Diamondbacks + Reds = Star Wars?

June 23^rd, 2013.

One week following Father’s Day.

My dad and I usually go to a lot of the local sporting events together so I went with the easy default for a Father’s Day present and decided to get him tickets to Reds-Diamondbacks the next weekend.

I had gotten the opportunity to sit in seats just a few rows behind the dugout a few times this season and knew my dad hadn’t been that close, so figured I would spring the cash for a matchup with two of the National League’s elite first basemen.

A few weeks earlier while at a game with my dad, I snuck away, went down to the box office, and scored seats just four rows behind the Reds dugout.  The seats lined up directly with first base to watch the key guys in Goldschmidt and Votto.  As I got back to my seat, proud of myself, they reminded fans that the game that Sunday was going to be Star Wars Day, where fans would be encouraged to wear their Star Wars costumes and parade around the field.

The Diamondbacks had done this in the past.  One of my friends was planning on going because he said watching the people was great from this event in a previous season.  Another girl, really into the cosplay stuff and a huge Star Wars fan, said she was going.  She asked me if I would be in the t-shirt section.  Apparently, certain seats would get something everyone needs: A pro-Star Wars, anti-cancer t-shirt.

There’s no need for me to go into great detail about the game itself in this article because Culture Crossfire writer Rus Livingood already did so in another great entry of REDiculous.

http://culturecrossfire.com/sports/baseball/rediculous-game-77-june-23/#.UdXmtHbn_IU

From the messages I got from people watching the game here, Rus probably was watching me and didn’t even know it.  How’s that for pseudo-creepiness, Internet?

Anyway, I got to the ballpark and it didn’t take long to realize Star Wars day was in effect.

I’d like to know if that Jedi knew of the existence of baseball before this game.

From there, we headed to our seats.  Now, one of the perks of sitting down right around the dugouts is you have access to go under the tunnel, where a lot of the players go, and go to a special little bar area called the Sedona Club.  They have booze and burgers and a few other things.  A little bit higher quality stuff, around normal stadium prices.  In doing so, you pass the batting cages, which I showed my dad and we saw Martin Prado, who was not playing that day, bat.

We walked a little further, got our burgers, and watched some of the Star Wars festivities on the monitors inside the club.

They did their own Star Wars opening where they talked about Darth Baker and his Reds of the Central Quadrant coming for the Diamondbacks and Gibby Wan Kenobi.  It was kinda interesting they put so much effort in.

This was only overshadowed by the ceremonial first pitch being thrown by Darth Maul.

We were getting close to first pitch as our food came out in takeout boxes, so I told my father to follow me.  I wanted to walk him through this other lounge/buffet area they had, in case he was curious about checking out a future game in that area.  We walked through and I went a little too far because we ended up walking into where security were protecting the Reds players who were heading to their dugout.  Mat Latos, who was starting that day was standing right there, because the National Anthem was being performed.  I shouted good luck to Mat but he was in the zone.  I’d like to think my interaction contributed to him tying his career high with 13 strikeouts that afternoon.

We got to our seats in time to see Choo lead off with a homer and the Reds really won on their runs from the first inning.  Now, I am sure anyone that has been to an MLB game knows each park has the signs for the players up.

For instance, this is what the D-backs traditionally do for a visitor.

Usually something surrounding the team color and shots of the place the team comes from.  When the Giants come to town, you see shots of Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown, and Alternate Lifestyle nightclubs in the background.

Well, maybe not the night clubs one.

Anyway, the D-backs have traditional ones.  They shook them up to have a little Star Wars theme this day.

But that was actually for a later at-bat for Didi.  Each player got a custom Star Wars character one for their first at-bat.

They really nailed some of these: They always make short jokes about Parra – Yoda. Bloomquist is always referred to as an old man – Obi-Won. Didi is as cool as Billy Dee – Lando. Cliff Pennington is pretty forgettable – Qui-Gon.

We even lucked out with some pinch hitters.

Just a lot of stuff going on.  I watched a guy in my section that I am pretty sure was taking bets…

They even announced John McCain.  A perfect day for him to be in attendance.  Famous for being an Arizona Senator but some would say he fits in well with Star Wars day.

One of the non-active players that I was pretty excited to see was Billy Hatcher.  When I was little and living in Rhode Island, Billy Hatcher was on the Red Sox.  One of my earliest baseball memories was a game where he stole home plate.  Now, with a Danny DeVito build, I’d like to see him try again.

Here’s just a few shots to show how close to the action I was for this one:

As I mentioned, I was excited to be near first base on this one:

This shot of Votto on base was shorty before Hatcher looked to be reaching in the pocket of Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt.  The only thing more interesting than that by Hatcher was when the substitute third base coach for the Reds almost got a line drive to the head by a Mat Latos at-bat, Billy found it really hilarious.

They had the Diamondbacks mascot, Baxter the Bobcat, in Jedi regalia.

Baxter the Bobcat was a pretty cool mascot idea when the ballpark was Bank One Ballpark and called BOB.  Baxter the BOBcat.  Now that it is Chase Field, it makes a little less sense.  Then again, for the same reason the Arizona Cardinals play at University of Phoenix Stadium, instead of the higher bidding Pink Taco Field, they weren’t going to rename the mascot Chase the Pussy.

Another feature at many Diamondbacks game is the Legends Race.  Milwaukee has their meat racing and Washington has former presidents.  Diamondbacks have giant mascots of the guys they consider their four greatest legends – Randy Johnson, Luis Gonzalez, Matt Williams, and Mark Grace.  Two out of four ain’t bad.

Anyway, the big joke before Mark Grace got too many DUIs to stay in the broadcast booth, was that they always have Mark Grace lose.  He never wins.  He won once when he cheated and I don’t think it officially counts, for any internet mascot racing whiz-kids out there.

Anyway, he started cheating this game but got stopped.

Darth Vader cut his hand off and I think Randy Johnson won.

Now, for such a geeky crowd like Star Wars fans, I was a little bothered that during the Arizona summer, they had people parading around as Snow Troopers.

I am disgusted by the lack of authenticity.

This was during the t-shirt toss by the way.  There were some other entertaining ones but I was too busy laughing at the weak throws to take pictures.

This was made up for by the bad guys dancing on the dugout during the 7th inning stretch.

Now, the interesting part to me was the officer in the black uniform in the first picture.  That is a bad guy in the Star Wars universe.  He replaced the Imperial patch on his uniform with a Diamondbacks logo patch.  Just kind of odd to me to have your team being supported by movie villains but whatever.  I have dealt with enough bad decisions from Arizona sports franchises, I willingly follow the Suns.

The game ended up being pretty fun.  Mat Latos just dominated.  The Diamondbacks substitute starter Randall Delgado started off shaky but bounced back after it was too late.  The Diamondbacks started mounting another late comeback but fell short.

I hadn’t been sure if the Star Wars stuff would be too distracting but it felt like there was a right balance.  And even after a loss, you can’t feel bad walking to your car and seeing this.