Homeward bound

After the windy, cloudy and eventually rainy day on Tuesday, Wednesday was a completely different day: warm, calm and sunny. These two pictures were taken from my hotel room looking out across the Hudson to the South West and towards central Manhattan to the East. These pictures were taken early on Wednesday morning, before I went along the High Line walk.

I had plenty of time before my evening flight home, so I did not hurry down to Penn Station. When I walked to the station earlier in the day, I had tested the route I was going to take to make sure I knew exactly how to get to the New Jersey Transit area of the station once I had my luggage with me - i.e. without going up or down any staircases. It turned out to be easy, as long as you go into the correct entrance!

After having dinner at a restaurant at the station, I caught one of the trains across to Newark, then the AirTrain to my terminal where I was able to drop off my bag, go through security and go the lounge to have a coffee whilst I waited for my flight. It boarded on time, and this time it was the plane that it was meant to be: a 777-200, so I had a large personal video system and a lie-flat seat. The dinner was the same as the outbound flight, albeit a little shaken up as one of the trolleys in the first class galley hadn't been secured properly and a few of the salads came flying back down the aisle as we accelerated along the runway and took off! A man in my row was catching some of the olives as they rolled along the floor too. Fortunately, they still had enough for everybody, though.

We arrived at Heathrow just after 7am and I was able to get the train home, finally arriving mid-morning to end my journey.

The High Line

For my last day, I'd negotiated a late checkout of 2.30pm, so I was able to do some last-minute sightseeing. I walked along the High Line, which is a former freight elevated railway line on the West side of Manhattan that runs from 14th Street up to 30th Street along. I decided to walk from the Southern end to the Northern end, so I took the 'A' subway train down to 14th Street to find the end and then walked along the whole route.

The wooden planks form the floor all the way along the route, sometimes with old rails between them still that have been preserved from the old freight line. Since the line is elevated, you can get some good photographs of New York streets without having to worry about the traffic below as well as photos of the Hudson and across it to New Jersey.

There are lots of wildflower beds that have been installed along the length of the walk, some of which are shown in the pictures here. It is still quite a young development, so it will look a lot better in future years as things have had a chance to grow to a better size and all blend together. Some of the plants have been placed in between the planks and the rails to give it a natural look. The pictures I have here are a small selection of the plants that I saw along the length of the walk.

There are lots of benches to sit on all the way along the walk, which meant that there was always a spot free for a rest for anybody who wanted it. One of the benches was in a shallow pool - the water was coming up through a drain one side, just barely covering the surface and going down the drain on the other side. In other places there were large banks of wooden seating that people could use to sit and watch the city life go past underneath.

Sometimes there were small lawned sections which made you forget that you were actually up on an elevated walkway. These often had long wooden benches alongside, as shown in the photograph.

It was very quiet, considering it's in the middle of a busy major city! Most of the traffic doesn't come right to the western edge of Manhattan unless it's going down the Lincoln Tunnel to New Jersey.

At the Northern end at 30 St, they are building the next section of the line and we could see that they have only just started that work. Eventually, the High Line will continue further North and the subway 7 line will be extended westwards from 42 St-Times Square to have a station right next to it, which will make it easier to get to (and would make it easier to get to Mets games from my hotel!) Since the nearest subway station was at 34 St, my hotel was on 39 St and the next station was 42 St, there was no point taking the train back, so I walked the remaining 9 blocks, getting back with an hour to finish packing before setting off for Penn Station to start my journey home.

Philadelphia Philles @ New York Mets (2)

I returned from my to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island National Monument to discover that this game was postponed several hours before the scheduled first pitch, due to the weather in New York today and rescheduled for Thursday (a common day off for both teams). The Yankees have also called their game off as have the Washington Nationals just down the coast. The weather hasn't actually been awful, but it's been heavy clouds and very windy all day and I suspect that the postponement is more based on the forecast for this evening rather than the current conditions, as it hasn't actually rained properly yet.

