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Cook & Son Bats' Blog: Closing Out The NL at Miller Park (8-16-09) Page 1 of 19 Cook & Son Bats' Blog Todd, Tim and Kellan Cook love Baseball, the Seattle Mariners and trekking around the country to visit stadiums and watch games. These are their stories. Closing Out The NL at Miller Park (8-16-09) ABOUT COOKANDSONBATS August 16, 2009 - Road Trip Day 3: On the third day of the road trip, we awoke in Hixton, Wisconsin and headed east for the big city, Milkaukee, and a date with the Astros and Brewers at Miller Park. With this game, Tim would close out the National League. In fact, after this game, Tim would have seen every MLB team play live expect for the Kansas City Royals. Now, if you're looking for Miller Park, you have to drive down a long road - I-94 - passed Ehlenbach's Cheese Chalet, Tim and Tom's Cheese Shop, the Mousehouse Cheesehaus, Read about me Jim's Cheese Pantry, the Wisonsin Cheeseman Outlet Store, and many, many, many other Cheese-Mega-Outlets. But don't worry, you'll find it. It is just past the place with the cheese. Its on the right. You can't miss it. (Just follow the guy with the three-foot cheese disk strapped to the hood of his car). In fact, it looks like this: You also shouldn't have too much trouble finding it because there will be about 20,000 people tailgating in acres of parking lots all around the Park. About 20,000 people hoisting Miller High Lifes and BBQ'ing brats while playing various object-tossing games and sitting in large circles of fold-up lawn chairs. Once we found Miller Park, we hopped a ride on a stretch golf cart that took us to the Friday's restaurant enterance to the Park. When it opened, he headed inside to find the field set up for batting practice (keep in mind this was a sunday day game) and two Astros playing catch in left field wearing shorts and micro-fibre t-shirts. Since there was no other action going on at field level, we strolled up behind the guy who was closer to the stands. I didn't recognize him. However, the back of his t-shirt had "31" http://cookandsonbats.mlblogs.com/archives/2009/08/closing-out-the-nl-at-miller-park-8-1... 3/26/2011 Cook & Son Bats' Blog: Closing Out The NL at Miller Park (8-16-09) Page 2 of 19 hand written on a little white square of fabric and his shorts had "20" written on a similar little white square of fabric. Utilizing my crack research skills, after the game I looked up the roster on ESPN.com and MLB.com. One of them listed no one as number 20 and a gentleman named Bud Norris as number 31. The other, listed no one as number 31 and the same Bud Norris as number 20. And one of them provided a picture, in which I could easily recognize the t-shirt and shorts wearing ball player as none other than Bud Norris. Tim was on my shoulders as my dad, Tim and I pulled up behind Mr. Norris. He glanced over at us and I asked, "You guys hitting today." "No," was his reply. "Hmmm..., any chance we can get that ball after your finished playing catch?" No answer. We watched Bud and his colleague play catch for a bit. When they finished, they were only a short distance a part and the other guy ended up with the ball. He started to walk away and Bud went over to him and grabbed the ball. He turned around, made eye contact with me and fired a strike into my waiting glove. "Thanks, Bud." Hands down, the best "Bud" to ever walk the field at Miller Park. A minute later, we started walking toward home plate, just checking out our surroundings. This was the view: After watching a couple other Astos play catch and work on some mechanics by the 3B dugout, we made our way behind home plate and got this group shot: And I took another panaramic view: http://cookandsonbats.mlblogs.com/archives/2009/08/closing-out-the-nl-at-miller-park-8-1... 