A Look Back At Our Narrow Experience Of The 2012 Baseball Season

So in 2011 our baseball spectating percentage was a torrid .559. Not so much for 2012, a year where we saw the Phillies take on the Mets (4/14/12), then the Cubs (4/29/12), then the Diamondbacks (8/3/12), then the lowly Rockies (9/9/12). The one team with a good record we saw the Phillies play was the Braves (9/23/12). In Phoenix we saw the Diamondbacks play the Giants (4/7/12), who ended up winning the World Series, so there was that, but back in Queens we also saw the Diamondbacks play the Mets (5/6/12), both of whom were solidly mediocre-to-terrible in 2012.
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So the final standings went as follows:

San Francisco Giants: 94-68
Arizona Diamondbacks: 81-81
Colorado Rockies: 64-98
Chicago Cubs: 61-101
Philadelphia Phillies: 81-81
New York Mets: 74-88
Atlanta Braves: 94-68

A combined 549-585 record translates to a .484 winning percentage. And to be honest, were it not for the novelty of taking Mr. Baby to his first baseball games, I think my satisfaction level would be right around 48 percent — low enough not to get reelected, you know?

Anyway, here are some highlights:

Game 1 (4/7/12) — Diamondbacks vs. Giants in Phoenix — opening weekend/no more “Uptown” this year:

Game 2 (4/14/12) — Phillies vs. Mets in Philadelphia — cleaned up what was left of the Spectrum/still holding on to the glory of 2008/the debut of the Phanatic Dangle Hat:

Game 3 (4/29/12) — Phillies vs. Cubs in Philadelphia — more of these blasted Dangle Hats/the Phanatic’s birthday/Hunter Pence era, not yet ended:

Game 4 (5/6/12) — Diamondbacks vs. Mets at Citi Field — no attendance troubles here/”Foam God bless America My Home, Sweet” (also, more impressive scoreboard ads than in past years)/did anyone really expect Dickey to be so solid in 2012?/changing Lower Manhattan skyline:

Game 5 (8/3/12) — Phillies vs. Diamondbacks in Philadelphia — SEPTA sold the naming rights to the station on Pattison Avenue/more fun with bootleg T-shirts/sellout streak nearing the end (I don’t think I’d seen it below 44,000 — including standing room tickets — for some time; the streak ended 8/6/12):

Game 6 (9/9/12) — Phillies vs. Rockies in Philadelphia — beautiful day/but subpar attendance/ivy creeping to the top of the batter’s eye:

Game 7 (9/23/12) — Phillies vs. Braves — memorializing the Spectrum/we’ll call it — it took eight years for the ivy to reach the top of the batter’s eye/”with white foam, God bless America my home”:

Gas, Grass Or Pass: Then We’ll Plant A Tree

We got to visit the relatively new Elmhurst Park on the former site of the Elmhurst Gas Tanks, the gas holding tanks that sat next to the LIE until Keyspan began to dismantle the tanks in 1996.

If you make a reference to the greatest bumper sticker of all time, of course I’ll title a post accordingly. I’m guessing the language for this interpretive sign came from the top:

I don’t know if the mounds come from remediated gunk or what, but they are a fun homage to the site’s former use:

I say that because if the tanks were still there, the one thing you’d want to do would be to climb to the top of them to see the view. So you basically still can in a way:

And I think that’s what the designers intended — it’s the only way to interpret the periscope play toys located around the park:

Christ, look what my life has become: I’m deconstructing a playground.

A final note — I’m pretty sure one of those huge boulders around the park came from Fort Greene. This one looks like it matches the picture in the Times article:

June 2011

If you stare deeply enough into your drink, messages appear:

Custom House in Lower Manhattan:

Even though we missed the scheduled tour, one of the park ranger people let us into the ornate Collector’s Reception Room:

Back in June, the Freedom Tower was still short enough to fit into the camera frame:

I already talked about visiting Yankee Stadium.

The awesome Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens:

I could watch the exhibit showing how they produce a live baseball game for for hours:

The 36th Avenue Subway Station in Astoria.

Block Drugs on Second Avenue:

The remnants of Mars Bar also on Second Avenue:

We already talked about seeing the Phillies play the Cubs.

There’s a lot of stuff behind fences in the East Village. Albert’s Garden:

And the New York Marble Cemetery:

They were even using St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery for some sort of film shoot.

Prince Street in Lower Manhattan:

(Funny detail: The Google Street View up right now is from right around when I went walking around there — theirs is from July 2011 — so all the billboards look the same . . .)

There’s a great view of Union Square from the Whole Foods cafe on the second floor. They also have a bathroom you can use:

Astoria Park at dusk on the longest day of the year; this is at 8:40 in the evening (I knew there was a reason I took this but it took a while to remember):

Staring out the front door at Coppelia on 14th Street:

There’s nothing more depressing than an emergency room entrance at an abandoned hospital:

Well, OK, maybe some things are less depressing . . .

I honestly don’t remember what interested me about 60 Spring Street:

Was it because it was a blue jean store or something? Who knows . . .

The Astoria Market at the Beer Garden:

It took me two years to get two pictures of the San Antonio Abate Festival on Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria. Maybe in another year I’ll put a link up to the page: