Back in the Big Apple

Remember how we missed our game in New York last time we drove through? Well, it almost happened again. After missing our first train, we arrived in Manhattan at around the 4th inning, and got to Shea Stadium around the 6th. So, we did get to see a little bit of the game, but we didn't get to see any runs scored or either of the starting pitchers. New York City, put simply, has not been very kind to us.

We have nothing against the city. We like it here. We don't have to drive. There is really, really good food. I mean, it's much better than Los Angeles. But for one reason or another, the Baseball Gods have intervened in our travels and decided that they do not want us to see a baseball game in New York. Not only that, they don't want us to have anything to do with baseball in the city.

We tried to make up for missing the majority of both games in New York by taking the Babe Ruth tour at Yankee Stadium on Friday. I was pretty excited because we would get to walk on the field, go in the dugouts and walk through Monument Park. Unfortunately, after traveling across town on the Metro, we got to Yankees Stadium in time to find that the tour was sold out. Like I said, we just weren't meant to see baseball in New York.

On a related note, Dan and I would like to publicly appologize to Evan Clagnaz not showing our appreciation of his generosity. So, Evan, we thank you for the tickets, and we are sorry for missing the game. We hope that our roadtrip is still proof enough that we are genuine baseball fans and we hope that you will forgive us.

Our Saturday started at 6 AM with a ride on the Subway to get to Grand Central Station where we caught a train to Poughkeepsie, which is where we parked our car. The we drove 400 miles to Cleveland, Ohio, where we had the pleasure of watching the Kansas City Royals (who are 15 games back of the Indians in the AL Central) beat up on All-Star C.C. Sabathia, who dropped to 12-4 after the game.

We also were at the day game on Sunday in Cleveland, where we sat in $7 seats in the upper deck of right field. The seats weren't actually that bad, though. Well worth the $7, especially when we slowly moved closer to the infield as the game went on. Jacobs field is also pretty sweat. It's incredibly big, but you still get a fairly intimate feeling with the fans and the players. And because it is so big, it rarely sells out, which was nice for us. I also liked how the Cleveland skyline was right behind the jumbotron in left field.

Now we are off to Chicago to watch Barry Bonds and my Giants play the red hot Cubs.

Cooperstown

We are currently experiencing some technical difficulties. My computer's hard drive may or may not be dead, and thus I cannot access the entry I've written about our visit to Cooperstown. Please check again later. Sorry

Maine: The Way Life Should Be

That isn't an opinion. It is actually the state motto of Maine. And, you know what, I couldn't agree with it more. There really isn't that much to say, actually, especially if you don't know where or what Camp Chewonki is. We have been sleeping in cabins, eating organic food and listening to counselors go on endless tirades about their campers' annoying stories and lack of hygiene. It has been a much-needed break from, well, not so much from baseball (because you can never really get bored of that) but from driving and sleeping in a different bed every night and eating fast food. It has revitalized our spirits, so to speak, and tomorrow we will depart for Cooperstown.

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That's a picture of our California license plates next to the Chewonki sign in Wiscasset, Maine

Being as it is the halfway point, or rather the seventh inning stretch of our ballpark tour, I thought it might be fun to recap the things we have seen so far. Some of these numbers may be a little off, but they are all ballpark estimates. I apologize for all the baseball metaphors, that's just what happens when you spend a month watching nothing but baseball.

We have hit 11 major league stadiums (plus 4 minor league fields), which adds up to 20 games in 30 days and 6,500 miles.

We have watched 7 All-Star Pitchers (Lackey, Beckett, Santana, Papelbon, Okajima, Peavy, Saito) plus 20 more All-Star position players.

We have seen the Red Sox alone go 5-2 and score a total of 41 runs.

We have gotten beach towels in LA, Randy Johnson bobbleheads in Arizona, a haircut in Houston, a live concert from the Rebuilt Brass Band in New Orleans, Rally rags in Atlanta, Don Zimmer bobble heads in Tampa, 1997 World Series DVDs in Florida, and a foul ball as well as plenty of Daisuke t-shirts in Boston.

Boston v2.0

So, we’ve finally left Boston after five days and it is definitely our favorite stop so far. On our very first day we didn’t have anything to do exactly, so we went to downtown Boston to visit the Yawkey Way store. The Yawkey Way store is the biggest and best team store, located right across the street from Fenway. We were around the store about an hour after a game had just ended and seeing all the people there and just being near the park made me ridiculously excited. I was raised as a Red Sox fan for my entire life and I could barely remember my last trip to Fenway. The next day we took it easy and went to Davis Square with Nate Grady. During the evening we had dinner with my Cousin John, his wife Colleen and their 11-month-old daughter Caroline (an avid Red Sox Fan already).



The next day we went to a Paw Sox game with Nate. It was fireworks night and the place was so packed we could only get standing room tickets. But after the 2nd inning we got lucky and found seats that lasted us the whole game.
On the Fourth, we saw our first game at Fenway. It was a day game and we sat in the centerfield bleachers. It was a good game and our seats were nice, except we couldn’t see the jumbotron because we were right below it. After the game we went to the Charles River to watch the huge Boston fireworks show. We spent a lot of time standing in the rain, but it was a lot of fun and the best fireworks I’ve ever seen. Much better than Pawtucket, at least.



For Thursday we had tickets for a night game courtesy of my cousin John, so during the day we decided to take a tour of Fenway. It was pretty interesting and we learned a few new things about the park. We got to sit in all of the nice seats too.
The weather forecast predicted rain in Boston so for the whole day we were praying to the gods of rain that we could see our second game. The rain held off for most of the day until about the 6th inning when it really started to pour. Of course at this time the Red Sox were up by about twelve runs… so it wasn’t really a problem.
All –in-all Boston was a lot of fun and definitely our best stop to date.