Part Twelve...
Part Twelve Sponsored by
MOBILE WASH LLC
http://mobilewashaz.com
SOMEWHERE IN OHIO—The sky was dumping rain, as it had for the past two weeks of my trip; the water building up on the interstate, the road was becoming increasingly slick. I was refreshed from my stop in South Bend, IN and well aware of the adverse road conditions in Ohio. I was taking a detour to New York City to see the US Open at Bethpage Black, a short ten hour drive from South Bend. While driving east of Sandusky, OH, home of Tommy Boy, I totaled my Lexus…
--------------------------
A day earlier, I decided to spend the night in South Bend, which was peaceful but not without the usual problems I seem to encounter.
About fifteen miles west of the University of Notre Dame, I spotted Midwestern clouds stacking in the horizon, a sure sign an enormous tornado would soon demolish my hotel. My hotel, by the way, was becoming a game since the past three have been monumental dives. I never know what to expect…but if doesn’t have pimps, burned-out cars and hobos loitering around the perimeter, it’s a resort. At any rate, the clouds were stacking, lightening was visible and I was thoroughly convinced I would see my first ever twister.
I arrived at my hotel, a $39.98 bargain from hotels.com. There were no signs of hookers, madams, drug dealers or a crazy woman screaming at the top of her lungs in the dumpster. It was sprinkling as I darted from my car to the lobby, excited to speak with someone about my possible tornado discovery. I was winded as I opened the door and proudly proclaimed to have possibly spotted a tornado in the infancy stage, which didn’t go over well with the clerk and some guy in the lobby.
Clerk: “Good afternoon. Do you have a reservation, sir?”
Me: “Yes, um, hear anything about the possibility of tornado in this area?!”
Guy in Lobby: “What?! Are you serious?!”
Me: “Not sure!”
Clerk: “They issued a tornado warning for St. Joseph County awhile ago!”
Guy in Lobby: “DID YOU SEE ONE?!”
Me: “No, not exactly. Actually, I’ve never seen one in person but I know how they form. I’ve seen it on the Discovery Channel.”
Guy in Lobby: “(Expletive)”
Me: “Ditto”
Clerk: “Just because they issued a warning doesn’t mean there’s a tornado present. Did you see a funnel?!”
Me: “Nope, not even close…saw some clouds stacking, and amazing lightening strikes.”
Clerk: “That’s not a tornado!”
Guy in Lobby: “Thank God
Me: “Not yet, but that’s how they start.”
Clerk: “No it’s not.”
Me: “Yes it is.”
Clerk: “No it’s not.”
Me: “Yes it is…Listen, it’s like 75 degrees out, the sky is clear in the area where I saw stacks of black clouds and lightening. That’s how they start.”
Clerk: “That doesn’t mean it’s going to be a tornado!!!”
Me: “We’ll see.”
Guy in Lobby: “(Expletive)”
Me: “I agree”
Clerk: “Do you have a reservation?”
Me: “Yep…”
The clerk didn’t appreciate my concern for a potential disaster, and treated me with condescension. I understand tornados are common in the Midwest and cause millions of dollars of damage and, unfortunately, death. I wasn’t trivializing the devastation; I sincerely thought I spotted what eventually could become a full-blown twister.
Despite my good intentions, the clerk and I would not see eye-to-eye for the rest of my stay, but I’m used to that now. Later, I informed the clerk I had to see a ballgame at 7:00 p.m. and asked if we were still on Central Standard Time, as I was looking at my watch. His response: “You bet!”
With a few hours to spare before the Silver Hawks game, I decided to visit the College Football Hall of Fame. The Hall, established in 1951, is an impressive facility honoring the best of college football. It was late in the day so I only had time to search for former players and coaches from Arizona State University and the University of Michigan. Predictably, Michigan dominated ASU but the Sun Devils had a handful of player and moments enshrined at the Hall. For example, Pat Tillman, former Sun Devil standout and Army Ranger, was prominently honored. And there were photographs and a story about the 1996 19-0 shutout over #1 Nebraska in Tempe, which stopped the ‘Huskers 26 game win streak and helped prevent them from a third consecutive national championship.
I was actually looking forward to seeing the South Bend Silver Hawks, former team of CY Young winner Brandon Webb and Diamondbacks teammate Justin Upton. Minor league baseball is great, especially single-A and double-A. These are the only games you will ever attend where you can occasionally find 25 cent hot dog or 25 cent beer night. Not tonight, though. This night was Cow Bell Night, a promotion for the first 1,500 fans, and it was also Friday Fireworks. I’d rather scarf down four dogs for a buck but that was the day before, so a cow bell and explosives would have to do.
With my tremendous luck, the rain started to fall as I pulled into the parking lot at Coveleski Stadium, ten minutes prior to the first pitch. With camera in hand, I strolled up to the counter to purchase a $5.00 ticket but the lady said the gates were already open and I could go in. It didn’t occur to me what this meant until I walked in the park and realized the game started an hour earlier. South Bend is EST…not CST as the clerk suggested. It didn’t matter, though, because within less than one minute of being in the park, lightening appeared and the game was postponed. I didn’t stick around to wait the storm out, I had a ten hour drive the next day and I needed some rest.
-----------------------
As I carefully navigated the I-80 in heavy rain, I asked myself why I was breaking the link in my trip for the US Open. The only answer I could conjure up was I clearly love golf that much…but all I really wanted to do was give Billy Mayfair, a local Phoenix boy, a “go Devils and go Papago!” shout out (future story).
My body and mind were well rested and I was giving the road my full concentration when I hit a puddle and lost traction for a second. Being the superior driver I am, I quickly recovered, smiled and complimented myself on great skills. Just then I lost traction again but was never able to recover. My car slid sideways, perpendicular to the road, for a few seconds, and then I turned another 90 degrees and was actually going backwards …at 60 mph. I recall saying, “This isn’t going to end well,” as the traffic behind me (now in front of me) kept pace. At this point, there really wasn’t much I could do. With no skid to turn into, and incapable of braking, I sat back and thought about the huge piece of pizza I had in Chicago a few days ago.
At 8:52 a.m., my car plowed head first into the concrete wall and bounced back in the left lane. A truck was fast approaching and I thought things were about to get ugly, but they didn’t. The semi, and all oncoming traffic, sped around me like they were on the Ozark Autobahn, and no one had the good nature to stop. Somehow my car restarted and I drove over my bumper and the other debris and back into the concrete wall. The car then died for good.
More amazing than not getting creamed by big rig or rolling in the five foot embankment on the right side of the interstate, I was in a rental car heading east for New York in less than two hours, 1:46 minutes to be exact. The State Trooper was there within one minute, the tow truck within three and now I have a functioning CD player.
NEXT STOP: US Open…and Billy Mayfair.
Links:
Photos: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=5926&id=1684643878&op=6
College Football Hall of Fame: http://www.collegefootball.org/
South Bend Silver Hawks: http://southbend.silverhawks.milb.com/index.jsp?sid=t550
Lexus: http://www.lexus.com/
University of Notre Dame: http://www.nd.edu/
University of Michigan: http://www.umich.edu/
Arizona State University: http://www.asu.edu/
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Wrigley Field; The Curse of the Billy Goat, and Superdawgs…the best dog in the universe.
Part Eleven...
Part Eleven
Sponsored by
MOBILE WASH LLC
http://mobilewashaz.com/
“The Cubs ain’t gonna win no more. The Cubs will never win a World Series so long as a goat is not allowed in Wrigley Field.”
–William “Billy” Sainis, 1945
CHICAGO— More important than the history of nearly 100 years of baseball, the legendary scoreboard, and the charming ivy covering the brick outfield walls, Wrigley Field was home to the single greatest event in the history of professional sports: The Curse of the Billy Goat.
In 1945, according to legend, William “Billy” Sainis, a Greek immigrant and owner of Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago, cursed the Cubs eternally for not allowing his goat, Billy, entrance to game 4 of the 1945 World Series versus the Detroit Tigers…a reasonable request, in my opinion. While the actual accounts surrounding the curse are not completely clear, one thing is certain: The Cubs have not on a World Series since, and if you believe the curse like I do; they never will as long as they discriminate against law-abiding goats.
This wonderful curse seems to rears its ugly head every year the Cubs fail to make it to the World Series, which seems fairly common these days. …And for that, I thank you, Chicago. Not because I don’t like the Cubs --I’m 100% indifferent -- but because anything that involves a curse AND a “stinky” goat is gold!
I’ve never really looked into the details of what I used to think was a myth, but since I was going to at the scene of the crime (guilty), I decided to spend thirty minutes on Wikipedia, the website of the Billy Goat Tavern and a few other credible (not really) websites to come to my own conclusion. And my hypothesis: The Chicago Cubs, specifically P.K. Wrigley, mishandled the situation and deserve to lose until they officially adopt a goat as their mascot.
By the way, the exchange in 1945, according to the Billy Goat Tavern website, went something like this.
An usher: (Stopping Sainis and his goat) “No animals allowed!”
Billy Sainis: (Frustrated, appeals to Cubs owner, P.K. Wrigley)
P.K. Wrigley: “Let Billy in, but not the goat”
Billy Sainis: “Why not the goat?”
P.K Wrigley: “Because the goat stinks.”
Billy Sainis: (Peeved as all get out) “The Cubs ain’t gonna win no more. The Cubs will never win a World Series so long as a goat is not allowed in Wrigley Field.”
After the Cubs lost game four 4-1, Sainis purportedly sent a brilliantly composed telegram to P.K. Wrigley that read, “Who stinks now?!” Enough said!
The Cubs eventually lost the World Series in seven games and haven’t won a championship since.
Do I believe in something as illogical as a curse? Of course …Why wouldn’t I? Who am I to question a goat and his handler? And, for the record, if I’m going to believe in the curse, I’m going to trust the goat was also sincerely upset over the actions by P.K. Wrigley, as Billy Sainis alleged.
The passion of Billy Sainis is evident everywhere in Chicago, a city were championships used to be commonplace. This is a place where fans love to express their obsession for the game, and that includes all demographics. During my visit, the cross-town “South Siders” (White Sox) were playing an inter-league game against the Cubbies. Knowing the fervor was going to be rich, I had my stupid note pad and pencil ready to document the bitter exchanges. Here are a few:
Drunken male Sox fan: “The Cubs are (expletive) and they can (expletive) a (expletive)!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “I hope someone sucker punches that idiot...”
Drunken male Cubs fan: “Shove a (expletive) up your (expletive), you (expletive)”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “This is nuts…”
Drunken female Sox fan: “(Double expletive), you’re an (expletive) and you have a (expletive)for a brain, you (expletive)!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “That chick is foul, but I like it…”
Drunken male Cubs fan: “Shut your (expletive) face or I’ll smash your (expletive) mouth to(expletive), got it?!!!”
Sober male Sox fan: “HEY, watch your mouth; there are women and children here, you(expletive)!”
Me: (Whispering quietly)”Wow, he just defended the kids but dropped a (expletive) bomb!
Sober older female Cubs fan: “Up yours!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “That lady is like 65 yrs old. Nice!”
And that was all at 12:38p.m.on the bus to the stadium. I knew things wouldn’t get much better at the stadium, and I couldn’t wait. I was like a child at Christmas, waiting for my little brother to look at a neatly wrapped gift and say, “To Andrew, from Santa.”
I arrived at the stadium, geeked up and ready to see a fist fight, just minutes before the first pitch; I grabbed an ice cold Old Style, a local favorite in Chicago, scanned the crowds for anything weird and interesting, and then found my seat in the Upper deck with thousands of fanatical Chicagoans. To my surprise, the visiting Sox had a sizable fan base, clad in black Sox garb, and they were loud and critical of the Cubs, their own team and, for no reason, someone hated the beer vendor.
Vendor: “ICE COLD BEER…ICE COLD BEER HERE!”
Male Sox fan: “Hey, (expletive), over here!”
Vendor: (Turns around) “WHERE? WHO WANTED A BEER?”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “oh man, this is priceless…”
Male Sox fan: (Stands up and waves) “Over here, (expletive) face!”
Vendor: “WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM?!”
Male Sox fan: “My (expletive) problem is I’m dying of thirst!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “Sweet, a fight…”
Vendor: “NO PROBLEM. THAT’LL BE $6.50!”
Male Sox fan: “Great! Thanks!”
Vendor: “MY PLEASURE!”
Male Sox fan: (As vendor walks away) “Stupid (expletive)”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “I would’ve paid $50.00 to see them throw hooks…”
Apparently the White Sox fans in my section were not just unhappy with the beer vendor; they also had serious issues with Paul Konerko, Sox 1st baseman. I overheard this from people sitting to my right:
Female Sox fan: “YOU SUCK, PAUL!”
Male Sox fan: “YEAH, GO BACK TO DOUBLE-A!!!”
Me: (Quietly encouraging an outraged fan) “Heard someone say Konerko is a bum. Is that true?”
Female Sox fan: “YEAH, YOU’RE A BUM, PAULY!!!”
Male Sox fan: “A BUM, PAULY, A BUM!!!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “Oh man, you gotta be kidding me…”
Male Sox fan: “(EXPLETIVE), PAUL … YOU ARE AN (EXPLETIVE) AND YOU LOOK LIKE A DONKEY!!!”
Me: (Quietly encouraging an outraged fan) “Ever notice he runs like a rhinoceros…”
Female fan: “YOU’RE A RHINO’S (EXPLETTIVE)!!!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “Awesome…I want more”
I was having the time of my life; it doesn’t get any better than this…I knew Chicago was going to have a knowledgeable but tough fan base, but this exceeded my expectations. The only thing I was missing was an all out brawl, old school Chicago style. That wouldn’t happen in my presence, unfortunately, but I’m sure somewhere in the stadium there were plenty of fisticuffs occurring.
The Cubs looked disinterested and extremely sleepy during the game, and the fans were none too happy. Sox fan may be a little rough around the edges when it comes to their zeal but Cub fan can hold their own, too.
Milton Bradley, Cubs right fielder, is not a fan favorite in my section.
Male Cub fan: “Hey, Bradley, you run like your (expletive) right leg is shorter than your left!!!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “Lame…”
Female Cub fan: (Bradley takes a strike) “Way to watch the ball you (expletive). What the(expletive) is your problem!”
Male Cub fan: “Trade ‘em, NOW!!!”
Male Cub fan: “What are you thinking Bradley?!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “Sox fan is much louder. What’s wrong with Cub fan…?”
Male Cub fan: “Stick to board games, Bradley!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “Better…”
Male Cub fan: “I HATE YOU BRADLEY!!!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “Now we’re talking…”
Male Cub fan: “(DOUBLE EXPLETIVE) YOU (EXPLETIVE) AND YOU CAN (EXPLETIVE) FORVER!!!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) Awesome...”
Male Cub fan: “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”
Me: (Whispering quietly)” I think that guys head is going to explode…”
The White Sox won with the help of a couple Cubs blunders, and a tremendous pitching effort by Danks. Danks went 7 innings, gave up 1 earned run on 5 hits and struck out 9, and Sox fan let Cub fan have an earful.
I left Wrigley Field thoroughly entertained and impressed with the condition of the 96 year old stadium. My favorite part of the stadium, aside from the crazed fans, was the manual scoreboard. Unlike every stadium I’ve visited, Wrigley doesn’t have a humongous scoreboard flashing player stats, instant replays and ketchup, mustard and relish races during the 7th inning stretch. Nope, it’s just pure baseball without any distractions, save for the 5,000 expletives I heard.
When you own a small business in Chicago, you have to be very careful about publicly declaring your allegiance to the Sox or Cubs. For example, I was desperate for a haircut and decided to go to a small barbershop down the street from my hotel. The place was nondescript, but my conversation was as colorful as the red, white and blue barber’s pole out front.
Barber: “Have a seat, young man.”
Me: “Morning.
Barber: “Morning.”
Me: “You like the Cubs or Sox?”
Barber: “Depends, who do you like?”
Me: “Arizona.”
Barber: “Arizona? Then why did you ask?”
Me: “Just curious.”
Barber: (Mumbles as he nicks my ear with clippers) “White Sox, but don’t tell no one.”
Me: “Why?”
Barber: “I’ve had people yell at me and walk out when they found out I like the Sox.”
Me: “I promise I won’t tell anyone…unless you give me a bad haircut, then all bets are off.”
Barber: “That’s not funny!”
Me: “I was just joking…easy. Besides, who am I going to tell? I live in Arizona and no one there cares about the Cubs or Sox.”
Barber: “That’s not funny; people get hurt talking that way.” (He starts jamming the clippers into the back of my head)
Me: (inaudible)
Barber: “What?”
Me: “I said, ‘not too much off the back …just wanted a trim.'”
Barber: “You said to round off the back, right?”
Me: “Yes, but…”
Barber: “I’m rounding it off.”
Me: (inaudible)
Barber: “Here, take a look.” (Hands me the mirror as her turns the chair around)
Me: (Thinking about the “people get hurt” comment) “Sweet! Looks fantastic!”
Barber: “That enough or you want more off?”
Me: (My hairline is now about 4” above the normal place) “No thanks. I’m in a hurry. Where can I get the best Chicago dog in town?”
Barber: “Superdawg. Just down the road that way.” (Points that way)
Me: “Yeah, I’ve seen that place on TV, supposed to be the best in Chicago.”
Barber: “That’s what I told you a second ago, son!”
