch the FSN crew do their on-field analysis of the game-ending wild pitch:
1 = Tim Laudner
2 = Bert Blyleven
3 = Roy Smalley
Very cool to see former players using the field itself as a teaching instrument. That's how it should be.
• 4 balls at this game (3 pictured on the right because I gave one away; the middle ball has an insert which shows the sweet spot)
• 66 balls in 6 games this season = 11 balls per game.
• 635 consecutive games with at least one ball
• 186 consecutive games outside of New York with at least one ball
• 47 different major league stadiums with at least one ball
• 4,424 total balls
• 29 donors
• $3.85 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)
• $15.40 raised at this game
• $254.10 raised this season for Pitch In For Baseball
One last thing…
I just discovered that someone with Minnesota Public Radio wrote a short article about me — and about this actual blog entry. Here's the link to it, and here's a screen shot of the piece:


text:
Let x be the length of the hypotenuse and one of the acute angles of the rectangle
What are the lengths of the 2 other sides ?
What is the perimeter ?
Write that the perimeter is n times of the length of the shortest side
I don't even have an idea on how to start.AIks..
The perimeter of a right angled triangle is n times of the length of its shortest side. Show that the smallest angle θ of the triangle satisfies the equation.
1+ cosθ=(n-1) sinθ


text:
(KUSA) The federal government responded on Friday to the most important issue confronting Colorado's newly legal marijuana industry: Difficulty getting bank accounts.
The Justice Department and US Treasury published a pair of memos aimed at easing concerns that banks have in doing business with marijuana companies.
Banks are regulated by the federal government, and federal law still bans the use and sale of marijuana.
Banks fear punishment from regulators or even prosecution for racketeering if they do business with the pot industry.
Copyright 2016 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


text:
Hotel Monte Carmelo: Our hotel in Seville is located in the city center, near Triana, the Giralda-Cathedral and Santa Cruz (Jewish Quarter)
The different restaurant service proposals offered by our hotels can be found on this page.
Our restaurant service takes care of a balanced diet. Therefore, above other aspects, the best fresh and natural products are provided together with a professional service.
Through the commercial departments, you will have information about our gastronomy offer, you can also present us your suggestions for having customized coffee-breaks, business meals, celebrations or cocktails.
|Virgen de la Victoria, 7, CP 41011, Sevilla - España - Tel. +34 954279000 - Fax +34 954271004 - email@example.com
|Legal Notice
|Hotel Monte Carmelo inscrito en el R.T.A. (Registro de Turismo de Andalucía, Consejería de Turismo, Comercio y Deporte) con número de registro H/SE/00630 // H 3*Ciudad.


text:
Popcorn (Stove Top)
Total Time
Prep 15 mins
Cook 0 mins
Back in the Dark Ages when I was a little girl there was no microwave popcorn. There weren't even microwaves (gasp)! Mom actually used to make popcorn on the stove. Here's how, courtesy of the Fannie Farmer Cookbook.
Ingredients Nutrition
- Put the oil in a 4 quart heavy pot and let it heat over medium heat for 30 seconds.
- Stir in the kernels, turning with a spoon so that they are evenly covered with oil, then spread them in one layer on the bottom of the pot. (I just shake them around a bit).
- Cover the pot, leaving a small space at the edge for escaping steam. As soon as the first kernel pops, move the pot gently and continuously back and forth over medium-high heat until the popping stops.
- Turn into a warm bowl. Toss with melted butter, if desired, and salt to taste.
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I've done this before and it is really good. Lately, however, I have been adding butter in with the oil. It browns and adds a nutty and buttery flavor. Since it mixes with the oil it isn't as susceptible to burning as it is by itself but there is definitely still a risk of burnage. So, be extra sure to keep an eye on it! *Note that browning the butter does impart a different flavor than simply melting it.
Now this takes me back to being a little girl! Momma made popcorn like this before a good movie came on TV (the Wizard of Oz was my favorite!). My husband and I make this popcorn on our home "Movie night" too: it's become our tradition. The microwave could NEVER make popcorn this GOOD, and this is much cheaper too! I use canola oil with just a bit of butter for flavor, then just some salt. Thanks for sharing a classic. It's simple recipes like these we need to pass on to the next generation.
Yes this is the way to do it. I use coconut oil, (refined so no coconut flavor)and since this oil is so light, it give the popcorn no oily taste. Movie theaters use coconut oil exclusively and in recent years coconut oil has been redeemed as an actually healthy product. I also skip the lid, and use a splatter screen instead to let all of the steam escape, because a tight fitting lid will yield tougher popcorn, and it seemed that I always got some soggy pieces from my lid catching the steam.