This is seriously dumb, as the rule also includes laptops and netbooks.  What if you are just getting out of work, need to bring your work laptop home, but are planning on going right from work to the Y*****s game?  Most people in New York City use public transit, so you may not be able to leave it in your car.  And going home to drop it off…a pain in the butt!  That might make you late for the game!  How about just not allowing people to actually use them while in the ballpark?  As long as it stays in the bag, no problem!

I have a netbook.  I also sometimes ride the Boston Express Bus up to Manchester from Boston, to attend Fisher Cats games.  The bus has free WiFi, so I bring my netbook to have something to occupy myself on the bus for the 90 minute trip.  I also work online, so it’s not just me playing with Facebook, I often get work done on the bus, as well.

Never has anyone on the Fisher Cats staff refused me access to their ballpark because I had a netbook in my tote bag.  In fact, no one ever inspected my bag to look for one, or for anything else.  Basically, all the Eastern League cares about is that people aren’t sneaking outside food or beer into the ballpark.

I never tried to use the netbook there, there’s probably not a WiFi signal there anyway.  I use my phone to update Facebook, with pics from the ballpark and all.  Yes, this is allowed, as well…wonder if Y***** Stadium will one day ban this, as well.

By the way, if you don’t want to spend $500-600 for an iPad, and are in the market for an ultra portable netbook instead, I found another one at a fabulous sale price. This ASUS 1005HAB-RBLK003X Netbook is now available from Buy.com for a little over $200, plus FREE shipping.  This one comes with a webcam, and runs Windows XP…the one I have runs Linux, but if you feel more comfortable with a Windows platform, this is a good machine to consider.

Since it’s a netbook, it has no optical drive (CD/DVD drive).  But you could always just purchase an external one to plug into it if you feel the need to do so.  But usually you are just using this to surf the net…that’s why it’s called a NETbook, so you may not need to spend the dough.

ASUS is a decent brand.  I’ve had my own netbook from them for almost a year now, and I absolutely love it.

If you buy one, though, don’t bring it to Y***** Stadium!

Hadlock Field, home of the Sea Dogs, had been our favorite minor league ballpark for a long time.  But when MerchantsAuto.com Stadium, home of the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, opened in 2005, they soon became our new favorite.  We’ve already been to quite a few games at “the Dot”, as many affectionately call it.  But this was our first visit to Hadlock of the season – has our opinion changed now that we’ve seen it again?  Read on…

Both Hadlock and the Dot have their goods points, and both are great places to watch a game.  As Class AA affiliates of the Red Sox, Hadlock Field has recreated a couple of the features of Fenway Park.  These include a replica of the famed Green Monster wall, known as “The Maine Monster”, and the U.S. Cellular Pavilion, which was designed to resemble to seats on top of Fenway’s Green Monster.  However, these seats are in right field, and not atop the Maine Monster, because there was really no way to safely put seats up there.

Hadlock Field and the Maine Monster - click image to see it bigger

A cute thing is the lighthouse in center field.  It rises from behind the wall there, whenever a Sea Dog hits a home run, and then when they win.  It comes complete with a foghorn sound.

The Sea Dogs Win! And there's the lighthouse! Click for bigger.

The Fisher Cats are the Class AA affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, but their ballpark really bears no resemblance that I’ve noticed to the Rogers Centre in Toronto.  But there are a couple of things that make it unique.  One of these is the Hilton Garden Inn that has a patio (and rooms) that face the ballpark.

View of MerchantsAuto.com Stadium from a room at the Hilton Garden Inn. Once again, click to see it bigger.

The hotel has a patio restaurant and bar, from which patrons can enjoy the game if they’d like.  I’ve seen more than a few home run balls hit onto the patio.

View of MerchantsAuto.com Stadium from our usual seats, with a partial view of the hotel and its patio bar. Click to embiggen.

Also unique is the Samuel Adams Bar & Grill.  Unlike the hotel, you need to have a ticket to the game to get in here.  From there, you can not only see the Fisher Cats game, but also Red Sox games, as well as Bruins and Celtics when they are in season.  If the Fisher Cats make it to the post-season (which is very likely if they keep playing the way they have been playing), they will probably show Patriots games on the TVs there, as well.  You can get several varieties of Sam Adams beers on tap, as well as other beers on tap and in bottles.  There is a full bar, for those who don’t drink beer.  The food menu includes, burgers, sausages, hot dogs, and a variety of other items, such as chili, chowder, salads, chicken, and more.  When it’s busy, you do have to wait a while for your food, but as long as you can snag a place to sit at the bar, you’ll get a beer pretty quickly, and it beats standing in line forever to get something to eat!

