Zach Sanderson

Saturday morning I went over to join John at the Senior Games held at Stanford.

A rugby player smiles as he heads to the ground during the Senior Games at Stanford.

We had talked about kicking off ISI Workshops with a workshop at the Senior Games but luckily we did not make that happen because the weekend was very rainy and would have made it miserable for the workshop participants.

A Senior Games rugby player chases a loose ball.

The rain did make for an awesome atmosphere for rugby. But this wasn’t just any old rugby. It was older rugby.

At the Senior Games rugby, even the waterboys have beards.

I didn’t spend a lot of time on the field but I definitely enjoyed my time there. When I first showed up, I stood on the sideline and talked to a few of the guys. One guy asked with a chuckle, “Documenting the ancient?” He told me that his team was made up of old rugby buddies who played together in law school and hadn’t played together in twenty years. I think other teams were more regularly organized.

A rugby player laughs and teases his fellow players from the sideline.

Any other time I’d try to avoid commenting on the mental state of the athletes, but this time I think even the participants would agree, they’re crazy. These guys went all out. I saw guys get dragged across the pitch, get crushed by four or five other dudes and wince in pain.

A rugby player is dragged by an opponent at the Senior Games at Stanford.

Eventually and sadly, the craziness had to stop. One player went down hard enough that the paramedics had to come. You could tell all the players felt for their fellow rugger. They all stuck around to see him through and to continue to rag on each other like they did all game.

Rugby players stand around during an injury at the Senior Games.

Friday night Stanford baseball was back on their normal weekend series schedule. This time Long Beach State was in town. Unfortunately the first game went to the Dirtbags, 6-3.

Zach Jones and Mark Appel of Stanford baseball stand at attention with kids during the singing of the National Anthem before Stanford's game against Long Beach State at Sunken Diamond. Stanford lost 6-3.

In this case, Dirtbags isn’t a derogatory term. Although the rest of Long Beach’s teams go by the 49ers, the baseball team goes by the Dirtbags. The first time I heard it was from the public address announcer. It was my first time seeing this guy behind the mic and when he said that, he said it with a grin. I seriously thought he was taking poetic license because he had some past relationship with the school or something.

The Stanford baseball team encourages their pitcher, Mark Appel, from the dugout.

Mark Appel was on the mound and allowed 6 runs after four innings which was enough for Long Beach State.

Mark Appel of Stanford baseball looks to first during Stanford's game against Long Beach State at Sunken Diamond.

I’ve been trying out some different positions lately. One of the positions was from the TV camera stand behind the centerfield wall. When I was out there I saw a crazy play. I caught it on camera but nothing visually spectacular from my angle. Stanford’s leftfielder Tyler Gaffney plays pretty balls out. That might be attributed to the fact that he’s a runningback on the football team for Stanford too. There was a deep foul ball heading toward the bullpen and Gaffney tried to chase it down. He ran at the bullpen with a full sprint. The other night I saw the opposing team’s rightfielder run straight into the bullpen fence without stopping. He was down for quite a while. Gaffney ran without stopping too but instead he hurdled the fence at the last minute. It was a straight up track hurdle. Unnecessary but impressive.

Kenny Diekroeger was out for the game so Eric Smith stepped in at short. This was a chance to get some fielding shots of him since he doesn’t start very many games.

Eric Smith of Stanford baseball tags out a potential base stealer during Stanford's game against Long Beach State.

Visit StanfordPhoto.com to see the rest of my images from the game.

Since Wednesday’s game at Pacific was canceled, I thought I’d dump this little internal back and forth I’ve been having on here.

When I first started focusing on being better at taking photos a while ago, I thought a very novel idea was turning your camera sideways. I felt like a lot of casual camera users tend to shoot wide only. The revelation became a sort of crutch though. It was easy to make a shot, especially of a person, look better or more professional by just going tall on the image. This was the way I felt until I really started to work with John and Stanford Photo. I started looking back at the challenge of making a good wide shot. At a late night hangout with some photo buddies, I made a proclamation like each of these steps was some sort of evolution. Like verticals were all of a sudden amateur again just because I moved past them. I immediately recognized the arrogance and started questioning my opinion. Now I’m starting to embrace a good vertical now. Especially with baseball, you know, most baseball cards are verticals.

