All the Ballparks Road Trip 2009 Day 1: Baseball Museum 1 and Game 1

On Saturday, May 9, 2009, my dad, my brother, and I began our All the Ballparks road trip with a day trip to see the Play Ball Exhibit at the Mesa Historical Museum and the Washington Nationals at Arizona Diamondbacks game.

The Play Ball exhibit begins with a Knotholes fence display.  Each knothole you look through has a photo of a past or present Cactus League Spring Training ballpark.  It is pretty cool to look through to see some old ballparks, old photos of still current ones such as Hi Corbett, and current ballparks.

Looking through one of the Knotholes at the photo of Tucson Electric Park, spring training home of the Arizona Diamondbacks and used to also be for the Chicago White Sox

Cubs Clubhouse door signed by Mark Grace from the Old Hohokam Park.  The Play Ball exhibit focuses a lot on the Cubs, since they spring train in Mesa, where this exhibit is located.

My brother playing Backyard Baseball on the Wii in the Play Ball exhibit.  He was playing his PSP most of the time we were in the exhibit, but he quickly put it down when I told them there was a Wii to play.  Now he has a new game to add to his want list.

I found the yellow chair of the future odd because it was once displayed at Hi Corbett in Tucson and most definitely is not how the chairs in any ballpark are now.  Not sure when it was originally displayed, but my guess would be 1970s.

Below is a freeze dried grapefruit signed by Sammy Sosa. It is a very odd thing not because it is a grapefruit, but it just seems totally wrong to have it be on display in a exhibit about the Cactus League when the other spring training league is called the Grapefruit League.

At the Museum's gift shop I picked up my first baseball souvenir from the trip.  It is a baseball with the Play Ball exhibit logo.  I am going to get a baseball for my collection at each ballpark and as many other baseball related places we go on the trip.  My grandpa built me a special 35 ball holder for Christmas and I am going to end up filling that with just balls from this trip, although I might have to request another rack because I will probably end up with more than 35 from the trip.

After stopping at Sonic for lunch we headed to the ballpark.  We still call it the BOB (Bank One Ballpark), but it is technically now called Chase Field.  Sorry, but the big hangar like BOB just should not be called a Field.  The should have just renamed it Chase Ballpark.

This is a winding snake path up to the ballpark that acts as a ramp to avoid the steps up to the ticketing area.  There is a normal level way to get to the ticket office as well, but this way is more fun.

I have several Diamondbacks baseballs in my collection including some BOB and Chase Field ones, but for this trip I found another cool Chase Field one.  I am going to try to get ballpark ones on this trip, but I know it can sometimes be hard to find them and sometimes will settle for team balls.

My brother is collecting mini bats on our trip.  He does not plan to get one at all parks because he already has several from past vacations that included a baseball game.  He mostly has just plain team ones along with some commemorative ones.  For the teams he has a logo one of he will only get a new one if he finds a cool commemorative one.  As for the Diamondbacks he got a new one because he is a Diamondbacks fan and collects as many different colored and designed logo ones.  He found a black one with a new logo and it was even on homestand special for $5.

In the team shop we also found some great deals on '09 World Baseball Classic stuff. I got the two baseballs they had and my brother got a mini bat.  Each item was only $1, so while not planned in our budget we splurged on them for our collections anyways.  Besides we came way under budget on food for the day.

After arriving more than an hour before they opened the park, we finally entered Chase Field and I took a photo of the Welcome to Chase Field sign.

Mini helmet sundae in a DBacks helmet.  I am going to try to collect one of each home team on the trip and see how many I can get.  I already have several teams in my baseball collection, as I used to use them to display my baseballs.  I am going to use most of the ones I collect for making soap gift baskets with my baseball soaps I make.

My brother is the foodie of the trip and is reviewing the ballpark food he tries.  The post about what he ate at the Dbacks game is here.  Below he is eating a meatball sandwich.

The field crew gets the field ready for the game.

For the game we sat in the wheelchair part of section 105.  The view was pretty good, except the scoreboard is slightly obstructed and the top bar is in the line of sight, but the bar thing is pretty typically of handicap seats, unfortunately.

Views of Chase Field from our seats...Note roof is closed

My brother having a Jolly Rancher Green Apple Slushie.

I enjoyed a veggie wrap for dinner at the ballpark.  It was delicious, although a little messy.

They opened the roof about part way through the game as the evening went on.  It was still 98 when the game ended around 8:30pm, so by the end of the game it did get kind of warm because they had opened the roof.  This is the first time I have been to a game that they opened it in the middle of the game.  I have seen it open before, but they opened it before the game started.

One of the between inning entertainment things at the Dbacks game is a Taco Bell food item race.

The real trip begins on May 21, 2009, when we leave for the two and a half month part of the road trip to see the other 29 teams, 13 baseball museums/hall of fames, and a few other things along the way such as Niagara Falls.  I will try to post photo essays along the way, but my main priority is keeping the trip blog up to date at www.alltheballparks.com.