There was one time this season when we sat in the cheap seats (I really wanted that Jon Lester bobblehead, but these were the only seats available).  Once again, we remembered why we try not to sit there (too many kids running around).  So we escaped to the Sam bar, where we could watch the rest of the game in relative peace.  Seriously, whoever came up with the idea to put this there deserves a medal!

Sam Adams Bar & Grill at the Dot. Yep, clicky to see bigger!

So you can see that there is a lot to like about both of these fine ballparks.  But, sorry, Sea Dogs…the Dot still wins for us.  Here’s why…

More legroom in the stands – one of the ways that Hadlock is like Fenway is that the seats seem to be smaller and smooshed closer together.  At the Dot, they allowed for more room, something much appreciated by me, as I’m 5″10″ and long in the leg.

CUPHOLDERS!  The Dot’s got ‘em, Hadlock does not.  ‘Nuff said!

Partial shade if you want it.  Our mini-plan seats are at the top of the section, but as you can see from the picture above, we still get a great view.  The concourse is right behind the seating bowl, under the luxury boxes.  The roof partially sticks out.  So if you burn easily, get seats closer to the concourse.

Hadlock has absolutely NO roof, the concourse is underneath the seating bowl, as it is at McCoy Stadium (home of the PawSox).  So you really have to slather on the sunblock here.  Also, if it gets too hot, it’s hard to sit there for long, if you are heat-sensitive as we are.  Then you have to go downstairs to the concourse, where you can’t see any of the game except for on some closed-circuit TVs.  The upper concourse at the Dot not only enables you to see the game live, while waiting in line for food and beer, but there’s also a nice wind-tunnel effect there.

Food – The Dot has a larger selection, but some of the stuff at Hadlock is yummie.  I like the French fries and the pizza there.  At the Dot, I like the chowder, the hot dogs, and the Papa Gino’s pizza.  But we often just get something at the Sam Adams bar, where the food is freshly cooked for you.  If you like Italian sausage sammiches, either get one at the Sam bar, or at the free-standing cart near the entrance.  At both places, they are fresher, not wrapped in foil, sitting under a heat lamp, and soggy as at the other stands (this from Mike, who is a sausage fan).

Beer – both ballparks have excellent beer selections.  Hadlock features Shipyard ales, which are brewed right in Portland.  There are two microbrew stands, one at either end of the concourse.  Other beer selections include Geary’s, another Portland brewery, Sam Adams Boston Lager, something called Shock Top, and the ubiquitous Bud and Bud Lite.

The Dot, of course, has a lot of Sam Adams.  Boston Lager and Summer Ale are available throughout the ballpark, you can also get Coastal Wheat and Cherry Wheat on tap in the aforementioned Sam Adams Bar & Grill.  Also available on the concourse are many other selections, including some from Shipyard and Smuttynose.

Premium beers at the Dot are more expensive at $5.75, as opposed to $5.00 at Hadlock.  However, the beers at the Dot are a little bigger.  I prefer to pay more for a bigger beer, rather than have to get up and get a new one more often.

And when you drink beer, the restrooms are all the more important.  Restrooms at the Dot are cleaner and better maintained than those at Hadlock, by a long shot.  The sinks at the Dot are these funny, fountain-like things.  But they work, and there is always soap and paper towels.  At Hadlock this weekend, most of the paper towel dispensers were jammed, and soap was hard to come by.  Both places did have plenty of toilet paper, though.

The souvenir store at Hadlock has everything behind a counter, so if you want to see something, you have to wait in line and ask someone to show it to you.  This is during the season when games are going on…during the off-season, they have it set up like a regular store, where you can look at things yourself.  But on game days, they also set up a couple of tables on the concourse.  At the Dot, it’s always set up as a regular store.  There are two main souvenir shops, one right before the entrance, and another up on the concourse.  They also have a couple of tables set up on the concourse that sell a smaller selection of T-shirts, hats, etc.

I talked earlier about too many kids running around in the cheap seats.  At Hadlock, the cheap seats (aka General Admission) are located above the reserved seating area. See Hadlock Field seating chart.  This means that there, we still have to deal with too many kids running around, because they have to run past us to get down to where the concessions/restrooms are.  A lot of the time, they just run up and down the stairs and play on the railings because it is fun.  Well, it is not fun for me, because I really need to hang onto that railing as I hike up the stairs, while trying not to have my $5.00 beer spilled by some rampaging kid.

But as you can see from looking at the MerchantsAuto.com seating chart, the cheap seats (the pink and turquoise sections) are set further out from the Premium and Field Box seats.  We noticed a long time ago that the people with the rowdiest kids tend to go in for the cheaper seats (regular Box and Grandstand/Bleachers).  But at least at the Dot, we can usually sit away from them (our mini-plan seats are in section 107), and we don’t have to deal with them running up and down the stairs.  Yes, there are still kids running around all over, but there are much fewer of them if you pony up a few bucks more for better seats.

Speaking of kids running around, another smart move that the Fisher Cats made was to move their kids’ play area from behind the ballpark, to the concourse (near right field, behind the cheap seats).  The reasoning here is that more families will use it if it means that the parents won’t have to miss any of the game to do so.  If the kids have a place to let off steam, they are not running around in the stands, on the concourse, and annoying other fans.  Hadlock sorely needs something like this, but sadly, there is no good place for them to put it that also provides a view of the ballpark.

Parking – Paid parking is where Hadlock wins here…plenty of private lots, most charge just $5.00.  There is some street parking, but it is not worth taking a chance on, as the city of Portland has been cracking down on towing illegally parked cars.  Get there early for the closest lots, and just pony up the five bucks.

At the Dot, paid parking is ten bucks.  But it is worth it if you are lazy like me, and plan ahead and order reserved parking that is wicked close to the stadium, at nhfishercats.com.  But if you don’t want to pay ten bucks, you can park further away on Commercial Street, and either hoof it or wait for the free Auto City shuttle.  These on-street spaces are metered, but for nights, weekends, and holidays, event parking is just $1.00.  Bring quarters, the machines don’t take paper money, but they do take credit or debit cards.

So, although we had a great time at Hadlock this past weekend, and will be returning again for a weekend later this season…my heart will always truly belong to the Dot.

Jacoby played one game earlier this week with the PawSox.  But since the PawSox went on the road, he was sent up to the Sea Dogs to continue his rehab.

My guess is that neither Ells or Cameron are quite ready to return to the Sox yet, so we’ll probably get to see them at Hadlock Field all weekend, as the Sea Dogs play the Trenton Thunder (aka Class AA Y*****s).

So now I gotta finish packing for the trip up to Portland…have all of my Sea Dogs/anti-Y***** shirts ready.  Gotta also make sure that Mike packs all the stuff he needs, all of his meds, his insulin pens, even his diabetic socks. For a grown man, he can be kind of a big baby, and needs me to help him remember everything.

The weather is supposed to be gorgeous this weekend, and we are greatly looking forward to our first trip to Hadlock of the season!

I’m looking forward to wearing it this weekend, when we go to Portland for some Sea Dogs games.  The Sea Dogs will be playing the Trenton Thunder, which, as you know, is Class AA Y*****s.

I decided not to listen to the Red Sox/Y*****s game last night.  After Monday’s disaster, I didn’t want to deal with another devastating loss.  Monday night was not as pleasant as shopping on Cyber Monday, that was for sure!

So I listened to the Fisher Cats game instead.  The Thunder is in ManchVegas this week, before they move on up to Portland for the weekend.  That was actually a really good game…the Fisher Cats came from behind and won in the bottom of the 9th, snapping the Thunder’s 10-game winning streak.

But then I heard that the Sox also came from behind and won.  Hmmm…maybe the secret to the universe is that I should not watch nor listen to any more Sox games…when I don’t, they win.

I’m serious about this.  Remember the ALCS of 2004?  Of course you do!  The Sox had lost three in a row to the Evil Empire, and because of that, I refused to watch Game 4.  I did not want my heart broken yet again.

I was shocked to learn the next day that the good guys won!  And then they won again…and again…and again…and the rest is history.

However, I did watch games 5-6-7, and they still won despite that.

So maybe I’ll just watch/listen to the Sox once in a while, and listen to my minor league teams online the rest of the time!

