More top-ten all-time moments

Continuing our series in top ten moments in baseball for yours truly. Again, these are in no particular order.

7. 2008 was the last year for Yankee Sadium. I had driven by it one year, but never been to a game there. At a minimum, Yankee Sadium is in the top three all-time for famous baseball stadiums. Arguably, it is number one but both Wrigley Field and Fenway Park (I've been to both) are in the conversation. I'm talking about how famous the parks are, not how good the seats are, how close you can park, or how much your hot dog costs. The Reds of course had not played at Yankee Stadium since the 1976 series, so when the schedule came out and the Reds were set to play a weekend series in NYC Rachel and I made plans to go.

We got seats for the Friday night game from one of you (thanks, Mike) who knew someone who had seats. We were down the left field line, behind the left field foul pole in the lower section. Pretty good seats, and we got them for face value (thanks again, Mike). Interestingly, the face value for those seats was the same as our Reds tickets, which are right behind the dugout. (Everything is more in NYC.) We tried to get there in time to tour Monument Park, but the line was already closed when we arrived. We could see part of it from our seats, though. The Reds won behind Volquez.

For Saturday, we met up with friends (and blog readers) Mary and Sean, who had four seats together and again we got in for face value (thanks guys!). The seats were great; lower part of upper deck, right up from third base. It was pretty hot, but it was super cool to be in Yankee Stadium with a packed house on a Saturday afternoon game in June. Again, the Reds won in Daryl Thomson's big league debut.

The best part of the trip might have been the number of Reds fans that we saw everywhere in New York, at the Airport, in Midtown, in Times Square, on the Subway, everywhere. A guy on the Subway told us that the Reds had more opposing fans than any other team other than the Mets and the Red Sox.

As a side note, we stayed at the Hudson Hotel near Columbus Circle, which was really cool, but the smallest hotel room I've ever been in. We did see the hotel on Gossip Girl and Sex and the City (so you know it was cool).

8. A couple of years ago the Reds played the Cubs on opening day. Afterwards, we went to the Albie and sat at the bar with Ron Santo, who of course had just done the game for the Cubs radio broadcast. He was very friendly and talked at length with us about the game and about the Reds. He was as fun as he is on the radio.

9. When I was in high school my girlfriend's dad owned a company that had season tickets to the Cardinals. The seats were not too far behind the Cardinals dugout. The very first game I went to in those seats I got a foul ball in the first inning. I didn't catch it, which was disappointing, but I did retrieve it off the ground when the guy across the aisle dropped it (and his beer) trying to catch it. It was a very thrilling moment for me in that it was the first time I ever had a decent ticket to a baseball game and I got a ball. Joquin Andujar was the pitcher and guess who hit the ball? Dusty Baker when he was with the Dodgers.