Mark of Fridays: Christmas spectacular

Some Christmas pictures!

Comerica Park: 12 and counting...

Matt's been meaning to put a post about his Father's Day trip to Detroit. Last year, for Father's Day, Matt got his dad tickets to Busch Stadium in St. Louis to see a Cardinals game against the Phillies.
Are Matt or his dad fans of the Cardinals? No.
Fans of the Phillies? No.
The point is to go to the stadium. Of the 30 current major league teams, Matt's been to 12 stadiums.
This year, Matt and his dad took a five-hour drive to Detroit to see the Tigers play the Dodgers.
Are they Tigers fans? Nope.
Dodgers fans? Nah.
(They're Mets fans.)

But they wanted to see the park.
Comerica Park lived up to its billing as a beautiful baseball field with a mall around it. Even the team is pretty up front about the game nearly being secondary, which is kind of sad. But the stadium was built during a time when the Tigers were losing 119 games, so maybe you didn't really want to see the field then.

OK, let's get the distractions out of the way. Comerica has a merry-go-round and a ferris wheel inside the park. At first, Matt was like, wow, that's cool. And then, well, not so much. (The Tigers on the carousel were a nice touch.) It was $2 to ride either one, so Matt and his dad skipped them. Plus there was more baseball-centric things to see before the first pitch.

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On to the cool stuff. First of all, they have these giant towers all around the stadium with memorabilia and facts about the Tigers through the decades. Very cool. It's too bad they can't do stuff like this at Wrigley because people would eat it up at $5 a pop.
Then, Matt and Dad wandered over to the statues in the outfield for the Tigers retired numbers (Al Kaline, Willie Horton, Charlie Gehringer, Hank Greenberg, Hal Newhouser and Ty Cobb). The statues had a unique style that really emphasized the player in action. Balls seemed to shooting off Greenberg's bat, and the dirt was flying up as Cobb slid into a base. Check out the picture of Kaline leaping to catch a fly ball. If you look closely (click on the picture to enlarge it), you can see the ball is actually suspended a few inches off his glove. The viewer gets to see that perfect moment, just before the conclusion. Really nicely done, Matt thought.
That goes for the outside of the stadium, too, where they've gone all out on the Tiger theme, and it works. Sadly, the girl who took 18 minutes preparing to take Matt and Dad's picture in front of the giant Tiger kind of blew it. Oh well.
The rest of the stadium was beautiful with nice seats and good sight lines everywhere. The food was OK, not terrible or spectacular. The scoreboard was impressive and fountains spouted water in the outfield when the Tigers scored.
Oh yeah, the game. well, it was a wild one. Matt liked seeing the Tigers because there were a few potential future Hall of Famers on the field. Ivan Rodriguez is in for sure. Miguel Cabrera (who homered) and Magglio Ordonez (who needs a haircut) could be on their way. (Juan Pierre - nah, he could never get to 3,000 hits. Or could he?)Plus, there were two Hall of Fame managers - Jim Leyland and Joe Torre - skippering their clubs. Well, actually,they were just holding on that day. The game had errors and two men on the same base and plays at the plate and failed squeeze plays and and homers and back-to-back triples. When it ended, the suddenly-hot Tigers won 12-7. Root, root, root for the home team.
One other note about the game: Matt got decent seats through stubhub, in Row 34 behind home plate, looking right down the left field line. Strangely, Matt and his dad ended up sitting right behind two-time Academy Award winning actor Gene Hackman. Who knows why he was there. Maybe since he's a Hollywood type, he just follows the Dodgers everywhere. Matt kept yelling out, "Hey French Connection" and "C'mon The Conversation" or "Little hit there, Hoosiers" to get Hackman's attention so he'd turn around for a picture. But he never turned around. Maybe he didn't want the attention. Or maybe it was only some guy who sort of looked like Gene Hackman. Nah, it was him. Mr. Lex Luthor.

