My first MLB ticket

It was in late 2007. I don’t really remember the exact date it was. I found a cool restaurant in southern Taiwan and its name was "Cooperstown". It was a restaurant with lots of baseball collections. There were game-used bats, gloves, autographed baseballs, magazines and so on. I was truly amused by the large numbers of collections when I came in the restaurant. As a baseball fan, it was really a dream place.

I truly couldn’t wait to see the collections in the restaurant, so I ordered quickly. My friends, who went dining with me, all saw how excited I was. It was a 2-floor restaurant, so I walked around and stared at several cool collections such as game-used bats and gloves. Back then, I didn’t see many game-used memorabilia. The restaurant owner was really nice. He saw how excited I was and we did talk a lot about baseball. However, he told me “Don’t be a collector. It’s just not easy, you are going to spend a lot of money and there are not many rewards.”

The restaurant owner gave me some baseball cards and a game ticket. I was surprised and truly overwhelmed by his generosity. The ticket was my first MLB ticket. It was a game between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

I went back to check the game result and I found this on ESPN “Kazmir outshines Schilling as D-Rays shut down BoSox”. Scott Kazmir threw a gem allowing only 5 hits in 7 innings. Also, he fanned 10.

2007 was a fantastic season for Scott Kazmir. He threw 239 strikeouts in 206.2 innings. It was the only season that Kazmir pitched more than 200 innings and threw more than 200 strikeouts in his career. He started 34 games and 6 starts were against the Red Sox. In these 6 starts, the Red Sox hitters only hit .244/.338/.313 against Kazmir. He struck out Red Sox hitters 49 times and allowed only 1 home run. His ERA was 2.78 and WHIP 1.37, solid numbers, right?

How many wins did he get against the Red Sox in 2007? One. Yes, only 1 win. He did pitch well against the Red Sox in 2007, however, he only got 1 win but took 3 losses. Back in 2007, the Devil Rays finished 5th in the AL East and the Red Sox were the World Series champions.

Scott Kazmir vs Red Sox (2007)

G	W-L	ERA	WHIP	BAA	BABIP	IP	SO	BB
6	1-3	2.78	1.37	.244	.378	35.2	49	17

Scott Kazmir at Fenway Park (2007)

G	W-L	ERA	WHIP	BAA	BABIP	IP	SO	BB
3	1-1	1.42	1.21	.221	.333	19	24	8

Scott Kazmir vs Red Sox (Career)

G	W-L	ERA	WHIP	BAA	BABIP	IP	SO	BB
30	9-10	4.08	1.47	.250	.305	167.2	166	89

Scott Kazmir at Fenway Park (Career)

G	W-L	ERA	WHIP	BAA	BABIP	IP	SO	BB
17	6-6	3.98	1.61	.269	.333	92.2	89	52

It’s been almost 13 years, unfortunately, the restaurant was closed for a while. Kazmir was not in the big league anymore. The last game Kazmir pitched was in September 2016. Getting injured bothered him in the 2017 season and then he was traded to Braves in December 2017. Braves released him in the 2018 spring training.

Baseball is a lot like life. There are so many unexpected events in baseball games, in life. I never thought that my first MLB ticket was a game between the Red Sox and the Devil Rays. Kazmir only won 6 games at Fenway Park and I got a ticket from 1of these 6 games. A player never knows when his career will be stopped. A restaurant owner never knows when his business will be influenced. Nonetheless, a baseball ticket could be kept forever.