With the Yankees in Cleveland, and Alex Rodriguez sitting on 599 career home runs, Nick Pelescak and I made the trip to Cleveland.  So did pretty much every Yankee fan from New York.

Nick and I arrived at the stadium, hoping to catch an early round of batting practice at 2PM and maybe snag a ball outside of the stadium at the Home Run Porch.

It didn’t happen as this was the scene:

There was a mini baseball field constructed across the street from the stadium, so we spent a good 45 minutes or so throwing there.

Curtis Granderson:

Alex Rodriguez:

Mariano Rivera:

After batting practice was over, I checked Heritage Park and found one ball, hidden behind the stump of one of the trees:

I used the Cleveland Stick to snag ball #5 of the day.

Check out the job they did blocking off the trees – I assume so folks can’t run back there to grab A-rod’s 600th:

As for the game,  the porch was packed.

So were the left field bleachers.

But A-Rod would not go deep.

Some pictures from the game:

View from the bullpen:

Mariano Rivera to Carlos Santana:

Mariano Rivera:

The Yankees won 3-2.

A-Rod did not go deep.

And I’ll be back in Cleveland tomorrow.

Here’s today’s balls (4 show because 1 was given away)

Sweet spots (1 was given away)

STATISTICS:
Game:  5 balls (1 hit, 2 thrown, 2 device)
Season:  336 balls (173 hit, 75 thrown, 35 device, 44 found)
Games: 52 games
Average:  6.46 balls per game
2010 Game Balls: 5
Career:  914 balls
Streak:  148 consecutive games attended with at least 1 ball snagged.
Attendance: 27,224