Fathers Day Baseball

This is the first trip report I have to write. The next one, which took place in New York City, will probably be more epic in scale since it encompasses an entire weekend and involves playing beer-pong in mid-town Manhattan and me almost getting kicked out of Yankee Stadium. This report is the family-friendly Fathers Day Cincinnati Reds Baseball Special.

The family and I woke up early on Father’s Day and hit the road, heading down I-71 towards The Queen City. The Red Sox were in town for the first time since 1975 and this Reds fan wasn’t about to let an opportunity like this slip by him. After a quick stop at Bob Evans for breakfast, it was non-stop to Cincy and Great American Ballpark.

Arriving at the park about 2 hours before the 1:15 first pitch I found a spot in my favorite parking place directly below the stadium. Knowing that we had lots of time to kill, the family and I decided to walk around outside the park where we found ourselves on Crosley Terrace and were greeted by a 60 foot tall banner of one Ken Griffey, Jr. commemorating his recent accomplishment of hitting his 600th home run. While I think Griffey is a huge strain on the Reds payroll, I can appreciate his recent milestone. I also weep for what might have been had he remained healthy the entire 8 or so seasons he has had with the Reds. I can say with confidence that one Barry Bonds would not be sitting at the top of a certain list. Anyway, I digress.

There was a very nice set of bronze statues consisting of Joe Nuxhall, Frank Robinson, Ted Kluszuzki, and Ernie Lombardi. The statues are very nice and set to resemble a pitcher, catcher, batter, and a man on deck. In what I took as a Fathers Day tribute to Joe Nuxhall, someone placed an arrangement of flowers in front of his statue with a black band and the number 41, which Nuxhall wore for his 15 seasons on the roster. I took a few quick photos of the boys with the statues and then we cornered Mr. Redlegs himself and got a few pictures with him as well.

After the impromptu photoshoot, we made our way into the stadium and found our seats. We were in the upper level for the sold out game, but we had a pretty good view of the field and a great view overlooking the Ohio River. In between innings we could gaze downriver and watch the various paddleboats making there way up the waterway.

The game itself was not very exciting. The Reds obviously had other things on their minds and quickly fell behind 5-0 after just a few innings. Boston ended up cruising to an easy 9-0 victory, but on this day it didn’t matter. I spent it with the most important people in my life, and we had a great time. On Fathers Day, this is the only thing that matters; on this day, the score is irrelevant.

mini-update

So, it’s been a while and I’ve been busy.

This weekend I’m going to Cincinnati to see the Reds v. Red Sox.

Next weekend to New York to see Reds v. Yankees.

Following weekend to Pittsburgh to see Pirates v. Rays.

GOGOGOME!

Ann Arbor/Detroit Trip Report

You may recall a few posts back that I mentioned going to Detroit to catch a Tiger’s game. Well, that happened this weekend.

I headed up to my friend’s house after work Friday afternoon. I had planned on stopping for sushi along the way because I was probably going to have time to kill before my friend got home from work, but he called me just as I was leaving town saying that we would be going for sushi upon my arrival and that he was buying. Awesome indeed.

The trip up was uneventful, as most solo road trips are, and I arrived at my friend’s house promptly at 6:30. I dropped my bag and said something along the lines of, “Bring on the sushi”, but my friend informed me that while googling directions, he found out that the sushi bar we had planned on going to had recently closed. I was immensely sad for about 5 seconds until he suggested we go for Indian instead. I had never had Indian before and I was stoked to try something new. My friend, his wife, and I pile into his brand new Scion and roll into Ann Arbor and the campus area is totally packed with people. Apparently UM had a graduation that evening and there was hardly anywhere to park and all of the storefronts had lines of people halfway around the block.

Eventually we found a nice parking spot and started walking towards our destination, Raja Rani. Raja Rani is located in an old house on a corner lot in downtown Ann Arbor. The wait was brief and the food was phenomenal. After we were seated we received a complimentary appetizer of vegetable pakora, which is basically deep-fried vegetables, served with three different dipping sauces, all delicious and all spicy. For my entree I decided to go with chicken karahi, which seemed like a good introductory dish for my first Indian dining experience. Chicken kahari is simply chicken sauteed in a wok with tomato, ginger, herbs, and spices. It came topped with cilantro and was served with rice. I loved it. We also had some type of spicy flat-bread and mango milk shakes. I wanted to take a picture of my meal to post here, but didn’t want to look like a tourist. I will certainly be researching my options locally as far as Indian food is concerned.

After dinner we walked around downtown and stopped at a local coffee shop and grabbed a latte for our meandering stroll through the city. Nothing too exciting was happening so we finished our drinks and headed home.

We were up bright and early Saturday and decided to head into Detroit to check out the pre-game city scene. On the way we stopped at a Greek restaurant and had breakfast. I had an omelet with lamb, spinach, tomato, onion, and feta cheese. It was pretty tasty. Anyway, I digress. Once we made our way into the city we found some cheap parking and headed directly to Cheli’s Chili Bar which is directly across the street from Comerica Park. We had a few drinks and then decided to head into the stadium and find our seats.

During the pre-game warm-ups, my friend did manage to snag Justin Weaver’s autograph, which was pretty sweet.  The game itself was pretty uneventful, although the 2nd year pitcher, Armando Galarraga did pitch a no-hitter through 5 2/3 innings. We bounced a little early with Detroit leading 6-4 hoping to beat traffic. The score stuck and Detroit came away with a win and we got out of the city well before the sell-out crowd of 42,000 even left the ball park.

Amazing nascar crash

So, I’m not really a fan of NASCAR.  I used to be hooked on it like it was crack, but that interest died around the same time Dale Earnhardt did.  Anyway, my brother sent me this link earlier from a crash that happened yesterday afternoon at qualifying.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a crash impact like this and for a moment I really thought the guy was dead, because he hit the wall way harder than Earnhardt did at Daytona.  I guess this is a testament to the new car and various other safety precautions NASCAR is taking these days.