I'm not heartbroken about today getting pushed back. I wasn't going to be able to make it anyway. Too much work stuff going on. So tomorrow was always going to be the home opener for me anyway. But I'm sure some fans are disappointed about having to wait one more day to see the new digs at Foley.
My first job out of undergrad took me to Seattle. They flew me up there the Monday after Thanksgiving, in 2006. I watched us come back and beat tech in Sanford Stadium on Saturday. I still remember when that game ended thinking about how weird it felt to know that I was moving across the country in a few days. The company put me in this extended stay hotel for a few weeks so I could find a place to live. I still remember unpacking my stuff in that hotel room and the permeance of all it hitting me. I had a one-way plane ticket. I didn't know anyone up there. It was just me.
Those first few weeks were a lot of fun, but also very lonely. Fun in that I got to do a lot of exploring. But the downtime was difficult and I had trouble figuring out to fill that. Especially in a place Seattle in December, where it's night-time at 5pm and very dreary during the day. You can't do much outside.
I'd heard that baseball was going to do a home and home with Oregon State starting in 2007. As you might remember, Oregon State had eliminated us from the College World Series in 2006. I understood too that Oregon State would first go to Athens.
I still remember sitting in that hotel room and wishing, really wishing, that we were going to Oregon State first. I just wanted so bad to have that on the calendar to look forward to, to be able to see and do something familiar. I thought that it was silly to wish for that, but I couldn't help it. And I also wondered how much different things would be by 2008 when we made the trip to the NW.
Ultimately, as you might remember, we didn't play that 2008 series in Corvallis, but rather at the minor league park in Portland. I'd made friends with a co-worker who was an Oregon State alum... we actually drove down from Seattle to Corvallis the prior fall to see an Oregon State game, and had a good time doing that. I got a hotel room walking distance from the park in Portland. I remember driving down with my friend that Friday from Seattle, going down I-5, it's about 3 hours to Portland and a terribly boring drive... there just isn't a lot between Tacoma and Portland, and it seems like it should be a shorter distance. Anyway, it was cold and raining for most of that drive down.
Got settled into the hotel and made it over the park. I think the game was going to start at like 7pm local time. But rain stuck around in Portland and the start was delayed. So we're hanging around there in the stadium drinking beers and waiting on the game to start. Sometimes I get antsy, impatient or whatever, in a situation like that. I'm sure anyone would. But I didn't that night. I was just so happy to be there. I remember thinking "I've waited so long for this... what's another hour or two?"
Ryan Piesel hit a triple on the first pitch of the game. A couple of defensive miscues late wound up costing us, and I remember thinking that the fact that it was about 230am for the body clocks of our players toward the end of that, probably had a lot to do with it. We won pretty easily on Saturday and then in a very tight game Sunday, got hooked on some bad umpiring behind the plate, and lost. Gordon Beckham hit a LONG 3-run homer that Sunday afternoon too.
I tend to think back to the Friday night in 2008 whenever something long-anticipated gets delayed by a little bit. You waited this long... what's a little bit more?
My first job out of undergrad took me to Seattle. They flew me up there the Monday after Thanksgiving, in 2006. I watched us come back and beat tech in Sanford Stadium on Saturday. I still remember when that game ended thinking about how weird it felt to know that I was moving across the country in a few days. The company put me in this extended stay hotel for a few weeks so I could find a place to live. I still remember unpacking my stuff in that hotel room and the permeance of all it hitting me. I had a one-way plane ticket. I didn't know anyone up there. It was just me.
Those first few weeks were a lot of fun, but also very lonely. Fun in that I got to do a lot of exploring. But the downtime was difficult and I had trouble figuring out to fill that. Especially in a place Seattle in December, where it's night-time at 5pm and very dreary during the day. You can't do much outside.
I'd heard that baseball was going to do a home and home with Oregon State starting in 2007. As you might remember, Oregon State had eliminated us from the College World Series in 2006. I understood too that Oregon State would first go to Athens.
I still remember sitting in that hotel room and wishing, really wishing, that we were going to Oregon State first. I just wanted so bad to have that on the calendar to look forward to, to be able to see and do something familiar. I thought that it was silly to wish for that, but I couldn't help it. And I also wondered how much different things would be by 2008 when we made the trip to the NW.
Ultimately, as you might remember, we didn't play that 2008 series in Corvallis, but rather at the minor league park in Portland. I'd made friends with a co-worker who was an Oregon State alum... we actually drove down from Seattle to Corvallis the prior fall to see an Oregon State game, and had a good time doing that. I got a hotel room walking distance from the park in Portland. I remember driving down with my friend that Friday from Seattle, going down I-5, it's about 3 hours to Portland and a terribly boring drive... there just isn't a lot between Tacoma and Portland, and it seems like it should be a shorter distance. Anyway, it was cold and raining for most of that drive down.
Got settled into the hotel and made it over the park. I think the game was going to start at like 7pm local time. But rain stuck around in Portland and the start was delayed. So we're hanging around there in the stadium drinking beers and waiting on the game to start. Sometimes I get antsy, impatient or whatever, in a situation like that. I'm sure anyone would. But I didn't that night. I was just so happy to be there. I remember thinking "I've waited so long for this... what's another hour or two?"
Ryan Piesel hit a triple on the first pitch of the game. A couple of defensive miscues late wound up costing us, and I remember thinking that the fact that it was about 230am for the body clocks of our players toward the end of that, probably had a lot to do with it. We won pretty easily on Saturday and then in a very tight game Sunday, got hooked on some bad umpiring behind the plate, and lost. Gordon Beckham hit a LONG 3-run homer that Sunday afternoon too.
I tend to think back to the Friday night in 2008 whenever something long-anticipated gets delayed by a little bit. You waited this long... what's a little bit more?