Me: (inaudible)
The barber, despite giving me a reverse bowl haircut, was spot on about Superdawg. Superdawg, built in 1948, is a drive-in restaurant and Chicago legend. At 11:00a.m., the parking lot was filled with cars and the walk-up window had a long line of hungry patrons waiting their fix. At a price of $4.95, the Superdawg with Superfries is the best value in the world.
NEXT STOP: South Bend Silver Hawks (Diamondbacks single-A affiliate)
Links:
Photos: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=5893&id=1684643878&op=6
Wrigley Field: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/chc/ballpark/index.jsp
Chicago Cubs: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=chc
Superdawg: http://www.superdawg.com/
Old Style Beer: http://www.oldstylebeer.com/
Part Eleven
Sponsored by
MOBILE WASH LLC
http://mobilewashaz.com/
“The Cubs ain’t gonna win no more. The Cubs will never win a World Series so long as a goat is not allowed in Wrigley Field.”
–William “Billy” Sainis, 1945
CHICAGO— More important than the history of nearly 100 years of baseball, the legendary scoreboard, and the charming ivy covering the brick outfield walls, Wrigley Field was home to the single greatest event in the history of professional sports: The Curse of the Billy Goat.
In 1945, according to legend, William “Billy” Sainis, a Greek immigrant and owner of Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago, cursed the Cubs eternally for not allowing his goat, Billy, entrance to game 4 of the 1945 World Series versus the Detroit Tigers…a reasonable request, in my opinion. While the actual accounts surrounding the curse are not completely clear, one thing is certain: The Cubs have not on a World Series since, and if you believe the curse like I do; they never will as long as they discriminate against law-abiding goats.
This wonderful curse seems to rears its ugly head every year the Cubs fail to make it to the World Series, which seems fairly common these days. …And for that, I thank you, Chicago. Not because I don’t like the Cubs --I’m 100% indifferent -- but because anything that involves a curse AND a “stinky” goat is gold!
I’ve never really looked into the details of what I used to think was a myth, but since I was going to at the scene of the crime (guilty), I decided to spend thirty minutes on Wikipedia, the website of the Billy Goat Tavern and a few other credible (not really) websites to come to my own conclusion. And my hypothesis: The Chicago Cubs, specifically P.K. Wrigley, mishandled the situation and deserve to lose until they officially adopt a goat as their mascot.
By the way, the exchange in 1945, according to the Billy Goat Tavern website, went something like this.
An usher: (Stopping Sainis and his goat) “No animals allowed!”
Billy Sainis: (Frustrated, appeals to Cubs owner, P.K. Wrigley)
P.K. Wrigley: “Let Billy in, but not the goat”
Billy Sainis: “Why not the goat?”
P.K Wrigley: “Because the goat stinks.”
Billy Sainis: (Peeved as all get out) “The Cubs ain’t gonna win no more. The Cubs will never win a World Series so long as a goat is not allowed in Wrigley Field.”
After the Cubs lost game four 4-1, Sainis purportedly sent a brilliantly composed telegram to P.K. Wrigley that read, “Who stinks now?!” Enough said!
The Cubs eventually lost the World Series in seven games and haven’t won a championship since.
Do I believe in something as illogical as a curse? Of course …Why wouldn’t I? Who am I to question a goat and his handler? And, for the record, if I’m going to believe in the curse, I’m going to trust the goat was also sincerely upset over the actions by P.K. Wrigley, as Billy Sainis alleged.
The passion of Billy Sainis is evident everywhere in Chicago, a city were championships used to be commonplace. This is a place where fans love to express their obsession for the game, and that includes all demographics. During my visit, the cross-town “South Siders” (White Sox) were playing an inter-league game against the Cubbies. Knowing the fervor was going to be rich, I had my stupid note pad and pencil ready to document the bitter exchanges. Here are a few:
Drunken male Sox fan: “The Cubs are (expletive) and they can (expletive) a (expletive)!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “I hope someone sucker punches that idiot...”
Drunken male Cubs fan: “Shove a (expletive) up your (expletive), you (expletive)”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “This is nuts…”
Drunken female Sox fan: “(Double expletive), you’re an (expletive) and you have a (expletive)for a brain, you (expletive)!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “That chick is foul, but I like it…”
Drunken male Cubs fan: “Shut your (expletive) face or I’ll smash your (expletive) mouth to(expletive), got it?!!!”
Sober male Sox fan: “HEY, watch your mouth; there are women and children here, you(expletive)!”
Me: (Whispering quietly)”Wow, he just defended the kids but dropped a (expletive) bomb!
Sober older female Cubs fan: “Up yours!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “That lady is like 65 yrs old. Nice!”
And that was all at 12:38p.m.on the bus to the stadium. I knew things wouldn’t get much better at the stadium, and I couldn’t wait. I was like a child at Christmas, waiting for my little brother to look at a neatly wrapped gift and say, “To Andrew, from Santa.”
I arrived at the stadium, geeked up and ready to see a fist fight, just minutes before the first pitch; I grabbed an ice cold Old Style, a local favorite in Chicago, scanned the crowds for anything weird and interesting, and then found my seat in the Upper deck with thousands of fanatical Chicagoans. To my surprise, the visiting Sox had a sizable fan base, clad in black Sox garb, and they were loud and critical of the Cubs, their own team and, for no reason, someone hated the beer vendor.
Vendor: “ICE COLD BEER…ICE COLD BEER HERE!”
Male Sox fan: “Hey, (expletive), over here!”
Vendor: (Turns around) “WHERE? WHO WANTED A BEER?”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “oh man, this is priceless…”
Male Sox fan: (Stands up and waves) “Over here, (expletive) face!”
Vendor: “WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM?!”
Male Sox fan: “My (expletive) problem is I’m dying of thirst!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “Sweet, a fight…”
Vendor: “NO PROBLEM. THAT’LL BE $6.50!”
Male Sox fan: “Great! Thanks!”
Vendor: “MY PLEASURE!”
Male Sox fan: (As vendor walks away) “Stupid (expletive)”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “I would’ve paid $50.00 to see them throw hooks…”
Apparently the White Sox fans in my section were not just unhappy with the beer vendor; they also had serious issues with Paul Konerko, Sox 1st baseman. I overheard this from people sitting to my right:
Female Sox fan: “YOU SUCK, PAUL!”
Male Sox fan: “YEAH, GO BACK TO DOUBLE-A!!!”
Me: (Quietly encouraging an outraged fan) “Heard someone say Konerko is a bum. Is that true?”
Female Sox fan: “YEAH, YOU’RE A BUM, PAULY!!!”
Male Sox fan: “A BUM, PAULY, A BUM!!!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “Oh man, you gotta be kidding me…”
Male Sox fan: “(EXPLETIVE), PAUL … YOU ARE AN (EXPLETIVE) AND YOU LOOK LIKE A DONKEY!!!”
Me: (Quietly encouraging an outraged fan) “Ever notice he runs like a rhinoceros…”
Female fan: “YOU’RE A RHINO’S (EXPLETTIVE)!!!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “Awesome…I want more”
I was having the time of my life; it doesn’t get any better than this…I knew Chicago was going to have a knowledgeable but tough fan base, but this exceeded my expectations. The only thing I was missing was an all out brawl, old school Chicago style. That wouldn’t happen in my presence, unfortunately, but I’m sure somewhere in the stadium there were plenty of fisticuffs occurring.
The Cubs looked disinterested and extremely sleepy during the game, and the fans were none too happy. Sox fan may be a little rough around the edges when it comes to their zeal but Cub fan can hold their own, too.
Milton Bradley, Cubs right fielder, is not a fan favorite in my section.
Male Cub fan: “Hey, Bradley, you run like your (expletive) right leg is shorter than your left!!!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “Lame…”
Female Cub fan: (Bradley takes a strike) “Way to watch the ball you (expletive). What the(expletive) is your problem!”
Male Cub fan: “Trade ‘em, NOW!!!”
Male Cub fan: “What are you thinking Bradley?!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “Sox fan is much louder. What’s wrong with Cub fan…?”
Male Cub fan: “Stick to board games, Bradley!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “Better…”
Male Cub fan: “I HATE YOU BRADLEY!!!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) “Now we’re talking…”
Male Cub fan: “(DOUBLE EXPLETIVE) YOU (EXPLETIVE) AND YOU CAN (EXPLETIVE) FORVER!!!”
Me: (Whispering quietly) Awesome...”
Male Cub fan: “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”
Me: (Whispering quietly)” I think that guys head is going to explode…”
The White Sox won with the help of a couple Cubs blunders, and a tremendous pitching effort by Danks. Danks went 7 innings, gave up 1 earned run on 5 hits and struck out 9, and Sox fan let Cub fan have an earful.
I left Wrigley Field thoroughly entertained and impressed with the condition of the 96 year old stadium. My favorite part of the stadium, aside from the crazed fans, was the manual scoreboard. Unlike every stadium I’ve visited, Wrigley doesn’t have a humongous scoreboard flashing player stats, instant replays and ketchup, mustard and relish races during the 7th inning stretch. Nope, it’s just pure baseball without any distractions, save for the 5,000 expletives I heard.
When you own a small business in Chicago, you have to be very careful about publicly declaring your allegiance to the Sox or Cubs. For example, I was desperate for a haircut and decided to go to a small barbershop down the street from my hotel. The place was nondescript, but my conversation was as colorful as the red, white and blue barber’s pole out front.
Barber: “Have a seat, young man.”
Me: “Morning.
Barber: “Morning.”
Me: “You like the Cubs or Sox?”
Barber: “Depends, who do you like?”
Me: “Arizona.”
Barber: “Arizona? Then why did you ask?”
Me: “Just curious.”
Barber: (Mumbles as he nicks my ear with clippers) “White Sox, but don’t tell no one.”
Me: “Why?”
Barber: “I’ve had people yell at me and walk out when they found out I like the Sox.”
Me: “I promise I won’t tell anyone…unless you give me a bad haircut, then all bets are off.”
Barber: “That’s not funny!”
Me: “I was just joking…easy. Besides, who am I going to tell? I live in Arizona and no one there cares about the Cubs or Sox.”
Barber: “That’s not funny; people get hurt talking that way.” (He starts jamming the clippers into the back of my head)
Me: (inaudible)
Barber: “What?”
Me: “I said, ‘not too much off the back …just wanted a trim.'”
Barber: “You said to round off the back, right?”
Me: “Yes, but…”
Barber: “I’m rounding it off.”
Me: (inaudible)
Barber: “Here, take a look.” (Hands me the mirror as her turns the chair around)
Me: (Thinking about the “people get hurt” comment) “Sweet! Looks fantastic!”
Barber: “That enough or you want more off?”
Me: (My hairline is now about 4” above the normal place) “No thanks. I’m in a hurry. Where can I get the best Chicago dog in town?”
Barber: “Superdawg. Just down the road that way.” (Points that way)
Me: “Yeah, I’ve seen that place on TV, supposed to be the best in Chicago.”
Barber: “That’s what I told you a second ago, son!”
Me: (inaudible)
The barber, despite giving me a reverse bowl haircut, was spot on about Superdawg. Superdawg, built in 1948, is a drive-in restaurant and Chicago legend. At 11:00a.m., the parking lot was filled with cars and the walk-up window had a long line of hungry patrons waiting their fix. At a price of $4.95, the Superdawg with Superfries is the best value in the world.
NEXT STOP: South Bend Silver Hawks (Diamondbacks single-A affiliate)
Links:
Photos: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=5893&id=1684643878&op=6
Wrigley Field: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/chc/ballpark/index.jsp
Chicago Cubs: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=chc
Superdawg: http://www.superdawg.com/
Old Style Beer: http://www.oldstylebeer.com/
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Busch Stadium...and I freak out inside the Gateway Arch
Part Ten Sponsored by
MOBILE WASH LLC
http://mobilewashaz.com
Part ten...
ST. LOUIS— Approximately two hours before the start of the game, a sea of red assembled around the stadium, chatting about the Cardinals pending victory over the Detroit Tigers. Many fans were enjoying beverages from the brewer who sponsors the stadium, and basking in near perfect weather. Me, well, I was still trying to regain my composure from my ill-fated trip to the top of the St. Louis Gateway Arch. All I wanted was a handful of Xanax, morphine, or a stiff shot of Johnny Walker Blue, but I would have nothing and not like it.
A half hour earlier, I was on the phone with my brother Glenn, who was 800 miles away from the enormous structure, and he somehow convinced me to cram into a tiny 4’x4’ pod with four other people and ascend 630 feet to the top of the Arch, a four minute ride. And he was able to do this knowing I’m claustrophobic and afraid of heights…
Below the Gateway Arch is a massive museum, gift shop and a long line where people stand for twenty minutes to be voluntarily tortured and, like a follower, that’s where I could be found. Oddly, I completely suppressed my phobias –which also includes snakes, drowning, air travel, burning to death, mushrooms and onions—and was ready to see as far west as my eyes would allow. I coughed up $10.00, and was escorted by our guide, a kid half my age, who told us to follow her to the area where we would hitch a ride up the Arch. In my defense, I figured we would be riding up in an elevator with annoying Muzak, something I can do with ease. Had I known what was in store for me, I would’ve pretended to drop my brother’s call and turn the phone off for the rest of the night.
We were in eight lines, in groups of five, standing in front of doors that were the size of an elevator. As soon as they opened, I got my first glimpse of my eventual death, and the potential death of four others if I totally freaked out. I literally had to bend over and squeeze into this five seat, egg shaped vessel. The group was in, my folded legs were almost touching the opposite wall, and my shoulders were firmly pressed against the people on each side. My pod-mates were joking with each other about getting stuck halfway up the Arch, and I gaped out the still open door, telling myself to dive out before they closed …but I froze. As soon as the door closed, I freaked out. Within seconds, I was drenched with sweat, my lips quivered, my heart beating at1,000 BPM and I said out loud, “Oh no, I think I’m about to freak out!” The lady sitting next to me nearly jumped in her husbands lap and the pod went piercingly silent, for the entire trip.
I’m not sure what I did for the next four minutes but by the time we arrived at the top everyone was alive, but not in good spirits. I was first out, literally ran the twenty yards past all the windows, never looking down, and jumped back in a pod for the ride back down. The ride down was just as brutal as the ride up but I was alone in the pod, alone to curse myself for not getting out when I had the chance. My brother got an earful as soon as I was back on the ground. I shared the story with Los and Joe, too, and they all three came to the same conclusion: Andrew is a wimp!
The game was difficult for me: the Tigers are my number two team and I’m trying to enjoy the atmosphere of each game, rooting for the home team. In this case, I decided to remain neutral; I wouldn’t root for anyone in this inter-league game, just enjoy good baseball from two of the oldest franchises in the majors.
St. Louis has some of the best baseball fans I’ve ever seen. This was my only game here, and the fact the Cards are in a pennant may be a contributing factor but they cheered every play made by their team. Even when the Tigers were being battered with haymakers and uppercuts, the fans wanted more: They wanted a shutout. They wouldn’t get it, and they weren’t happy about it but the final score of 11-2 seemed to satisfy their blood thirsty appetites. I wish it wasn’t the Tigers playing in Busch Stadium that day because I missed out in the fun.
My position of Switzerland did afford me the opportunity to let my mind to wander through the history of St. Louis baseball, what I can remember reading. Sitting there watching two storied teams play in the open-air, downtown stadium; I seemed to have a baseball epiphany, a new appreciation for the ball of my father and his father’s generation. Oh man, if only I had been around to see the likes of Dizzy Dean, Stan Musial, Rogers Horsnby and Enos Slaughter.
It seems the further east I travel, the more baseball means to people, and this is very evident in St. Louis. The town is saturated with illustrations of how much they love their Cards. There are signs everywhere, people all over town wearing team garb, and most of the small talk I overheard appeared baseball related.
The design of Busch Stadium is brilliant. My seats were garbage seats and I still felt like I could reach out and touch the players. The menacing Gateway Arch is clearly visible beyond the outfield wall and a short walk from the stadium. The concourse had more concession stands than any stadium I’ve ever seen, which means very short lines between innings.
Busch Stadium is by far the best I’ve seen so far on my trip. I’m looking forward to Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York, Toronto, Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia and Boston, but if I had to wrap things up right now, I think I would be content.
NEXT STOP: Wrigley (June 18, 2009)
Links:
Photos http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/photo.php?pid=76030&id=1684643878
St. Louis Cardinals http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=stl
Busch Stadium http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/stl/ballpark/index.jsp
Gateway Arch http://www.gatewayarch.com/Arch/
MOBILE WASH LLC
http://mobilewashaz.com
Part ten...
ST. LOUIS— Approximately two hours before the start of the game, a sea of red assembled around the stadium, chatting about the Cardinals pending victory over the Detroit Tigers. Many fans were enjoying beverages from the brewer who sponsors the stadium, and basking in near perfect weather. Me, well, I was still trying to regain my composure from my ill-fated trip to the top of the St. Louis Gateway Arch. All I wanted was a handful of Xanax, morphine, or a stiff shot of Johnny Walker Blue, but I would have nothing and not like it.
A half hour earlier, I was on the phone with my brother Glenn, who was 800 miles away from the enormous structure, and he somehow convinced me to cram into a tiny 4’x4’ pod with four other people and ascend 630 feet to the top of the Arch, a four minute ride. And he was able to do this knowing I’m claustrophobic and afraid of heights…
Below the Gateway Arch is a massive museum, gift shop and a long line where people stand for twenty minutes to be voluntarily tortured and, like a follower, that’s where I could be found. Oddly, I completely suppressed my phobias –which also includes snakes, drowning, air travel, burning to death, mushrooms and onions—and was ready to see as far west as my eyes would allow. I coughed up $10.00, and was escorted by our guide, a kid half my age, who told us to follow her to the area where we would hitch a ride up the Arch. In my defense, I figured we would be riding up in an elevator with annoying Muzak, something I can do with ease. Had I known what was in store for me, I would’ve pretended to drop my brother’s call and turn the phone off for the rest of the night.
