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.