When we got home on Sunday night, I didn’t even turn the game on.  But it turned out that the Sox won, so at least we avoided being swept.

But when the Sox are playing badly, at least there are other options.  Although I don’t live in the WGIR-AM listening area in Manchester, NH, I can still listen to the Fisher Cats games online.  And now that I FINALLY got our wireless network working, I am no longer chained to my desktop to listen.

Setting up a simple home wireless network need not cost a lot of money.  I spent less than $100 on my equipment, on sale. Your costs may vary, depending upon your needs.

First, you need a router.  This is the one I bought…the Belkin N150 Enhanced Wireless Router.  This is a good basic router that can be had for under $50.00.  We live in a small apartment, and it works just fine…I can work on my netbook in the bedroom or kitchen.  When I’m cooking dinner, I often bring the netbook in and listen to the Fisher Cats game on it.

This router is very easy to set up.  It will also help you secure your network, something that is very important.  You don’t want your skeevy neighbors stealing your internet now, do you?

You may also need one or more wireless adapters.  Each computer in your network needs to have one.  Most newer laptops already have these installed, so you’re probably good to go.  But if you are using an older laptop, you will need to purchase an adapter.  Also, not all desktops come equipped with these.  The new one I just bought did not.

So I bought the Belkin N150 Enhanced Wireless USB Network Adapter.  You can also buy wireless adapters that go inside the computer, but just being able to plug it into a USB port is much easier.  That way, you don’t have to be taking the computer apart and risk screwing things up.  This adapter costs under $40, and it works great.

Notice that I bought a compatible router and wireless adapter.  This makes it easier to set things up, but  different brands can be compatible with each other.  But buying the same brand and same type made setting this up a snap!

Buy.com definitely has the best prices for this stuff, and they offer FREE shipping on many items, including the router and wireless adapter I discussed here.  I buy a lot of stuff from them, as you know, and I have never had any problems.  They ship fast, even if you use the free budget shipping option.  You really can’t go wrong!

There will also be a Red Sox/Y*****s Rivalry Party at the Sam Adams Bar & Grill, at the ballpark.  It will be hosted by Laura of Rock 101′s “The Morning Buzz.”.  There, you can watch the Red Sox beat the Y*****s again on the big screen TVs there.  That game starts at 7:10 PM.  The Sam Adams Bar & Grill also offers a great view of the ballpark, so you can watch two games at the same time!

For more info, visit the Fisher Cats’ website.

At first, I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to go, but now it looks like we are.  I can take the bus up to Manchester, and Mike can drive up right from work and look for me there.  He’ll miss part of the exhibition game, but he really can’t leave work early for this.  Not when he’s taking two and a half days off next week for the official Opening Day stuff.

Looking forward to being at the ballpark again!

Other than the actual game, the two coolest things about last night…Jerry Remy is back in the booth, after missing most of last season due to illness.  And, something no one expected…Pedro Martinez came back to Fenway to throw out the first pitch.  This was obviously a closely guarded secret, right up there with Bill Buckner throwing out the first pitch in the 2008 opener.

Just for fun, enjoy this while you can in the “terror alert” thingy in the sidebar, because it won’t last long.  Then only reason the standings show the Y*****s in last place was because they were the only two teams who played last night.  All the other teams open today, while the Sox/Y*****s have tonight off.  They will resume tomorrow with game 2.

If you want this Y***** Terror Alert widget on your blog or website, you can get the code HERE.  You don’t need to download any images or do any updating…I check the standings each day and update as necessary.

Finally, get a load of this – Shame on YES; Yankee network blows off Fenway first pitch from Pedro Martinez.  Written by a fan of the Evil Empire, no less! Sore losers, much?  But why, the Y*****s DID win the floopin’ World Series last year!  If things were reversed, and the opener was at Y***** Stadium, and had Bucky Bleepin’ Dent throwing out the first pitch, I bet NESN would have showed it.  C’mon, it’s Opening Day!

Oh, by the way…my last post…APRIL FOOL!

Also that evening will be a Red Sox/Y*****s Rivalry Party, which will be held in the Sam Adams Bar & Grill, located at the ballpark.  They will be showing the Sox/Y*****s game on their big-screen TVs, beginning at 7:10 PM, and the festivities will be hosted by Laura of Rock 101′s The Morning Buzz.

