On This Date, 24 Years Ago. . .

. . . I was watching the Cleveland Indians lose their home opener to the New York Yankees for the last Opening Day in old Cleveland Stadium.  I ended up with a souvenir--the Canton Repository ran a front page photo from that game.

One of my favorite personal stories of all times bears repeating and explains how I  went from no ticket to get in to the game to on the front page the next day.

See my Opening Day column from April 12, 2010 for the story.

Is Mustard in the Vegetable Food Group?

If I eat enough stadium mustard, does it count as a food group?

Getting on the Field with the Cleveland Indians

At 46 and not having played a single game of baseball for over a decade, I know that my chances of getting on the field for this view with the Indians are nil.  I have a much better chance of going for the job of that guy in the photo (nothing personal, sir).

I'm grateful to have gotten to accompany my kids, though, on the field for Kids Day activities at Progressive Field last Sunday.  I was rebuffed in my lame excuse for why I needed to accompany my 10-year-old triplets as they ran the bases, though.

Maybe some day.

Opening Day 2013

I would have liked a win, but it was still Opening Day of a season begun with more hope than ones in the past. No complaints.

 

 

It's a Home Opener Against the Hated Ones

 

It's Opening Day in Cleveland.  I'll be there, albiet at a upper level opposite the field from the view I had for this opener in 2010.  Opening Day is my thing, and I'll be making my fifth home opener in a row, resuming a personal string of them in my lifetime.

 

It's a rare opener against the dreaded Yankees, only the sixth one in 113 years.  Turns out, I will have been to half of all of the Yankees home openers in Cleveland after today.

 

It was the Yankees in 1985.  I was there for a memorable Bert Blyleven story.  And a loss.

And it was the Yankees twenty years ago in 1993.  I was there then too, with a pretty memorable personal story to boot.  Yep, a loss.

It'll be the Yankees today.  Years of the Indians' playing second fiddle in the American League to the Yankees, a distant second fiddle, has worn on us Tribe fans.  We hate the Yankees.

Opening Day is my thing.  A win versus the Yankees today would make a nice, memorable Opening Day story for 2013.  Go Tribe!

2013 Indians Opening Day Countdown Begins

I bought my Indians' Opening Day tickets today.  My Opening Day tradition continues.

Regrettably, the seats aren't that great.  The likely view is above.

The Yankees are in town.  The other Indians' Openers I attended against the Yankees were in 1985 and 1993.  Both were early sellouts.  This one is already looking like it will be too.

The great moves the Indians' have made in an attempt to improve the team also have a lot to do with making the better-view tickets hard to come by this year.

Go Tribe!

----------------------
UPDATE:  On February 25, 2013, just six minutes after tickets sales opened to the public, the April 8th Home Opener was officially sold out.   Good sign!

RickOHIO Revisited: Northeast Baseball Tour '98

This is a web column written before blogs were blogs at RickOHIO.com.  This one was originally posted at RickOHIO.com in 1998. It was written to commemorate a memorable baseball trip that started 14 years ago on this date.

Northeast Baseball Tour '98
by RickOHIO

April 1998
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Fans of baseball often dream of seeing a baseball game in every city in the country in a season. Costs of travel, schedules, and other factors make it a tough thing to do.

The baseball schedule in mid April gives a fanatic Major League baseball fan a chance to fulfill a part of that dream. Eight stadiums, nine games, and 14 different teams come together in one tour of baseball ballparks in the Northeast United States April 16 through 30.

I'll be taking this tour starting April 16 by plane, train, and automobile.

In a sign of the times, most of the arrangements were made over the Internet. I was able to check game times, order game tickets, plan around train and flight schedules, see possible hotel accomodations, and explore other tourism opportunities during my trip all from the comfort of my desk chair at home.

The trip starts with a flight from CAK (Akron-Canton Airport) to BWI (Baltimore-Washington airport) on US Airways on April 16. A Thursday afternoon game in Baltimore affords me a chance to boo Albert Belle (and his White Sox teammates) along with a full house of Orioles fans. The Orioles' web site lets me get a preview of the view from my seat assignment at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

That evening, via Amtrak, I'm off to New York City. Amtrak's Metroliner train reaches speeds of 125 MPH and gets me there in just over two hours. This is the first of five Amtrak stops I'll be making.

I can walk from my Manhattan hotel to the Today Show. Look for me on TV at around 8:00 a.m. before I head off for a tour of New York City. Former Cleveland weatherman Al Roker and Ohio University grad Matt Laurer are two stars of the show.