So that's a rather damp squib way to end my season this year, although there is a silver lining. Provided the rain check policy comes through as it should, I shall be able to exchange this ticket for a similar game within the next 12 months, says the policy. I have my eye on the San Francisco Giants @ New York Mets, which is on 17th September 2013, according to the draft schedule for next season that's just come out, which is fortunately, just within 12 months of 18th September 2012. After watching the Giants at Citi Field for three, they're then at Yankee Stadium for a three game set with the new balanced leagues creating inter-league player all season long.

So, instead of having a free buffet, including some delightful desserts, I am going to have to actually pay for some food instead - and I can write up my statue visit too.

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

Today, I decided to do the tour to the Statue of Liberty and to Ellis Island. The website recommended leaving nearly 6 hours to cover both sites, so by going mid-morning, I thought that I would have time to do both sites, get back to the hotel, and then go to this evening's game.

This is the boat I travelled to Liberty Island on and again onto Ellis Island. You can stay as long as you like on either island, just catching the next boat to the other island or back to the mainland when you've completed your visit. You can see from the skies in the photograph that it wasn't a sunny day - it was the first really cloudy day that I'd had, and there were weather warnings that had been issued warning of strong winds, heavy rain and the chance of a tornado or two. Whilst it was quite windy all day, and very windy indeed on the boats as we crossed the water between the islands, there was no rain until later in the evening when I was back at my hotel, which was good.

The statue is much larger than I had imagined. It was a shame that the maintenance work being done to the foundations was still going on (it's due to finish any time now) as there were lots of fences around everywhere, although they didn't really block the view of the statue itself. I walked around the island to see the statue from all the different sides. Although it looks as if it was raining, it wasn't - that was just the spray from the waves crashing into the island!

There is a guided audio tour included in the price of the ticket, so you can go at your own pace and listen to a guide describing the different aspects of the statue, how it was conceived, designed, built, imported from France to the USA and then assembled on the island. Since you cannot go into the pedestal or up the statue at the moment, there isn't actually all that much to do on Liberty Island except admire the statue itself and visit the gift shop and cafe provided.

Next I travelled on to Ellis Island, which was the immigration centre for the third class and steerage passengers on arriving boats (the first and second class passengers generally were admitted after a brief interview on board the arriving ship). The immigrants went through a long process starting with depositing their bags in the baggage room before proceeding up the stairs (being able to climb the stairs was one of the medical tests) to the Registry Room where they queued to be interviewed by immigration officials. It has an impressive ceiling that was so well built, only 17 bricks had to be replaced when the room was restored to become part of the national monument.

There were lots of other areas to see, in particular the medical testing section and mental ability testing. However, I shall have to return to see these areas in more detail, as I had to get back for the evening game as the ferries back become a lot less frequent after 4pm. As you can see from the final picture, the weather really wasn't very good, but at least it hadn't rained during my tour of the islands.

Philadelphia Phillies @ New York Mets (1)

The penultimate game of my trip for this year was the first game of the series between the Mets and the Phillies at Citi Field. Neither team are in the playoffs, and only the Phillies have any realistic shot at the second wildcard spot, which eliminated most of the potential tension in the game.

My seats for tonight and tomorrow's game are in the Delta Sky 360 Champions Club, which gives access to all the public areas. In the Champions Club, you have access to an unlimited free buffet and free non-alcoholic drinks - not bad for $110. And with the Mets being out of contention, there were plenty of empty seats so it wasn't too busy.

The aircraft do pass over the stadium quite low - I wonder whether pilots have a competition to see who can fly over Citi Field the lowest during a game. You can tell they are low, because the bottoms of the planes are illuminated by the stadium lights as they pass overhead! Plus they drown out the stadium PA.

This was my first opportunity to see a knuckleball pitcher, as R.A.Dickey was pitching for the Mets against Cliff Lee for the Phillies. It didn't start all that well for Dickey, as he struck out Jimmy Rollins, the first batter of the game, but the ball got past the catcher, so Rollins made it to 1st anyway and later came around to score on a sacrifice fly, giving Philadelphia a 1-0 lead without even getting a hit. It wasn't a disaster by any means but a solo home run in the middle innings and another run late gave the Phillies all the offence they would need with Cliff Lee's strong 8IP performance and Papelbon (in picture) getting the save.

I was surprised at how fast the knuckleball pitches were. I had always imagined that they would be more like the speed of a spinner in cricket in the 50-60mph range, but these pitches were in the high 70s with the occasional fastball in the low 80s.

