Heart of America: Day 1 and Day 2

There was a lot of driving on the first two days of my trip through the Heart of America. On day 1 my goal was to drive as far as possible to leave me somewhat rested for attending the Astros game on day 2. I hit patches of rain in Fort Wayne, IN, southern Illinois, and Northeastern Arkansas. I finally called it a day in Little Rock where the hotels were rather cheap and near the highway. The only two stops of note on the day 1 drive were Cairo, IL and at a barbeque place west of Memphis, TN. Cairo, IL appeared to be an old river town right on the Mississippi river but many of the buildings are shut down and roads are closed off. I had a tough time finding a gas station and the gas was very expensive. I only put in a couple dollars worth of gas and managed to find a much better gas station across the Missouri line. I had a brisket sandwich and a couple of sides at the barbeque place outside of Memphis. It was good and definitely hit the spot.

Day 2 started off with a southern staple: breakfast at a Waffle House. There are no Waffle Houses in Michigan but they are everywhere in the south! I then drove through Texarkana on my way into Texas. My GPS had me take some back highways to get to my hotel I booked the night before outside of Houston. This back highways were pretty comparable to the state highways in Michigan but the speed limit is 70 MPH, in some places 75 MPH. I had lunch a local chain called Whataburger. The burger was good for a fast food place and I liked that it was freshly made but I don't see a big difference between Whataburger and McDonald's. I checked-in at my hotel on the north side of Houston, bought a ticket last minute on Stubhub, and got it printed a Staples a block away. I then headed down to downtown Houston for the ball game for my first game in over 2 weeks! It was nice to get back into the swing of things and my experience at Minute Maid Park has already been published.

Ballpark: Minute Maid Park

On July 1st, I attended the Astros vs. Rays game at the Minute Maid Park in Houston, TX. It was a battle of two teams that have stadiums sponsored by orange juice: Minute Maid Park for the Astros and Tropicana Field for the Rays. I drove from Little Rock to Houston earlier in the day and bought a ticket for the front row of the upper deck from Stubhub.com at the last minute.

Parking near the stadium was very easy. There was a ton of metered parking that expired at 6pm, so I just had to put a dollars worth of change into the meter and I was good to go. Minute Maid Park is downtown Houston right next to a big convention center but aside from a few bars, there isn't a whole lot going on in the area. There are a couple of cool features on the outside of Minute Maid Park though. One is a outdoor plaza with some trees and grassy areas. In this plaza they have a few flags and plaques in tribute to past team and individual achievements. The other is the Union Station entrance. This used to be a train station in Houston but they left the building up to serve as a historic entrance to the ballpark.

The ballpark continues with the train theme on this inside with a large train running above the left field concourse. Supposedly this train moves back and forth when an Astros player hits the homerun. The train track's main purpose is a track from the retractable roof. The roof was closed for this game to give the fans and the players a break from the Texas heat but the vertical panel above the left field concourse  is transparent so the downtown Houston view was still somewhat preserved. The wall from the train track down to the field is made from stone/stucco to make it look like a bridge. At the base of this wall are the Crawford Boxes. The Crawford Boxes are a few small sections in left field that are above the out-of-town scoreboard. The left field wall is relatively close to the plate but the roughly 20 foot scoreboard gives the ballpark a unique baseball dynamic and cool viewing perspective for fans. The Crawford Boxes detract from one of the more unusual and more well-known features of Minute Maid Park: the centerfield hill. There isn't a good reason why there is a hill in centerfield but the top of the hill is a deep 436 feet from home plate. There is also a flag pole in the field of play at the top of the hill. Thankfully the hill is less noticeable than its reputation.

The concourses at Minute Maid Park are industrial modern and similar to the other retractable roof ballparks. Some of the key features on the concourse are the home run pump and the wall with past greats. The home run pump is a large replica gas pump that keeps track of the number of home runs hit during the parks existence. Large photographs of past Astro greats including Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio are displayed on the adjacent wall. As for food I got the Goya Burrito. This was recommended by an usher but I thought it was just mediocre. There were very few fans at the ballpark on this Monday evening but everyone I talked to was overwhelmingly friendly.

As for the game, the better team dominated the lesser team. Astros pitcher Dallas Keuchel danced around trouble in the first two innings but the Rays tagged him for three runs in the third courtesy of a sacrifice fly and the first of Ryan Roberts's two home runs on the night. The Rays added two runs in the 5th and put the game out of reach in the 7th inning with 4 more runs on 5 straight singles. Rays' starting pitcher Matt Moore was masterful as he won his 11th game on the season. The final score was 12-0 in favor of the Rays.