Dean McArdle of Stanford baseball waits to pitch during Stanford's game against Santa Clara University at Sunken Diamond. Stanford won 9-1. Kenny Diekroeger (fuzzy) and Tyler Gaffney (fuzziest) wait on field in the background. This along with the image of Eric Smith waiting off field in a scrimmage helped me come back around to the vertical.

I still feel I rely on verticals too much when a good wide shot can be had, especially since wide images seem to be more in demand with the way my images are being used on screen. But at least now, I’m learning to embrace both orientations, so long as it’s a good one.

Tuesday night Stanford baseball was able to fit another game in. This time it was an added game against Santa Clara. Due to the Michigan series getting canceled for weather, Stanford added another game with a local team.

Kenny Diekroeger of Stanford baseball throws to first after fielding a grounder during Stanford's game against Santa Clara University at Sunken Diamond.

They scheduled an afternoon game which made for some good light.

Austin Wilson of Stanford baseball watches the ball go into the outfield after safely stealing second during Stanford's game against Santa Clara University at Sunken Diamond. Stanford won 9-1.

The first basemen Brian Ragira had a heck of a day offensively. He started out with a triple, then had another extra base hit in his second at-bat with a double, then he had a smooth swinging home run to leftfield. So with a the extra base hits under his belt, everybody was whispering “cycle” when he came up to bat. Sure enough he hit a blooper over first base, completing the cycle in four at bats by the sixth inning. Pretty impressive. To top it off he got on in his next at bat with an infield single.

Austin Wilson congratulates Brian Ragira on his home run during Stanford's game against Santa Clara University. Ragira hit for the cycle.

This was my first time getting to see regular Sunday starter Dean McArdle pitch at home. I of course am rooting for the entire Stanford team, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a special place in my memory card for Iowa’s own. McArdle is from Council Bluffs. I made sure to get a nice all-American shot of him during the Anthem.

Zach Jones and Dean McArdle stand at attention for the National Anthem before Stanford's game against Santa Clara.

Stanford ended up winning the game 9-1.

Zach Jones of Stanford baseball stands at second during a break in action for an injury during Stanford's game against Santa Clara. Santa Clara's rightfielder went over the bullpen fence chasing a foul ball.

Visit StanfordPhoto.com for more photos from the game.

After some major rainouts, Stanford was able to squeeze a baseball game in on Monday. What was originally scheduled as an away game, Stanford ended up playing UC Davis at home due to wetter fields in Davis.

Ben Clowe slides safely into third base during Stanford's game against UC Davis at Sunken Diamond. Stanford won 3-2.

It seems like it’s been raining forever here but I walked out to sun with some really cool clouds. I was excited to shoot after we gained an hour of daylight a couple weekends back. Throw in some awesome clouds and I was psyched.

The rare cloud sighting occurs over Sunken Diamond as the Stanford baseball team warms up prior to the start of their game against UC Davis.

I didn’t have the 400mm for a bit because I was sharing time on the lens with another photographer, Rick, who was covering the softball game. So I took some time wandering around and trying out some different things. That’s something I look forward to more and more as I get more stock-type stuff in the can. I’d like to try more extreme viewpoints or sit on specific shots.

Chris Reed warms up in the bullpen during Stanford's game against UC Davis. Reed earned the save after pitching in two scoreless innings.

It was a pretty low scoring game and not a ton of offensive highlights except for Tyler Gaffney’s two run home run. He always runs hard out of the box and I was focusing on his run that I didn’t even know it was a home run until he was rounding first more slowly. Being a rescheduled game, there weren’t a ton of fans there to scream and let me know it was clearing the leftfield wall.