Tall buildings need lifts

The only problem with this hotel is that they have two lifts - one of which isn't working (seems to be a permanent state of affairs according to the reviews I read) so I had to wait 30 minutes for a lift to breakfast. It's one of those situations where if you'd known it was going to be that long, you could have gone down the stairs instead.

The hotel was trying to make the best of it though, with an employee controlling the lift manually to ensure that all floors were visited eventually. That must be a difficult job, as I imagine many people are pretty annoyed by the time the lift arrives. Some people were riding up in order to ensure that they got a space to go down again!

Again, like the you-knew-where, this place has a free breakfast, however, here, it's a proper breakfast with bacon, sausages and egg available in addition to cereals and drinks and pancakes.

A spoonful of sugar helps the cappuccino go down

A few snippets about sugar that I've collected during this trip.

I always forget to bring my sweeteners with me, but it never matters as everywhere has a selection of different types of sugar on offer, so you can pick one.

One of the vendors in Oakland wasn't have much luck in flogging his large pink balls of cotton candy (candy floss) to anybody in the crowd, as he went up and down the stairs in numerous sections. Eventually resorted to advertising it in an entirely different way:

"Bags of solid sugar!"

The lady sitting next to me quipped "oh, I'll take two, then!"

I went to the Capital Grille on 42nd Street for dinner this evening. The building was impressive, with a mainly glass exterior and lots of steel infrastructure. It sounds awful described like that, but it's actually impressive. As darkness fell, the glass reflected the inside. I thought the light was failing inside the lamp on my table, as it kept flickering, then I wondered if it was actually one of those bulbs that simulates a flame and looked inside - it was a real flame on a real candle.

I knew it would be expensive, as I've dined at this chain of restaurants before and the location of this one in the middle of the theatre district led me to believe it would be even more expensive. In fact, it was the same prices as other outlets. My server, Scott P, looked after me well, just the right amount of attentiveness and interaction, with no sense of rushing me to finish or pay and leave at the end. Including the tip, the amount came to just over $100 for a three course meal - I had the smoked salmon, the Kona-crusted sirloin steak, and chocolate cake with a cappuccino.

The cappuccino came with a spoon that was actually a wooden stirrer with sugar crystallised over it. It looked very pretty and the sugar didn't actually dissolve all at once.

Tampa Bay Rays @ New York Yankees (2)

Having dropped my luggage at the new hotel, I went to the subway, which was close by and was fortunate that an express 'D' train arrived just as I did. This only took 20 minutes to get from 42nd St all the way up to Yankee Stadium at 161st St and, because I already had my ticket today, I was able to go straight in and up in the lift to the club level and despite my worst fears about missing most of the game, it was still the top of the 2nd inning and less than an hour and a half in total after walking out of the hotel in Queens, with the subsequent travelling to Manhattan, getting to the new hotel, going back to the subway and taking the trip up there.

My ticket today was for the Jim Beam Suite section 319. This entitled me to the Jim Beam Club behind the seating section, which is an indoor seating area, with aircon, lots of TVs too, half of them showing the baseball game going on outside, the other half showing the Tamba Bay Buccaneers @ New York Giants game going on at the Meadowlands in New Jersey - the stadium that I flew over whilst coming in to land on Friday. They have two food counters and a bar as well, and being restricted to only people in a few sections, the queues were either short or non-existent. My seat was at the back of the 7-row section, right on the end, which meant I could come and go without having to wait for at-bats to end (they do ask you not to come and go whilst a player is batting in order to avoid obstructing other people's views - not that some people take any notice of that) The views are much better from here, and the seat was larger and nicely padded for comfort. Here's a picture of one of the most famous current players: number 2, Derek Jeter, number 2.

And a photo of me, just behind where my seat was, taken by a friendly man. I took a picture of him and his companion afterwards too. They were delighted with it, as I got the logo behind the plate, the two of them and the scoreboard in with consistent lighting - to be honest, I was pleased with it too and I was pleased with the one they took of me.

The outer concourse on the ground level is impressive and bright with the light being able to come in through the roof. There are banners all the way around of the famous former players and some of the current crop of Yankees will find their portraits hanging up here in the future too.