My take-away from Minute Maid Park is that it has debunked some of my complaints on domed/retractable roof stadiums. The transparent panel in left field maintains the downtown city view and keeps the playing surface bright with natural light. The ballpark has many unique features to keep the players on their toes and give some different perspectives in watching a ball game.

The Road: Heart of America

After a detour from my ballpark trip, I am on the road again to cross off 4 more stadiums from my list. I am headed down the middle of country and making my way back up stopping in Houston, Dallas, Kansas City, and St. Louis. This trip will take about a week and is my last vacation before I start work next Monday.

Today I am going to begin making my way down to Texas. I am splitting the 20 hour drive into two days. The second day will conclude by attending a Astros game at Minute Maid park. The next day, I will make the drive north to Dallas and meet up with a friend from college. We are then planning on going to the Rangers game on Tuesday, July 2nd.

My next stop will be in southeast Oklahoma to spend a couple days with my cousin who is a professor at a university down there. I don't know exactly what we will do but we have talked about going fishing one of the days. After Independence Day, I will continue with the final two ballparks on my trip. I will head to Kansas City for a night game on July 5th and then cross Missouri for a Saturday day game in St. Louis. I will meet up with a friend from high school and his fiance at one of these last two stops but we are not sure which one yet.

Cup Collection: Lake Michigan

Another trip down means another update to the Souvenir Cup Power Rankings! I have previously ranked and posted photos of the cups after both the West Coast trip and the East Coast trip. In this newest edition of the power rankings, cups from my recent Lake Michigan trip have been added to the cups acquired on the West Coast and East Coast trips. Additional details and photos are included for the newly added cups.

Rankings after the Lake Michigan trip:

1. Toronto Blue Jays
2. Philadelphia Phillies
3. New York Mets
4. Washington Nationals
5. San Diego Padres
6. Oakland A's
7. Boston Red Sox
8. Los Angeles Dodgers
9. Baltimore Orioles
10. Minnesota Twins
11. Milwaukee Brewers
12. Los Angeles Angels
13. Chicago White Sox
14. San Francisco Giants
15. New York Yankees
16. Chicago Cubs

Notes on rankings:

• The Twins, Brewers, and White Sox all use the same cup style. The Angels also used cups style. While I have criticized this cup style as being a little flimsy, I have a little better opinion of the cup now. This cup style has small ridges along the bottom and a large printed area. I think having four cups of the same style unintentionally forces me to view theses four cups as a group.
• The Twins cup also has the schedule on the backside. This is what elevated the Twins cup over the Brewers.
• The Brewers cup says Cerveceros because I attended on Cerveceros Night. Cerveceros Night was the game where the Brewers thanked the hispanic community of Milwaukee for their support of the team.
• The Cubs cup is very, very flimsy. The graphics on the cup would put it in the bottom half of the rankings but the lack of structural integrity of the cup are what places it in last place.

Lake Michigan: Day 4 - 7

Days 4 -7 of my Lake Michigan trip were filled primarily with driving. On Tuesday (Day 4), I woke up early and drove from my friends apartment in Chicago to Minneapolis to attend a baseball game at Target Field. I got caught in traffic leaving Chicago and on the south side of Milwaukee, but it wasn't too bad because I was anticipating delays around these two cities. I stopped at a McDonald's/gas station between Milwaukee and Madison to get out of the truck and book a hotel in the Twin Cities area. I then hopped back in my truck and drove to my hotel on the eastern edge of the Twin Cities. I then rested for a little while before heading out to a park and ride lot for the Minneapolis light rail for the Phillies vs. Twins game that night. I was able to park for free at the park and ride lot and avoid some of the inner city traffic and downtown parking congestion. I have written about Target Field in a precious blog post. It is hard to believe that Target Field was my 18 ballpark this season! You can check my progress by clicking the ballpark map on the side panel. Unfortunately the game was a night game and I didn't really have time to explore the Twin Cities. However, after the game I stayed downtown to watch the 4th quarter of Game 3 of the NBA Finals. The bars Downtown Minneapolis had $2 beers with a Twins ticket stubs so I took advantage of that. After the game I got back on the light rail and drove back to my hotel.

