Category: road trip

Multi-city driving trips, preferably to see baseball: ours or others’.

I hope the game justifies the positive feedback

I have been checking eBay occasionally to see if anyone is selling tickets for the games on the trip. Finally, that paid off, because I found someone selling his 18-rows-behind-the-plate season seats for the August 23rd Tigers-White Sox game. I gambled on not using “Buy It Now,” and that paid off as well; I ended up being the only bidder, so I got them for his starting price, a significant discount from the face value. The tickets came in the mail today.

I didn’t post anything about this before now because I didn’t want any of the miscreants who read this blog to bid on the tickets and bump the price up. These will probably be the best seats we have for any game on the trip, except perhaps Davenport, or Montreal.

Alternate universe version of the trip number two, almost finished

Indians 5, Royals 1. Brand-new Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley started his career in Cleveland, which I didn’t realize until I looked him up just now.

Tomorrow: Speaking of brand-new Hall of Famers, it’s Milwaukee, home to Paul Molitor for most of his career. This was pretty well-planned, eh?

Back here in the real world, on the lookout for airplane reading material for the trip, I came across “Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy” on the bargain shelves at Barnes & Noble for $3.98.

Alternate universe version of the trip number two, continued

Blue Jays 4, Devil Rays 2. The Rays’ winning streak of June is now but a distant memory.

Tomorrow: Cleveland! Actually, it’s late enough that it’s later today, really. My excuse is that, since this is only a pretend version of the trip, I can go to a friend’s birthday karaoke party in real life.

Alternate universe version of the trip number two, continued

Expos 2, Marlins 1. I don’t know, Les Poissons didn’t look like World Series champs to me. But maybe that’s because I’m still bitter.

Tomorrow: Toronto, and at last, I won’t look so out of place with the Devil Rays cap I’ve been wearing this whole time!

Original comments…

Jason: You should probably have washed your Rays hat by now. Just because you’re in a French-speaking region, that’s no excuse to drop your sanitary habits.

Alternate universe version of the trip number two, continued

Yankees 10, Blue Jays 3. No Jeter! No Giambi! Yankees still win. Levi grumbling about not being able to watch the Cardinals’ current awesomeness.

Wait a minute. What am I doing up so late? We’ve got to get up early to make it to a day game in Boston tomorrow!

Alternate universe version of the trip, number two

The answer to the question posed at the end of this entry is, no, I won’t remember when July 17th rolls around. So here’s the first half of Itinerary Number Two…

Saturday, July 17: Cubs 5, Brewers 0. A complete-game shutout for Greg Maddux!

Sunday, July 18: Tigers 4, Yankees 2. The Tigers get their 44th win, one more win than they had all last season!

Monday, July 19: Expos 6, Pirates 2. A rare Expos win!

Tuesday, July 20: Marlins 9, Mets 7. A seesaw battle in the Big Apple!

Tomorrow: The Bronx! Also: More exclamation points?!

Last chance

I’m going to order tickets for game 2 of our trip tomorrow, once I know whether my brother is joining us. That’s the game in St. Louis on August 22nd versus the Pirates.

So it’s your last chance, potential hangers-on. We’ve got a group of 9 so far (Me, Jim, Stacey, Luke, my parents, Tony, Geoff Goldman and his fiancee). Want to join us?

Original comments…

Luke: Is our group big enough to get a group rate and get welcomed on the DiamondVision? Maybe the nine of us can be waiting out on the field when the Cu^^Cardinals come out to start the game!

Luke: Oh, and I sure hope Matt Morris is pitching that day and does as well as he is doing today. Hee-hee!

Luke: Umm, nevermind. I expect that by the time of our trip I’ll be rooting for the Cards to keep the Pirates out of the wild-card race.

The trees are all gone

With one month to go until the trip officially starts with me flying to Chicago, I thought I’d show you all the items I got from AAA…

Not all of these items will make the trip, because their weight adds up. Most likely to be left at home are the Tourbooks for Arkansas/Kansas/Missouri/Oklahoma and Iowa/Minnesota/Nebraska/North Dakota/South Dakota, since in both cases, we’ll be in one of the included states for no more than a few hours.

Original comments…

Levi: I guess I’ll make the reservation for a trailer rental now.

If you thought 10 in 10 in 10 was a lot…

…make it 11 games in 11 cities in 10 days. Clearly having our trip in mind, the White Sox and Phillies have scheduled a makeup interleague game for Monday, August 30th, at 1:05 P.M. at Some Sort of Cellular-Type Company Field in Chicago. If the game doesn’t run too long past 3 hours, we should be able to see it, then drive to Milwaukee afterwards and see the 7:05 P.M. Brewers-Pirates game that’s been on the schedule all along.

I’ll update the itinerary later today. (Also, this would be a great day for Chicagolanders to take off work and become official hangers-on. We should have space for three of you in the car.)

Edited late Tuesday afternoon: As promised, the itinerary is updated.

Original comments…

Levi: I have to admit to proposing this addition to Jim with a bit of trepidation. I really do think that ending the trip with a two-city twinbill will answer, once and for all, whether I can possibly get tired of baseball.

There goes the smuggling operation

From the “Returning to the United States” portion of AAA’s “U.S.-Canada Border Information” handout: “Articles considered detrimental to the general welfare of the United States are prohibited entry. These include narcotics and dangerous drugs, drug paraphernalia, obscene articles and publications, seditious or treasonable matter, lottery tickets, hazardous articles (e.g. fireworks, dangerous toys, toxic or poisonous substances) and switchblade knives.”

Lottery tickets are detrimental to the general welfare of the United States? Have the various states been notified of this fact? Many of them seem to be depending on the sale of lottery tickets for a major portion of their budgets. (Hmm, maybe they specifically mean Canadian lottery tickets are detrimental to the general welfare of the United States.)

I guess this means we won’t be able to blow any remaining Canadian cash on lottery tickets near the border. Guess we’ll instead have to stock up on candy that’s not available in the U.S., including Nestle Smarties and Aero bars. (Because we’ll be in Canada less than 48 hours, we’ll be able to bring back up to $400 worth of candy, or anything other than lottery tickets. If we wind with anywhere near $400 worth of Canadian money with which to buy candy, it will either mean an ATM went crazy somewhere or we were surprisingly successful buskers.)

Original comments…

Levi: Jim, if you buy anything in Canadia, the terrorists win.

maura: you can buy aero bars at the deli around the corner from my apartment.

Jim: Along with poutine, Kraft Dinner, caffeine-free Mountain Dew, and Anne Murray CDs?

(Yes, yes, I know Kraft Dinner is readily available in the U.S. under the name Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, or, if you prefer, Cheese and Macaroni. Leave it to the Canadians to just assume that dinner will involve macaroni and cheese.)

Levi: Also, $400 Canadian is equal to about $.28-$.35 American, depending on the prevailing exchange rates. We just might end up with that much money.

Jason: Don’t forget to pick up some ketchup-flavored potato chips.

On second thought, I think you’ve tried them before, so, forget it, after all.