As for the game itself, it appeared to be over as a contest when Russell Martin hit a 3-run home run to cap a 5-run 3rd inning, helped along by more errors from the Rays. The Yankees stole 4 bases in this game, 3 of them by Nunez who had scored two runs despite not getting a hit, after reaching on a walk and an error in his first two plate appearances. The Rays attempted a late comeback with impressive home runs, but fell short, eventually losing 6-4 - although quite a large number of people missed the ending as they'd already decided the game was won and left early to beat the rush!

Country Inn & not-so-Suites

I've not had any trouble with any hotels on previous visits, but after the Fawlty Towers experience at the Holiday Inn Civic Center @ 8th Street in San Francisco, I was disappointed to have problems at another of my hotels.

I finally decided to leave the Country Inn & Suites by Carlson in Long Island City this morning. The carpets needed cleaning, the door of the cupboard in which the fridge lived didn't close, the fan in the bathroom was noisy, the TV wasn't HD like the website promised, and there was no 'do not disturb' sign - although the man on reception at breakfast did apologise for that, contact the cleaners to tell them, and promise to find a sign for me (he never did). Also, the breakfast was pretty limited and poor to be honest, although it was free, so along with the other trivial things, I was prepared to let it go. I was informed by the receptionist in no uncertain times that I must still pay for Sunday night as it was their policy. I contested this, but she insisted in a not-so-polite way. I'd rather have the person's full attention as well instead of having them gabbling on to their colleagues in a foreign language. I'd also read the TripAdvisor comments by this point and found that many people complained about the attitude and rudeness of the staff, but this was nothing compared to what happened later. I found this very strange, as most of the Indians that I meet in the UK are the most friendly and polite people you could ever hope to meet.

In preparation, I looked on the website to see if they had any rooms spare for Sunday night, so that I could shoot down the "you must pay because we couldn't sell the room" argument. They did have at least 5 of them available - at half the price they were charging me too!

When I went down to complain again and insist on being allowed to check out, I indicated that if they were going to charge me for another night, I at least wanted them to fix the TV. The woman on reception denied that HD TV was promised and eventually told me that they didn't have HD and that I was wrong (several times) because the website doesn't promise HD. I showed her the room rate page on my phone. Then she finally got the manager, and he denied it too. So I showed him on their PC that although the hotel details do not indicate HD TV, the individual room rates do list it explicitly. I had also had a quick search of the web for US for the correct magic phrases to use and although US law isn't as strong as UK law is (they don't appear to have anything like as much protection as those summarised well by Martin Lewis's SAD FART rules) and found "not as described" was what I needed. Once shown the website, the manager acknowledged straight away that it shouldn't have said that and that I was right and offered me a free night ($221, including taxes) which I took - as effectively, that saved me the extra night that they wanted to charge, and it was so late by this point (only an hour before first pitch) that I was in danger of missing most of the game.

I had already researched alternative hotels in Manhattan, and I don't know how I didn't notice some of the deals available there when I searched for hotels last month. I found the Holiday Inn Express Times Square offering a high-floor room for just $40 more than the Long Island city place (and then $140 more for one final night, but I'm prepared to pay that to be somewhere nice.) My room wasn't available when I arrived, but I'd only made the reservation half an hour earlier and I was 4 hours before the check-in time and immediately, the lady offered to store my luggage which I accepted, as I couldn't see any other luggage there, implying that they actually store it properly - unlike the Country Inn & Suites where all the bags were just dumped in the public area in reception! I shall use this facility again on Wednesday to store my luggage until it's time to travel to the airport.

When I returned from the ballgame, I was able to check-in properly which went with no difficulty at all here unlike you-know-where, where they were confused that I'd guaranteed the room with one credit card but wanted to pay with a different one. I received a gift pack of biscuits, water and crisps and the man at the desk was as helpful as possible. He even rang my room 20 minutes later to check that everything was OK.

It has a nice view of Southern Manhattan and the Hudson river across to New Jersey, rather than a taxi repair company's premises which is what I had in Long Island City. Additionally, it's about 2-3 blocks away from a major subway station, so I despite the fact that I'm now in Manhattan, and thus further away from the Mets stadium, the end of the 7 line is here so I can still easily get the 7 train to the Mets games on Monday and Tuesday! The room is clean and doesn't smell odd, the TV works and is HD, the room doesn't look tatty.