3/26/2011 Cook & Son Bats' Blog: Closing Out The NL at Miller Park (8-16-09) Page 3 of 19 By the way, at this point, it was a little after 11:00, and it was hotter and muggier in Miller Park than any facility has any business being at 11:00 in the morning. The roof was closed, but the OF wall was open. It already felt disgusting. It would only get worse. Note to the Brewers: air conditioning and fans. Look into 'em. Next, we headed out to RF where the Brewers pitchers were starting to warm up. And my dad dropped a stack of receipts onto the RF foul territory warning track. Luckily, Brewers bullpen coach Marcus "Helping" Hanel was there to lend a helping hand. With a shiny new baseball in hand before the Brewers even started taking BP, Tim decided he had no interest in BP. Instead, he would dedicate his pre-game time to playing catch with his dad. We found a nice spot in the RF concourse where no one cared if a father and son had a catch (for half an hour or so): Note: in the middle picture, Tim is inspecting the ball after it acquired a stray piece of Miller Park lint. I had to help him remove it. It was a stubborn piece of Miller Park lint. After playing catch, we decided to walk around the park a bit. We headed to LF. Now, I did not acquately document this with photos, but there is NO field visability in CF at http://cookandsonbats.mlblogs.com/archives/2009/08/closing-out-the-nl-at-miller-park-8-1... 3/26/2011 Cook & Son Bats' Blog: Closing Out The NL at Miller Park (8-16-09) Page 4 of 19 Miller Park. They have really tried their best to hide the field from anyone who might be walking between RF and LF. There is a walkway behind the batters eye and scoreboard, but all you can see back there is a lovely view of Milwaukee out the windows and a big black canvas wall hiding the field. LF isn't much better. There is a Friday's restaurant that has a porch. If you're not in the restaurant, you can stand in the walkway behind it (I have a pitcher of this below), but a bunch of diners will be sitting between you and the field. Then there is the "inside" portion of the restaurant that completely blocks a big section of LF from the view of passers-by in the concourse. So, we headed to the LF loge (second deck), where we could see the field! And Tim posed for this picture: This was the view (not too shabby): Next, we headed back to the field level and returned to home plate. Former Mariner (and a guy who is still loved by the Mariners fans) Mike Cameron was taking his turns in the cage. I snapped this picture of him because I thought it was even cooler than when Harold Reynolds used to carry his hat in his back pocket during at-bats: http://cookandsonbats.mlblogs.com/archives/2009/08/closing-out-the-nl-at-miller-park-8-1... 3/26/2011 Cook & Son Bats' Blog: Closing Out The NL at Miller Park (8-16-09) Page 5 of 19 Next, we headed out to RF foul territory where there are a bunch of attractions for the kids. Like this big baseball... ...which doubles as a photo booth in which you can make your own Brewers baseball cards. We did it twice, as shown above. For $2 you get two cards (of a single picture -- i.e., we got two Tim Cook cards and two Tim, Todd and Jim cards). Next to the photo ball, there are replicas of the racing sausages and a game where kids can race the sausages down a 40 foot track by peddling: There is also a big baseball glove in which you can sit for a picture: http://cookandsonbats.mlblogs.com/archives/2009/08/closing-out-the-nl-at-miller-park-8-1... 3/26/2011 Cook & Son Bats' Blog: Closing Out The NL at Miller Park (8-16-09) Page 6 of 19 They have a fake dugout where you can stand with a fake Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun... ...and they also have a smaller version of Bernie's home run slide, a contraption where kids can race a fake Cory Hart (I think that is his name), and some clowns painting faces (which I am against) and making balloon animals (which I am for). As I mentioned, the heat...or better yet the humidity in the Park was staggering. So, we found a nice corner of the Park by the RF enterance where it was nice and cool. While we were over there, I noticed some plaques on the wall, one congratulated the people of Milwaukee for setting a new MLB attendance record in 1953. Then I found something a little more interesting... http://cookandsonbats.mlblogs.com/archives/2009/08/closing-out-the-nl-at-miller-park-8-1... 3/26/2011 Cook & Son Bats' Blog: Closing Out The NL at Miller Park (8-16-09) Page 7 of 19 ...its a giant picture on the wall of Prince Fielder giving Nick "The Happy Youngster" Yohanek a high five after the Brewers won the wild card last season.