It was a quicker game than all the rest so we actually got back to the hotel pretty quick.  We don’t have anything else planned since we’d like to get to bed early tonight.  If we can wake up early enough and get rolling, we might be at home by bedtime tomorrow.  Off to dinner and to organize our stuff for the car!

It was nice and comfortable while walking under the second level on the concourse.  Back in the seats, however, it felt warm and cramped.  Like most places, the seats are a little too small and close together.  I think being in the back row helped a little since we got a breeze coming from the walkway behind us.  The temperature was in the low 90’s during the game and it felt like it while in the sun when the breeze stopped.  We also saw clouds for the first time since we got here about a week ago, but that didn’t help the temperature much.

The game started off okay when the A’s put up four runs in the first inning, but Texas came back and scored six in the third.  They didn’t have to look back and went on to win 8-5.  There were a lot of A’s fans there today.  At a few points in the game, the “Let go Ran-gers” chant turned into a “Let’s go Oak-land” chant.

Hank Blalock tried to catch a foul ball but instead flipped over the rail into the A’s dugout.  He smacked his head on something and they treated his cut a little in the A’s dugout before he walked to the Ranger’s locker room.

I noticed it at Phoenix Muni and here again; most of the stadium workers and attendees are retirement age men and women.  Not too surprising since Arizona is a big retirement spot.  The only one of them that didn’t seem happy was one today who manned our seating area.  I guess he didn’t like the people who walked themselves to their seat without his help.

For dinner we went to Buffalo Wild Wings and watched some of the NCAA games.  I think I had three of the four games correct on my bracket.  We ate some ‘chicken strings’ which are probably just processes chicken squeezed through some kind of play-doh like contraption so they look like strings.  They tasted pretty good though.  We had two sauces, one Asian and the other Caribbean jerk.  Both were a little spicy, so by the time my hot wings (only regular hot, not wild hot) arrived, my taste buds were already opened.  I went through three refills of my soda keeping the fire down in my mouth.  They were pretty good though.  Heather had some kind of flatbread chicken pizza thing and she liked it.

After dinner we drove the hour back to the hotel.  In the Denny’s parking lot next to the hotel there were six police cars, all parked rear-first into their spots.  I know they sometimes like to take their meal breaks together, but I’ve never seen so many at one place at the same time.

Tomorrow we will spend the day at the Phoenix Zoo in Papago Park.  If we get there early enough and finish it with enough time, we might cross the street and hike the Papago rock formations.  I hope it’s not too hot either, as we really want to try out our new hiking backpack with Hunter.

We got a few autographs in the Spring edition of the A’s Magazine and our Spring Training ball. Gio Gonzales, Daric Barton, Josh Outman, Rajai Davis, Cliff Pennington and Corey Wimberly.  Not really any big names, but guys to watch in the future.  I don’t think I got any great pictures, though I did get a few of Reggie Jackson who was in his full practice gear.

The game went well for the A’s, who had a 5-0 lead leaving the first inning.  Both teams were shut down until the sixth, when the Diamondbacks were able to score two off of Vince Mazzaro and then another  in the seventh.   The A’s did score four more in the middle of that and two more in the seventh with help by a Josh Donaldson triple and a solo home run by Aaron Cunningham.  The final score was 11-3.

After the game, we headed back to the hotel for a short bit before leaving for Jobing.com Arena to watch the visiting Sharks take on the Phoenix Coyotes.  We were a little late and missed the first goal, but they saved two more Phoenix goals for when we were in our seats.  The Sharks were down 3-0 going into the first intermission, and were only able to score one in the second period.  As they have done more than a few times this year, the Sharks scored twice to tie the game in the third.  Unfortunately, a really bad interference call on Cheechoo by the referee resulted in a Sharks penalty and the Coyotes capitalized to score with thirty seconds to go in the game and take a 4-3 lead.

Hunter was a little less excited today than he was yesterday.  Still, he smiled at people when they would talk to him.  While getting autographs down near the field, Hunter got to shake Daric Barton’s hand.  I wish I had been able to take a picture of that.  Everyone though he was so cute at the hockey game in the Sharks jacket that we borrowed from his cousins.

Tomorrow we go to Out of Africa, a wild animal park about 90 minutes north of Phoenix.  We’re going to try and get there early so we can possibly drive up to Sedona for dinner and check out the views.

Phoenix Municipal is a pretty nice park.  Attendance was 5,303 people.  They say it can hold 8775 people, but it seemed like there was more people than 60% capacity, so maybe they count the standing room only limits.  It’s not too hard to get around in and the food lines don’t get too long since there are so many counters open.  About the only thing that it lacks is the variety of food.  Standard baseball fare here for the most part.  It also doesn’t have any outfield seating or picnic area like many other minor league and spring training facilities have.  I hope the city of Phoenix takes Lew Wolfe up on his offer to renovate and adds some outfield stuff and perhaps a new scoreboard.

I didn’t get any autographs today.  We didn’t get there early enough and really were just trying to get our bearings on the place by the time the players came off the field.  There’s a practice field right over the right field wall, and I got to see Giambi take some easy pitches from one of the coaches, and Ellis hit off a tee.  The catchers, Landon Powell and Kurt Suzuki were also practicing their catching and throw-em-out motions.  Tomorrow we’ll try to get there earlier and get some autographs.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, mentioned how cute Hunter was in his A’s onesie and hat.  We even had a couple of Japanese girls take turns snapping their pictures with him.  We were in the front row of the covered spots about a section or two over from home plate.  It was a pretty good view of the field and of Papago Park behind it.  Since we were in the front row, everyone had a good view of Hunter.  He talked a lot and was ‘yelling’ at people as they went by, especially the young kids.  A few people stopped with their young ones to say ‘Hi.’

While walking around we saw sportswriter Mychael Urban eating lunch in the VIP area.  He’s pretty tall.  Lew  also came out to sign some autographs and shake hands.  The Left Field Bleachers people were there and kept telling him to keep the team in Oakland.  He ignored it.

After the game, we drove up to Scottsdale and ate at The Saddle Ranch Chop House for dinner.  It was nice to actually eat dinner before eight o’clock for the first time in three days.  I had a steak with garlic mashed potatoes and Heather ate an orange chicken dish.  They were great, as were the cornbread muffins and buffalo wings.  The manager of the place actually called my mustache a ‘Rollie Fingers thing’ so that was good.  It looks like it would be a great place to go to watch a game, as they have TVs all over and the place is really spacious.

Tomorrow is game two, vs the Arizona Diamondbacks, so I expect it to have higher attendance than today.  Also, sunscreen.

Frustrating rookiee mistakes were made with a Barton-off-the-shoulder foul-ball drop and Hannahan’s indecision after making a fantastic defensive stop down the third base line.  They weren’t the only ones.  Jason Varitek hit a ball that bounced off the white line on the right field wall back into the field.  The referees ruled it a double instead of the home run the replays showed it really was.  It ended up not mattering much because the A’s couldn’t manage to get anyone else home.

The two bright spots of the night were the solid six innings pitched by Joe Blanton and the solo homerun that Jack Cust hit on the first pitch in the second inning.   I managed to snap a picture of Cust making contact from our vantage point all the way down the left field side in section 234.  Except it was blurry.  Oh well.

Next up on the list of games is Travis Buck bobblehead day on April 19th against Kansas City.