We were in eight lines, in groups of five, standing in front of doors that were the size of an elevator. As soon as they opened, I got my first glimpse of my eventual death, and the potential death of four others if I totally freaked out. I literally had to bend over and squeeze into this five seat, egg shaped vessel. The group was in, my folded legs were almost touching the opposite wall, and my shoulders were firmly pressed against the people on each side. My pod-mates were joking with each other about getting stuck halfway up the Arch, and I gaped out the still open door, telling myself to dive out before they closed …but I froze. As soon as the door closed, I freaked out. Within seconds, I was drenched with sweat, my lips quivered, my heart beating at1,000 BPM and I said out loud, “Oh no, I think I’m about to freak out!” The lady sitting next to me nearly jumped in her husbands lap and the pod went piercingly silent, for the entire trip.
I’m not sure what I did for the next four minutes but by the time we arrived at the top everyone was alive, but not in good spirits. I was first out, literally ran the twenty yards past all the windows, never looking down, and jumped back in a pod for the ride back down. The ride down was just as brutal as the ride up but I was alone in the pod, alone to curse myself for not getting out when I had the chance. My brother got an earful as soon as I was back on the ground. I shared the story with Los and Joe, too, and they all three came to the same conclusion: Andrew is a wimp!
The game was difficult for me: the Tigers are my number two team and I’m trying to enjoy the atmosphere of each game, rooting for the home team. In this case, I decided to remain neutral; I wouldn’t root for anyone in this inter-league game, just enjoy good baseball from two of the oldest franchises in the majors.
St. Louis has some of the best baseball fans I’ve ever seen. This was my only game here, and the fact the Cards are in a pennant may be a contributing factor but they cheered every play made by their team. Even when the Tigers were being battered with haymakers and uppercuts, the fans wanted more: They wanted a shutout. They wouldn’t get it, and they weren’t happy about it but the final score of 11-2 seemed to satisfy their blood thirsty appetites. I wish it wasn’t the Tigers playing in Busch Stadium that day because I missed out in the fun.
My position of Switzerland did afford me the opportunity to let my mind to wander through the history of St. Louis baseball, what I can remember reading. Sitting there watching two storied teams play in the open-air, downtown stadium; I seemed to have a baseball epiphany, a new appreciation for the ball of my father and his father’s generation. Oh man, if only I had been around to see the likes of Dizzy Dean, Stan Musial, Rogers Horsnby and Enos Slaughter.
It seems the further east I travel, the more baseball means to people, and this is very evident in St. Louis. The town is saturated with illustrations of how much they love their Cards. There are signs everywhere, people all over town wearing team garb, and most of the small talk I overheard appeared baseball related.
The design of Busch Stadium is brilliant. My seats were garbage seats and I still felt like I could reach out and touch the players. The menacing Gateway Arch is clearly visible beyond the outfield wall and a short walk from the stadium. The concourse had more concession stands than any stadium I’ve ever seen, which means very short lines between innings.
Busch Stadium is by far the best I’ve seen so far on my trip. I’m looking forward to Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York, Toronto, Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia and Boston, but if I had to wrap things up right now, I think I would be content.
NEXT STOP: Wrigley (June 18, 2009)
Links:
Photos http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/photo.php?pid=76030&id=1684643878
St. Louis Cardinals http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=stl
Busch Stadium http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/stl/ballpark/index.jsp
Gateway Arch http://www.gatewayarch.com/Arch/
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Random notes from the road…Missouri has fast drivers; I get sick from leaf tobacco & I think my motel is a brothel
Part nine...
Part Nine Sponsored by
ONE PRICE EYEWEAR
http://onepriceeyewear.com
ST. LOUIS – The drive from Kansas City to St. Louis was most excellent! The posted speed limit is 70 but it could’ve been 95, because that’s how fast everyone was driving…including me! To my surprise, the good people of Missouri know how to drive at high rates of speed while being safe at the same time. They really should change the name of I-70 to the Ozark Autobahn or the Redneck Express. My GPS calculated the trip at exactly 4 hours but at this rate, I figured I could make it in 3 hrs and change. And that’s with one quick stop, too!
Time was flying, a compilation of ZZ Top, 38 Special and The Charlie Daniels Band blared from my radio, and I was calling everyone I could to brag about my awe-inspiring lunch at Gates BBQ. Normally my drive time is spent evoking baseball memories for the next stop but this was different, this was too fun. So much fun, actually, I decided it was time to start chewing leaf tobacco, just like baseball players.
Like a Formula One driver, I shot down the off ramp, made a quick right, and used both feet to brake as I reached my pit stop, a place called the Ozark Gift Shop. I jammed the fuel nozzle in my car, sprinted inside with great excitement, grabbed a Gatorade and asked for a package of Redman. The lady behind the counter looked at me like I was crazy and turned my two minute stop into an eternity.
Weird lady: “Ain’t sure we got that.”
Me: “Yes you do, I see it right there.” (I point to it)
WL: “Oh, that’s (mumble)”
Me: “That’s what I want.”
WL: “You sure ya want that?”
Me: “Yeah, I’m sure…why?”
WL: “’Cause that’s been here awhile.”
Me: “I don’t care.”
WL: “Sometimes it gets old if it sits too long.”
Me: “That’s perfectly fine. I’ll take my chances.”
WL “You got some identification?”
Me: “I’m 40 but sure.”
WL: “Don’t matter how old ya are, we card everybody.”
Me: “Fair enough, here you are.” (I hand her my license)
WL: “You from Arizona?”
Me: “Yes I am.”
WL: “You’re a long ways from home.”
Me: “Yes, I’m aware of that. Listen, I don’t mean to be rude but I’m kind of in a hurry.”
WL: “Watcha in a hurry for?”
Me: “Nothing.”
WL: “Then why the rush?”
Me: “The traffic…”
WL: “What ‘bout the traffic?”
Me: “I don’t want to miss out on the fast traffic.”
WL: “How’s that?”
Me: “I was making record time…traffic was really moving and I’m afraid it was a fluke. I just need to get back on the road.”
WL: “You know you can only be in the left lane to pass…you gotta stay in the right lane otherwise.”
Me: “Yes, I saw those signs, thank you.”
WL: (She studies my license like it’s a fake)
Me: “Is there a problem?”
WL: “Could be.”
Me: “What? What do you mean?”
WL: “This don’t expire ‘till 2033. Bill, ya know anything about Arizona license?” (She talks with her coworker)
Bill: “Sure don’t…why?”
WL: “This thing don’t expire ‘till 2033. We’ll all be dead by then.” (WL and Bill share a strange laugh)
Me: “That’s the way we do things in the desert.”
WL: “Hear it gets real hot down there.”
Me: “Yep.”
WL: “It’s a dry heat, right?”
Me: “Seriously, can we please wrap this up?”
WL: “You know you get a price break if you buy three Gatorades.”
Me: “Yes, the sign was very clear about that. I’m only interested in this bottle of Gatorade and the Redman.”
WL: “Saving money is saving money.”
Me: “(inaudible)”
WL: “That’ll be $6.59.”
Me: (Hand her my credit card which she carefully examines like an Inspector from Scotland Yard)
WL: (she hands me back my card and license) “You know this stuff will kill you?”
Me: “I know”
WL: “Then why you chewing it?”
Me: “I’m not too bright.”
WL: “Yep.”
Eight minutes later, I dashed from Deliverance II, jumped in my rig and stepped on the accelerator like a man possessed by delicious, leafy tobacco.
Exactly fifteen minutes later, I almost barfed in my car. Redman was a bad decision, even though it was carefully planned and well thought out. It had been nearly 25 years since I tried the stuff, back when I was playing baseball in high school, and as I tried to keep my lunch down, I remembered I actually did barf from it when I was fifteen.
After powering down my Gatorade, an aspirin and three Imodium, I recovered and set my sights back on the road and the Southern rock that seemed to be on every station. I was doing much better.
An hour later, the British babe from my GPS barked at me to “turn left, turn left, turn left,” as I passed my exit in North St. Louis. I told her to back off but she didn’t listen, she never does. “In 2 miles make a u-turn and exit the motorway,” she demanded. “Turn right, turn right, and destination on the right.” I complied and coasted to the lobby of the worst accommodations I have ever seen in my life.
My motel looked like a giant pile of cat vomit. I didn’t know anything about St. Louis and, as usual, I made my reservations on hotels.com the day prior to my arrival but this was a shock…even worse than the disgusting, leafy tobacco.
The first thing I noticed in the lobby was a sign posted on the bullet proof glass separating me from the clerk. The sign was clear: NO VISITORS AND NO GUESTS! I naturally asked the clerk why I couldn’t have any guests or visitors.
Me: “Um, why can’t I have a visitor or a guest over?”
Clerk: “No bring hookers here!”
Me: “Hookers?
Clerk: “Yeah, no bring hookers here!”
Me: “What in the hell are you talking about?!
Clerk: “You no bring hookers here!!!”
Me: “Listen Dude, do not yell at me or we’re going have a problem, and what kind of friggin’ place are you running here?!”
Clerk: “You no yell at me!”
Me: “(expletive)"
Clerk: “You got reservation!!!”
Me: “Unfortunately I do AND it’s nonrefundable, so I guess we’re stuck together.”
Clerk: “You only one key.”
Me: “Come again?”
Clerk: “You only one key and only you stay here.”
Me: “Believe me; I won’t be here very much.”
Clerk: “You no make loud noise. You be quite here!
Me: “Just give me the key, and I need 6:00 a.m. wakeup call.”
Clerk: “No wakeup call!”
Me: “Whatever, dude.”
The interior of the motel was dark and smelled like steamed cabbage, with the expectation of my room which smelled liked a dead rat. My room had a TV, a bed, rusty bathroom fixtures, and a second floor view of an abandoned movie theater. The other side of the motel had more of the same, with the addition of a boarded up roller-skating rink where the local hobos seemed to enjoy flopping. This place was a dive! There were shoes hanging from the power line in the parking lot, an indicator drugs were being sold from the property, and it’s never a complete train wreck without the mandatory crazy lady throwing her possessions in the dumpster and screaming something about someone being a (double expletive)…I had that, too.
There wasn’t anything redeeming about my current accommodation; this wasn’t the Palace Flophouse in Cannery Row. I wouldn’t be hanging out with Mack and the boys, sipping Old Tennis Shoe Whiskey and planning a surprise birthday party for Doc. Nope, this was skid row and the only thing I would be planning is my escape route in the event I was mugged by a pimp.
All eyes were on me as I walked through the lobby with my trusty 7 iron, my favorite choice of protection on the road. The clerk started to yell in my direction, probably something like “No golf clubs allowed!” but I breezed by him, turned the corner and made the long walk to my room.
I wasn’t going to let my poor due diligence sway my impression of St. Louis before I had an opportunity to see the city and stadium. After all, I did see the photos of the room the day before and I was pretty sure they were touched up with Photoshop…or of another property all together. And the $40.00 rate was simply too good to be true.
NEXT STOP: Busch Stadium (June 16, 2009)
Part Nine Sponsored by
ONE PRICE EYEWEAR
http://onepriceeyewear.com
ST. LOUIS – The drive from Kansas City to St. Louis was most excellent! The posted speed limit is 70 but it could’ve been 95, because that’s how fast everyone was driving…including me! To my surprise, the good people of Missouri know how to drive at high rates of speed while being safe at the same time. They really should change the name of I-70 to the Ozark Autobahn or the Redneck Express. My GPS calculated the trip at exactly 4 hours but at this rate, I figured I could make it in 3 hrs and change. And that’s with one quick stop, too!
Time was flying, a compilation of ZZ Top, 38 Special and The Charlie Daniels Band blared from my radio, and I was calling everyone I could to brag about my awe-inspiring lunch at Gates BBQ. Normally my drive time is spent evoking baseball memories for the next stop but this was different, this was too fun. So much fun, actually, I decided it was time to start chewing leaf tobacco, just like baseball players.
Like a Formula One driver, I shot down the off ramp, made a quick right, and used both feet to brake as I reached my pit stop, a place called the Ozark Gift Shop. I jammed the fuel nozzle in my car, sprinted inside with great excitement, grabbed a Gatorade and asked for a package of Redman. The lady behind the counter looked at me like I was crazy and turned my two minute stop into an eternity.
Weird lady: “Ain’t sure we got that.”
Me: “Yes you do, I see it right there.” (I point to it)
WL: “Oh, that’s (mumble)”
Me: “That’s what I want.”
WL: “You sure ya want that?”
Me: “Yeah, I’m sure…why?”
WL: “’Cause that’s been here awhile.”
Me: “I don’t care.”
WL: “Sometimes it gets old if it sits too long.”
Me: “That’s perfectly fine. I’ll take my chances.”
WL “You got some identification?”
Me: “I’m 40 but sure.”
WL: “Don’t matter how old ya are, we card everybody.”
Me: “Fair enough, here you are.” (I hand her my license)
WL: “You from Arizona?”
Me: “Yes I am.”
WL: “You’re a long ways from home.”
Me: “Yes, I’m aware of that. Listen, I don’t mean to be rude but I’m kind of in a hurry.”
WL: “Watcha in a hurry for?”
Me: “Nothing.”
WL: “Then why the rush?”
Me: “The traffic…”
WL: “What ‘bout the traffic?”
Me: “I don’t want to miss out on the fast traffic.”
WL: “How’s that?”
Me: “I was making record time…traffic was really moving and I’m afraid it was a fluke. I just need to get back on the road.”
WL: “You know you can only be in the left lane to pass…you gotta stay in the right lane otherwise.”
Me: “Yes, I saw those signs, thank you.”
WL: (She studies my license like it’s a fake)
Me: “Is there a problem?”
WL: “Could be.”
Me: “What? What do you mean?”
WL: “This don’t expire ‘till 2033. Bill, ya know anything about Arizona license?” (She talks with her coworker)
Bill: “Sure don’t…why?”
WL: “This thing don’t expire ‘till 2033. We’ll all be dead by then.” (WL and Bill share a strange laugh)
Me: “That’s the way we do things in the desert.”
WL: “Hear it gets real hot down there.”
Me: “Yep.”
WL: “It’s a dry heat, right?”
Me: “Seriously, can we please wrap this up?”
WL: “You know you get a price break if you buy three Gatorades.”
Me: “Yes, the sign was very clear about that. I’m only interested in this bottle of Gatorade and the Redman.”
WL: “Saving money is saving money.”
Me: “(inaudible)”
WL: “That’ll be $6.59.”
Me: (Hand her my credit card which she carefully examines like an Inspector from Scotland Yard)
WL: (she hands me back my card and license) “You know this stuff will kill you?”
Me: “I know”
WL: “Then why you chewing it?”
Me: “I’m not too bright.”
WL: “Yep.”
Eight minutes later, I dashed from Deliverance II, jumped in my rig and stepped on the accelerator like a man possessed by delicious, leafy tobacco.
Exactly fifteen minutes later, I almost barfed in my car. Redman was a bad decision, even though it was carefully planned and well thought out. It had been nearly 25 years since I tried the stuff, back when I was playing baseball in high school, and as I tried to keep my lunch down, I remembered I actually did barf from it when I was fifteen.
After powering down my Gatorade, an aspirin and three Imodium, I recovered and set my sights back on the road and the Southern rock that seemed to be on every station. I was doing much better.
An hour later, the British babe from my GPS barked at me to “turn left, turn left, turn left,” as I passed my exit in North St. Louis. I told her to back off but she didn’t listen, she never does. “In 2 miles make a u-turn and exit the motorway,” she demanded. “Turn right, turn right, and destination on the right.” I complied and coasted to the lobby of the worst accommodations I have ever seen in my life.
My motel looked like a giant pile of cat vomit. I didn’t know anything about St. Louis and, as usual, I made my reservations on hotels.com the day prior to my arrival but this was a shock…even worse than the disgusting, leafy tobacco.
The first thing I noticed in the lobby was a sign posted on the bullet proof glass separating me from the clerk. The sign was clear: NO VISITORS AND NO GUESTS! I naturally asked the clerk why I couldn’t have any guests or visitors.
Me: “Um, why can’t I have a visitor or a guest over?”
Clerk: “No bring hookers here!”
Me: “Hookers?
Clerk: “Yeah, no bring hookers here!”
Me: “What in the hell are you talking about?!
Clerk: “You no bring hookers here!!!”
Me: “Listen Dude, do not yell at me or we’re going have a problem, and what kind of friggin’ place are you running here?!”
Clerk: “You no yell at me!”
Me: “(expletive)"
Clerk: “You got reservation!!!”
Me: “Unfortunately I do AND it’s nonrefundable, so I guess we’re stuck together.”
Clerk: “You only one key.”
Me: “Come again?”
Clerk: “You only one key and only you stay here.”
Me: “Believe me; I won’t be here very much.”
Clerk: “You no make loud noise. You be quite here!
Me: “Just give me the key, and I need 6:00 a.m. wakeup call.”
Clerk: “No wakeup call!”
Me: “Whatever, dude.”
