A California Home Run

It's day two in Pasadena, and I really can't complain. Beautiful weather, a nice hotel (good location and a BEAUTIFUL pool), and night baseball.

This morning I got a little swim in before class. Our class period was devoted to book reports over the third book we all chose. Everyone picked some different so it's fun to hear what other people read. The books we selected also help to fill in some of the gaps that our history book might gloss over or not dig into as much detail. The trend is for our conversations to be long so it was a little after noon once we finished three reports. Lunch was a group lunch and we walked about a mile to a place called Blaze Pizza. It was recommended to us and as soon as we walked in the door, we knew we had come to the right place. The restaurant is a build your own pizza. Essentially a Subway of sorts, just for pizza. They throw your individual pizza into a large brick oven and it cooks in only a couple of minutes. We were stuffed but it was so good!

The rest of the afternoon was spent on our own working on reading and writing. Instead of staying in the hotel, I chose to walk across the street to the Pasadena City College Library. It was a beautiful library, with large windows and a gorgeous routunda. I studied on a quiet floor and got a good amount of work done. When I returned to the hotel, it was time to go back to Dodgers Stadium for another game. This time, the Dodgers were facing the Pirates. Our seats were in the bleachers, on the other side of the stadium than we were last night.

Definitely a little bit different atmosphere. We were early enough to watch batting practice and then the game got under way around 7:10 PM. What began as an even match turned a little lopsided by the final innings. The Dodgers scored first in the first with Ethier's triple getting him to third followed by Puig's double. The Pirates answered in the top of the second with a home run from Alaverez yet the Dodgers scored again in the second from an RBI off Gordon's single. Another Pirates home run in the sixth tied the game up until Puig scored in the bottom of the sixth. In the seventh, the Dodgers replaced their starting pitcher, Haren, with League (who we had also seen the night before). The top of the seventh saw nine batters go to the box, resulting in three more runs. With the score 6-3, the Dodgers just couldn't find a way to score in the remaining three innings. 

Tomorrow's game plan includes class, reading/writing, and spending an extra day in Pasadena. I know originally the schedule said a Grand Canyon detour but it just wasn't in the cards this time. Nevertheless, an extra day at the Saga Hotel means another day of swimming and using the library across the street (I can dig that!).