Jordan Pries pitches during Stanford's game against UC Davis.

The extra light was nice to have and as always the practice of shooting another game is nice. Since this was a last minute change, there were few fans there and even fewer event management folks. This helped boost my confidence in going places that may normally obstruct fans or draw the attention of a person in a red jacket. I’m really getting the hang of the stadium and of what to try to expect when covering baseball. I know there’s a ton more I can learn, so it’s good there’s another game tomorrow.

First basemen Brian Ragira and pitcher Mark Appel run off the field after the end of the second inning during Stanford's game against UC Davis.

As always, more photos from the game on StanfordPhoto.com.

I am not a sabermetrician. Not because I don’t “believe” in it but because I’m not really smart enough/dedicated to try to understand it. I have read Baseball Between the Numbers and Moneyball (even though that’s not really a book that teaches sabermetrics), so I get the concept and that some of the old ways of analyzing baseball aren’t really accurate. An easy one to prove is wins for a pitcher. Look at last year’s Cy Young winner.

Despite my sabermetric inadequacies, I do have a friend who gets it and I regularly follow some of his favorite writers, namely Rob Neyer and Joe Posnanski. The latter I do not follow as closely because he is the king of long-form posts. Kind of funny since I’m kind of the prince of verbosity. Willing to write tons of pages about myself but not willing to read any others. Probably says something about me and about why I don’t have a ton of regular followers.

One of the Joe Posnanski posts I managed to break down and read entirely was this one. It’s an interesting post that begins by mocking a writer who used the typical “mom’s basement” term to demean some nerd who understands things a lot better than him. Posnanski goes on to talk about the great games that took place in his mom’s basement when he was a kid. Fun to read about but mostly it reminded me of the games I played with my brothers. Games I hadn’t thought about in a while.

There was one game that I played with both my brothers and, many times, visiting cousins or neighbor kids. We called it Basement Baseball. I think you can kind of understand the premise just from the title, but there were some interesting quirks about the game. First, our basement had those high up basement windows that let enough light in just to remind you that it was daylight out and you were in your basement playing Sega. Because I had actually broken one once and had to pay for it, we made sure to use balls that wouldn’t break the windows. These came in the form of those cheap plush mini balls you get in a random kids’ meal. Ours came from White Castle. Funny, because I never recall actually eating White Castle as a kid.

Historians never documented basement baseball. This photo of Tyler and I hanging out in another basement will have to suffice. Tyler is the one wearing a raquetball racket cover on his head. I was busy writing and had no time for such foolish actions.

Also in the confined quarters of a basement, a regular bat would not work. If you swung it, you might end up bopping the person in the ondeck circle (the bottom of the stairs). So we had to improvise. Our family was way ahead of the recycling curve. Back before there was home pickup of recycling, we used to store our recycling in bins under the basement stairs until the stairs were overflowing and then we’d load up the Ford Ranger (probably sitting four across the front, with the stick shift between one of the boys’ legs) and take it out to Clermont County on our way to the garden and recycle it. I would like to say it was because we were an environmentally concerned clan, but I have my suspicions that it was more a way of keeping from paying for more garbage bins per week. So with a bin full of two liters and Sunny Delight bottles under the steps, we had our pick of Eastons and Louisville Sluggers.

Each “bat” had its own specific qualities. Lotsa Red Pop had a cheaper, thinner plastic. I think this helped envelop the ball and direct it down the third base line better. Big K Sparkling Punch was a tighter plastic and the ball kind of popped off of it. Plus as an added bonus, you were using a pink bat that smelled like strawberry chemicals. My personal favorite was Sunny D. We used it sparingly for some reason. I think we liked to police ourselves and not get too much of an advantage. The ball seemed to go farther off of it. I’m not a physics teacher but I think it had something to do with the size of the gallon bat. It also made the most satisfying “whoomp” noise when you caught the meat of the bat. Gallon milk jugs were the occasional failed experiment due to their lack of a neck and a round body.