The interior of the motel was dark and smelled like steamed cabbage, with the expectation of my room which smelled liked a dead rat. My room had a TV, a bed, rusty bathroom fixtures, and a second floor view of an abandoned movie theater. The other side of the motel had more of the same, with the addition of a boarded up roller-skating rink where the local hobos seemed to enjoy flopping. This place was a dive! There were shoes hanging from the power line in the parking lot, an indicator drugs were being sold from the property, and it’s never a complete train wreck without the mandatory crazy lady throwing her possessions in the dumpster and screaming something about someone being a (double expletive)…I had that, too.
There wasn’t anything redeeming about my current accommodation; this wasn’t the Palace Flophouse in Cannery Row. I wouldn’t be hanging out with Mack and the boys, sipping Old Tennis Shoe Whiskey and planning a surprise birthday party for Doc. Nope, this was skid row and the only thing I would be planning is my escape route in the event I was mugged by a pimp.
All eyes were on me as I walked through the lobby with my trusty 7 iron, my favorite choice of protection on the road. The clerk started to yell in my direction, probably something like “No golf clubs allowed!” but I breezed by him, turned the corner and made the long walk to my room.
I wasn’t going to let my poor due diligence sway my impression of St. Louis before I had an opportunity to see the city and stadium. After all, I did see the photos of the room the day before and I was pretty sure they were touched up with Photoshop…or of another property all together. And the $40.00 rate was simply too good to be true.
NEXT STOP: Busch Stadium (June 16, 2009)
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
K.C. wins by 6; I lose $300.00 on a riverboat casino...and Gates BBQ
Part eight...
Part EightSponsored by
ONE PRICE EYEWEAR
http://onepriceeyewear.com
KANSAS CITY— The Kansas City Royals spanked the visiting Cincinnati Reds in an exciting inter-league game on Sunday at Kauffman Stadium, or the “New K” as they are now referring to it ... and I napped through the most exciting part of the game.
Kauffman Stadium, located a knuckleball throw from Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Kansas City Chiefs, was originally opened in 1972 as a baseball only stadium. What made Kauffman unique, relative to other sport complexes built in that period, was its sole-use approach. The majority of stadiums built between the 1960s and 1990s were designed as generic multi-sport compounds, offering little in the way of baseball appeal.
As the sixth-oldest baseball park in MLB, Kauffman Stadium, despite a current $250 million renovation, still shows the telltale signs of age. However, the field is in tremendous shape, the seats are comfortable, the concession stands, concourse and bathrooms are all updated, but no amount of money can change the original design. There isn’t anything wrong with the design, mind you, but after spending time in Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix and Denver, I have become accustomed to modern stadiums. The exception being Dodger Stadium, a park built in late 1950 in which I’ve developed a strange affinity.
I rolled into the massive parking lot at Kauffman Stadium, shared by the Chiefs and Royals, a few minutes before the Ump hollered, “Play ball!” I parked, tried to suppress all memories from the brutal 8 hr drive from Colorado Springs, put on sneakers and high-stepped it for the ticket booth. With my luck, the 1:10 game would be sold out, rained out, or a tornado would come ripping through the stadium and the game would be called, which wouldn’t necessarily make me unhappy.
I was drained from the lack of sleep the night before;(click for back story) my nerves were shot from almost taking out half the deer population in Colorado with my car, and I was confused by the radio preacher who ridiculed me for hours about being disobedient, and then offering his cash-for-penance program. The Reverend had me believing my short fuse, extreme slothfulness and Snoop Dogg were the primary reasons my CD player wasn’t working. On the other hand, the Lexus dealership told me using a homemade CD caused the problem…and they can fix it for $600.00. Neither one would be getting my money.
I was clearly ready for a long nap to calm my nerves, so a postponed game actually sounded rather appropriate.
As *reverse* luck would have it, there were plenty of tickets to go around for everybody, it was hotter than Hades and I didn’t see a funnel cloud, or any cloud, in the blue sky. However, I did see the scorching sun about ten feet above my head, tons of geeked up fans tailgating and making strange noises and simply acting like they were happy about something. Me, I wanted to be the first individual ever to dive head first off the top of the bowl shaped park and directly onto the steamy, concrete courtyard. Requiring too much work to climb that high, I resorted to grabbing a lukewarm adult beverage and parked it in an empty section in the third level on the third base side.
The first inning was peaceful --no one around to bother me-- as I took photos with my cell phone since Joe’s camera was broken, scribbled notes on a small note pad and hoped the game would end 1-0 so it would be over soon.
As I sat in the direct sunlight, sweating profusely while I cursed myself loudly for not applying sunscreen, Kauffman Stadium started to grow on me. I was having flashbacks of watching the Royals on TV, particularly the ’85 World Series versus their intrastate rivals the St. Louis Cardinals.
In that series, the Royals came back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Cardinals in game six on a questionable call at first base in the ninth inning, and then hammered the Cards 11-0 in game seven to win their first Championship.
Of all the great players and managers who have passed through Kansas City as a Royal, or during the Athletics short stay between moving from Philadelphia to Oakland (1955-1967), my most vivid memory, unfortunately, involves George Brett missing playing time in the 1980 World Series due to hemorrhoid flare-ups, allegedly.
Forget about Roger Maris, Whitey Herzog, Lou Piniella, Frank White, Brett Saberhagan, Bo Jackson, Johnny Damon and David Cone. Who cares about the infamous “Pine Tar Incident” with Brett at Yankee Stadium, or the six Royal Hall of Famers: Brett, Orlando Cepeda, Harmon Killebrew, Bob Lemon, Gaylord Perry and Joe Gordon?
For some reason I couldn’t get Brett's stupid hemorrhoid problem out of my mind, and it was starting to make me angry. I was twelve in 1980, and didn’t exactly know what a hemorrhoid was other than what my father told me. I remember feeling bad for Brett back then because he couldn’t play in the most important series of his life, but today I'm irate I can't get that out of my head and concentrate on the game and stadium.
My mind was wandering to a strange place as I dozed off for a much needed siesta. After a full inning, I was jolted back to reality, to my horror, by a pack of wild, double-fisting, Royal fans, who somehow found their way right behind me. They cheered for someone from their team who was rounding third and heading home. I wasn’t sure who it was and I didn’t care, I just wanted to find my hotel and sleep for the next 12 hours.
Kansas City is a cool town with tons of great western history and, more important, awesome BBQ. I’ve never had authentic K.C. BBQ but I’ve seen and read enough about it to get myself psyched up for the real deal, after a nap.
My GPS ran me in circles for half an hour before I finally found my interstate-side motel, a $45.00 dump I found on hotels.com. I checked in, asked the clerk important questions like, “who has the best BBQ in town and where can I find it? May I get a room that isn’t four feet from I-70? And how many murders have you had at this property in the past year?” The kind lady responded with “Gates BBQ is the best in town and it’s just past the casino …no you may not …and what kind of question is that?”
Gates BBQ... my Mecca. I’ve heard of Gates before and I was so pumped to try it, I decided to get some beef ribs before my nap. Nothing was going to get between me and lip smacking, old school K.C. ribs.
The drive to Gates BBQ was five miles, a quick excursion. I could be there, throw back some grub, and be in bed in less than an hour. As I was zipping through town, just past the Missouri River, my car inexplicably made a sharp left at the Harrah’s Casino and two minutes later I was sitting at a Three-Card Poker table chewing the fat with Mike, Amanda, Loretta and Emmett, and I was already giving the dealer, James, a hard time about him getting his legs broken after I cleaned out the house.
My third hand was triple threes, which paid me $400.00, easy money! To quote Kenny Rogers in the Gambler “…you got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away and know when to run…” I was up, had house money and it was time to run, so I got up and ran…three hours later and $300.00 lighter.
I place 100% of the blame of my misfortune on a cute cocktail waitress named Kelly, who wouldn’t stop coming by the table. Had she been ugly or inattentive, I would’ve had the audacity to grab my $400.00 worth of green poker chips and bolt for the door, but the scoundrels who run the place somehow overpowered my will with a babe.
While the thought of losing $700.00 ($400.00 from the house and $300.00 from my wallet) really chaps my hide, I did enjoy the conversation with my degenerate gambling tablemates. The table was loud when we were pulling straights and flushes, and eerily silent whenever the dealer smiled, which always seems to occur right before it’s time to leave.
By the time I left the sadistic casino, dejected and full of self-loathing, Gates BBQ was closed and I was broke. I made a vow to never step foot in a casino again, EVER!
That night was the 3rd worst night of sleep on my trip. In between being jarred awake by the sounds of semis doing 100mph right past my window, a violent thunder storm and the guy in the next room pounding on the wall from my insane snoring problem, I had a dream I won $59,000 from Harrah’s and the pit boss broke James’ legs. Ah, sweet revenge.
I woke up without being murdered, checked out of the dump, and made a beeline for Gates BBQ. As I passed the casino, I casually rolled down the window and gave ‘em a friendly “thumbs up” …only I didn’t use my thumb.
The lady inside Gates BBQ smiled and greeted me warmly. She slowly asked how I was doing and she seemed genuine. I told her I was doing much better now I was finally there, and we chatted for a few minutes about the menu and the history of Gates. As she took me through the ordering process, I totally forgot about the long drive to K.C., the game and my gambling loses.
She took me to the window where you place your order and recommend the beef ribs with extra sauce. I took her advice, grabbed my meal and sat down with the rest of the lunch crowd. The patrons didn’t seem to be interested in gossip or small talk; they seemed content to focus on whatever it was on their plates, me included.
NEXT STOP: St. Louis (June 16, 2009)
Links for story & photos:
Photos: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=5706&id=1684643878
K.C.: http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=kc
Kauffman Stadium: http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/kc/ballpark/index.jsp
Famous people with hemorrhoids: http://www.hemorrhoidsinplainenglish.com/hemorrhoid/famous-people.htm
Gates BBQ: http://www.gatesbbq.com/
Harrah’s: http://www.harrahsnkc.com/casinos/harrahs-north-kansas-city/hotel-casino/property-home.shtml
Part EightSponsored by
ONE PRICE EYEWEAR
http://onepriceeyewear.com
KANSAS CITY— The Kansas City Royals spanked the visiting Cincinnati Reds in an exciting inter-league game on Sunday at Kauffman Stadium, or the “New K” as they are now referring to it ... and I napped through the most exciting part of the game.
Kauffman Stadium, located a knuckleball throw from Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Kansas City Chiefs, was originally opened in 1972 as a baseball only stadium. What made Kauffman unique, relative to other sport complexes built in that period, was its sole-use approach. The majority of stadiums built between the 1960s and 1990s were designed as generic multi-sport compounds, offering little in the way of baseball appeal.
As the sixth-oldest baseball park in MLB, Kauffman Stadium, despite a current $250 million renovation, still shows the telltale signs of age. However, the field is in tremendous shape, the seats are comfortable, the concession stands, concourse and bathrooms are all updated, but no amount of money can change the original design. There isn’t anything wrong with the design, mind you, but after spending time in Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix and Denver, I have become accustomed to modern stadiums. The exception being Dodger Stadium, a park built in late 1950 in which I’ve developed a strange affinity.
I rolled into the massive parking lot at Kauffman Stadium, shared by the Chiefs and Royals, a few minutes before the Ump hollered, “Play ball!” I parked, tried to suppress all memories from the brutal 8 hr drive from Colorado Springs, put on sneakers and high-stepped it for the ticket booth. With my luck, the 1:10 game would be sold out, rained out, or a tornado would come ripping through the stadium and the game would be called, which wouldn’t necessarily make me unhappy.
I was drained from the lack of sleep the night before;(click for back story) my nerves were shot from almost taking out half the deer population in Colorado with my car, and I was confused by the radio preacher who ridiculed me for hours about being disobedient, and then offering his cash-for-penance program. The Reverend had me believing my short fuse, extreme slothfulness and Snoop Dogg were the primary reasons my CD player wasn’t working. On the other hand, the Lexus dealership told me using a homemade CD caused the problem…and they can fix it for $600.00. Neither one would be getting my money.
I was clearly ready for a long nap to calm my nerves, so a postponed game actually sounded rather appropriate.
As *reverse* luck would have it, there were plenty of tickets to go around for everybody, it was hotter than Hades and I didn’t see a funnel cloud, or any cloud, in the blue sky. However, I did see the scorching sun about ten feet above my head, tons of geeked up fans tailgating and making strange noises and simply acting like they were happy about something. Me, I wanted to be the first individual ever to dive head first off the top of the bowl shaped park and directly onto the steamy, concrete courtyard. Requiring too much work to climb that high, I resorted to grabbing a lukewarm adult beverage and parked it in an empty section in the third level on the third base side.
The first inning was peaceful --no one around to bother me-- as I took photos with my cell phone since Joe’s camera was broken, scribbled notes on a small note pad and hoped the game would end 1-0 so it would be over soon.
As I sat in the direct sunlight, sweating profusely while I cursed myself loudly for not applying sunscreen, Kauffman Stadium started to grow on me. I was having flashbacks of watching the Royals on TV, particularly the ’85 World Series versus their intrastate rivals the St. Louis Cardinals.
In that series, the Royals came back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Cardinals in game six on a questionable call at first base in the ninth inning, and then hammered the Cards 11-0 in game seven to win their first Championship.
Of all the great players and managers who have passed through Kansas City as a Royal, or during the Athletics short stay between moving from Philadelphia to Oakland (1955-1967), my most vivid memory, unfortunately, involves George Brett missing playing time in the 1980 World Series due to hemorrhoid flare-ups, allegedly.
Forget about Roger Maris, Whitey Herzog, Lou Piniella, Frank White, Brett Saberhagan, Bo Jackson, Johnny Damon and David Cone. Who cares about the infamous “Pine Tar Incident” with Brett at Yankee Stadium, or the six Royal Hall of Famers: Brett, Orlando Cepeda, Harmon Killebrew, Bob Lemon, Gaylord Perry and Joe Gordon?
For some reason I couldn’t get Brett's stupid hemorrhoid problem out of my mind, and it was starting to make me angry. I was twelve in 1980, and didn’t exactly know what a hemorrhoid was other than what my father told me. I remember feeling bad for Brett back then because he couldn’t play in the most important series of his life, but today I'm irate I can't get that out of my head and concentrate on the game and stadium.
My mind was wandering to a strange place as I dozed off for a much needed siesta. After a full inning, I was jolted back to reality, to my horror, by a pack of wild, double-fisting, Royal fans, who somehow found their way right behind me. They cheered for someone from their team who was rounding third and heading home. I wasn’t sure who it was and I didn’t care, I just wanted to find my hotel and sleep for the next 12 hours.
Kansas City is a cool town with tons of great western history and, more important, awesome BBQ. I’ve never had authentic K.C. BBQ but I’ve seen and read enough about it to get myself psyched up for the real deal, after a nap.
My GPS ran me in circles for half an hour before I finally found my interstate-side motel, a $45.00 dump I found on hotels.com. I checked in, asked the clerk important questions like, “who has the best BBQ in town and where can I find it? May I get a room that isn’t four feet from I-70? And how many murders have you had at this property in the past year?” The kind lady responded with “Gates BBQ is the best in town and it’s just past the casino …no you may not …and what kind of question is that?”
Gates BBQ... my Mecca. I’ve heard of Gates before and I was so pumped to try it, I decided to get some beef ribs before my nap. Nothing was going to get between me and lip smacking, old school K.C. ribs.
The drive to Gates BBQ was five miles, a quick excursion. I could be there, throw back some grub, and be in bed in less than an hour. As I was zipping through town, just past the Missouri River, my car inexplicably made a sharp left at the Harrah’s Casino and two minutes later I was sitting at a Three-Card Poker table chewing the fat with Mike, Amanda, Loretta and Emmett, and I was already giving the dealer, James, a hard time about him getting his legs broken after I cleaned out the house.
My third hand was triple threes, which paid me $400.00, easy money! To quote Kenny Rogers in the Gambler “…you got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away and know when to run…” I was up, had house money and it was time to run, so I got up and ran…three hours later and $300.00 lighter.
I place 100% of the blame of my misfortune on a cute cocktail waitress named Kelly, who wouldn’t stop coming by the table. Had she been ugly or inattentive, I would’ve had the audacity to grab my $400.00 worth of green poker chips and bolt for the door, but the scoundrels who run the place somehow overpowered my will with a babe.
While the thought of losing $700.00 ($400.00 from the house and $300.00 from my wallet) really chaps my hide, I did enjoy the conversation with my degenerate gambling tablemates. The table was loud when we were pulling straights and flushes, and eerily silent whenever the dealer smiled, which always seems to occur right before it’s time to leave.
By the time I left the sadistic casino, dejected and full of self-loathing, Gates BBQ was closed and I was broke. I made a vow to never step foot in a casino again, EVER!
That night was the 3rd worst night of sleep on my trip. In between being jarred awake by the sounds of semis doing 100mph right past my window, a violent thunder storm and the guy in the next room pounding on the wall from my insane snoring problem, I had a dream I won $59,000 from Harrah’s and the pit boss broke James’ legs. Ah, sweet revenge.
I woke up without being murdered, checked out of the dump, and made a beeline for Gates BBQ. As I passed the casino, I casually rolled down the window and gave ‘em a friendly “thumbs up” …only I didn’t use my thumb.
The lady inside Gates BBQ smiled and greeted me warmly. She slowly asked how I was doing and she seemed genuine. I told her I was doing much better now I was finally there, and we chatted for a few minutes about the menu and the history of Gates. As she took me through the ordering process, I totally forgot about the long drive to K.C., the game and my gambling loses.
