Sunday, April 3, 2011

Spring is Here and So is Baseball: First Royals Game of 2011....In Review

It's spring and it's time for baseball again.  I had really gotten tired of winter so it was nice for spring to come around and with it the start of baseball season.  With this being my last few months in KC, I want to try and make as many games as I can as I don't know where I'll be in a few months so I made sure to be at the ballpark for the first homestand.  It also happened to be a doubleheader as they also were going to have the "Futures Game" between the Royals AA (Northwest Arkansas) and the AAA team (Omaha Storm Chasers).

Because of this, it was a day game on a Saturday.  Lane and I made the trip to the ball park and it was a pretty easy ride out.  There wasn't any real traffic out and got into the ballpark rather easily.  There were some changes between last year and this one.  First off, they have free programs they give out instead of buying a program (which means I was one of the last ones in history to win the autograph in the program contest).  Second, there are some different sponsors out in the signage (including the Fountain seats not called the Dri Duck seats anymore).  And third, the Royals switched bullpens (now out in left field instead of right field).

It was free magnet schedule day so that was cool too.  The game itself was a decent one against the Anaheim Angels (I refuse to call them Los Angeles Angels).  It was a back and forth game with the teams trading leads.  I got to see one of the young phenom pitchers in Aaron Crow pitch.  I will say he was really good.  He seems as good as advertised.  Royals scored in the bottom of the 8th with new Royal Matt Treanor coming through along with Chris Getz.  Treanor is awesome in my book because his walk up music is The A-Team theme.  That is awesome.  Soria came in the 9th to shut it down and pick up the win, which was Crow's first career win.  Ironically, it's the first time since May of '09 that the Royals have been above .500 (they were never above .500 all of last year).

After about 30-45 minutes, the second game started.  It was cool seeing all the young stars playing.  I was really impressed by Mike Montgomery, pitcher for Omaha.  He had 4 no-hit innings.  Lane and I lasted to the end of the 5th before calling it a day, partly because we both got sunburnt.

It was a good start to the year and looking forward to seeing some more games before the end of my time in Kansas City

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