The writer taking his basement technique to the backyard. Check out those leg muscles powering through the foul tip.

But the bats weren’t the only unique element these little Doubledays came up with. We also had a strange playing field. Our basement was unfinished for many years and right in the center of the open space was a metal pole. It was clearly an important support for the house but it was a very unfortunate part of Sanderson Field. But as kids with limited construction budgets we made do. In fact it was just a little off center in the basement to the point that we could make it our third base and foul pole. To the right side we had a cement wall where we positioned first base across from the pole. Second base was against the adjacent wall which also doubled as our centerfield and outfield fence. Both first and second were represented by large pillows. I don’t remember the exact rules about fouls and homeruns. I believe if you managed to get the ball up in the windowsill, that was a homerun. Also walls were in play. So there was a lot of strategy to ricochet shots. In fact one method of attack was to get the ball to bounce back into what is normally foul territory. Sometimes if you were lucky the ball could end up buried in the dirty clothes or get stuck behind the toybox in the back corner.

With limited players we of course had ghost runners. Also with limited players we had ghost defense. Instead of forcing an out at first you just threw the ball at the wall. If it beat the runner, the runner was out. But in tag situations, you didn’t even have to tag the runner. You could just bean the runner with the ball so long as they were off the bag. We called these “soakies”. I have no idea about the etymology on that word and as a kid thought it was a universal term. I think this rule benefited my older brother Justin the most because he had an excuse to wing a plush ball at his little brothers without getting into trouble.

The three inventors of Basement Baseball before their moment of genius. I think Justin's jambox as well as the Little Tikes Coupe spent some time in the basement on Heatherglen.

Justin is seven years older than me and nine older than Tyler. At ~14 he was basically an adult to us, so he was required to play the game from his knees. I imagine if he played on his feet he would be able to get from home to first in two strides. I think when Dad participated he played from his knees too. Dad was also pretty good at runner interference. He would reach out his giant adult man arms and just pull you in as you rounded first until Justin found the ball and pegged you with it.

We played Basement Baseball enough that everything was pretty well established including placement of pillows and usage of bats. I think we played long enough that I was eventually big enough to have to play from my knees. It was an awesome game that ended in a lot of stubbed toes or scraped elbows. Then we refinished the basement and created a whole bunch of new memories there. Like windowsill slam dunk contests and knee races around the pool table.

I’ll have to use another post to tell you about another invented game Tyler and I played: Bookseeds (or two man baseball). With preemptive apologies to the Nagys’ lawn.

There have been several instances of rainouts lately for Stanford baseball. The entire series with Michigan this weekend was rained out. To the point, Michigan didn’t even bother coming out. Good thing they didn’t because it was pouring Friday and Saturday. This was a huge bummer to me because not only did it mean less baseball, it meant my gig covering the Michigan team for Michigan was rained out and it would have been my first real day game of the season.

The only positive I saw out of it was Niall, the baseball media director used one of my off-field photos. He uses my photos all the time for the GoStanford website but I like how he used an image that probably wouldn’t see a lot of gametime otherwise to tell the story. I’m sharing the image here but the caption is borrowed from Niall’s description.

Eric Smith and the Cardinal will have to wait til Monday to return to action.

Jayne got tickets to Saturday’s San Jose Sharks game from a co-worker. An awesome thing to get from a co-worker. The game was against the St. Louis Blues. I went solely as a spectator but of course I brought my camera too.

Isn't that cute? They have shark-themed zambonis at the Sharks game.

The seats we got were awesome. We were four rows up from the corner. This was our first NHL game. We’d been to some Cedar Rapids Roughriders games and I’d been to some Cincinnati Cyclones/Mighty Ducks games in the past but even then I sat far away. The only games I’d been closer were at Miami Redhawks games where you could stand right up against the glass. This close I could actually follow the puck at all times. In the first period the Sharks scored three times on the opposite end of the ice from us and I saw all three go in. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been at a hockey game and said, “Wait, what? Did that go in?”

