Category: brpa

Official Baseball-Related Program Activities, that is, Levi and Jim going to a baseball game together.

Twice the baseball?

I’m surprised Levi didn’t mention this in the previous entry: that Cardinals-Pirates game that was rained out on Tuesday is most likely going to be made up as part of a doubleheader when the Pirates next visit St. Louis…which happens to be August 19th through 22nd, coinciding with our planned visit on the 22nd. So what are the odds they’ll choose to do a Sunday doubleheader, and we’ll get to see two games?

Original comments…

Levi: Have you worked up a doubleheader itinerary, in case every game we see ends up being a doubleheader? Can we make all the games if that happens?

And, on a side note, you do have a passport, right? Because I don’t think they let you into Canadia without one these days.

Jim: If every game ends up being a doubleheader? I don’t think that’s going to happen unless we get some “Day After Tomorrow”-style weather within the next couple of months but things clear up by mid-August. For now, the doubleheader plan involves getting up earlier and/or driving faster.

Yes, I have a passport. Don’t you have every post on this blog memorized?

Levi: I know it’s unlikely that every game would end up a doubleheader, but do you want to be caught short if that happens? What’s the only thing more impressive than ten games in ten cities in ten days? Why, it’s 20 games in 20 cities in ten days!

Jim: I think you mean 20 games in 10 cities in 10 days, unless you’re thinking the doubleheaders are going to be long enough that the home team is going to relocate between the two games. Which is a possibility for the Expos, I guess.

Media attention

Maura has invited us to drop by the studios of WPRB Radio in Princeton, New Jersey, and join her on her radio show on Friday, August 27. Quite a coincidence that Princeton is between Boston and Philadelphia, and she’s going to have such a conveniently scheduled Friday afternoon time slot, isn’t it? Anyway, the itinerary has been updated.

Original comments…

Jon Solomon: I suggest a show of nothing but songs about baseball. Speaking of which, Levi I have a gift for you when I see ya…

Levi: Maura: Will Tim Zarazhan be there? ‘Cause I don’t know if I can do a show without Tim around.

Jason: I onced listened in on Maura’s show on WPBR through the courtesy of internet streamline broadcasting (or whatever you call it). I called in, and it took her 8 guesses before I told her who I was. I should probably keep in better touch.

maura: ooh, tim. shiver. i was hoping for an all-baseball-related show, actually. i thought that would be lots of fun. especially since i’ve had barbara manning’s cover of ‘joltin’ joe dimaggio’ in my head for a good portion of the weekend.

thatbob: Mr. Announcer and Nibbles, together again at last!

Your papers, please

In Boston, we’ll be taking the Green Line from our hotel to Fenway Park for the game. Therefore, this item is of particular interest: they are soon going to start random ID checks of transit passengers in Boston.

If this is still going on in August, as much as I’d love to protest against it, I think becoming a test case would ruin the rest of the trip. So I’ll grudgingly present my ID if necessary, although the real problem may be convincing the officer that the digital camera I’m carrying is for the purpose of taking pictures in and around Fenway Park, since some transit authorities are being a little touchy about photography of their property.

Original comments…

thatbob: Too bad the MBTA will be checking the *identity* of people riding their trains, instead of the *bomb-carrying status* of people riding their trains. I guess they just want to make sure that, in case of a bombing, all of the corpses can be identified?

Anyway, if I were you two, I wouldn’t set foot in an unfamiliar train. Very, very dangerous things, trains. Very dangerous.

Historically unsound.

Levi: Now, does Jim have high enough celebrity status among railfans that the ID check is going to hold us up because of the ensuing autographs, or is he just objecting on grounds of privacy, civil liberties, and silliness?

Jim: I’m certainly no Mike Schafer!

A thought on ballpark food

On Tuesday at Tropicana Field, I had a grouper sandwich; on Wednesday at Dodger Stadium, I had a Dodger Dog (included with the “family pack” ticket package); on Sunday at Petco Park, I had fish tacos. I think on the trip I’m going to try some local specialty at most of the ballparks, because even though my digestive system is used to me putting a lot of items consisting of meat and meat by-products down the hatch, I’m not sure it can handle a hot dog a day for 10 days. I’m also not sure what Levi’s going to eat on the trip, other than Tim Horton’s doughnuts while we’re in Canada, if he’s still practicing vegetarianism.

Original comments…

Levi: “Practicing”? I think I’ve got this vegetarian thing down by now.

And surely there will be enough to eat. Ballpark pizza is one of the worst foods in the world, but in St. Louis, for example, they’ve got a stand that sells veggie burgers and another that sells reasonably good burritos.

maura: i guess that seals the identity of the person who’s going to try the schmitter at citizens bank park, then….