Admission is free, you just need to buy your own beers and stuff.  You can read more about this event HERE.

I wish we could go, but due to Mike’s work schedule, going up there in the middle of the week just isn’t feasible.  We’re already making an exception for Opening Night, which is about a week later…Mike has to take off work on Thursday and Friday so we can go up and stay at the hotel.  Don’t want to push it with the bossman!  So I guess I’ll just be listening to the Sox/Y*****s game at home, probably while working on some diet pill reviews or something. If I’m gonna be stuck at home, may as well get some work done!

And yes, the RemDawg is in the house…Jerry Remy said on his Twitter page that he arrived in Florida at around 4:30PM.  We all know how anxious he was to return to the booth, after missing most of last year due to his illness.  Well, he’s back, he has a clean bill of health, and is rarin’ to go.  And he’ll be gracing the airwaves on Wednesday night!  No more sitting at home, being bored, looking at sites like http://www.seosoftware.org to figure out how to help get more traffic to his own site and all.  It will be so nice to have him back in the booth where he belongs!

As you know, not all Spring Training games will be aired on radio and/or TV, but quite a few will be.  Here is the broadcast schedule from RedSox.com, so you can see which games you’ll be able to listen to.  NESN will carry eight of the games, MLBN will carry a few, but I’m not sure how widely available that is on most people’s cable systems yet…is it a channel that you have to pay extra for?  As for radio, WEEI will carry about a dozen Spring Training games.  Not sure if they, or WRKO will be the flagship radio station this year.

Finally, some good news about Opening Day…I mean Night.  No, that hasn’t changed, it’s still an 8:05PM start.  But at least in the New England area, NESN will be carrying the game rather than ESPN, as had been expected, and the reason for the stupid night game idea.  I suppose the Y***** fans will get to see it on their YES network in New York.  Other markets will see it on ESPN2.  So even though it’s not an afternoon game as is traditional, at least it’ll be on NESN, so we’ll get Don & Jerry, and not some annoying-assed ESPN guys.

This takes place on my birthday, and I think that the Sox kicking some serious Y***** ass would make a mighty fine present!

I do not like this one little bit.  It’s messing with TRADITION, the way I see it.  Opening Day should be a day game, and it needs to be covered not by ESPN announcers, but NESN’s own Don & Jerry.

For one thing, Sunday night games are stupid.  Most people have to get up to go to work the next day.  A game that starts at 8PM, likely later because the annoying announcers have to talk about it for half an hour before first pitch, will likely end past midnight…too late for most people.  Especially if you’re older and sick with an illness like rheumatoid arthritis; you need to get your sleep!

I’m personally pissed off, because it messes with MY tradition.  As you may know, we do not have cable.  So what I do every year is go someplace to watch the Opening Day game.  For the past few years, I’ve gone to the Boston Beer Works to watch it, the one near North Station.  Sorry, but the location near Fenway Park just gets too crowded, as does pretty much every other place in that immediate area.  The North Station location is not crowded during the day, with the exception of the lunch hour, when a lot of the Boston yuppies come in for lunch, but it’s pretty peaceful beyond that.  It’s a safe place for a woman alone to sit, have lunch and a few beers, and watch the game.  The clientele is upscale, no one bothers me or tries to hit on me or anything.  At dive bars, I get hit on by skeevy old men.  The Beer Works is too expensive for that ilk, and they probably don’t have cheap mass-produced swill, anyway.

Sunday has the advantage of Mike not working, so I can go somewhere with him…but not into Boston, not on a Sunday night on the T.  T service sucks on Sundays, as a general rule.  So we’ll probably just end up going to our local TGI Friday’s, which is about ten minutes away.  But we won’t be able to stay for the whole game, due to the late hour, and Mike’s having to work the next day.  Also, I don’t even think this place stays open late enough to see the whole game.

Opening Day…I mean, NIGHT, happens to fall on my birthday this year.  It would be a nice birthday present to see the Sox kick some serious Y***** ass, but I probably won’t get to.  Best case scenario is watching part of the game at Friday’s, and listening to the rest on the radio in the car on the way home, and then at home.  If we can even stay awake that long!

Do you think that ESPN is evil for messing with tradition?  Take this poll at The Remy Report.  So far, it looks like most people agree that it’s evil to mess with tradition.  GOOD.