On Day 5 of the trip the plan was to drive from Minneapolis to my families cabin in Michigan's UP. This was free lodging for me and gave me the opportunity to spend some time at the cabin this summer. Growing up I went to the cabin about once a year for a week. En route to the UP, I stopped at the Leinenkugel's brewery in Chippewa Falls, WI. The tour was free and it was interesting to see workings of an active brewery. More worth of mention is that I got a few free samples of their brews. After a sandwich at a deli in Chippewa Falls I continued to the UP. I bought food and a cooler at a Wal-mart in Rhinelander, WI and made it to the turn off for the cabin at around 6:30 PM. One thing I noticed traveling some of the back highways of Wisconsin is nearly every little town has a couple hole-in-the-wall bars.

When most people talk about going "Up North", they go to a summer home on a lake where they jet ski, boat, and just hang out. Going "Up North" to my family's cabin doesn't have these luxuries but I kind of like it that way. The cabin is essentially a hunting camp - a building with no plumbing and no electricity (we can actually turn lights on using a car battery and a dc/ac converter but there are no power lines near the cabin). We have a two-hole outhouse, old barn with some boats, and a fire pit. The cabin steps from a lake so I spend most of my time up there fishing. I spent Day 6 of my trip doing just that. I caught quite a few fish including two big bluegill (8-11 inches) and a big crappie (11 inches). I also saw a moose at the edge of the lake! By the time I rowed over towards the moose in a boat, she stepped back into the woods.

On Friday, Day 7 of the trip, I cleaned up the cabin and headed back to my parents' house. It took me a solid 8 hours driving to get home but I made it home for dinner. Although things are a little more laid back at home, I still have a lot of planning and logistics to take care of for my trip to England, my next ballpark trip, and finding a new place to live for August.

Ballpark: Target Field

The Metrodome was notorious for being an awful venue to watch a baseball game. On Tuesday, June 11, I attended the Twins vs. Phillies game at the Twins new home: Target Field. I took the light rail to the Target Field stop in downtown Minneapolis. The Target Field stop kind of boxes you into Target Field and it is a little difficult to walk around the stadium. I was able to buy a ticket from a scalper for $15, which was also the cheapest price at the ticket office before fees, and entered the stadium near the light rail stop. When I exited the stadium after the game, I went through the Target Plaza gate. The Target Plaza is a cool courtyard-type area beyond right field of Target Field and enclosed by the Target Center (home of the NBA's Timberwolves) and the corporate headquarters of Target. Once outside this plaza, there are numerous newly-built bars and another light rail stop. In hindsight, I should have gotten off at that light rail stop and gone through the Target Plaza gate to enter Target Field. I can imagine this area would be hopping before big games.

Much of the brick at Target Field is limestone from Minnesota. The tan color of the stone gives the ballpark a little different feel compared to the more "retro" ballparks. The limestone is most visible in two places from the field: a wall near the left field foul pole and the "flower box" in right field. The "flower box" is a seating section that overhangs the field about 5 feet, about 25 feet off the ground. This feature is may seem odd from a baseball perspective but I think right fielders should be able to handle the challenge with a little preparation. Even though the "flower box" overhangs the playing field, it doesn't make hitting homeruns easy. The distances to the fence are moderately long to all fields and the wall is roughly 25 feet from the right field foul pole to centerfield. There are several other cool feature of Target Field: a Budweiser Rooftop with an open fireplace, a throwback structure of two cartoon twins (Minneapolis and St. Paul) shaking hands, a long vertical video board which cycles through the MLB divisional standings, a downtown view of Minneapolis, bars right behind home plate in the upperdeck, and a neat-looking club level which extends on the 2nd level from the third base dugout to above the Target Plaza.

There is not much foul ground at Target Field leaving fans close to the action. There isn't really a bad seat in the house. I did notice that the upperdeck stands in left field are a little too close to the field and you cannot see the left field fence (similar to Citizens Bank Park but not as bad). My seat was about 8 rows up on the upperdeck above first base and gave me a great view of the ballpark. Instead of keeping a scorecard, I was given a TWINGO sheet. This game was like BINGO except the spaces were filled with possible scoring plays (e.g. E-7, 6-4-3, 1B, 3B, etc.). I found this was a unique and effective way to keep me focused on the game. I also have to complement the ushers at Target Field as they were all very nice and actually enjoyed watching the game. One underrated feature of Target Field that I love is the concourses. Even though the concourses are covered, they still feel open to the city. There were a variety of food choices at Target Field and I went for an authentic Polish sausage with onions and peppers per recommendation of one of my friends who is a native Minnesotan. He also recommended a microbrew but the game was so fast that before I knew it, they were about to stop selling beer and I had just bought my souvenir pop.