Jon Solomon: There are GREAT veggie dogs to be had in Toronto at SkyDome. They’ve got a whole vegetarian stand down on the first level, in fact.

Steve: My long list of reasons why baseball should be contracted just got longer. Veggie dogs? inside domes? in Canada?!? Great American pastime indeed. There’s plenty of things vegetarians can eat at the ballpark–french fries, nachos, pretzels, peanuts, pizza, sunflower seeds, beer, big league chew, ice cream (if you aren’t vegan) lemon freeze (if you are vegan) free diced onions at wrigley….

Jim: A cheese steak on a Kaiser roll with fried salami, fried onions, tomato, and secret sauce?! There is nothing about that I don’t like, except that if it’s $5.25 at the actual McNally’s, I shudder to think how much they’re charging at Citizens Bank Park.

Levi: Let’s all give a moment of appreciation to Jim Bouton for inventing Big League Chew. That’s almost as great an achievement as writing Ball Four.

thatbob: My only quibble: I wish it had been called Big League Chaw. (God, it sucks to be me. I really can’t enjoy *anything*.)

thatbob: Re: veggie dogs inside domes in Canada. You know what Yogi Berra would say to that: “Only in America.”

Jason: You could always eat before the game…if you’re a COMMUNIST!

sarah: jon’s post brought back some very scary and sad memories of the near-deserted vegetarian food stand at the expos game we went to in montreal. the echo of fans banging empty seats followed me into the dark back alleys of the food court. the whole adventure took me close to an hour, since i believe they had to actually form the tofu into veggie-dog shapes by hand. plus, a mishap involving a foul ball spilled our whole dinner onto my shirt anyway.

good times. good times.

More actual road trip-related content

Maura will be joining us for the game in Cleveland as well as the previously planned Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The itinerary has been updated. Hope she likes the Pennsylvania and Ohio Turnpikes!

Original comments…

Levi: Mo’ Mo! Mo’ Mo!

That’s gotta be a good thing.

Actual content related to the road trip

While I was in Tampa, I got to hear my mother complain, “I can’t believe you’re going to (insert city here), but you’re only spending one night there, and all you’ll be doing is going to a baseball game!”

In between the kvetching, she did bring up another point: a cell phone might come in handy on the trip. But you, Levi, don’t have one, do you? And I’m the only person in L.A. who doesn’t have one. I may get one of those prepaid, pay-as-you-go deals.

Original comments…

Luke: What, do you have tickets behind the plate?

Levi: Now–apologies to the Holderbys–while I’m sure that many people have said, “I can’t believe you’re going to Detroit,” I have trouble believing that anyone has ever said, “I can’t believe you’re going to Detroit, but you’re only spending one night, and all you’ll be doing is going to a baseball game.”

Jim: No, I would absolutely not call someone from a baseball game to tell them to watch me on TV. And I definitely wouldn’t get Nextel service, solely because their walkie-talkie feature is much more annoying for those nearby than a regular cell phone is (and I know this for a fact because of someone near me using the walkie-talkie feature at the Padres game I went to last year).

You’re right, although my mother’s family lived in the Detroit suburbs for some years, she was most concerned about Montreal, and to a lesser extent Boston and Toronto.

maura: ohh, i loathe those walkie-talkie phones. when i took the bus to and from work in philadelphia, they were like the plague.

i was debating leaving my phone at home for our trip, but then i realized that i needed a backup plan in case of train problems. alas.

There’s a lot to like

Bob seems to have been spending all day reading this blog from beginning to end. He left a comment related to the very first entry which I might as well address. I listed the four potential itineraries and said, “I actually have reasons for liking all four of these itineraries, so I don’t really care which one eventually gets chosen.” Bob wondered what those reasons were.

All four included at least nine games in nine different ballparks, including the places I specifically wanted to go, Montreal and Pittsburgh, and the place Levi specifically wanted to go, Boston. And then there were also more specific areas of interest for each of the four.

Itinerary #1 was the earliest in the year, so I wouldn’t have to deal with feelings of anticipation as long. It also included a scheduled day with no game, neatly placed on the itinerary between Boston and Philadelphia, which could have been used to see Stephanie D’Abruzzo in “Avenue Q,” or go to the Baseball Hall of Fame, or see the Red Sox twice, assuming we could afford the tickets. It also went across Memorial Day, so I’d save a vacation day from my job.

Itinerary #2 was the only one to include all four of last season’s League Championship Series participants, plus featured two games in the same city on consecutive days, which is neat even if one of the teams is the Yankees. And it was the only one with the Devil Rays, and the travel would be in the reverse direction of the other three.

