The Baseball Trip

Well we are back at home in Ozark. Aaron and I had a great week and it feels as if I should be at a baseball game tonight! I don't think that I would ever get tired of going to the ballpark to watch a game.

We managed seven games in seven different ballparks in six different cities in seven days. I haven't totalled the number of miles or the money spent on hotdogs, brats, and sodas. We spent two nights in the van, one at my sister's house, three nights in a hotel room and the last night on the road home.

The week began with the Cardinals taking a beating in Kansas City. As is normal, they charge a little bit more for the tickets for the Cardinal series and there are as many (if not more) red shirted Cardinal fans as there are blue shirted Royal fans. Card's pitcher Kip Wells had a terrible outing and the Royals took advantage and routed the Cardinals. We had seats in the upper level, down the leftfield line. The guys sitting next to me had a 21 game season ticket package and thought that our trip was really cool. He said that his boss was a big baseball fan and that when he got to work the next day to tell his boss about our trip that his boss would want to do something like that someday. As we left the game and were walking out to the car, I realized that me phone was missing. We turned to try to get back into the stadium to look for it and Aaron called my phone. A guy answered and he and his girlfriend had been sitting right in front of us. Fortunately, he saw my phone and had called our house to tell them that he was going to turn it in at the office. Since Aaron called, we met in the parking lot and I got my phone back. I should note that they are Cardinal fans. That's only important if you have seen my phone.

I'm not sure if a Royals fan would have returned it!

We knew that the trip to Wrigley was going to be about nine hours and we only had about thirteen hours from the time we got out of the parking lot to game time in Chicago. We drove until we got to Des Moines and then parked at a truckstop and slept in the van for about three hours. Then Aaron drove and I napped a little bit more until we got closer to Chicago. We took the scenic drive along Lake Shore Drive and got to Wrigley about noon for the 1:15 game time. Wrigley Field is classic baseball. It's as if you've stepped into a time machine. One can easily see where the phrase "the friendly confines of Wrigley Field" comes from. It lacks a video board for replays, an electronic scoreboard and many other ammenities found in newer parks. Never the less, it's a great place to watch a ball game.

Our seats were upper level down the right field line. Afterwards, we went down to the first row of seats and you are really at field level. It is an incredibly intimate kind of park. The Cubbies came away with a win over the Padres.

It took about two and a half hours to make our way into northwest Indiana as we made our way toward Cleveland for the game on Saturday afternoon. We made it an easy night on ourselves by stopping fairly early and spending the night in a hotel in Southbend. We had plenty of time to make the 3:55 game time at Jacob's Field.

Rather than making this an extremely long post and taking forever to write it, I'm goin to post this as it is and post more later.

John

"Take me out to the ballgame!"