Our seats were a couple rows behind Kristi Yamaguchi. It felt like a 'Golly!' moment getting really excited about people throwing hats but even season ticket holder Kristi Yamaguchi got out her cameraphone.

Our seats were next to a nice older couple who knew Jayne’s co-worker. They listened to the game on radio headsets too. They were big proponents of doing so and recommend that we do it next time to “learn the game”. The lady was the one who pointed out Kristi to us. She said, “You’re probably too young to remember but…” I wanted to be like, “Are you kidding? I got all the Sports Illustrated For Kids.”

Fan crews launch shirts into the crowd with hockeystick slingshots.

I love the crowd and fanfare at hockey games. Being up here in Palo Alto, you don’t really get with that hockey crowd. I felt like I was in Minnesota or something. I saw some awesome mullets and just good old families hoping to see a fight. The place was packed. They had all kinds of themed giveaways and the required mini-blimp flying around. I ate a Steak-Umm-style cheesesteak. I shouted along to “Rock and Roll Part II”. I hoped a t-shirt would get blasted from an airgun and land in my lap.

Joe Pavelski gets a hat trick and it is announced on one of the awesome screens in HP Pavilion.

As shown above, Joe Pavelski had what appeared to be his first hat trick. Earlier when the team scored three goals, Jayne asked why no one threw their hats. I explained it was for an individual scoring three and that I doubted we’d see one tonight. But we did. It was confusing for a bit and a few hats trickled onto the ice. Then they put it on the screen and the hats started coming.

Hats start trickling in for Joe Pavelski's hat trick.

I say it was confusing because there was one goal that they weren’t sure about. It looked like Pavelski redirected it in and they confirmed it on the screen. But apparently after the game, it sounds like they took the hat trick away. But I don’t really care because, HATS!!

Annoyed workers watch for more hats falling on the ice as they clean up after Joe Pavelski's hat trick.

People were really excited to throw their hats. Some guys ran around the side where there wasn’t a protective net, several sections over, to be able to throw their hat on the ice. They were filling up garbage cans with them. But nothing was like when my cousin Rachel saw a hat trick at a Penguins game…on free hat day.

I got the call to cover a community outreach visit for Stanford football on Tuesday.

Terrence Stephens asks a student how much his Orange Bowl ring weighs.

Three Stanford football players, Terrence Stephens, David Green and Michael Thomas, visited a community recreation center in a neighborhood in San Francisco and hung out and spoke with kids in an after-school program. This was definitely a type of event I didn’t have a lot of experience covering yet. In fact I ended up needing to rent a flash as mine and the pool’s are not working. It was cool to see the players work with the kids and for me to get to meet with the folks at Stanford football since I came on at the tail end of football season. The players were nice guys who stayed after to sign autographs for anyone.

Michael Thomas tries to block a student's throw during a football drill.

They also ran a football drill, which after a little bit of re-explaining the rules to some the kids, looked like a ton of fun. I actually wanted to join in.

David Green watches a student's throw during a football drill with an after-school program.

My selected images were shown on the football page at GoStanford.com.

On Saturday I got to cover another new (to me) Stanford varsity sport: sailing. Stanford’s sailing team was hosting the McIntyre Intersectional at their boathouse in Redwood Shores just up 101 from campus. I signed up to cover the first day of the races, not knowing what to expect.

Sally Mace and Katie Riklin of Stanford sailing turn their boat during the first day of the McIntyre Intersectional at Redwood Shores. Stanford won all 9 races of the day.

I talked with the coach the previous day about getting on a chase boat to shoot the action. He told me to be there at 9:30 to get on a boat for the races to start at 10. I arrived well before because I honestly wasn’t sure where I was supposed to meet him. The boathouse is listed on the website but there’s another location listed a few exits up 101. I wasn’t even sure what I was getting into as far as boats and waters go. I could have shown up to a kiddie pool filled with those toy sailboats the French kids play with in the fountain outside the Louvre for all I knew. I had seen pictures of these huge America’s Cup things but I didn’t know if they’d be getting into that either.