Itinerary #3 included the Cardinals, which I knew would make Levi giddy with glee, as well as the only stadium that probably won’t be around anymore within the next three years, Busch Stadium (unless they tear Olympic Stadium down the instant the Expos leave Montreal).

Itinerary #4 was the only one to include a game in Baltimore, in the first of the new retro ballparks, and it would probably have allowed us to economize by staying with my aunt and uncle in the Philadelphia suburbs for a full three days. It also was the only one to include a minor-league game as originally drawn up, although we ended up adding one to the beginning of Itinerary #3. It also went across Labor Day, so it was another potential vacation day saving.

It’s probably a little late to be thinking about the alternate itineraries now, since we’ve been seriously committed to Itinerary #3 since February, when we got the Red Sox and Phillies tickets. I’m probably going to revisit them once the dates roll around and the games are played, and we’ll have some “we could have been there!” hindsight.

Original comments…

thatbob: Perhaps I’m building you a cumulative index (hottt!!!).

This is Priority Mail?

Way back in March, in this very blog, I maligned the AAA web site because it would only allow a total of eight destinations on the form to have a Triptik made for your upcoming road trip, so I had to make two separate requests, and then all I got in the mail was a Triptik for the final third of this trip; I had assumed that someone saw two requests by the same AAA member coming very closely together and threw away the first request.

Well, all this time, it turns out the AAA and their web site wasn’t at fault. It was the U.S. Postal Service. The Triptik covering the first two-thirds of this trip, it turns out, came in a much bigger box (because of all the Tourbooks that came along with it), too big to fit in one of the package lockers in my apartment complex, as the mailman discovered when trying to deliver it on February 4th (I know this because of a telltale scrawl on the address label). But he didn’t leave a note then, for whatever reason, and the package apparently got forgotten about somewhere in the North Hollywood post office until yesterday, when I finally got a note telling me to pick it up in a hurry or they would return it to the sender on May 3rd.

But now we have the small problem that all these Tourbooks are the 2003 editions, because the updated editions don’t come out until March or April (if I had remembered this, I wouldn’t have ordered the Triptik for this trip so early), and the more significant problem that the route shown on this Triptik doesn’t reflect our current plans, which involve going from Carmi, Illinois, to Detroit via University Park, Illinois, so we can drop Luke off at the Metra station.

So I’m going to go in person to a AAA office soon to get them to make a “corrected” Triptik while I wait, and maybe a big pile of 2004 edition Tourbooks, thus avoiding the Postal Service altogether, and the North Hollywood post office in particular. (My copy of the April 11th TV Guide also seems to have disappeared into a black hole, but TV Guide extended my subscription for two weeks to make up for it.)

Anxiety about the trip already?

All right, enough about jingles. Last night (really this morning), I dreamed that I was at the Phillies game on this trip, and first I realized that I hadn’t done anything about the quality setting on my digital camera, so I was fooling around with that for a while. Finally, once I had matched up the space remaining on the memory card with the number of pictures I thought I’d be taking on the rest of the trip, it was time to settle in and watch the game…except that the seats were uncomfortable metal benches instead of regular stadium seats, and they didn’t slope enough so I had to crane my neck to see around the people in front of me, and the seats weren’t really facing the field, they were facing the scoreboard, which was a lot farther to the left than one might expect. Speaking of which, the scoreboard wasn’t working at first, and once it lit up, it listed the home team as “Padres,” so I thought, “They’ve got the wrong ‘P’ team listed.” Also, Levi and the other hangers-on weren’t around at the beginning of the game, so a family of four took their seats.

I woke up shortly after the game started, with the visiting team having hit a ball to left field that was just foul…at least, I think so, since I was having trouble seeing. Any amateur dream interpreters want to take a crack at this?

On another note, as I alluded to earlier in this blog, I will be visiting a place we’re bypassing on this trip and going to New York for a few days in July, planning on attending the Yankees-Devil Rays game on Thursday, July 8th. (No chance to see the Mets, or either of the two minor-league teams in New York City, unfortunately…the Brooklyn Cyclones and the Staten Island Yankees are playing each other that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but I have to go up to Connecticut for a wedding, which is the justification for the trip.)

So here’s the real anxiety about the trip: why are there cheaper rooms available at well-known hotel chains in midtown Manhattan than there are in downtown Detroit? I’m going to assume the rooms are smaller and noiser on West 48th Street than they are on Gratiot Avenue, but still…

Original comments…

maura: wait, you’re going to see the rays?! maybe i can come along!!

Jim: Yes! I’ll be in touch.