Friday night the Yankees play the Tigers in the Bronx. George Steinbrenner is a Cleveland guy but we don't like to talk about that often. Later, I'm back on Amtrak for an overnight trip to Boston on the train.

The Cleveland Indians will have two more fans on hand for their weekend series versus the Bosox. Tribe fans will be surprised to know how easy it is to get tickets by calling the Red Sox 24-hour ticket number at 617-482-4SOX. Saturday and Sunday games in Fenway Park will find me deep in the right field stands.

I'm in a car for the first time in four days to visit my uprooted Ohio family now living in the Albany, New York area. Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame aren't far from there. The boyhood home of Abner Doubleday is still standing in a small town near Albany too. The Indians' farm team is in Watertown, New York.

Montreal is my next stop as I leave the country for an Expos game against the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday night, April 22nd. April in Quebec isn't so bad with Olympic Stadium's dome.

It's back on the train at Albany Thursday for a short trip back to New York City. This time, the cross-town Mets play a night game against the Astros and I'll be there.

The quick trip to Philadelphia the next day leaves me plenty of time to see the Liberty Bell and other historic stops in Philly before I see the Cardinals again against the Phillies this time.

It's a real quick Metroliner trip back to Baltimore for a Saturday afternoon game. The Athletics are in town versus the Orioles for another chance to soak in Camden Yards and Baltimore's Inner Harbor area.

I fly back to Akron-Canton on Saturday night and complete my baseball tour by catching up with the Pirates in Pittsburgh a few days later on April 30.

When it comes to a trip like this, you gotta love baseball to do it. But if you love baseball, you gotta do it.

Opening Day 2012

Opening Day. There's nothing that compares.

A win would have been nice, though.

It's Opening Day!

I'll be there again tomorrow for Opening Day!  My oldest daughter will be with me for the third time in the last four years and two other friends too.

If you like a good Opening Day story, I think I have a pretty good one from the last Opening Day in old Cleveland Municipal Stadium in 1993.  See the column.

Hopefully Not Jinxing My Indians

I haven't written about my team, the Cleveland Indians, since June 2.  I stopped writing out of fear that it was me, predicting then that an even up rest of the season could still yield a trip to the post season, that was jinxing them.  Though my prediction that it would take 88 wins appears to still be right on, the team was in a reversal that would see them be 14 games under that "even up" mark.

But there's reason for hope, most of which is that I hope I'm not jinxing them.

The Indians just endured a 10-game stretch that saw them play against only first-placed teams.  I think I heard that was a record of some kind for the most sequential games against a first-placed opponent. 

Though the Indians ended that stretch just 5-5, it could have been a whole lot worse. A whole lot worse indeed.

There were signs, even, that this team could make a playoff run if they could sustain their effort.

Seven of those 10 games were away games, including four in AL-leading Boston's Fenway Park, an unforgiving place even when the Red Sox are in last place.

Four of their losses were by just one run and four of their losses were decided in the other teams' last inning at bat.

Momentum is at hand, as long as I didn't jinx 'em.

What If. . .

. . . the Cleveland Indians played only .500 ball the rest of the season? They would win 88 games. That likely would still be good enough to win their division.

The second-place Detroit Tigers, to get to 88 wins, would have to go .551 the rest of the way.  They've only gone .527 to date.

If the Indians could keep their current pace for the next four months, they'd win 101 games--doable, but more than anyone could have expected.

With a third of the season now behind them, the Indians are looking like the real deal. Exciting.

On This Date in 1993. . .

I was at the game where this, one of the biggest bloopers in Major League Baseball history, occurred.

Rangers outfielder Jose Canseco caused a routine fly ball to become a home run when the ball hit off his head and over the wall at old Cleveland Stadium. 

Admittedly, from the stands, I couldn't tell what happened and didn't fully know what had happened until I got home and saw repeats on the news.

An I-71 World Series?

I-71 is the interstate highway that connects Cleveland and Cincinnati.

At one end, my Cleveland Indians have the best record in baseball.

At the other, Cincinnati is coming off a darn good 2010 season and are in the hunt in 2011 too.

Friday night's interleague game at Progressive Field had the feel of a Red-Indians World Series game more than a mid-season one.  Who sees a six inning no hitter evaporate that quickly?  Who wins with a rookie's first at bat and a bunt with two outs?

Has me dreaming of an I-71 World Series. 

Think what that would do for Ohio's economy too.

Thirty Years Since Perfect Game

May 15, 1981 was the date of Len Barker's Perfect Game for the Cleveland Indians. This MLB.com video captures the feel of that game very well.

The actual attendance was 7,290, but the number of people who say they were there is larger by three times the size of Cleveland's Municipal Stadium.

