i wish the ivy were brown on this card

back in april of 1998, i made my first trip to chicago. part of the reason for the trip from the twin cities was to go to a game at wrigley field featuring the dodgers. it was part of my plan in moving from southern california to an american league town to see the dodgers on the road once a year, and this was the first of those jaunts.

we chose to go to the saturday game, but before i get in to those details, i will show a card that got me excited when i first saw it in 1999. it's jose vizcaino's 1999 topps stadium club card

now, the reason i was excited was that it features a double play (one for the collection!), but it also features the harry caray memorial patch on the right sleeve of the cub player, and it features a photo from a game at wrigley and i was hoping that it was from the game that i attended in 1998. i went to my scorecard 

after seeing this card and found that vizcaino recorded a 4-6 force out at second in the second inning that could have included a throw to first that was too late to complete the double play. unfortunately, the lead runner forced at second base was jeff blauser, and this sliding cub is mickey morandini (note the number 12 on his wristband), so it couldn't be from my game. besides, the ivy is way too green for a mid-april game.

the ivy is green and lush on that card and this one from 1994 score

that represents my visit to the friendly confines in my "stadiums i've seen games in" collection. this was the fourth stadium i'd seen a game in, and the first outside of california. i've been back to wrigley once since that first visit, but would like to go again to see the renovations that have occurred in the last few years.  

here's my ticket stub from the game:

you might have noticed from the scorecard that the cub pitcher that day was kerry wood. i didn't know anything about him at the time, but he was listed in the cubs quarterly as their top prospect:

this game was his second career appearance, and he went on to record his first career win that day at the expense of the dodgers, which was cool to witness. it meant even more to me when he struck out 20 batters in a game less than a month later.

during pregame, i was down in the lower level and watched the dodgers take infield practice. i also watched hideo nomo warm up in the bullpen. when wood took the mound, the difference in velocity between what he was throwing and what i had seen nomo throw was obvious. sure enough, nomo was beyond ineffective in the bottom of the first to the tune of five walks and eight runs (seven earned - i miscalculated on my scorecard) and only recorded two outs. darren dreifort relieved him and pitched pretty well. the only dodger run in the 8-1 drubbing came in the 9th inning on a trenidad hubbard solo home run.

here are some photos that i took - this first one is mike piazza up to bat in the top of the first

he struck out in this at bat - one of 7 k's for wood in his five innings of work.

here's the scoreboard at the conclusion of the game

you can see the dodgers' lowly "1" being raised in the top of the 9th space in the linescore. it's hard to tell by the flags, but the dodgers were in third place in the nl west at the time.

here are a couple of pictures from before the game - this one features general manager fred claire talking to manager bill russell while joe amalfitano hits fungoes

little did claire or russell (or i) know that in about two months they would both be fired. thanks, fox.

here's one of me with tom prince and mike piazza

little did i know that the next time i would see piazza in 1998, he'd be wearing a mets uniform in dodger stadium.

i grabbed some bench

i think you all know that daniel from it's like having my own card shop hosted a contest over the summer with some pretty nice prizes. i entered and won, and thanks to matt at diamond jesters, i had the second pick.  with the 1956 topps hank aaron already off the board, i went for a 1968 topps johnny bench/ron tompkins rookie card:

that's some good vintage!

daniel included some other cards in the package he sent, including a 1998 topps minted in cooperstown parallel of jose vizcaino

a 2014 topps allen & ginter don sutton black bordered mini parallel

and a 2017 topps triple threads kenta maeda card

among others.

around the same time as the contest, i was able to meet daniel in person at a diamondbacks game. i was in phoenix for a night and luckily the dbacks were in town as well, facing bryce harper and the phillies. as luck would have it, daniel was also planning to attend the game.  it was stadium number 21 for me, and in person blogger meet number 7. we were able to chat following the game until the ushers told us to leave. guess they had to vacuum the fake turf in private.  anyway, it's always fun to put a face to a blog.

i hope to get to most of the other 9 stadiums in the next couple of years.  so, if you are near pittsburgh, cleveland, detroit, philadelphia, flushing meadows, the bronx, miami, atlanta, or tampa, and up for a meet up, let me know!

thanks for the contest and your time daniel!