Tampa Bay Rays @ New York Yankees (1)

It doesn't seem possible that I'm now in the final city of my holiday and that my next destination will be London.

I left plenty of time to get to the stadium today as I had to visit Will Call to pick up my tickets. However, there was a problem on the subway on the 4 line with a passenger becoming ill on the train in front of mine - a train that I had earlier got off before it even left where I was boarding as I felt it was too crowded and uncomfortable. After waiting a while at one station, we were told that our train would not stop at the next station, and we switched to the express track, passed the stopped train and returned to the normal track again to continue our journey to Yankee Stadium (so I would have arrived even later if I had stayed on the original train!) I went all the way around to the Will Call window and the man gave me my ticket, so I walked off, put all my cards and passport away again, and then discovered he'd given me my ticket for tomorrow's game but not today's game. So I went back, queued again and saw somebody else who was able to give me the ticket for today. By this time, I'd missed the first three innings, however, that wasn't so bad as my seat was in the sun until the 5th inning, so I'd have got very hot if I'd got there any sooner. Also this was the day I had the cheap side in left field. It's more difficult to follow what's going on from such a distance, I think. I was in section 234, almost as far around as the visitor's bullpen, but on the second level. However, you can see how powerful the zoom on the camera is with this shot of Curtis Granderson at the plate, shaping to bunt.

New York won the game, mainly due to the two home runs in the second inning and to be honest, Tampa Bay never really looked like they were going to come back, despite some resistance in the 7th.

I didn't hurry back to the subway station after the game, as it's always packed. In the end, I let one train go and got a seat on the next one right at the front.

Texas to New York

I had to get up early today for breakfast before being ready for my Supershuttle to the airport at 8am, which was booked for 8.05am-8.20am. My Supershuttle to the airport was a little late in arriving, but I had left plenty of time to get to the airport. However, I knew it was on its way, as you can track the vehicle on their website. I can only conclude that most drivers in Texas are mad - we witnessed three accidents on the short journey to the airport and a number of near misses.

I have noticed that almost every time, the gate for my plane is at the far end of the concourse as far away from the security checkpoint as it is possible to be. Not this time, though. For the second time in a row, my gate was directly opposite the security exit, so no long trek to the gate.

I spent 10,000 miles, the compensation from the earlier transatlantic flight, to upgrade to first class for this flight, although it was only an old 737. I have not yet had any flight with a personal video system - it's all been overhead screens only (and it's usually been Men in Black 3 every flight too!) Hopefully the 777-200 operating the flight back to London will have proper systems on it and different films. I talked quite a bit at the start and the end of the journey to the lady sitting next to me about baseball, as she is a big Rangers fan.

Unusually, we landed at Newark from the North, so we flew down the Hudson and over the impressive-looking Meadowlands Sports Complex, where the New York Giants and New York Jets NFL teams play their home games. The baggage seemed to take an age to come out, but my bag was one of the first as it had a 'high priority' sticker on it - one of the benefits of going first class - and so I bought my Newark Airport to New York Penn Station return ticket (seems to come with a huge discount now compared to two singles), took the AirTrain along to the railway station and got the train into New York.

The New York subway is still not as accessible as it could be. I couldn't find step-free access to the A,C,E lines at 34 St/Penn Station, nor at Queensboro Plaza, so I struggled up the steps at 34 St and travelled to Queens Plaza instead which was a longer walk to the hotel, but at least it had elevator access to street level.

The hotel, Country Inn & Suites by Carlson, in Long Island City, is rather drab and in need of refurbishment. Everything is shabby - the cupboard door doesn't close, the carpets are dirty, aircon unit flap is broken, fan in bathroom is noisy, TV isn't HD, and the breakfast is rather limited, although free. Maybe I'll move to a different place, although it is convenient for getting to Flushing for the Mets games.

Cleveland Indians @ Texas Rangers (3)

After yesterday's adventure, today I decided to catch the trolley as I had on Tuesday, but this time I went on one that left early so I could head straight to the Cuervo club for dinner and be finished before the game. I had a "Nolan Ryan all-natural beefburger", which was more like a steak in a bun than a burger, really. Nolan Ryan is a Hall of Fame player and is, currently, president of the Texas Rangers. In this photo, he's the one sitting in the front row on the left in the red shirt, two along from Barbara Bush, although there was no sign of her husband President George H.W. Bush or his son, who often comes to Rangers games when he's in town.

The weather forecast for the game tonight was worryingly poor, with a 90% chance of Rain+Thunder at 7pm (the start time), rising to a 100% chance of Rain+Thunder at 8pm though to midnight, so I took my coat with me and my hat. The other lady taking the trolley with me from my hotel said she didn't think it would rain at the ballpark. Other people at the ballpark had umbrellas at the ready.

It was bone dry all night.

As you can see from the second photo, the more than the minimum requisite number of fans had tickets for the game today, so we all got a T-shirt on the way in - I did wonder what would have happened if fewer than 32,000 had turned up - would they have collected them back in again on our way out? The crowd is generally a red colour, but they asked everybody to put on their "Over 3,000,000 fans" celebration T-shirts, which meant everything looked white.

I was pleased to see Adrian Beltre in the line up for his game after he left yesterday's game with an injury. Hamilton also had left with an injury and did not play, but we're told that he'll be OK tomorrow. This game was tight with Derek Holland starting for Texas against Zach McAllister for Cleveland and both putting in quality starts, giving up just 2 runs through 7 and 6 innings respectively. However, what killed the Indians during this game again was errors. Some of them were fairly difficult plays, but balls were thrown into the dugout or booted at short stop or juggled when picked up. It's been a recurring theme through the series - in this game, only 1 of the runs scored by Texas was an earned run. The Rangers finally managed to score twice in the 8th inning so they could hand the ball to Joe Nathan to close out their third victory in a row. Many of the Texas faithful left at the end of the 8th inning. They missed Cleveland handing Nathan his first blown save for months with a solo HR and a two-run HR to give them the lead which Perez saved in the bottom of the 9th. This could be a costly loss for the Rangers in the long run, as they need to win their division and giving away games to last place teams isn't the way to go about it.

I really enjoyed watching games here - they are fun. On many of the advertising signs in centre, they have special additions, like on this ad for the Chick-fil-A chain (it's a recurring theme that cows try to persuade people to eat chicken rather than other meats, such as beef) In this sign, the 'H' flashes when Texas gets a hit, the 'E' flashes when the opponents make an error, and the 'K' flashes when a Texas pitcher strikes out an opposing batter. The 'K' in 'Ozarka' (a bottled water company) also flashes for strikeouts.

Cleveland Indians @ Texas Rangers (2)

I thought I'd pop along to Cowboys Stadium before the game this afternoon, do the stadium tour and then return to the Rangers Ballpark for tonight's game. However, I should have taken a cab, because I never made it to the stadium - it was just too hot. I made it to the park halfway between the two stadia, which aren't far apart, but I couldn't make the final few hundred metres in the heat in time for the last tour. So instead, I took some photos of it and then sat in the park for an hour in the shade, recovering, and then returned to the Rangers Ballpark. I know it looks close, but I'd have had to backtrack a way and then crossed the bridge to get to the stadium, because I didn't realise I couldn't get over the river except on the road bridge. As I was over an hour early and my seat wasn't yet in shade, I waited at the top of my section and I spent a while talking to one of the ushers out in my section until it got busy, as he had to check everybody's tickets. He was very friendly and he pointed out to me that my ticket allows me access to the Cuervo Club .... which is the inside, air-conned restaurant/bar behind the plate that I thought they didn't have when I went to the game yesterday! The entrance is well-disguised - an unsignposted elevator - so unless you knew it was there, you'd never find it. Since the game was already in progress, I just had a quick salad for dinner and then returned to my outdoor seat, as it wasn't too hot outside and the views were better - there were outdoor seats at the club, but it was very busy there and you had to be eating things.

The middle game of this series saw recently-acquired Ryan Dempster take on the Indians' Gomez. Dempster has been off and on a bit recently, and he demonstrated it tonight as although the scoreline looked convincing enough, the Indians had plenty of baserunners against him, including a bases-loaded 0 out in one inning which Dempster escaped from giving up just one run (and if a double play had been handled properly, there wouldn't have been any runs scored). Adrian Beltre hit another home run in the first inning to give Texas its first two runs, and Josh Hamilton hit another one into the upper deck in right field later in the game to extend the lead further - this is his picture - he hit the home run on the next pitch!

By the looks of it, we only need 32,000 people to turn up tomorrow for us to get the free T-shirts, so it looks like a second T-shirt for me to go with the Nationals one.

Cleveland Indians @ Texas Rangers (1)

I had been wondering how best to get to the ballpark, which is about a 15 minute walk along the road from the hotel. Fortunately, when I went down to reception to ask, I found a monitor showing the timetable for a trolley bus service that goes around local hotels picking people up and delivering them to the ballpark and then dropping them back again afterwards - and it's free for hotel guests to use too! We were dropped outside the impressive-looking ballpark and this time, unlike Milwaukee, I remembered to look where to go to get the trolley back to the hotel after the game when it would be dark!

It was hot today, but it had cooled down enough to be a pleasantly warm evening. Since I had got to the ballpark about twenty minutes before first pitch, I was able to walk around and see little of the stadium. The stadium is open to the elements throughout the club level, rather than being enclosed and air-conditioned. There was a strong breeze blowing through which kept it pleasant. There are very few places selling food on the club level - in every other stadium I've been to, it's been a packed array of food outlets with the odd clothing store thrown in. It also just seems cleaner than other stadia - perhaps partly due to the small number of food stalls.

This is another ballpark that seems small, but isn't. Again, I think it's due to the way that the upper tiers overhang the bottom so that they are closer to the action. I was in section 219 this evening, which is infield 3rd base side, almost level with 3rd. The sun has cleared most of the club level by the first pitch of 7pm games and all the seats were in shade shortly afterwards. I was surprised how few people were there for a team that is winning its division. However, most of the bottom tiers of the stadium were filling up nicely by the 3rd inning. The final attendance was quoted as 34,765 which means I might be in line for a free T-shirt on Thursday, as free T-shirt day will be the day on which the three millionth fan of the season enters the ballpark and they are just under 70,000 short of that mark. Also lots of people started leaving after the 7th inning thinking the job was done ... when it got a lot more exciting after that!

Whilst I was sitting waiting for the game, my server, Latasha, came to introduce herself and show me the in-seat dining menu. She was looking after the whole section, taking the orders and payment on her handheld PDA and then other people were bringing the food and drink. It's very convenient, which is why there is a 10% convenience fee added to the order! Towards the end of the game, I ordered chicken tenders (large breaded chicken nuggets - there were 3 in my meal) and a bottle of water and it came surprisingly quickly - only a couple of minutes or so after I placed the order. It also came with a bag of crisps and a pot of BBQ sauce.

It didn't take long for Texas to get started, with 4 runs scored in the second inning against Ubaldo Jimenez, as they nearly batted around, although they didn't hit a home run which would have won us all a voucher for Denny's or something similar. However, they did push across another run in the 5th inning which was sufficient to win everybody in the crowd a free taco, so those vouchers got handed out. Matt Harrison didn't give up a hit until the 5th inning but did pitch 5.2 and left with a big lead, which Ranger relief pitchers allowed the Indians to chip away at, with the go-ahead run even coming to the plate later on before Joe Nathan finished them off for good - wearing his usual uniform, rather than the full Dallas Cowboys Tony Romo #9 uniform (with all the pads) that he was forced to wear in warm-ups as a result of a lost bet.

California to Texas

I had to leave early this morning, so checked out and left the hotel at 8 to get the BART to the airport for my flight to Dallas Fort Worth. I requested an upgrade for $75 and 20K miles for today's flight, but for some reason I was not able to check-in online. My name was third in line for an upgrade, with two 1st class seats available, so they got the seats - which is just typical, so I had to sit in my original seat ... until a couple of minutes before we pushed back, when the attendant came and asked me to move up to seat 1F. Obviously, the lady in front of me had decided not to go after all.

