Round Rock Express Game

Round Rock is a town just to the north of Austin that in any other place would be called a suburb. Strangely not here. In any case, Round Rock hosts the AAA affiliate of the Houston Astros, but I hear the affiliation is changing next year to the Texas Rangers due to the fact that Nolan Ryan is an owner of the Express and an executive of the Rangers. Two people very close to me work out at the Dell Diamond, the Express' stadium named after the area's local computer guru and naming rights purchaser, and I got to go to a game and chill in the swanky club. I stayed until I discovered my actual seat location.

The Dell Diamond is a rather nice minor league complex, repeatedly winning awards for excellence, and I can imagine why. It was definitely nicer than where the Brooklyn Cyclones play, but they are a SS A-ball team (the "SS" stands for "short-season"), so it makes sense. Up until seeing this stadium, I would've said that the nicest small stadium I'd been to would have to be the Camelback Ranch in Glendale, Arizona, home of the Dodgers and White Sox spring-training facility.

The Express have been streaky this year. Their home-stands are eight games long, followed by eight away games, with occasional days off book-ending the stands or trips, and it seems this year that early they'd go 2-6 or 1-7 at home, similarly on the road, then they'd go 7-1 and 5-3 at home...up and down. I saw them play the Nashville Sounds, a Brewers affiliate.

I started off the game watching from inside the Express Club, the cool joint only rich people would go to right above home plate. It was air-conditioned and the windows are tinted. When I saw a Nashville player foul a ball out to right field and heard nothing, I got up and went outside to the ledge and sat in the humidity. Silent ball games are for a bar's television, not being at the ballpark.

After a while, I got curious about the whereabouts of my seat, or at least the location of my free ticket, and went exploring. Once I found it, I left only for the bathroom and then, once the game seemed in hand, to return to the Club to talk to my peeps. They were the best seats I'd ever sat in for any kind of professional or amateur baseball game. They were the twenty-five-hundred-dollar seats at the new Yankee Stadium, right behind home plate. In Glendale, in March '09 at the Camelback, I saw a game with my mom and sat basically right on the Dodger dugout, which was probably the closest I've ever sat, but here you could here the batter's arguments with the ump and watch the hits arc and soar into gloves or off the walls.

Weird observation: both pitchers were south-paws, white, and wore number 26. Our 26 pitched slightly better than theirs. Nashville's 26 seemed to be throwing better, but he'd get into trouble, and the Express would scratch out a run here, plate a run there, eventually it was 3-0 after a rather solid outing. His relief gave up two runs in about a third of an inning, and at 5-0, I went back up to the Club.

Explaining what was happening in the top of the 9th to a friend who hadn't really ever been gripped by the drama of the sport, our 26's relief didn't do much better. It was an adventure, but the Express won 5-3.

I've got some pictures. The first is taken before the game out at the right-filed "berm" seats...the earth-berm being a grassy area to chill and drop five bucks to see a game, something I'd do anyway since the view is pretty cool. Back above homeplate on the second level are the tinted windows of the Express Club, with a small balcony out in front where the privileged folks sit.



Here's how the game looked from that balcony. Pretty damn sweet, if you're a regular person who's also a baseball fan and never would get to this kind of a seat under normal circumstances.



But here are the next two from my actual seat. Oh man, once I found it I just planted myself. I had an extra ticket and couldn't find anyone to go with. The second picture is my foot, the down steps, and the filed, all in the same bizarre picture. I call it my "proximity view".




And lastly, I thought I'd throw in a picture from March '09 of sitting behind Joe Torre (2nd from left) and Don Mattingly (my favorite player as a kid)(3rd from left, next to Torre) at the Camelback Ranch, to underscore that case's proximity (and because I've never really shown those pictures on here). It should also be noted that this picture was taken using a different camera.