Gate A

Baseball is full of intangibles, both on and off the field. Why a given pitcher is unpredictable, how a team can manage to play above or below expectations, how or why it can evoke utterly irrational behavior and arguments.

One of these intangibles will always be the excitement of going to a game, and no matter how many games I make it to or how many different ballparks I visit, walking in to a game in Cleveland remains one of my favorite experiences.

I don't really remember the first time I went to a ballgame. It was probably 1980 or 1981 and my dad took me to an Oriole's game. Apparently it was kid's hat day or something; he still has my diminutive O's hat from that game hanging in his office. I remember it was blazing hot and I remember thinking that the scorching bleachers at old Memorial Stadium were going to burn my legs off. But I don't remember going to the game itself. 

There's a certain unique quality to every ballpark. I think of the days I lived outside of NYC and the swell of traffic sweeping you along into Shea Stadium for a Mets game. Going to Wrigley for a Cubs game means walking through the ever denser crows at the bars and on the sidewalks in Wrigleyville. Oriole's Park at Camden Yards takes you into Eutaw Street and the buzzing, fair-like atmosphere full of cheap food and souvenirs: almost like a gradual transition from the traffic of the Inner Harbor to the excitement of the ballpark. And going to most minor league parks feels a little too well organized and business-like, hardly worth mentioning. 

But going to an Indians' game...

I avoid, whenever possible, driving to a ballpark. It tends to be necessary for minor league games, but even when I go to other Major League cities I try to spend the day in town and either walk or take public transit to the game. Once in Chicago I rode a bike and parked right at 1060 W. Addison, but again, I prefer to take transit. 

The first time I lived in Cleveland I was on the East side, now I'm on the West side, so it's always been a simple matter of riding the red line train to Tower City. Given how much time I spend away from Cleveland, and how I always notice strangers wearing a Tribe hat and make sure to go talk with them, I love getting on a train full of fans heading to the game. Especially day games, when I often go alone and invariably end up sitting with some older fan who tells me his (and increasingly, her) stories of Indians baseball long ago. A few weeks ago, after my 8th or 9th revision to this year's scorecard, I took my newly-minted 2012 scorecard with me and ended up next to a fan who was making the final pre-game tweaks to his own new score-keeping program on his iPad. Not only does it thrill me to have this time with fellow Tribe fans, but it's a great reminder that amid all the talk-radio and comment-thread negativity, most of us just enjoy going out and taking in a game. 

One year after I moved away from Cleveland the first time, my sister got me a little desktop replica sculpture of (then) Jacob's Field. When I try to explain the delight of going to a game, it usually means I pick up the model and make my unfortunate listener pretend they can see the perspective of walking south on Ontario and turning on Eagle Ave alongside the ticket office. While Camden Yards and even the approaches to Wrigley and Shea felt like being pulled into a growing excitement, for me there's nothing like the overwhelming feeling of coming up Eagle Ave to Gate A and suddenly seeing the entire stadium open up. Walking towards the gate suddenly the seating bowl opens up through the fence. Sometimes full of people and the noise of pre-game activities, sometimes empty and awesome in its size and capacity. Instead of the slow crescendo of other parks, the approach to Gate A is like a sudden and overwhelming explosion. 

I don't think my demonstration with the 6" model of the stadium ever quite manages to convey this. But on a recent trip downtown before a game I was trying to describe this to a young couple going to their first game, and the smiles and interjections of the other passengers on the train suggested that I'm not the only one who feels overwhelmed and excited at that approach, walking up Eagle Avenue and seeing the field spread out, and the seats rising up and around. Even if I can't remember the excitement of the first game I saw as a child, every trip through Gate A leaves me with child-like delight.