My new seat entitled me to free lunch and drinks on tap. I had the beefburger, with fresh lettuce, red onion and pickles with a bread roll (which they had instead of chips) and a bowl of spicy stuff that I didn't fancy. The warm cookie for pudding was also very nice. There was plenty of space to stretch out and the seat was comfortable.

Dallas is much warmer than San Francisco was. I was able to get a Supershuttle to my hotel, which is actually just self-catering suites. I have a kitchen area and a sitting room, a separate bedroom and a separate bathroom. there's a free hot breakfast in the mornings and every evening there's a brief happy hour (2 hours) with a few buffet items provided, which will be different each night - this is also free, including any drinks.

I'm now sitting in the kitchen having just watched Andy Murray claim his first grand slam win by defeating Novak Djokovic in the US Open final in a match that was tense at times, particularly during the 3rd and 4th sets, but was so pleased that he was up by plenty in the decider and was able to close it out at the first attempt.

I've now caught up with all the entries that cover San Francisco - some new entries have been slotted in in chronological order, so if you've been reading all of them, you might need to go back to September 3rd and look for new ones.

Los Angeles Dodgers @ San Francisco Giants (3)

The final game of the series, and my final game in San Francisco this year. Clayton Kershaw was a late scratch for the Dodgers so it was two ex-Athletics facing each together as Joe Blanton for the Dodgers squared off against the Giants' Barry Zito.

The time of this game was changed a couple of weeks ago to move it to 5pm so that I could be ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball game, which always starts at 8pm Eastern Time. This always causes an issue for West coast games due to the lighting: the sun is neither fully up nor fully set, so you get half the field in the shade and half in the light for the first few innings, as you can see in the photograph. It takes until the 6th inning before the light clears the batters' eye in centre. However, it was useful for me, as it meant I could have most of Sunday to do things before going to the early evening game, which would still finish around 8pm or so, so not be too late, as I have to pack to leave early tomorrow morning after the game.

I was in the section just in front of the ESPN studio where they did the pre-game and post-game, with their commentary position in the next booth along. The three amigos in the booth are, left-to-right: Orel Hershiser (former MLB pitcher and pitching coach), Terry Francona (former hitter and former recent Red Sox manager) and Dan Shulman (ESPN commentator) Unfortunately, they had their backs to us for the post-game, but I did notice that Orel spent a lot of time fixing his hair - whereas Terry & Dan don't have so many worries in that department!

The Giants got off to a storming start, with Hunter Pence finally delivering something in this series with a 2-run scoring hit in the bottom of the 1st inning. This started the BEAT L.A. chant off, which would be repeated from time to time throughout the game, as is usual. Zito was pitching well, but not very economically with his pitches, whereas Blanton, after a 30-pitch 1st, economised well until he was taken out after 90 pitches or so as the Dodgers were just falling too far behind.

Zito left after 6 and one third to be replaced by Casilla who managed to load the bases but get out of the jam for the 7th inning stretch by geting Victorino to fly out to left field. Being a Sunday, it was "God Bless America" time before we could sing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame". After that it was a curious game, as a procession of pitchers came and went after getting one batter out, particularly on the Giants side as Bruce Bochy wore a new path to the mound, until he let Romo pitch all of the 9th inning to complete the 4-0 shut-out which gave the Giants a 2-1 series win and extended their lead atop the NL West standings to 5.5 games.

On the Los Angeles side, they did nothing in the batter's box, but the stand out performance on the defensive end was from Shane Victorino in centre field. He made two spectacular diving catches to rob the Giants of runs, and a couple more good defensive plays too. He couldn't do anything about Buster Posey's 410ft home run that sailed over his head and the fence, though!

Strangely, the crowd wasn't as boisterous leaving the ballpark tonight as it was after the game on Friday night. I couldn't really work out why it was so subdued tonight, although I shared that sentiment as I am a little sad now as I've seen the Giants for the last time this year. I have to leave San Francisco early on Monday morning to fly to Dallas. Next series is Indians @ Rangers for 3 games, starting on Tuesday - bound to have lots of ceremony pre-game as it'll be 11th September. Tomorrow, I should arrive at my hotel just in time for the Monday Night Football double-header!