She took me to the window where you place your order and recommend the beef ribs with extra sauce. I took her advice, grabbed my meal and sat down with the rest of the lunch crowd. The patrons didn’t seem to be interested in gossip or small talk; they seemed content to focus on whatever it was on their plates, me included.
NEXT STOP: St. Louis (June 16, 2009)
Links for story & photos:
Photos: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=5706&id=1684643878
K.C.: http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=kc
Kauffman Stadium: http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/kc/ballpark/index.jsp
Famous people with hemorrhoids: http://www.hemorrhoidsinplainenglish.com/hemorrhoid/famous-people.htm
Gates BBQ: http://www.gatesbbq.com/
Harrah’s: http://www.harrahsnkc.com/casinos/harrahs-north-kansas-city/hotel-casino/property-home.shtml
Friday, June 19, 2009
The 2nd Annual Royal Gorge Holy Smoke Bar-B-Que Showdown; I break Joe’s camera, and I almost miss the Royals game.
Part Seven...
Part Seven Sponsored by
ONE PRICE EYEWEAR
http://onepriceeyewear.com
ROYAL GORGE, CO --The sky was covered with black clouds as usual; the sun nowhere to be found, the wind picking up, the rain trickling down every few minutes, the likelihood the BBQ showdown would be canceled was looking good. I was antsy the entire drive down to Royal Gorge, CO because a cancellation meant no award winning pulled pork sandwich and, more central, I would miss out on seeing some weird stuff.
The entire drive to Royal Gorge, CO, a rural town an hour away and 50 years behind the times, I silently prayed the rain would subside for an hour while Michael and I roamed around the festival, taking in all the sights and sounds we’re not accustomed to normally seeing. The camera was ready to go; the hunger pains from purposely staving ourselves were present, now all we needed was the weather to cooperate.
We arrived around 3:00p.m., almost time for the awards to be presented to the best of the best. We looked up towards the sky and hoped for the best. Our luck couldn’t have been better. The sky seemed to understand our mission and let the sun peek through the clouds just in time for some good ole country fun.
I pulled out my camera, a loaner from my friend Joe, and was immediately ready to start clicking away at the all the strangeness I saw from the moment I paid my three buck admission fee. The only problem was the LCD screen on the camera was fried from, um, nothing! (Sorry, Joe…I owe you one camera) It wasn’t dropped, mishandled or left in a hot car. The camera almost appeared to notice our tremendous luck with the weather and said, “Don’t get too cocky, Andrew, you know you’re not that lucky!” And the camera was right, I’m not that lucky…never have been and never will be.
The first pertinent thing I noticed was the exclusive use of Budweiser products in Coors’ backyard, which left me speechless. I asked the Bud girl (they’re a tad bit different from Phoenix Bud girls) where I could find a Coors Light and she almost hogtied me.
“Hush your mouth, there ain’t no Coors here,”
“Huh? Are you out of your mind?! Isn’t this Coors country?! Don’t they contribute millions of dollars per year to the local economy?!”
“Not down here they don’t. Ya want something or not ‘cause I’m real busy.” (she wasn’t)
“Sure, I’d love a Bud”
“Bud or Bud Light?”
“A mans beer: Bud.”
“A mans beer? Didn’t you just ask for a Coors Light?”
“Um, I don’t think so…was just making conversation.”
“I see, that’ll be four tokens.”
“OK, here you go. Keep the change!”
“Hey, these are tokens; there ain’t no change with tokens.”
“Exactly... See you in a bit.”
Michael and I walked from tent to tent carefully inspecting the menus of each contestant, treating this like it was our last meal before “Old Sparky” sent 100,00 volts of surging electricity though our veins. We asked the vendors serious questions about the preparation process, we debated quietly whether so-and-so’s BBQ was really worth 7 tokens when so-and-so had the same for 6 tokens, and were generally a couple of morons. But we were hungry morons and nothing would be left to chance…not even the type of sauce we would put on each bite of our food.
We started with an order of Short End ribs from Smokin’ On The Beaver, 2005 Grand Champions of some competition, and the ribs were fantastic. These were beef ribs which I’m not a huge fan of, but they were to die for, especially when you haven’t had a morsel of food in 8 hrs. We ate every last piece of meat on the bone in record time, like we were Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi at Nathan’s on July, 4th. We had to part with 6 tokens ($6.00) but it was 6 tokens well spent.
We decided the next course would be a pulled pork sandwich from the Skin & Bones Barbeque Team tent, which only cost 6 tokens, 1 less than Andy’s. My preference is a Carolina style sandwich --dry pork with slaw --but this is Kansas City style BBQ, and there would be sauce. The bun, heaping with slow cooked pulled pork, was fresh and soft and it soaked up the sauce like a sponge. The kid who served us was bragging about all the awards Skin & Bones had won of the past few years, and he assured us it would be the best we’ve ever had. He was wrong … dead wrong. Even though we were famished, and increasingly thirsty, the sandwich was not the best I’ve ever had. That goes to Pierce’s Pitt Bar-B-Que in Williamsburg, VA.
We had to reload on the wooden tokens so we took a walk to trade in some greenbacks for a few more. Cautiously guarding our tokens like they were black, $500 chips from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, we took a stroll back to the Budweiser girl for another adult beverage and more abuse.
“Hi again, may we get two Coors Lights?” I asked with a hint of sarcasm.
“We ain’t got no Coors here,” The gal responded, not realizing she just went through this with the only normal looking people in the place.
“OK, make it two Buds, regular Buds, that is,” I said, just hoping to get out of there without anymore conversation.
A success … she didn’t say another thing and we were off to watch a few of the participants accept their coveted dry rub ribbons. Some guy won the best mustard dry rub, evidentially his first, and you would’ve thought he just won an Emmy for Best Actor in a Hallmark After School Special. Well done, Scooter!
Our last dish was the beef brisket, and it would be from Andy’s. Our intense research indicated Andy’s was the best place for brisket ... and we simply came to that conclusion based on the name alone. And we were right! It was unusual, I’ve never had pulled brisket but it was a tasty treat. It was served dry on a bun and we had a choice of ten different sauces in squeeze bottles. We tried about five different varieties on each bite and personally awarded the HOT BBQ sauce Best in Show. The morons spoke and the is decision final!
We drove back to Colorado Springs with a belly full of food, no good photos other than the ones I took with my cell phone and a new appreciation for pulled brisket. By the time we arrived at Michaels, after a few stops along the way, I had to check my schedule for Royals game the next day, an eight hour drive from the Springs. The game, I thought, was at 6:10 or 7:10 the next evening, giving me ample time the next day to enjoy the drive.
At 9:00p.m. I checked my schedule, which was handwritten on a piece of crumpled paper jammed deep in my laptop case. Low and behold, the game was at 1:00 p.m., and that meant if I immediately went to bed, woke up at 3:00 a.m. –with 6 hours of sleep—I could make the first pitch. Trying not to break any link in my trip, I went to bed, woke up at 3:00 and was on the road by 3:15.
The drive to K.C. was really, really fun, especially in the dark. I was very tired, didn’t have any coffee, and I was on a State Route for the first 2 hours. After stopping for coffee at some country store an hour into the drive; I had only taken two sips from my piping hot coffee when I rounded a turn, using a 1/32 moon to help me navigate, and nearly plowed into three deer loitering in the middle of the road. The good news was I didn’t hit the deer after slamming on my brakes. The bad news was my coffee went flying, drenching my shorts, legs and CD player. I rolled down the window; threaten to kill the deer with my bare hands, and then checked to see if the coffee fixed my CD player. No such luck with the CD player but I did reach Kauffman Stadium with two minutes to spare ... … and welts on my thighs.
NEXT STOP: Kauffman Stadium (June 14, 2009)
Part Seven Sponsored by
ONE PRICE EYEWEAR
http://onepriceeyewear.com
ROYAL GORGE, CO --The sky was covered with black clouds as usual; the sun nowhere to be found, the wind picking up, the rain trickling down every few minutes, the likelihood the BBQ showdown would be canceled was looking good. I was antsy the entire drive down to Royal Gorge, CO because a cancellation meant no award winning pulled pork sandwich and, more central, I would miss out on seeing some weird stuff.
The entire drive to Royal Gorge, CO, a rural town an hour away and 50 years behind the times, I silently prayed the rain would subside for an hour while Michael and I roamed around the festival, taking in all the sights and sounds we’re not accustomed to normally seeing. The camera was ready to go; the hunger pains from purposely staving ourselves were present, now all we needed was the weather to cooperate.
We arrived around 3:00p.m., almost time for the awards to be presented to the best of the best. We looked up towards the sky and hoped for the best. Our luck couldn’t have been better. The sky seemed to understand our mission and let the sun peek through the clouds just in time for some good ole country fun.
I pulled out my camera, a loaner from my friend Joe, and was immediately ready to start clicking away at the all the strangeness I saw from the moment I paid my three buck admission fee. The only problem was the LCD screen on the camera was fried from, um, nothing! (Sorry, Joe…I owe you one camera) It wasn’t dropped, mishandled or left in a hot car. The camera almost appeared to notice our tremendous luck with the weather and said, “Don’t get too cocky, Andrew, you know you’re not that lucky!” And the camera was right, I’m not that lucky…never have been and never will be.
The first pertinent thing I noticed was the exclusive use of Budweiser products in Coors’ backyard, which left me speechless. I asked the Bud girl (they’re a tad bit different from Phoenix Bud girls) where I could find a Coors Light and she almost hogtied me.
“Hush your mouth, there ain’t no Coors here,”
“Huh? Are you out of your mind?! Isn’t this Coors country?! Don’t they contribute millions of dollars per year to the local economy?!”
“Not down here they don’t. Ya want something or not ‘cause I’m real busy.” (she wasn’t)
“Sure, I’d love a Bud”
“Bud or Bud Light?”
“A mans beer: Bud.”
“A mans beer? Didn’t you just ask for a Coors Light?”
“Um, I don’t think so…was just making conversation.”
“I see, that’ll be four tokens.”
“OK, here you go. Keep the change!”
“Hey, these are tokens; there ain’t no change with tokens.”
“Exactly... See you in a bit.”
Michael and I walked from tent to tent carefully inspecting the menus of each contestant, treating this like it was our last meal before “Old Sparky” sent 100,00 volts of surging electricity though our veins. We asked the vendors serious questions about the preparation process, we debated quietly whether so-and-so’s BBQ was really worth 7 tokens when so-and-so had the same for 6 tokens, and were generally a couple of morons. But we were hungry morons and nothing would be left to chance…not even the type of sauce we would put on each bite of our food.
We started with an order of Short End ribs from Smokin’ On The Beaver, 2005 Grand Champions of some competition, and the ribs were fantastic. These were beef ribs which I’m not a huge fan of, but they were to die for, especially when you haven’t had a morsel of food in 8 hrs. We ate every last piece of meat on the bone in record time, like we were Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi at Nathan’s on July, 4th. We had to part with 6 tokens ($6.00) but it was 6 tokens well spent.
We decided the next course would be a pulled pork sandwich from the Skin & Bones Barbeque Team tent, which only cost 6 tokens, 1 less than Andy’s. My preference is a Carolina style sandwich --dry pork with slaw --but this is Kansas City style BBQ, and there would be sauce. The bun, heaping with slow cooked pulled pork, was fresh and soft and it soaked up the sauce like a sponge. The kid who served us was bragging about all the awards Skin & Bones had won of the past few years, and he assured us it would be the best we’ve ever had. He was wrong … dead wrong. Even though we were famished, and increasingly thirsty, the sandwich was not the best I’ve ever had. That goes to Pierce’s Pitt Bar-B-Que in Williamsburg, VA.
We had to reload on the wooden tokens so we took a walk to trade in some greenbacks for a few more. Cautiously guarding our tokens like they were black, $500 chips from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, we took a stroll back to the Budweiser girl for another adult beverage and more abuse.
“Hi again, may we get two Coors Lights?” I asked with a hint of sarcasm.
“We ain’t got no Coors here,” The gal responded, not realizing she just went through this with the only normal looking people in the place.
“OK, make it two Buds, regular Buds, that is,” I said, just hoping to get out of there without anymore conversation.
A success … she didn’t say another thing and we were off to watch a few of the participants accept their coveted dry rub ribbons. Some guy won the best mustard dry rub, evidentially his first, and you would’ve thought he just won an Emmy for Best Actor in a Hallmark After School Special. Well done, Scooter!
Our last dish was the beef brisket, and it would be from Andy’s. Our intense research indicated Andy’s was the best place for brisket ... and we simply came to that conclusion based on the name alone. And we were right! It was unusual, I’ve never had pulled brisket but it was a tasty treat. It was served dry on a bun and we had a choice of ten different sauces in squeeze bottles. We tried about five different varieties on each bite and personally awarded the HOT BBQ sauce Best in Show. The morons spoke and the is decision final!
We drove back to Colorado Springs with a belly full of food, no good photos other than the ones I took with my cell phone and a new appreciation for pulled brisket. By the time we arrived at Michaels, after a few stops along the way, I had to check my schedule for Royals game the next day, an eight hour drive from the Springs. The game, I thought, was at 6:10 or 7:10 the next evening, giving me ample time the next day to enjoy the drive.
At 9:00p.m. I checked my schedule, which was handwritten on a piece of crumpled paper jammed deep in my laptop case. Low and behold, the game was at 1:00 p.m., and that meant if I immediately went to bed, woke up at 3:00 a.m. –with 6 hours of sleep—I could make the first pitch. Trying not to break any link in my trip, I went to bed, woke up at 3:00 and was on the road by 3:15.
The drive to K.C. was really, really fun, especially in the dark. I was very tired, didn’t have any coffee, and I was on a State Route for the first 2 hours. After stopping for coffee at some country store an hour into the drive; I had only taken two sips from my piping hot coffee when I rounded a turn, using a 1/32 moon to help me navigate, and nearly plowed into three deer loitering in the middle of the road. The good news was I didn’t hit the deer after slamming on my brakes. The bad news was my coffee went flying, drenching my shorts, legs and CD player. I rolled down the window; threaten to kill the deer with my bare hands, and then checked to see if the coffee fixed my CD player. No such luck with the CD player but I did reach Kauffman Stadium with two minutes to spare ... … and welts on my thighs.
NEXT STOP: Kauffman Stadium (June 14, 2009)
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Colorado wins 9th straight game…and I almost fight a 6 year old girl
Part Six
DENVER – By the time my brother, Michael, and I overpaid a scalper $20.00 for two tickets, got a delicious beverage and found our seats, the Rockies were already down 0-1 in the 2nd inning. While we may have been a little late to the game, there were still several hundred people milling around the front of the stadium, socializing and have a grand ole time. This is Lower Downtown Denver, just blocks from Union Station and seconds from hip bars and cool clubs, and no one is in a hurry to do anything.
Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies since 1995 is, like Denver, very trendy and full of energy. The red brick façade is reminiscent of the newer stadiums built in the past two decades but Coors Field has a few distinct differences. The most prominent is the purple seats in the 20th row of the upper deck, which signifies the city’s mile high elevation point. The other feature I was drawn to is the old style, secondary scoreboard in right field, a manual scoreboard updating scores from across the league. The main scoreboard is a gaudy, huge Jumbo Tron like every other stadium in the majors.
The ushers, concession workers and fans were very friendly, almost too friendly. Michael and I were lost, looking for our seats, which had a face value of $4.00 each, when an usher recommended we sit in the $30.00 seats as long as we didn’t cause any trouble. Perfect! There wouldn’t be any trouble out of us…until I almost fought a six year old girl.
The stadium was about half capacity but the crowd noise and liveliness made me feel like I was watching a playoff game; fans cheering ever base hit and strikeout even when their team was getting hammered for a few innings. They never lost hope and they never stopped letting the Rockies know they were solidly behind them.
Meanwhile, behind me was this kid who would not shut up. She was screaming at the top of her lungs, “Go Rockets,” and she kept kicking me in the back of the head. I wanted to turn around and say, “Hey kid, it’s the Rockies, not the Rockets and please, for the love of Pete, stop yelling in my ear and kicking me!” I know it’s a ballgame and all but the 30th time she “accidentally” kicked me I knew she was egging me on.
I was stuck and the kid knew it. We couldn’t switch seats for fear of having to sit in purgatory, which was a huge step down from the mid-level seats between home plate and first base in which we were squatting. I could have taken her in a second but the usher told us to stay clear of trouble and a fight between a 40 year old man and six year old girl is clearly trouble. The other two options were to rat her out and risk being a fink or simply leave the game an inning early. I’m no rat, so we decided to leave early. Besides, we had an hour drive back to Colorado Springs and it was getting late.
Besides the agitator behind me, the game was fun, most of the fans were great and Coors Field is awesome!
NEXT STOP: 2nd annual Royal Gorge Holy Smoke BBQ Showdown (June 13, 2009)
DENVER – By the time my brother, Michael, and I overpaid a scalper $20.00 for two tickets, got a delicious beverage and found our seats, the Rockies were already down 0-1 in the 2nd inning. While we may have been a little late to the game, there were still several hundred people milling around the front of the stadium, socializing and have a grand ole time. This is Lower Downtown Denver, just blocks from Union Station and seconds from hip bars and cool clubs, and no one is in a hurry to do anything.
Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies since 1995 is, like Denver, very trendy and full of energy. The red brick façade is reminiscent of the newer stadiums built in the past two decades but Coors Field has a few distinct differences. The most prominent is the purple seats in the 20th row of the upper deck, which signifies the city’s mile high elevation point. The other feature I was drawn to is the old style, secondary scoreboard in right field, a manual scoreboard updating scores from across the league. The main scoreboard is a gaudy, huge Jumbo Tron like every other stadium in the majors.
The ushers, concession workers and fans were very friendly, almost too friendly. Michael and I were lost, looking for our seats, which had a face value of $4.00 each, when an usher recommended we sit in the $30.00 seats as long as we didn’t cause any trouble. Perfect! There wouldn’t be any trouble out of us…until I almost fought a six year old girl.
The stadium was about half capacity but the crowd noise and liveliness made me feel like I was watching a playoff game; fans cheering ever base hit and strikeout even when their team was getting hammered for a few innings. They never lost hope and they never stopped letting the Rockies know they were solidly behind them.
Meanwhile, behind me was this kid who would not shut up. She was screaming at the top of her lungs, “Go Rockets,” and she kept kicking me in the back of the head. I wanted to turn around and say, “Hey kid, it’s the Rockies, not the Rockets and please, for the love of Pete, stop yelling in my ear and kicking me!” I know it’s a ballgame and all but the 30th time she “accidentally” kicked me I knew she was egging me on.
I was stuck and the kid knew it. We couldn’t switch seats for fear of having to sit in purgatory, which was a huge step down from the mid-level seats between home plate and first base in which we were squatting. I could have taken her in a second but the usher told us to stay clear of trouble and a fight between a 40 year old man and six year old girl is clearly trouble. The other two options were to rat her out and risk being a fink or simply leave the game an inning early. I’m no rat, so we decided to leave early. Besides, we had an hour drive back to Colorado Springs and it was getting late.
Besides the agitator behind me, the game was fun, most of the fans were great and Coors Field is awesome!
NEXT STOP: 2nd annual Royal Gorge Holy Smoke BBQ Showdown (June 13, 2009)
Random notes from the road…I get pulled over by the cops; my CD player breaks … and I find a town I hate as much as Tucson.
Part Five
I was a few hours north of Phoenix and testing the suspension on my Lexus on AZ 377, a flat, wide open route in the high country where you can actually see for miles and, more significant, spot State Troopers before you get close enough for them to clock you on their evil radar guns. This bode well for me and my mission of shaving off at least two hours from the ETA on my GPS unit. Thankfully, the voice on my GPS, a British babe who normally barks at me when I miss a turn, didn’t mind my excessive speed, only because I turned off that feature before I left town.
Occasionally checking my ETA, which was going back in time every few miles while my eyes scanned the horizon for cops, I was convinced the ten hour trip to Colorado Springs, CO would be end up being eight at best, even with two planned stops.
The cruise control set at 80mph, light traffic in both directions, I dropped the Clash in my CD player and cranked up the volume to a deafening level. I didn’t see a parked car for 50 miles, which meant no radar guns, no tickets and I could start stealing time back from my GPS… and enjoy some soothing punk rock.
At mile marker 31 on AZ 377, the conversation went like this:
Trooper: “In a hurry?”
Me: “No Sir, just lost track of my speed…sorry”
Trooper: “You were doing 79 in a 65.”
Me: “Really? That’s odd.”
Trooper: “Thanks for pulling over before I caught up with you, I hate chasing people”
Me: “No problem, Trooper (name withheld). I saw you in my rear view mirror turning around and I knew I was busted.”
Trooper: “Where you headed?”
Me: “Um, going to Denver to catch a Rockies game. It’s the fourth game of a 20 game trip I’m taking this month. I’m gonna write a book about the trip...”
Trooper: “REALLY? Are you going to see the Tigers? What’s the name of the new stadium?”
Me: “Comerica Park. And yes, I’m going to see the Tigers … Love the Tigers, I was born in Michigan. Are you from Michigan?”
Trooper: “Comerica, that’s it. I’m from Michigan and I love the Tigers, too. What part of Michigan are you from?”
Me: “Um, I’m not really sure, moved to Arizona when I was two but I still love everything that is Michigan. By the way, any chance you could give me a warning?”
Trooper: “Sure can but I have to run you through the system first to make sure you don’t have any warrants.”
Me: “Sweet. I can assure you I’m as clean as they come.”
The trooper came back a few minutes later, had me sign a warning and told me to please use my cruise control. I wanted to jokingly tell him I was using my cruise control but I somehow maintained my composure.
I stopped in Albuquerque, N.M. for gas and to buy a handheld recorder so I wouldn’t have to steer with my knee while I jotted down notes on a small note pad. The stop set me back about 15 minutes, not including the 10 minutes I spent chatting with the Trooper in Arizona, which meant I needed to make up some time and fast. The only problem: Everyone in N.M. drives 15 mph under the posted limit, which meant no pace cars to follow. Again, I set the cruise control at 80, scanned the horizon for cops and dropped Snoop Dogg for some soothing rap.
I was dying to play with my new digital recorder, a safer method of taking notes while driving, but I couldn’t get the darn thing to work. As I was reading the instructions, putting in batteries, fidgeting with the gadget and using my knee to steer my car, I passed a parked trooper. “OK, I probably deserve this one,” I thought. The likelihood of escaping with two warnings in one day isn’t good, especially when the trooper saw me holding the instructions with both hands.
I thought about pulling over, again, but I decided to take a chance I wasn’t clocked, even though I saw his radar gun pointing directly at me. My rearview mirror, the bearer of all bad news, displayed a speeding black car with flashing lights quickly approaching me with anger and disdain. Just as I was about to pull over, the cop flew by me doing about 120 mph, apparently heading to something more interesting than me. Another ticket avoided…and a pace car to follow at an unreasonable speed for the next 30 minutes.
Four hours south of Colorado Springs, just south of Las Vegas, N.M., something worse than a speeding ticket occurred: My CD player stopped working. My preference would be five speeding tickets in one day over being forced to listen to static and/or country music for the three straight hours, which is exactly what I did until I picked up stations out of Colorado Springs. Country music isn’t horrible, I actually like it in moderation, but it seems I heard the same songs over and over. It wasn’t all bad, though; the silence gave me an opportunity to test the digital recorder.
Fatigued from being on the road since 5:00 a.m., and upset over the CD player taking a dive on me left me distraught, which is evident by the 30 plus digital notes I recorded.
Here are a few of them:
Digital Note 1: “Test, test, test, this thing sucks!”
DN 2: “Las Vegas ahead, sweet! Oops, wrong Las Vegas.”
DN 3: “Driving though Las Vegas, N.M and I have to say it’s a dump. No casinos, unlike the 50 I saw on I-40…N.M. has more Indian gaming than El Cajon, CA has donut shops.”
DN 3: “CD player still not working. I hate Lexus.”
DN 4: “Listening to a country station and it appears the lyrics from the last 85 songs are very similar. Something about a pickup truck, some girl walking out on someone, somebody’s daddy is gonna shoot somebody for cheating on somebody and whatnot, and tons of beer and whisky references. My CD player is still broken.”
DN 5: “Pressed the eject button on my CD player for the 100,000 time and the thing still won’t work.
DN 6: “Reminder to trade in Lexus as soon as I get back to Phoenix.”
DN 7: “Punching the CD player doesn’t work.”
DN 8: “Finally, a non-country station…but I was just forced to listen to a “You Babe” by Styx. I now remember why I hated them in high school, they suck.”
DN 9: “Just jammed a knife in my CD player and it still doesn’t work. Gotta think of something else soon or I’m gonna lodge a pencil in my eardrum!”
DN 10: “Not sure the name of the song but it was Chicago and they still suck.”
DN 11: “I wish my CD player felt pain.”
DN 12: “I’m tired of driving and I’m tired of pressing the stupid eject button.”
DN13 “Tornado warning in Pueblo, CO…I hope it hits my car and fixes the CD player.
DN 14: “PS just found a town as gross and ugly as Tucson: Pueblo, CO…man this place smells funny.”
DN 15: “Finally, Rage Against the Machine …now we’re talking.
DN 16: “Last note before I throw this digital recorder out the window, I’m reading the owner’s manual and it says if the CD player displays an “Error 3” message, there’s something wrong inside the device and I should eject the CD. #$%#@ Lexus."
Surprisingly, I reached my destination without getting a ticket or dying, and I did it under 8 hours…
NEXT STOP: Coors Field (June 12, 2009)
I was a few hours north of Phoenix and testing the suspension on my Lexus on AZ 377, a flat, wide open route in the high country where you can actually see for miles and, more significant, spot State Troopers before you get close enough for them to clock you on their evil radar guns. This bode well for me and my mission of shaving off at least two hours from the ETA on my GPS unit. Thankfully, the voice on my GPS, a British babe who normally barks at me when I miss a turn, didn’t mind my excessive speed, only because I turned off that feature before I left town.
Occasionally checking my ETA, which was going back in time every few miles while my eyes scanned the horizon for cops, I was convinced the ten hour trip to Colorado Springs, CO would be end up being eight at best, even with two planned stops.
The cruise control set at 80mph, light traffic in both directions, I dropped the Clash in my CD player and cranked up the volume to a deafening level. I didn’t see a parked car for 50 miles, which meant no radar guns, no tickets and I could start stealing time back from my GPS… and enjoy some soothing punk rock.
At mile marker 31 on AZ 377, the conversation went like this:
Trooper: “In a hurry?”
Me: “No Sir, just lost track of my speed…sorry”
Trooper: “You were doing 79 in a 65.”
Me: “Really? That’s odd.”
Trooper: “Thanks for pulling over before I caught up with you, I hate chasing people”
Me: “No problem, Trooper (name withheld). I saw you in my rear view mirror turning around and I knew I was busted.”
Trooper: “Where you headed?”
Me: “Um, going to Denver to catch a Rockies game. It’s the fourth game of a 20 game trip I’m taking this month. I’m gonna write a book about the trip...”
Trooper: “REALLY? Are you going to see the Tigers? What’s the name of the new stadium?”
Me: “Comerica Park. And yes, I’m going to see the Tigers … Love the Tigers, I was born in Michigan. Are you from Michigan?”
Trooper: “Comerica, that’s it. I’m from Michigan and I love the Tigers, too. What part of Michigan are you from?”
Me: “Um, I’m not really sure, moved to Arizona when I was two but I still love everything that is Michigan. By the way, any chance you could give me a warning?”
Trooper: “Sure can but I have to run you through the system first to make sure you don’t have any warrants.”
Me: “Sweet. I can assure you I’m as clean as they come.”
The trooper came back a few minutes later, had me sign a warning and told me to please use my cruise control. I wanted to jokingly tell him I was using my cruise control but I somehow maintained my composure.
I stopped in Albuquerque, N.M. for gas and to buy a handheld recorder so I wouldn’t have to steer with my knee while I jotted down notes on a small note pad. The stop set me back about 15 minutes, not including the 10 minutes I spent chatting with the Trooper in Arizona, which meant I needed to make up some time and fast. The only problem: Everyone in N.M. drives 15 mph under the posted limit, which meant no pace cars to follow. Again, I set the cruise control at 80, scanned the horizon for cops and dropped Snoop Dogg for some soothing rap.
I was dying to play with my new digital recorder, a safer method of taking notes while driving, but I couldn’t get the darn thing to work. As I was reading the instructions, putting in batteries, fidgeting with the gadget and using my knee to steer my car, I passed a parked trooper. “OK, I probably deserve this one,” I thought. The likelihood of escaping with two warnings in one day isn’t good, especially when the trooper saw me holding the instructions with both hands.
I thought about pulling over, again, but I decided to take a chance I wasn’t clocked, even though I saw his radar gun pointing directly at me. My rearview mirror, the bearer of all bad news, displayed a speeding black car with flashing lights quickly approaching me with anger and disdain. Just as I was about to pull over, the cop flew by me doing about 120 mph, apparently heading to something more interesting than me. Another ticket avoided…and a pace car to follow at an unreasonable speed for the next 30 minutes.
Four hours south of Colorado Springs, just south of Las Vegas, N.M., something worse than a speeding ticket occurred: My CD player stopped working. My preference would be five speeding tickets in one day over being forced to listen to static and/or country music for the three straight hours, which is exactly what I did until I picked up stations out of Colorado Springs. Country music isn’t horrible, I actually like it in moderation, but it seems I heard the same songs over and over. It wasn’t all bad, though; the silence gave me an opportunity to test the digital recorder.
Fatigued from being on the road since 5:00 a.m., and upset over the CD player taking a dive on me left me distraught, which is evident by the 30 plus digital notes I recorded.
Here are a few of them:
Digital Note 1: “Test, test, test, this thing sucks!”
DN 2: “Las Vegas ahead, sweet! Oops, wrong Las Vegas.”
DN 3: “Driving though Las Vegas, N.M and I have to say it’s a dump. No casinos, unlike the 50 I saw on I-40…N.M. has more Indian gaming than El Cajon, CA has donut shops.”
DN 3: “CD player still not working. I hate Lexus.”
DN 4: “Listening to a country station and it appears the lyrics from the last 85 songs are very similar. Something about a pickup truck, some girl walking out on someone, somebody’s daddy is gonna shoot somebody for cheating on somebody and whatnot, and tons of beer and whisky references. My CD player is still broken.”
DN 5: “Pressed the eject button on my CD player for the 100,000 time and the thing still won’t work.
DN 6: “Reminder to trade in Lexus as soon as I get back to Phoenix.”
DN 7: “Punching the CD player doesn’t work.”
DN 8: “Finally, a non-country station…but I was just forced to listen to a “You Babe” by Styx. I now remember why I hated them in high school, they suck.”
DN 9: “Just jammed a knife in my CD player and it still doesn’t work. Gotta think of something else soon or I’m gonna lodge a pencil in my eardrum!”
DN 10: “Not sure the name of the song but it was Chicago and they still suck.”
DN 11: “I wish my CD player felt pain.”
DN 12: “I’m tired of driving and I’m tired of pressing the stupid eject button.”
DN13 “Tornado warning in Pueblo, CO…I hope it hits my car and fixes the CD player.
DN 14: “PS just found a town as gross and ugly as Tucson: Pueblo, CO…man this place smells funny.”
DN 15: “Finally, Rage Against the Machine …now we’re talking.
DN 16: “Last note before I throw this digital recorder out the window, I’m reading the owner’s manual and it says if the CD player displays an “Error 3” message, there’s something wrong inside the device and I should eject the CD. #$%#@ Lexus."
Surprisingly, I reached my destination without getting a ticket or dying, and I did it under 8 hours…
NEXT STOP: Coors Field (June 12, 2009)
Diamnondbacks blow another lead; I get angry, and I have a private meeting with the CEO and Manager of the club…
Part Four...
PHOENIX—It may look like a spaceship or a giant Jiffy Pop pan of popcorn but Chase Field (formerly Bank One Ballpark) was home to one of the more dramatic final two innings of any game seven in World Series history… and it’s the only MLB stadium where I’ve actually held court with the President/CEO and Skipper of any team.
I’ve been a Diamondback fan since the day MLB granted Arizona a charter in 1995, three years before they played their first game. Since the inaugural season in 1998, I’ve been to roughly 100 games and watched or listened to another 800 or so. However, for the first time ever, I wasn’t looking forward to seeing my home team play, neither was my friend Joe, who was supposed to go with me.
Joe and I were indecisive about attending the third game in my baseball trip, debating vigorously while we slurped Hot & Sour soup, jammed Mu Shu pork in our mouths and gorged on tangy Orange Beef at the Super Dragon Chinese Restaurant. I wanted to go; it would be the easiest, least expensive stop on my trip. On the other hand, we really wern’t that eager to spend the time to find a parking spot downtown and to wait in long lines for a ticket, particularly since most of the recent games have been huge fiascos, leaving fans scratching their heads.
By the time the fortune cookie arrived, recommending the following lotto numbers: 4-8-16-39-41-44, we still didn’t have any idea whether we would attend. I could watch the game on TV, plagiarize an ESPN.com article, and save time, money and, more important, heartbreak. The problem with our earlier logic was this: When you stink, parking is readily available and the lines at the ticket counter are only two-deep.
I’m on trip to see as many stadiums as I can and I’m really not interested in driving 15 minutes to the see my home team? I’m not sure if our hesitation is an indictment of the Diamondbacks failing to field a competitive team, coupled with ghastly PR, or us just being really, really lazy?
After starting the season a with a 12-17 record, the club decided to fire the manager, Bob Melvin, and replace him with A.J. Hinch, someone with zero coaching experience. Meanwhile, the club had other options but decided not to exercise them. For example, Chip Hale, a successful former minor-league manager is a current member of the coaching staff and ready for the top position. Kirk Gibson, while not a former manager, is the bench coach and would have been a publicity bonanza for the club. Instead of someone with any experience, the organization promoted Hinch, 34, a big league catcher for seven years and a front office guy the past four.
While Melvin wasn’t a hugely popular figure in town, he was stable and had a fairly decent record in Phoenix: 337-340 in 4-1/3 seasons, with his only division title in 2007. He was, however, at the helm last season when the team coughed up the division lead in the last week of the 2008 campaign. I’m certain that didn’t help his situation, especially with a 12-17 record this season. After 29 games, the team handed him a pink slip and told him to get bent.
The Diamondback’s ownership, C-level management and PR department did one of the biggest face-plant jobs in the history of professional sports with Hinch. They handled the firing of Melvin just fine, if firing a guy a month into the season is fine; there was a small amount of grace by the organization. Conversely, they bungled the hiring of Hinch, leaving fans gasping for air like someone who was just throat-punched.
