Updated 2021 Baseball Game Stats
This might take slightly longer than the debacle of the 2020 season, but only slightly.
So unlike 2020, there was a full season this year. Advantage 2021! I had 15 games for season tickets that I bought back at the end of the 2019 season. As already noted, I didn't go to the home opener, but after our season ticket draft I had 8 games planned for the year, with 6 rolled over to 2022. That seemed very doable back in May, when everybody was getting vaccinated and we had every expectation of a "hot vax summer." Outdoor entertainment options seemed like a good bet. Sure, with Birdie now on hand it was going to take some extra effort, but it should have been doable. With that in mind, I intentionally drew as many games as possible for the end of the season, on the assumption that more people would be vaccinated as the summer went along.
This ended up backfiring completely when the Delta variant came long. Delta, it turns out, can be transmitted by vaccinated folks. Birdie can't be vaccinated. On the one hand, you can say "well, it's extremely unlikely that you'll pick up Delta at an outdoor ballgame with (let's be frank) poor attendance and then transmit it to your daughter." On the other hand, going to a ballgame for 3-4 hours and never using indoor facilities such as the bathrooms while assuming a bunch of other people are all vaccinated and/or masking" and doing this several times over the season seems like a recipe for unlikely things to happen. Or to put it in tabletop gaming terms, if you roll the D20 enough you're going to get a 1 sometime. Better not to roll at all if you can help it, which we could.
So the upshot was that I gave 8 pairs of tickets away to people, and somehow I haven't been to a game since 2019. From an Indians perspective, I didn't miss very much. The unquestioned highlight of their season was when they announced they were dropping the Indians moniker in 2022 to be the Guardians, which spares me a few awkward potential future conversations with Birdie about how maybe she shouldn't root for the local team. I take it back, the real highlight was probably trading a starter in division to the White Sox.
From an A's perspective, it was arguably a worse season. They were in first for the first half or so of the season, and then started trending downward, with a complete bullpen implosion in September dropping them all the way to third place behind the Mariners, of all teams. Meanwhile, their MVP candidate from 2020 was not resigned and went to Toronto, where he played an MVP-level 2nd base. Their stud closer from 2020 went to the White Sox, where he continued to be a stud closer. If they'd had one or either of those players, they might well have held on for the wild card, or even for the division.
The playoffs for this year have not concluded, but as of this writing all the teams left are teams I pretty much hate because they are rich and can buy championships (Dodgers, Red Sox) or are cheating scum (Asterisks) or have some racial imagery problems of their own (Braves), so there's nobody I feel inclined to cheer for. Given that the Collective Bargaining Agreement expires, there's a non-zero chance that there will be a strike or a lockout next year, so that's something to look forward to.
And for one more kick in the pants, it's widely believed that if the A's don't get a new stadium agreement soon in Oakland they'll move to Las Vegas. I don't know what I'd do then. On the one hand, I've been to two games in Oakland ever in 30+ years of fandom, so why should I care if they move? On the other hand, part of my long term attraction to the team is the blue collar Oakland attitude combined with having to out think the other teams because their ownership is cheap and incompetent at marketing, and does that attitude make sense in Las Vegas, which is a horrible cesspool of a city? One thing is for sure, if they drop their perfectly good non-racist name during a move, it'll be hard to keep on cheering.
On the stadium tour note, Globe Life Field has now been open for two seasons and I still haven't been there. Arguably more disappointingly, The Field of Dreams game happened, and I didn't get to go. That was always going to be a tough ticket, but I would have certainly tried.
So yeah, great season, right? I may never get to use the fancy new scorebook I bought in anticipation of the 2020 season.
So unlike 2020, there was a full season this year. Advantage 2021! I had 15 games for season tickets that I bought back at the end of the 2019 season. As already noted, I didn't go to the home opener, but after our season ticket draft I had 8 games planned for the year, with 6 rolled over to 2022. That seemed very doable back in May, when everybody was getting vaccinated and we had every expectation of a "hot vax summer." Outdoor entertainment options seemed like a good bet. Sure, with Birdie now on hand it was going to take some extra effort, but it should have been doable. With that in mind, I intentionally drew as many games as possible for the end of the season, on the assumption that more people would be vaccinated as the summer went along.
This ended up backfiring completely when the Delta variant came long. Delta, it turns out, can be transmitted by vaccinated folks. Birdie can't be vaccinated. On the one hand, you can say "well, it's extremely unlikely that you'll pick up Delta at an outdoor ballgame with (let's be frank) poor attendance and then transmit it to your daughter." On the other hand, going to a ballgame for 3-4 hours and never using indoor facilities such as the bathrooms while assuming a bunch of other people are all vaccinated and/or masking" and doing this several times over the season seems like a recipe for unlikely things to happen. Or to put it in tabletop gaming terms, if you roll the D20 enough you're going to get a 1 sometime. Better not to roll at all if you can help it, which we could.
So the upshot was that I gave 8 pairs of tickets away to people, and somehow I haven't been to a game since 2019. From an Indians perspective, I didn't miss very much. The unquestioned highlight of their season was when they announced they were dropping the Indians moniker in 2022 to be the Guardians, which spares me a few awkward potential future conversations with Birdie about how maybe she shouldn't root for the local team. I take it back, the real highlight was probably trading a starter in division to the White Sox.
From an A's perspective, it was arguably a worse season. They were in first for the first half or so of the season, and then started trending downward, with a complete bullpen implosion in September dropping them all the way to third place behind the Mariners, of all teams. Meanwhile, their MVP candidate from 2020 was not resigned and went to Toronto, where he played an MVP-level 2nd base. Their stud closer from 2020 went to the White Sox, where he continued to be a stud closer. If they'd had one or either of those players, they might well have held on for the wild card, or even for the division.
The playoffs for this year have not concluded, but as of this writing all the teams left are teams I pretty much hate because they are rich and can buy championships (Dodgers, Red Sox) or are cheating scum (Asterisks) or have some racial imagery problems of their own (Braves), so there's nobody I feel inclined to cheer for. Given that the Collective Bargaining Agreement expires, there's a non-zero chance that there will be a strike or a lockout next year, so that's something to look forward to.
And for one more kick in the pants, it's widely believed that if the A's don't get a new stadium agreement soon in Oakland they'll move to Las Vegas. I don't know what I'd do then. On the one hand, I've been to two games in Oakland ever in 30+ years of fandom, so why should I care if they move? On the other hand, part of my long term attraction to the team is the blue collar Oakland attitude combined with having to out think the other teams because their ownership is cheap and incompetent at marketing, and does that attitude make sense in Las Vegas, which is a horrible cesspool of a city? One thing is for sure, if they drop their perfectly good non-racist name during a move, it'll be hard to keep on cheering.
On the stadium tour note, Globe Life Field has now been open for two seasons and I still haven't been there. Arguably more disappointingly, The Field of Dreams game happened, and I didn't get to go. That was always going to be a tough ticket, but I would have certainly tried.
So yeah, great season, right? I may never get to use the fancy new scorebook I bought in anticipation of the 2020 season.