Baseball, fights, and a cool camera

What's the line about going to the fights and having a hockey game break out? Well last night I went to a baseball game and the fights broke out. The Ranger pitcher threw a pitch head high to Sexson, the Mariner's first baseman. He took offense, charged the mound, the benches cleared, and all hell broke loose. These melees aren't nearly as much fun as those in hockey. I don't think there was a punch actually landed in this one, but it was great fun to watch the bullpens and benches empty. As in hockey, the crowd went wild.




I took my camera to the game last night. It's got an 18X zoom lens (I think that's equivalent to around 500mm in the old 35mm camera world), auto focus, image stabilization, facial recognition, and other goodies I haven't yet figured out. I just leave it in the "Intelligent Auto" mode and let it do all the figuring for me. It's a pretty amazing device.

Here's Ichiro in center field, a long way from our seats.




Here's Lopez at bat, also a long way from our seats. What I find most amazing about these shots is that they were taken at dusk,(with the stadium lights on), with almost maximum zoom, and the pictures don't fall apart even when you zoom in on them. Well OK, the Lopez shot falls apart a bit because of the action, but check out Ichiro in center field. Amazing.

You can click on the pictures to get a full size view.