Many fans were baffled with the decision but not overly upset. What was most disturbing was the simple fact the team did very little to explain why they chose Hinch over someone with experience. For many fans, including me, it appeared the team purposely tanked the season with this move. It reminded me of Roberto Duran crying “no mas” during the eighth round versus Sugar Ray Leonard. Honestly, a little PR would’ve gone a long way in keeping me from avoiding games.
It’s not just me who has been dodging the Diamondbacks; a lot of my friends are avoiding the stadium like the Swine Flu, which may have been more entertaining than the Snakes. And when I say we’re dodging the team, I mean it. If I spotted the team at the mall, I would duck into Spenser’s or the Gap and buy something useless until they were out of sight, then laugh about how the team almost saw me and think about all the lame excuses I would’ve used to shake them if they wanted to chat me up.
However, about two hours before the first pitch Joe I decided we were going to the game, kicking and screaming albeit, but we were going. It was too easy to pass up and had I not gone, it would have broken the link in my trip.
The game started great for the DBacks; they pounded out runs quickly with the bat of Mark Reynolds. However, San Francisco took advantage of Bill Buckner’s rubber arm and pounded Arizona into submission. If the teams were Ultimate Fighters, the Giants would’ve won on a bare naked choke…or a TKO in the eighth.
My fury from another choke job didn’t go unnoticed and it shouldn’t have, for that matter. As fans, the ones who spend the money necessary to keep teams running, we should be critical when it’s warranted. And speaking out is exactly what I did … in the form of a terse e-mail to Derrick Hall, CEO of the DBacks, as soon as I got home from the game.
Ownership of professional sports can be a funny thing, they’re often arrogant and condescending with OUR money, and then expect us to sit silent while they make horrible decisions. And if we speak out in frustration, we’re “not real fans” or we’re labeled “fair-weather fans.”
In the case of the Diamondbacks and Derrick Hall, that’s simply not the case. Despite their disregard, in my opinion, for the fans during the weeks following the Hinch move, Hall responded in earnest to my e-mail. Within ten minutes, I received a response explaining the motivation behind the hire and he expressed his desire to get me back on the wagon. We exchanged a few more e-mails and set up a meeting between Hall, Hinch and myself for the following day. Hall was convinced if I met his man, I would see first hand why the team went in this direction. Honestly, Hinch wasn’t the problem for me; the problem was the lack of communication from the team, but I was interested in meeting his man.
The next day I met with Hinch and Hall in Hall’s office at Chase Field. I initially felt bad Hinch was dragged into a meeting with some knucklehead like me but I quickly found Hinch wasn’t forced into anything. For reasons that escape me, Hinch was a willing participant, and he spoke with tremendous energy for 45 minutes about the upside of the team, strategy going forward and his extreme desire to win. What impressed me more than anything was the fact they missed the first ten minutes of the 2nd round of the College Draft while we shot the breeze and shared a few laughs.
As Hall suggested, I was impressed with his man; I was impressed with his drive and energy and, most remarkable, they sold me in less than an hour. At first I wasn’t sure if Hall met with me knowing I would spread word to disgruntled fans that Hinch was a unique guy with remarkable potential or if he sincerely wanted to address my concerns about my team. However, in the past week we have exchange a few more e-mails and I realize Derrick Hall and A.J. Hinch are trying to win games and fans at the same time.
Next Stop: Coors Field
PHOENIX—It may look like a spaceship or a giant Jiffy Pop pan of popcorn but Chase Field (formerly Bank One Ballpark) was home to one of the more dramatic final two innings of any game seven in World Series history… and it’s the only MLB stadium where I’ve actually held court with the President/CEO and Skipper of any team.
I’ve been a Diamondback fan since the day MLB granted Arizona a charter in 1995, three years before they played their first game. Since the inaugural season in 1998, I’ve been to roughly 100 games and watched or listened to another 800 or so. However, for the first time ever, I wasn’t looking forward to seeing my home team play, neither was my friend Joe, who was supposed to go with me.
Joe and I were indecisive about attending the third game in my baseball trip, debating vigorously while we slurped Hot & Sour soup, jammed Mu Shu pork in our mouths and gorged on tangy Orange Beef at the Super Dragon Chinese Restaurant. I wanted to go; it would be the easiest, least expensive stop on my trip. On the other hand, we really wern’t that eager to spend the time to find a parking spot downtown and to wait in long lines for a ticket, particularly since most of the recent games have been huge fiascos, leaving fans scratching their heads.
By the time the fortune cookie arrived, recommending the following lotto numbers: 4-8-16-39-41-44, we still didn’t have any idea whether we would attend. I could watch the game on TV, plagiarize an ESPN.com article, and save time, money and, more important, heartbreak. The problem with our earlier logic was this: When you stink, parking is readily available and the lines at the ticket counter are only two-deep.
I’m on trip to see as many stadiums as I can and I’m really not interested in driving 15 minutes to the see my home team? I’m not sure if our hesitation is an indictment of the Diamondbacks failing to field a competitive team, coupled with ghastly PR, or us just being really, really lazy?
After starting the season a with a 12-17 record, the club decided to fire the manager, Bob Melvin, and replace him with A.J. Hinch, someone with zero coaching experience. Meanwhile, the club had other options but decided not to exercise them. For example, Chip Hale, a successful former minor-league manager is a current member of the coaching staff and ready for the top position. Kirk Gibson, while not a former manager, is the bench coach and would have been a publicity bonanza for the club. Instead of someone with any experience, the organization promoted Hinch, 34, a big league catcher for seven years and a front office guy the past four.
While Melvin wasn’t a hugely popular figure in town, he was stable and had a fairly decent record in Phoenix: 337-340 in 4-1/3 seasons, with his only division title in 2007. He was, however, at the helm last season when the team coughed up the division lead in the last week of the 2008 campaign. I’m certain that didn’t help his situation, especially with a 12-17 record this season. After 29 games, the team handed him a pink slip and told him to get bent.
The Diamondback’s ownership, C-level management and PR department did one of the biggest face-plant jobs in the history of professional sports with Hinch. They handled the firing of Melvin just fine, if firing a guy a month into the season is fine; there was a small amount of grace by the organization. Conversely, they bungled the hiring of Hinch, leaving fans gasping for air like someone who was just throat-punched.
Many fans were baffled with the decision but not overly upset. What was most disturbing was the simple fact the team did very little to explain why they chose Hinch over someone with experience. For many fans, including me, it appeared the team purposely tanked the season with this move. It reminded me of Roberto Duran crying “no mas” during the eighth round versus Sugar Ray Leonard. Honestly, a little PR would’ve gone a long way in keeping me from avoiding games.
It’s not just me who has been dodging the Diamondbacks; a lot of my friends are avoiding the stadium like the Swine Flu, which may have been more entertaining than the Snakes. And when I say we’re dodging the team, I mean it. If I spotted the team at the mall, I would duck into Spenser’s or the Gap and buy something useless until they were out of sight, then laugh about how the team almost saw me and think about all the lame excuses I would’ve used to shake them if they wanted to chat me up.
However, about two hours before the first pitch Joe I decided we were going to the game, kicking and screaming albeit, but we were going. It was too easy to pass up and had I not gone, it would have broken the link in my trip.
The game started great for the DBacks; they pounded out runs quickly with the bat of Mark Reynolds. However, San Francisco took advantage of Bill Buckner’s rubber arm and pounded Arizona into submission. If the teams were Ultimate Fighters, the Giants would’ve won on a bare naked choke…or a TKO in the eighth.
My fury from another choke job didn’t go unnoticed and it shouldn’t have, for that matter. As fans, the ones who spend the money necessary to keep teams running, we should be critical when it’s warranted. And speaking out is exactly what I did … in the form of a terse e-mail to Derrick Hall, CEO of the DBacks, as soon as I got home from the game.
Ownership of professional sports can be a funny thing, they’re often arrogant and condescending with OUR money, and then expect us to sit silent while they make horrible decisions. And if we speak out in frustration, we’re “not real fans” or we’re labeled “fair-weather fans.”
In the case of the Diamondbacks and Derrick Hall, that’s simply not the case. Despite their disregard, in my opinion, for the fans during the weeks following the Hinch move, Hall responded in earnest to my e-mail. Within ten minutes, I received a response explaining the motivation behind the hire and he expressed his desire to get me back on the wagon. We exchanged a few more e-mails and set up a meeting between Hall, Hinch and myself for the following day. Hall was convinced if I met his man, I would see first hand why the team went in this direction. Honestly, Hinch wasn’t the problem for me; the problem was the lack of communication from the team, but I was interested in meeting his man.
The next day I met with Hinch and Hall in Hall’s office at Chase Field. I initially felt bad Hinch was dragged into a meeting with some knucklehead like me but I quickly found Hinch wasn’t forced into anything. For reasons that escape me, Hinch was a willing participant, and he spoke with tremendous energy for 45 minutes about the upside of the team, strategy going forward and his extreme desire to win. What impressed me more than anything was the fact they missed the first ten minutes of the 2nd round of the College Draft while we shot the breeze and shared a few laughs.
As Hall suggested, I was impressed with his man; I was impressed with his drive and energy and, most remarkable, they sold me in less than an hour. At first I wasn’t sure if Hall met with me knowing I would spread word to disgruntled fans that Hinch was a unique guy with remarkable potential or if he sincerely wanted to address my concerns about my team. However, in the past week we have exchange a few more e-mails and I realize Derrick Hall and A.J. Hinch are trying to win games and fans at the same time.
Next Stop: Coors Field
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Padres lose in 18 … but I only watched 4 innings.
PART THREE
SAN DIEGO –Petco Park was the scene of an18 inning thriller between the Padres and the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks … but I missed the last 14 innings due to a massive hangover.
The stadium the Padres have called home since 2004 is a magnificent piece of work, and it’s as fan friendly as any park I’ve seen. Part of the allure of the stadium is the location: Nestled on 10th Avenue in the far west section of downtown, just north of Harbor Drive and across the street from the convention center. More impressive, though, is the proximity to the water; CY Young pitcher Jake Peavy could hurl a fastball into the bay.
Unlike a lot of new stadiums that are being built with red brick (retro style), Petco is sandstone and stucco, which was designed to bring to mind the sandy beaches and water, according to the Padres website. Prior to Petco Park, the Padres shared Qualcomm/Jack Murphy/ San Diego Stadium, or whatever it was called, with the Chargers. While Qualcomm is a decent stadium for a football game, it never lent itself as a useful baseball park, in my opinion. Petco Park, on the other hand, doesn’t have an obstructed view in the 42,000 capacity park, and it’s simply how a baseball stadium should feel.
I’ve been going to San Diego for years, actually lived there for a short time in 2000, but this was be the first time I traveled there specifically to watch a Padre game. Back in ’00 I caught a handful of games at their old home but I hated that stadium -- for baseball, that is. When I started planning my trip a few weeks ago, I made a mental note this was going to be one of my favorite stops, especially since it was the second game and a short drive from Los Angeles. I love the city, the casual atmosphere, the people, Pacific Beach, Downtown, you name it and I love it. Besides, the Dodgers on Saturday; the Padres on Sunday, a little sightseeing, get my feet wet in the ocean, grab a beer at the Lahaina Beach House, what could be better?
However…
The 12 inning Dodger game on Saturday (click for story) left me exhausted and weary Sunday morning. I may be wrong but I think someone pounded me on the back of the head with a Louisville Slugger while I slept on the couch (I was offered the spare bedroom but didn’t want to mess up the sheets). All my planning and excitement for the Padres game was nowhere to be found, even after guzzling down a Venti Starbucks bold roast. All I wanted to do was eat fast food, watch bad movies on cable (Road House is a great hangover movie), eat more fast food, take a nap on the couch, watch more TV and eat again … but that’s not the way things went down. Nope. In fact, my next meal, a piece of pizza from a gas station in Gila Bend, AZ, wasn’t until 5.p.m. or so; the closest I got to taking a nap was when I nearly nodded off while doing 90 mph on the I-10 somewhere east of El Cajon and there would be no Patrick Swayze kicking some serious butt.
I purchased a ticket from a scalper for $10.00 and found my way to the first seat I could find, desperately trying to keep my footing as I ascended the stairs to the upper deck of the beautiful open-air stadium. My preference was to sit alone, avoiding a dialog with anyone and everyone, but the fans in San Diego are chatty and engaging ... and they wouldn’t leave me alone!
My first exchange with a Padre fan went something like this:
SD Fan: “Hey, you here to see the Diamondbacks?”
Me: (inaudible)
SD Fan: “I said, are you here to see the Diamondbacks?”
Me: “No. Yes. I’m not sure, why?”
SD Fan: “You’re wearing a Sun Devils hat. You from Arizona?”
Me: “Yep, from Phoenix but not necessarily here to see the Snakes.”
SD Fan: “Do you like the DBacks?” Who’s your favorite player? Is Brandon Webb coming off the DL soon? Blah, blah, blah…”
Me: “I don’t know”
SD Fan: “You don’t know what?”
Me: “Is this section (inaudible)?
SD Fan: “No, it’s (whatever section we were in)”
Me: “I’m in the wrong section. See ya”
I had four aspirin in my pocket, in addition to one Imodium and a gross of Tums, as I found my way to a new seat, one where no one would talk to me. My head pounding and body aching, I popped three aspirin and chewed on Tums while trying to find a place to rest. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem but today, well, it hurt to simply think. I finally found a spot where I could be alone, alone to think about how I would never mix scotch and red wine and certainly wouldn’t smoke cigars again but I had to pass an usher first.
That went like this:
Usher: “May I see your ticket?”
Me: “No”
Usher: “Pardon me?”
Me: “I can’t find it”
Usher: “Well you can’t site here without a valid ticket.”
Me: “There isn’t a sole sitting up here, what does it matter?”
Usher: “The rules are the rules.”
Me: “(inaudible)”
Usher: “Where you from?”
Me: “Tennessee”
Usher: “Really? Where? My sister lives there.”
Me: “It’s a small town south of Austin”
Usher: “Austin? Isn’t that Texas?”
Me: “Where’s the bathroom?”
Usher: “Down that way” (she points that way)
Me: “Thanks. Tell your sister I said ‘hi’”
Usher: “Huh?”
The game had some great moments. The DBacks, playing really good ball, manufactured 6 runs in 6 innings, and Dan Haren was tremendous on the mound. Another Quality Start for Haren: 7 innings, 4 hits, 1 run (earned) and 5 Ks.
I left after the 4th inning and was reduced to listening to the game on the radio, which I didn’t mind considering my condition. Unbelievably, I listened to the game on San Diego sports radio all the way to Yuma, AZ, where I was then able to pick it up on KTAR 620am out of Phoenix. By the time I reached Gila Bend, AZ, three hours later, the Diamondbacks finally won the game after 18 grueling innings … grueling for me, not them.
NEXT STOP: Chase Field (June 9, 2009)
SAN DIEGO –Petco Park was the scene of an18 inning thriller between the Padres and the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks … but I missed the last 14 innings due to a massive hangover.
The stadium the Padres have called home since 2004 is a magnificent piece of work, and it’s as fan friendly as any park I’ve seen. Part of the allure of the stadium is the location: Nestled on 10th Avenue in the far west section of downtown, just north of Harbor Drive and across the street from the convention center. More impressive, though, is the proximity to the water; CY Young pitcher Jake Peavy could hurl a fastball into the bay.
Unlike a lot of new stadiums that are being built with red brick (retro style), Petco is sandstone and stucco, which was designed to bring to mind the sandy beaches and water, according to the Padres website. Prior to Petco Park, the Padres shared Qualcomm/Jack Murphy/ San Diego Stadium, or whatever it was called, with the Chargers. While Qualcomm is a decent stadium for a football game, it never lent itself as a useful baseball park, in my opinion. Petco Park, on the other hand, doesn’t have an obstructed view in the 42,000 capacity park, and it’s simply how a baseball stadium should feel.
I’ve been going to San Diego for years, actually lived there for a short time in 2000, but this was be the first time I traveled there specifically to watch a Padre game. Back in ’00 I caught a handful of games at their old home but I hated that stadium -- for baseball, that is. When I started planning my trip a few weeks ago, I made a mental note this was going to be one of my favorite stops, especially since it was the second game and a short drive from Los Angeles. I love the city, the casual atmosphere, the people, Pacific Beach, Downtown, you name it and I love it. Besides, the Dodgers on Saturday; the Padres on Sunday, a little sightseeing, get my feet wet in the ocean, grab a beer at the Lahaina Beach House, what could be better?
However…
The 12 inning Dodger game on Saturday (click for story) left me exhausted and weary Sunday morning. I may be wrong but I think someone pounded me on the back of the head with a Louisville Slugger while I slept on the couch (I was offered the spare bedroom but didn’t want to mess up the sheets). All my planning and excitement for the Padres game was nowhere to be found, even after guzzling down a Venti Starbucks bold roast. All I wanted to do was eat fast food, watch bad movies on cable (Road House is a great hangover movie), eat more fast food, take a nap on the couch, watch more TV and eat again … but that’s not the way things went down. Nope. In fact, my next meal, a piece of pizza from a gas station in Gila Bend, AZ, wasn’t until 5.p.m. or so; the closest I got to taking a nap was when I nearly nodded off while doing 90 mph on the I-10 somewhere east of El Cajon and there would be no Patrick Swayze kicking some serious butt.