Kevin Laube and Kelly Ortel of Stanford sailing race for the lead against Hawaii during the first day of the McIntyre Intersectional at Redwood Shores.

When I arrived, I introduced myself to John the coach and he said we may have a delay due to no wind. He was right. I looked out onto the bay and saw it was as he described: “a swimming pool.” Knowing nothing about sailing, I didn’t even realize that was a bad thing. After standing around during the delay with very little visuals, especially sailing related, I was getting really hungry. I also knew that I was slated to be there all day. So I snuck away. I didn’t bring my laptop on this shoot because I thought I’d be on a boat the whole day. That was dumb. So I drove all the way back home, microwaved a burrito (yes, at 11am) and grabbed my laptop. When I came back, all the boats were gone. Shit.

Boats wait at the start of one of the races during the McIntyre Intersectional hosted by Stanford.

It turns out the sailing I would be covering was team sailing and it takes place just off the shore still in the harbor in relatively small boats on a relatively small course that can easily be viewed from land. I did not know that though and just saw empty docks. Coach said he would be in and out in his boat throughout the day so I could get on whenever, so I wasn’t too worried. Just then he rolled in, Miami Vice-like, on his motorboat.

Coach John Vandemoer of Stanford sailing steers his motorboat through the harbor during the McIntyre Intersectional.

He explained to me they went out to test the wind and still had nothing so there’d be a further delay. So I went in and edited some baseball images. Things got going close to lunchtime eventually. And it was awesome.

Coach John Vandemoer asks for confirmation on the placement of a marker while changing the race course during the McIntyre Intersectional at Redwood Shores.

I couldn’t even begin to explain the strategy and all the rules of team sailing but I can tell you my perceptions. First, as a non-sailor, one couldn’t think of all the strategy and strength involved. I just kind of assumed there was some because it’s a sport and it’s not just called “Sitting in Boats”. Each team has three boats with two people in each boat. The matches are head-to-head so six boats are racing at a time. They basically race an up-and-back-and-up course making an “N” across the harbor. The start is a rolling start probably similar to NASCAR type stuff. The start is counted off with a whistle and if your boat is past a certain line created by a bobbing buoy and the start boat you are flagged and forced to get to the other side of the line before crossing it again. Then all six boats are off and you are trying to work your way through the course. It’s a team event because you’re not just racing for first place. You are trying to get all three of your boats across to beat the other team. Each place is assigned a value and you are trying to get the lowest number. The magic number being 10 or lower. If you get first, you get one point, second, you get two, etc. So if your team gets second, third and fifth, you win or first, third and sixth you win, etc.

Rebecca King and Mateo Vargas of Stanford sailing work the ropes in a turn during the first day of the McIntyre Intersectional at Redwood Shores.

That makes the racing and tactics very interesting. I guess the main idea is to get good speed and position but also to block opponent’s wind by being upwind from them. That seems so organic and weird to me. I definitely could not see that element of the game and probably only would if I was in the sailboat itself. Something Jayne and I hope to do this summer with the Stanford sailing camp. Better order some boat shoes.

Sally Mace and Katie Riklin watch their sails as they cross the finish line of a race during day one of the McIntyre Intersectional.

I was shuttled from start boat to finish boat by Coach Vandemoer. He and his sailors who were administering the race were very friendly and were kind to answer all of my stupid questions. As a photographer, I am normally just a bystander but at one point I even got in on the act. I wasn’t shooting and they were moving the race course because of changing wind direction (the coach’s weather knowledge was insane!). The coach was yelling to move the finish boat now, but one sailor in the motorboat I was on was busy and the other had to drive the boat, so I pulled in the anchor. I felt like a real life pirate.

The Stanford sailing team gets pre-race instructions from their coach during the McIntyre Intersectional.

Stanford ended up winning the event, 14-1. For more photos from the races, go to StanfordPhoto.com.