So that brought Matt's stadium total to 12. (Matt's dad has been to many more, including a bunch of retired stadiums.
Here's Matt's ratings of the fields he's visited:

First tier: Fenway Park (Boston Red Sox), Camden Yards (Baltimore Orioles) and PNC Park (Pittsburgh Pirates)
Second tier, and close behind: Busch Stadium (St. Louis Cardinals), Comerica Park (Detroit Tigers), Wrigley Field (Chicago Cubs)
Third tier, still close behind: Coors Field (Colorado Rockies), Miller Park (Milwaukee Brewers)
Fourth tier and further back: Shea Stadium (New York Mets), U.S. Cellular Field (Chicago White Sox), Yankee Stadium (New York Stinkees)
Fifth and this is a bad stadium: Metrodome (Minnesota Twins).

You can read ESPN Page 2's else review of all these stadiums right here.

Twelve down, 18 to go. (Matt sure hopes they don't tear down Shea Stadium, Yankee Stadium and move the Twins out of the Metrodome in the next two years. Nah, that'll never happen.)

Well, it was another great Father's Day trip with a great guy. As for next year...Cincinnati isn't too far....or Cleveland...or...

Happy birthday Grandma!

We here at the Lynne and Matt blog want to wish a very happy birthday to Geraldine Majewski, Matt's grandma and Lynne's future grandmother-in-law.
Lynne and Matt are blessed that Grandma Majewski will be joining them at their wedding.

Lynne and Matt hope everyone says hi to her - she'll be the lady dancing a mean polka. If you're pleasant, maybe she'll even tell you about the time she hit a pig with her new Subaru. Grandma was once Miss New York Central. And she still regularly watches two of her grand kids and hands out plenty of free sewing lessons.

Lynne is known to be riding in the car when she will randomly blurt out: "I really like your grandma." To which Matt can only reply, "Me too."
What's not to like?

This year, Grandma will be...well, let's see. She's got the energy of a 22-year-old, and the dance moves of a 28-year-old. She looks like she might be maybe 29. Still, some of that math isn't working out quite right. She's got to be at least older than her grandson, right?

Happy birthday Grandma! We love you!

Thank you very much

Some things Matt is thankful for on this Thanksgiving, 2007:

Matt is thankful for having a wonderful family. Specifically, Matt is blessed to have a mom and dad who have supported him, encouraged him and loved him. And a sister who always makes him proud, even though she recently admitted she thought Matt's room smelled throughout high school. (It was the running clothes!)

Come to think of it, Matt is thankful that his future in-laws (wow, that's first time he's actually said that- nice!) appear to think he's an all right guy. And everyone gets along, which is a blessing.

Matt's thankful for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Giant Snoopy's are cool.

Matt is thankful Ron Zook can recruit, water ski and coach a little, too. (See you in Arizona!)

Matt is thankful for good news for good friends. Mark and Katie are going to have a little second baseman. Congrats - it couldn't happen to nicer people.

Matt is thankful for good health.

Matt is thankful for vending machines. Otherwise, how would he eat lunch?

Matt is thankful for his mom's mashed potatoes and pizza and barbecue chicken and meatloaf and Irish soda bread and baked macaroni...

Matt is thankful for great books, great movies and great music.

Matt is thankful that Alex's house did not burn up in the California fires. That would have been bad.

Matt is thankful that this year he got to see Tom Glavine's 300th win and the 500th career homer by Jim Thome (aka Buzz Lightyear). It was once-in-a-lifetime amazing.

Furthermore, Matt is thankful that no one remembers what happened to the Mets this season. Ahem.

Matt is thankful that he works at a great newspaper, with great people. Matt doesn't forget that not everyone has a job, and even if they do, not everybody loves their work. And yet, Matt is thankful that he has today off.

Matt is thankful that he remembered to deodorize both arms this morning. That's progress. (Everyone else is thankful, too.)

Matt is thankful for his Aunt Nancy and Uncle Tom, hosting another great family feast. At the same time, Matt is thankful that he can totally rock at Guitar Hero.

Matt is thankful that his Dad did not get stuck in New Jersey. Instead he was home to get beat unmercifully in Phase 10!

Matt is thankful that he's been running more lately. It feels good.

Matt is thankful for Jones Soda. Mmmm, carbonated latke.

Oh yeah, and Matt is thankful that Lynne said yes!