In a stark difference from the White Sox game, the previous night, this game was fast and entertaining. The game was a pitching duel between Cole Hammels and PJ Walters. The Phillies got on the board first with an unearned run in the 3rd inning. The Twins came back with two runs in the bottom of the 4th with 3 straight doubles followed by a single. The game remained 2-1 with only a scattering of hits until the 8th inning. Three hits by the Phillies in the top of the inning tied the game up, but Justin Morneau came through with a big two-out RBI single to give the Twins the lead back. Glen Perkins shut the Phillies down to save the 3-2 victory. It is interesting that I have seen the Phillies play four times on the season and they have lost every time.

My take-away from Target Field is that it has upped the ante for ballparks. Since Target Field is one of the newest ballparks, it has incorporated the best features of existing ballparks. Additionally, it introduces some new features that make it distinct from all other ballparks while keeping the baseball feel. 

Ballpark: US Cellular Field

On Monday, June 10, I met my friend Miso at "The Cell" to watch the White Sox take on the Blue Jays. US Cellular Field is located near an 'L' station so public transportation is easy but parking is also available. The first thing I noticed about US Cellular Field is that it is gigantic from the outside. I think this is because the field is at street level and you must go up a ramp to reach the field level concourse. In front of the main gate there is a large structure representing the past White Sox greats. In a circle around this structure are plaques for the individual players. Once through the main gate, you must travel up a ramp to the concourses. Only ticket holders of 100 level seats are allowed on the main concourse. Although we had 100 level tickets, restricting main concourses to only field level ticket holders is quickly becoming on of my top ballpark pet peeves. 

The main concourse is pretty typical of major league stadiums. I like how concourse was wide enough to walk around if the stadium had been full (it was about 20% full) and the field is visible from anywhere on the concourse. Our seats were 3 rows up in right-center field, next to the Blue Jay bullpen. As opposed to some ballparks where the bullpens take away from the viewing experience, these bullpens were small and the seats conform around the bullpens to provide good seating and sight lines. In general, the sight lines in this ballpark were pretty good with one big exception. Directly above the ivy and shrubbery that make up the hitter's eye in centerfield, there is an elevated patio porch. On this patio porch is a brick shed, for which purpose I am not sure. This brick shed is tall and unfortunately positioned that at least a corner of the scoreboard is blocked when sitting anywhere from the first base dugout to right field. Although there were three video boards (one each above the stands in left, center, and right) that gave all the desired baseball information, the one in center had most of the replays. There are some features to draw on the baseball tradition on the south side of Chicago. There are statues of some of the past greats on the concourse in centerfield. There is also a working shower in the outfield which is a historic hold over from Comiskey Park. 

The food at the ballpark was pretty decent. I had Cuban sandwich as recommended by Men's Journal and a sausage with peppers and onions recommended by Miso. I also had a fried dough but I couldn't handle all of the oil. Although the White Sox fans have a reputation for being a little rough, I found the fans to be fine. The entire stadium gave former White Sox and current Blue Jay, Mark Buerhle, a huge standing ovation after the first inning. Later in the game, the guy sitting right in front of me (and roughest guy in the crowd) proposed to his girlfriend and she said yes. Actually, I am not sure if she actually said the word "yes" but she wore the ring and they were kissing for the rest of the game. 

So far on my trip, there are only been a couple tough games to watch, and this was one. The Blue Jays started off strong as Jose Bautista hit a two-run homerun in the top of the first. As the fog rolled into the stadium, so did the runs. With the White Sox up 4-2 in the bottom of the 3rd, the game was halted because of the fog. It was definitely the right call to delay the game because I could barely make out the third base dugout. The fog affected the players as Bautista, the Blue Jays right fielder, was complaining about not being able to see the ball. After about an hour the game resumed. The teams exchanged leads as Bautista and the White Sox's Adam Dunn each hit their second homeruns of the game. The score remained 7-6 White Sox from the bottom of the 5th to the bottom of the eighth but threats by both teams caused several mid-inning pitching changes. This made a long, reasonably entertaining game feel long, drawn out, and difficult to watch. In the bottom of the eighth, two Blue Jay errors allowed the White Sox to add three runs and give them a somewhat comfortable 10-6 win.

My take-away from US Cellular Field is that it is a pretty typical MLB ballpark. There isn't any distinct feature to make "The Cell" standout and there are only a couple of negative. The neighborhood and the fans were not as rough as their reputation although the stadium was pretty empty.