I won't lie.  I wasn't there.

I did, however, watch it on television on Cleveland's Channel 43 from the first pitch to the last, when Center Fielder Rick Manning caught the ball and jumped for joy along with me while I sat in my parent's basement.

What a memorable game. It's hard to believe its been 30 years.

From The Indians Social Suite

My daughter secured the Social Suite tickets via direct Twitter messages with the Indians' Twitter guru.

It's been a cold, but enjoyable time at the Indians Social Suite.

This is a Cleveland Indians' exclusive idea. Every fan here is a social media user, including some die hards of both the Tribe and social media.

More later.

Opening Day 2011

I got to take in a Cleveland Indians Opening Day again this year. Opening Day is my thing.

Three of the four of us attending in my group were Massillon natives so the Massillon Washington High School choir singing the National Anthem was a nice extra.

Anne Feller, widow of Indians' great Bob Feller, placed the ball on the pitcher's mound as part of a Feller tribute ceremony. I didn't miss a ceremonial first pitch one bit.

The weather was as good as any April 1 in downtown Cleveland gets.

A win, of course, would have been the best outcome, but its baseball so you won't win 'em all.

Opening Day is My Thing

I'll be there again this year.  Today is Opening Day for the Cleveland Indians' season.

I was there in 1983.  I got my driver's license as quickly as I could after I turned 16 so I could drive to Opening Day.  Long story short, my Dad drove my friends and I anyway, but we made it.

I was there in 1984.  Even though my car's radiator died half way up there, and we missed the parade, I was there.

I was there in 1985.  Yankees game that year.  Soon-to-be-Hall-of-Famer Bert Blyleven made a memorable remark that year about the Hall of Fame.  [STORY HERE]

I was in college in 1986 and without a car for the 8+ hours roundtrip back.  I went to Opening Day at Cincinnati instead.

I don't think I made another Indians' opener until 1993.  That was the last opener in old Municipal Stadium.  I missed out on a ticket, snuck through a Stadium turnstile, snuck into the box seats, snuck down to a seat behind the dugout, and ended up with a great souvenir--my photo on the front page of the Canton Repository the next day enjoying the game.  [STORY HERE]

I gotta believe I made a couple more between 1995 and 1999, but marriage, young kids, and moving further away from Cleveland kept me away after that.

The tradition revised three years ago.

My oldest daughter went with me in 2009, though it rained so bad we didn't make it until the end.

The photo above was from Opening Day in 2010.  [STORY HERE]

I'll be on the first base side of the upper deck this year with my daughter Natasha again this year too.  Go Tribe!

RickOHIO's Tribe Page

Tomorrow is the Cleveland Indians 2011 Opening Day.  The Tribe is on my mind.

There are still six places on Google where RickOHIO's Tribe Page shows up as a link.  Amazingly, one still links to it with "New!" in front of it.  Wow.

However, none of those links work.  In 2002, I took the web page down. 

That was my RickOHIO.com tribute to the Cleveland Indians begun in 1996 and continued for six years.  From late 1999 until I took it down, though, it was shrouded in black with the phrase something like this: "This page remains shrouded in black mourning the firing of Mike Hargrove as manager."

And then it went away in 2002 when all of my RickOHIO.com sites went into retirement.  It hasn't come back, yet.

Social Media Pays Off. . .For Me

Everyone always wonders.  Will social media pay off?

Wonder no more.

Thursday night, my daughter and I applied for a chance to get invited to sit in the new "Social Suite" at Progressive Field for a Cleveland Indians game.  (Application here.)

The real plot of our application was a father-daughter duo who uses Twitter.  My daughter's is @Tasha_Platt and mine is @RickPlatt.  How common can that be among Tribe fans,  right?

Plus, the Indians say they are looking to appeal across generations.

I'm not really sure what won out, but Tasha got the direct message from @TribeTalk the next morning.  We're in for a Bosox game in two weeks!  Go Tribe!

Social media pays off.  I'm proof of it.

More of Blyleven in Baseball Hall of Fame

"I never would have believed that one of my balls would be in the Hall of Fame."

Bert Blyleven, Cleveland Indians' pitcher, uttered this statement when handed the microphone during an 1985 Opening Day ceremony on the field in Cleveland Stadium with 70,000+ fans on hand.  It was a ceremony honoring an achievement of his having a baseball used in one of his 1984 games added to the Hall of Fame archives.  I was among the Indians fans in the stands that day who listened, laughed, and remembered.

Now, with his election yesterday to the Baseball Hall of Fame, more than just one of his baseballs will be there.