On my trip to St Petersburg, I was able to attend a baseball game at Tropicana Field. My friend Teresa is a season ticket holder and had invited me to pick out a game or two during the season. I saw they were playing the Yankees in May so I figured that would be a good game to attend.
We parked in the same spot as last year, and walked to the game. This game was extra crowded due to it being the Yankees who spring train in Tampa. The give-away was a Hawaiian shirt with the Rays logo on it. Our first stop after entering the game was to go up to the Season Ticket Holder area. I took this picture while waiting for Teresa to use the rest room.
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| Season Ticket Holder area at Tropicana Field |
Alomg with food and a bar, they have live music. This trip I got to see a steel drum musician. He was very good.
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| Steel drummer at Tropicana Field |
Of course, there are openings to the field from this area so I got a picture of the back of the camera man for Fox Sun Sports.
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| Fox Sun Sports Cameraman |
I took a photo of the infield and caught a glimpse of where we would be sitting for the game. I have placed a black "X" to mark the spot...
Teresa ordered me a beer and she got herself a pastrami sandwich, the special for the game against the Yankees. It was fully loaded with meat so I had to eat half of it.
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| Pastrami sandwich at Tropicana Field |
We headed down to our seats and the game started promptly. I had brought my new Canon camera that fits in my pocket, so I was able to get some pretty good pictures. The starting pitcher for the Yankees was Masahiro Tanaka, I had seen him in 2016 during spring training in Brevard.
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| Yankees Pitcher Masahiro Tanaka |
Corey Dickerson hit a homerun in his first at bat and also hit a second one. Evan Longoria also had a HR.
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| Rays score after HR |
One of the players that is now on the Rays is Steven Souza Jr. They had acquired him from the Nationals in 2014. I saw him play many times in spring training wearing the uniform of the Washington Nationals. he starts in RF and had some hits during this game.
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| Steven Souza Jr on first base |
Another great player I saw is the young phenom Aaron Judge. Standing six feet seven and weighing 282 pounds, he does not look like your average baseball player. He hit his 15 HR of the season which leads all MLB.
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| Yankees Aaron Judge |
Of course about mid game they had the famous milk race. Looks like chocolate beat the low fat guy at the wire...
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| Milk Race |
Another famous Yankee player is #11 Brett Gardner. With Derek Jeter retired, Gardner has the lowest number a Yankee player can have. All the single digits have been retired or soon will be with Jeter's #2 a sure bet to be gone.
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| Brett Gardner |
The Rays bullpen is right next to Teresa's seats so I got this picture of pitcher Jumbo Diaz warming up. I wonder where he got his nickname?
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| Rays reliever Jumbo Diaz |
I did catch a picture of the scoreboad in the bottom of the fifth. the reason was because there was a Ray on each base. My dad use to tell the joke about the three ladies who went to the game with bottle of whiskey. What is the inning and situation? "It is the bottom of the fifth and the bags are loaded!" I saw it!
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| Scoreboard at Tropicana Field |
I had to show another picture I took of Aaron Judge. He was HBP and on first. The Rays first baseman Morrison is six foot one. Judge is a big kid!
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| Yankee Aaron Judge on first base |
The mascot Raymond, the blue seadog, visited our section during the game.
Jumbo Diaz got to pitch the ninth inning to stop the Yankees.
The Rays won the game 9-5.They had also won Friday's game but I hear they lost on Sunday so the Yankees were not swept. It was a fun game and I appreciate that Teresa invited me over. I will post more about some of the other places we visited. Retriement is rough and tough but someone has to do it!
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