I’ve posted a complete itinerary — at least in terms of what games we’re seeing, where we’re staying, and how we’re getting there. Some items are subject to change, of course; for example, we may be staying with a friend of Levi’s in Iowa City the night of the 3rd, rather than in the listed Hampton Inn in Cedar Rapids.
Hey, the trip starts in less than 3 weeks for me!
Levi has already been in touch with Minnesota resident Pete, find who would not only like to accompany us to the Twins-Rays game on July 2nd, but has generously offered to let us spend the night with him and his family.
This is what I was alluding to with the previous post. Finally, after 6 years, Levi and I are doing another proper baseball road trip. For reasons of busy-ness and other facets of
adulthood, this one will be shorter than the 2004 trip: only five games in five days in five cities (and only four metropolitan areas).
Wednesday, June 30: Chicago White Sox at Kansas City Royals
Thursday, July 1: Omaha Royals at Iowa Cubs
Friday, July 2: Tampa Bay Rays at Minnesota Twins
Saturday, July 3: Clinton LumberKings at Cedar Rapids Kernels
Sunday, July 4: Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks at Kansas City T-Bones
Yes, you read correctly: two visiting teams with CamelCase names. Actually, the main purpose of this trip is to see Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City and Target Field in Minneapolis, two stadiums neither Levi nor I have been to yet.
We haven’t quite worked out all the logistics yet (for example, you may note that we have to get to and from Kansas City somehow), but then, that’s what baseballrelated.com was originally created for.
Some differences between May 2010 and May 2004:
Does this list of differences have anything to do with anything? Mmmmmmaybe…
Here’s about five and a half minutes of home-movie footage from an Orioles-White Sox doubleheader at Comiskey Park on August 22, 1976.
Here’s a scorecard as kept by baseball announcer/television writer Ken Levine, whose work has been referred to on this blog before (he co-wrote the “Dancin’ Homer” episode of “The Simpsons,” mentioned here early on).
Well, about as current as one can be in a comic strip. 
This is the “Doonesbury” strip for today, Friday, May 21, referencing an event that occurred on Sunday, May 9, twelve days earlier. Back in my younger days when I had dreams of becoming a nationally syndicated cartoonist (i.e., the early-to-mid-1980s), the rule of thumb in every book about becoming a nationally syndicated cartoonist was that daily comic strips needed to be done 8 weeks in advance — or maybe you could push it as little
as 6 weeks — and Sunday strips needed a 10-to-12-week lead time. Obviously, that is no longer the case, thanks to technology. At least for daily strips. Sunday strips need more time, although I believe it’s gone down from 10 to 12 weeks to half that. And, thanks to technology, the Sunday strips look better on the page than they ever have before; the production and printing techniques are allowing, for example, gradients that are actually gradations, and reproduce correctly in perfect registration and don’t rub off on your hands. It’s just too bad they’re printed so small that no one can tell. Okay, my periodic rant about comic strips over. I hope we’ll have some exciting news about baseball-related program activities to share soon. (Exciting for me and probably Levi, at least.)
I got an instant message from a co-worker at about 2:00 saying a friend of hers had an extra ticket for tonight’s Angels-A’s game. Yes, even though I had made the 80-plus-mile round-trip to Anaheim for games Tuesday and Wednesday, since my rule is to never turn down a last-minute baseball invitation (especially when the ticket is free), I made the trip again.
One storyline in this game was that it was Dallas Braden’s first start after his perfect game last Sunday. He needed to retire the first three batters to break Catfish Hunter’s A’s record of 29 consecutive batters retired — and Braden retired only the first two. The game did become a pitchers’ duel, with Braden battling Joe Saunders, and with the difference being the Angels’ big 6th inning.
Both pitchers went the distance, just as in the Angels-Royals game Levi, Jason, and I saw last May in which Zack Greinke went up against Joe Saunders. Same result: a complete-game win for Saunders.
Let me highlight this fact: Joe Saunders has pitched exactly two complete-game shutouts in his major-league career. I have seen both of them live.