I purchased a ticket from a scalper for $10.00 and found my way to the first seat I could find, desperately trying to keep my footing as I ascended the stairs to the upper deck of the beautiful open-air stadium. My preference was to sit alone, avoiding a dialog with anyone and everyone, but the fans in San Diego are chatty and engaging ... and they wouldn’t leave me alone!
My first exchange with a Padre fan went something like this:
SD Fan: “Hey, you here to see the Diamondbacks?”
Me: (inaudible)
SD Fan: “I said, are you here to see the Diamondbacks?”
Me: “No. Yes. I’m not sure, why?”
SD Fan: “You’re wearing a Sun Devils hat. You from Arizona?”
Me: “Yep, from Phoenix but not necessarily here to see the Snakes.”
SD Fan: “Do you like the DBacks?” Who’s your favorite player? Is Brandon Webb coming off the DL soon? Blah, blah, blah…”
Me: “I don’t know”
SD Fan: “You don’t know what?”
Me: “Is this section (inaudible)?
SD Fan: “No, it’s (whatever section we were in)”
Me: “I’m in the wrong section. See ya”
I had four aspirin in my pocket, in addition to one Imodium and a gross of Tums, as I found my way to a new seat, one where no one would talk to me. My head pounding and body aching, I popped three aspirin and chewed on Tums while trying to find a place to rest. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem but today, well, it hurt to simply think. I finally found a spot where I could be alone, alone to think about how I would never mix scotch and red wine and certainly wouldn’t smoke cigars again but I had to pass an usher first.
That went like this:
Usher: “May I see your ticket?”
Me: “No”
Usher: “Pardon me?”
Me: “I can’t find it”
Usher: “Well you can’t site here without a valid ticket.”
Me: “There isn’t a sole sitting up here, what does it matter?”
Usher: “The rules are the rules.”
Me: “(inaudible)”
Usher: “Where you from?”
Me: “Tennessee”
Usher: “Really? Where? My sister lives there.”
Me: “It’s a small town south of Austin”
Usher: “Austin? Isn’t that Texas?”
Me: “Where’s the bathroom?”
Usher: “Down that way” (she points that way)
Me: “Thanks. Tell your sister I said ‘hi’”
Usher: “Huh?”
The game had some great moments. The DBacks, playing really good ball, manufactured 6 runs in 6 innings, and Dan Haren was tremendous on the mound. Another Quality Start for Haren: 7 innings, 4 hits, 1 run (earned) and 5 Ks.
I left after the 4th inning and was reduced to listening to the game on the radio, which I didn’t mind considering my condition. Unbelievably, I listened to the game on San Diego sports radio all the way to Yuma, AZ, where I was then able to pick it up on KTAR 620am out of Phoenix. By the time I reached Gila Bend, AZ, three hours later, the Diamondbacks finally won the game after 18 grueling innings … grueling for me, not them.
NEXT STOP: Chase Field (June 9, 2009)
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Dodgers win in 12; Dodger Stadium; Dodger Dogs … and a $300.00 bar tab
PART TWO
LOS ANGELES – Dodger Stadium at Chavez Ravine, home of the L.A. Dodgers since 1962, is like a bacon-wrapped filet mignon: Perfection!
I prepared for the first stop of my 20 game baseball trip for weeks and had mapped out the route, determined where I would stop for gas and estimated the exact time it would take to reach Los Angeles … but I forgot to set my alarm clock. Fortunately my cell phone alarm clock was still set for 5a.m. from the day before or I would have missed the 1:10p.m. first pitch, and wasted a free ticket from my friend Mark (see back-story) in L.A.
The drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles is a little over 6 hours, according to the GPS unit in my car. However, with my acute sense of where the State Police congregate on the highways and my lead foot, I figured it would take me somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 hours and change. (And I was correct)
The entire way to Dodger Stadium all I could think about was the perfect game Sandy Koufax threw there in 1965, the only Dodger (Brooklyn or L.A.) ever to accomplish that feat. Fernandomania and his sensational rookie year of eight straight wins, five by shutout, and his improbable Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Awards consumed me for hours. And the only at-bat by an injured Kirk Gibson in the ’88 Fall Classic, a walk-off homer to beat the A’s and Hall of Fame closer Dennis Eckersley, replayed over and over in my head.
I was also thinking about how fun it was going to be exchanging crazy high school stories with Mark, who I haven’t seen in over twenty years. Surely our days of tomfoolery are over. After all, we are 40, disciplined and two decades removed from wearing fake mustaches to look older so we could buy beer. Long gone are the days when we would, as a joke, sit on each leg of the Easter Bunny for a photo. There is zero chance we would have a few too many cocktails and become inadvertently obnoxious. Nope, unlike the AAA Tucson Toro games we used to go to while in high school in the 80’s, this would be controlled and subdued, just like adults should act.
When I arrived in Los Angeles, the sky was gloomy, and the thought of a rainout, which rarely occurs at Dodger Stadium, had me worried since my schedule allowed one day visiting the now third-oldest stadium in the Big Leagues. As Mark and I drank Bloody Marys and spoke of the good old days, the menacing clouds seemed to evaporate as quickly as our drinks. By the time we polished off our second cocktail, and just as Mark’s girlfriend Ivette informed us it was noon and time to head to the stadium, the sun filled the Southern California sky as if to say “play ball!” Stories about terrorizing classmates and which teachers we hated wouldn’t end, they just moved to a more fitting setting: Dodger Stadium.
In addition to me and Mark, Ivette and her friend Anna came with us, which came in handy because Anna became our designated driver. To be honest, I really didn’t care anymore about the game as much as seeing the old ballpark and chasing the fun times of yesterday, but the game was not disappointing …it ended in dramatic fashion, much like our “free” bar tab that cost $300.00.
Dodger Stadium is as clean and well kept as any stadium I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of new stadiums of all varieties. According to the Dodgers website the park gets a new paint job every year, and a lot of money and time is spent on preventative maintenance. They love their Dodgers in Southern California and that is undeniable.
We found our seats and settled in for about a minute until we realized our tickets permitted us entry to the Dodger Stadium Club, a restaurant with a full bar overlooking the field, and according to Mark, “free everything!” So off we went to Mecca for free Dodger Dogs, scotch, wine and whatever else we could find.
Somewhere along the corridor to the Dodger Stadium club we stumbled across the famous Dodger-mobile, a very large baseball helmet on wheels for kids to have their picture taken. As luck would have it, Mark and I, like the 18 year old knuckleheads we used to be, found ourselves in the Dodger-mobile having our photos taken while fans walked by shaking their heads in disgust.
The Dodger Stadium Club was fantastic; the service top rate; the high-end buffet delicious, the three bottles of wine and glass of scotch fantastic, and the four free Dodger Dogs to die for. The only problem: Nothing in the Dodger Stadium Club was free, at least not for us. Our “free” lunch went from being awesome to $300.00 worth of overrated food.
The game finished when Andre Ethier smacked a Chad Durbin fastball over the center-field wall in the 12th to seal his second consecutive walk-off hit in as many against the Phillies. More important, the night ended with two more bottles of wine, a cigar and more stories of our glory days.
NEXT STOP: Petco Park (June, 7, 2009)
LOS ANGELES – Dodger Stadium at Chavez Ravine, home of the L.A. Dodgers since 1962, is like a bacon-wrapped filet mignon: Perfection!
I prepared for the first stop of my 20 game baseball trip for weeks and had mapped out the route, determined where I would stop for gas and estimated the exact time it would take to reach Los Angeles … but I forgot to set my alarm clock. Fortunately my cell phone alarm clock was still set for 5a.m. from the day before or I would have missed the 1:10p.m. first pitch, and wasted a free ticket from my friend Mark (see back-story) in L.A.
The drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles is a little over 6 hours, according to the GPS unit in my car. However, with my acute sense of where the State Police congregate on the highways and my lead foot, I figured it would take me somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 hours and change. (And I was correct)
The entire way to Dodger Stadium all I could think about was the perfect game Sandy Koufax threw there in 1965, the only Dodger (Brooklyn or L.A.) ever to accomplish that feat. Fernandomania and his sensational rookie year of eight straight wins, five by shutout, and his improbable Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Awards consumed me for hours. And the only at-bat by an injured Kirk Gibson in the ’88 Fall Classic, a walk-off homer to beat the A’s and Hall of Fame closer Dennis Eckersley, replayed over and over in my head.
I was also thinking about how fun it was going to be exchanging crazy high school stories with Mark, who I haven’t seen in over twenty years. Surely our days of tomfoolery are over. After all, we are 40, disciplined and two decades removed from wearing fake mustaches to look older so we could buy beer. Long gone are the days when we would, as a joke, sit on each leg of the Easter Bunny for a photo. There is zero chance we would have a few too many cocktails and become inadvertently obnoxious. Nope, unlike the AAA Tucson Toro games we used to go to while in high school in the 80’s, this would be controlled and subdued, just like adults should act.
When I arrived in Los Angeles, the sky was gloomy, and the thought of a rainout, which rarely occurs at Dodger Stadium, had me worried since my schedule allowed one day visiting the now third-oldest stadium in the Big Leagues. As Mark and I drank Bloody Marys and spoke of the good old days, the menacing clouds seemed to evaporate as quickly as our drinks. By the time we polished off our second cocktail, and just as Mark’s girlfriend Ivette informed us it was noon and time to head to the stadium, the sun filled the Southern California sky as if to say “play ball!” Stories about terrorizing classmates and which teachers we hated wouldn’t end, they just moved to a more fitting setting: Dodger Stadium.
In addition to me and Mark, Ivette and her friend Anna came with us, which came in handy because Anna became our designated driver. To be honest, I really didn’t care anymore about the game as much as seeing the old ballpark and chasing the fun times of yesterday, but the game was not disappointing …it ended in dramatic fashion, much like our “free” bar tab that cost $300.00.
Dodger Stadium is as clean and well kept as any stadium I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of new stadiums of all varieties. According to the Dodgers website the park gets a new paint job every year, and a lot of money and time is spent on preventative maintenance. They love their Dodgers in Southern California and that is undeniable.
We found our seats and settled in for about a minute until we realized our tickets permitted us entry to the Dodger Stadium Club, a restaurant with a full bar overlooking the field, and according to Mark, “free everything!” So off we went to Mecca for free Dodger Dogs, scotch, wine and whatever else we could find.
Somewhere along the corridor to the Dodger Stadium club we stumbled across the famous Dodger-mobile, a very large baseball helmet on wheels for kids to have their picture taken. As luck would have it, Mark and I, like the 18 year old knuckleheads we used to be, found ourselves in the Dodger-mobile having our photos taken while fans walked by shaking their heads in disgust.
The Dodger Stadium Club was fantastic; the service top rate; the high-end buffet delicious, the three bottles of wine and glass of scotch fantastic, and the four free Dodger Dogs to die for. The only problem: Nothing in the Dodger Stadium Club was free, at least not for us. Our “free” lunch went from being awesome to $300.00 worth of overrated food.
The game finished when Andre Ethier smacked a Chad Durbin fastball over the center-field wall in the 12th to seal his second consecutive walk-off hit in as many against the Phillies. More important, the night ended with two more bottles of wine, a cigar and more stories of our glory days.
NEXT STOP: Petco Park (June, 7, 2009)
Friday, June 5, 2009
NEXT STOP: Dodger Stadium (June 6, 2009)
Part one
I was fifteen and had been reading historical books about baseball on and off for a few years, spending months between each book fantasizing about an era(s) so far removed from the baseball I grew up watching. My preference was the Dead Ball Era, my great grandfather’s baseball, but my brothers and friends, the ones who didn’t know much about baseball before Mike Schmidt, Eddie Murray, and Hank Aaron, liked the long ball. Actually, they loved the home run, especially when they were the ones pounding them over fences in neighborhood parks, backyards and in high school games. Me, I’d take Ty Cobb any day, especially with his penchant of hitting for stats. Give me Walter Johnson, who registered 3,508 strikeouts and two straight 30 win seasons in 1912 (33) and 1913 (36), a time when his fastball was legendary. Cobb once said a Johnson fastball “hissed with danger,” and he had “the most powerful arm ever turned loose in a ball park.”
Reading daily box scores became a habit I could never break. In fact, growing up, the Sunday paper had two full pages of stats – every player on every team regardless of how many at bats or pitching starts they had—and I would spend hours pouring over the numbers. My team was the Detroit Tigers, and I was proud to see the likes of Lou Whitaker, Enos Cabell, Alan Trammell, Kirk Gibson, Chet Lemon and Jack Morris listed. The rest of the week I was forced to read the daily box scores, and top ten stat leaders in each league.
During the 1984 season, the year the Tigers beat the Padres 4 games to 1 in the World Series, Detroit went wire-to-wire with a 104-58 record. In contrast to my theory that batting averages meant more than home runs, the Tigers belted 187 homers (31 more than ’83) and had a team batting average of .271 (three points lower than ’83). Moreover, the ’84 Tigers won more games than the ’83 squad (12) and had the same number of players who hit above .300 (3). The Tigers finished the ’83 season in 2nd place behind the Orioles in the AL East and missed the playoffs.
What did this mean to me? Like the other kids my age, I started swinging for the fence.
In October of ’84, I came to the conclusion whether it’s hitting for the cycle, jacking the ball 450’, sharpening your cleats to maim the second baseman, tipping pitches, scuffing the ball, throwing the World Series, playing fair and honest, etc., baseball is baseball... and it’s the greatest game in the world.
It’s 2009 and there isn’t anything I can do about the great players, eras and stadiums I dreamed of in my youth. Long gone are: Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter “The Train” Johnson, Tris Speaker, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, 1919 Black Sox, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Ted Williams, Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio, Roger Maris, Wee Willie Keeler, Murderers Row, Jackie Robinson, The Dead Ball Era, the Spit Ball, Ebbets Field, Old Comiskey Park, Crosley Field, The Polo Grounds, Shibe Park, Sportsman’s Park, and Yankee Stadium.
While I may have personally missed some of yesterday’s more memorable moments, I’ll get to see some of todays.
Over the course of the next month I’ll be traveling to 20 baseball stadiums for a book I’m writing. The book isn’t strictly baseball…it’s also about the cities I visit, people I meet, regional cuisine, and anything interesting.
The first stop is Dodger Stadium, June 6, 2009, where I’ll catch the game with, Mark, one of my best friends from high school. Mark and I hadn’t spoken to one another in close to 20 years; in a wicked twist of fate, we reconnected through Facebook.com. Ironically, I joined Facebook on the recommendation of a friend, who thought the site might help my efforts promoting my trip… In the meantime, and, most important, I've found a few characters from yesterday I've often thought about, too.
Photos from my trip will be updated regularly on Facebook and my website (nextstop09.com) -- if I can figure out how to make it functional -- and updates from each ballpark will be added to this site.
NEXT STOP: Dodger Stadium (June 6, 2009)
Reading daily box scores became a habit I could never break. In fact, growing up, the Sunday paper had two full pages of stats – every player on every team regardless of how many at bats or pitching starts they had—and I would spend hours pouring over the numbers. My team was the Detroit Tigers, and I was proud to see the likes of Lou Whitaker, Enos Cabell, Alan Trammell, Kirk Gibson, Chet Lemon and Jack Morris listed. The rest of the week I was forced to read the daily box scores, and top ten stat leaders in each league.
During the 1984 season, the year the Tigers beat the Padres 4 games to 1 in the World Series, Detroit went wire-to-wire with a 104-58 record. In contrast to my theory that batting averages meant more than home runs, the Tigers belted 187 homers (31 more than ’83) and had a team batting average of .271 (three points lower than ’83). Moreover, the ’84 Tigers won more games than the ’83 squad (12) and had the same number of players who hit above .300 (3). The Tigers finished the ’83 season in 2nd place behind the Orioles in the AL East and missed the playoffs.
What did this mean to me? Like the other kids my age, I started swinging for the fence.
In October of ’84, I came to the conclusion whether it’s hitting for the cycle, jacking the ball 450’, sharpening your cleats to maim the second baseman, tipping pitches, scuffing the ball, throwing the World Series, playing fair and honest, etc., baseball is baseball... and it’s the greatest game in the world.
It’s 2009 and there isn’t anything I can do about the great players, eras and stadiums I dreamed of in my youth. Long gone are: Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter “The Train” Johnson, Tris Speaker, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, 1919 Black Sox, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Ted Williams, Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio, Roger Maris, Wee Willie Keeler, Murderers Row, Jackie Robinson, The Dead Ball Era, the Spit Ball, Ebbets Field, Old Comiskey Park, Crosley Field, The Polo Grounds, Shibe Park, Sportsman’s Park, and Yankee Stadium.
While I may have personally missed some of yesterday’s more memorable moments, I’ll get to see some of todays.
Over the course of the next month I’ll be traveling to 20 baseball stadiums for a book I’m writing. The book isn’t strictly baseball…it’s also about the cities I visit, people I meet, regional cuisine, and anything interesting.
The first stop is Dodger Stadium, June 6, 2009, where I’ll catch the game with, Mark, one of my best friends from high school. Mark and I hadn’t spoken to one another in close to 20 years; in a wicked twist of fate, we reconnected through Facebook.com. Ironically, I joined Facebook on the recommendation of a friend, who thought the site might help my efforts promoting my trip… In the meantime, and, most important, I've found a few characters from yesterday I've often thought about, too.
Photos from my trip will be updated regularly on Facebook and my website (nextstop09.com) -- if I can figure out how to make it functional -- and updates from each ballpark will be added to this site.
NEXT STOP: Dodger Stadium (June 6, 2009)
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