Tag: red sox

The game that wasn’t

Hanger-on Luke e-mailed earlier tonight to point out that the Red Sox were playing the White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field on Friday night, and wondered why we didn’t start the trip with this game. I think it’s a moot point now, because the game is sold out and I don’t particularly want to pay premium prices for a game, given all the other games we still have to buy tickets to (we’re planning on getting tickets at the gate for 6 of the 11 games, and I owe Levi money for the Cardinals game…although he owes me money for the other four games). Also, I’m told that Levi and Stacey are planning a farewell dinner, or something like that, at their place on Friday night.

But it’s a valid question. I think what happened is that I just didn’t see back in January, on the graph I made of when various teams were at home, that the White Sox were going to be home this weekend. So when I originally came up with this itinerary, as depicted in this post, I started with the Cardinals game on Sunday. Then, soon afterwards, I realized that it was stupid to start an itinerary on Sunday when, I assumed, I could easily add a minor-league game on Saturday. It turned out I could, so I didn’t have any reason to go back over the major league schedules. And then when I made my flight reservations, I added a day on either side of the trip itinerary, just in case of delays somewhere, and came up with arriving Chicago on Thursday and leaving Chicago on September 1st. Then I sat back, relaxed, and made hundreds of posts to this blog over the next five months. Honorary hanger-on Jason asked me about going to a minor-league game in the Chicago area on Friday night at one point, but I decided it would be too hard to make it out to a suburb in time for a game after people had gotten off work Friday evening. I don’t think I even checked the schedules for any of the local teams until just now (to save you the trouble, only the Joliet Jackhammers are at home Friday night).

I don’t know what my point is, except that I really need to get to bed now. (For those of you who have just stumbled across this blog, it’s not quite as bad as it looks, because the time stamps on the posts are in Central time, but I’m running on Pacific time right now.)

How’s the weather, whether or not we’re together?

Highs in the 60s in Chicago and St. Louis in August? I didn’t think I was going to have to bring a jacket on this trip!

P.S.: I think the Devil Rays should call do-over on their 6-0 loss to the Red Sox today in Boston; clearly, they were distracted by the hurricane approaching their hometown. Actually, I wonder if they’re secretly hoping Tropicana Field suffers damage serious enough that they’ll have to have a new stadium built for them.

Original comments…

Levi: I don’t think FEMA builds stadiums.

I remembered last night that the weather was unseasonably chilly ten years ago this week, when my parents, Pete Bodensteiner, Bob Hanscum, my brother, and I saw what turned out to be the last game of the season at Wrigley Field. The strike started the next day. It was so chilly at Wrigley that everyone wore jackets, but even that wasn’t enough to keep my parents from huddling under the grandstand much of the game.

Man, the strike sure sucked. Fortunately, so did the Cardinals that year. I still feel like apologizing to Expos fans on behalf of human (and corporate) intransigence and greed.

Jim: I have quite a few episodes of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” that I taped in the summer of 1994, with Comedy Central ID bumpers where they’re calling themselves “Official Network of the 1994 Players’ Strike.”

Unfortunately, Tropicana Field is quite a bit further inland than — and probably much more solidly built than — Al Lang Stadium, former spring training home of the Cardinals, and a very nice place to spend a spring afternoon.