Actual trip-related content

The Devil Rays have an off day, and since I’ve got the AAA Tourbooks piled up around me, here are some questions for Levi et al. to ponder…

1. After the game in Davenport, when there are going to be four of us, do we want one hotel room or two? One room would be somewhat cheaper and would be a fun slumber party, but two rooms would mean two bathrooms.

2. How is Stacey getting from Detroit to Chicago — Amtrak? Greyhound? Teleportation device of some sort? The answer to this question may determine where we stay in Detroit, or perhaps I should say the greater Detroit area. (The one hotel that’s definitely within walking distance of Comerica Park is quoting what seems like a ridiculously high rate, so I’m looking elsewhere.)

3. Does either potential laptop have an Airport card (or other wireless card)? At least one potential place of lodging I’m looking at advertises free wireless Internet access.

Original comments…

sandor: 3. My available laptop does not, but perhaps you could borrow a card from someone else. Or buy one and return it a week and half later.

Levi: Ours has wireless Internet capability, if I understand such things properly.

thatbob: No, I don’t think you understand correctly. You’ll still need an Airport card. Which you might have, you should just ask Tony. But “wireless Internet capability” is a little like saying that my computer is “printer ready,” I would still need a printer.

Luke: One hotel room would be fine for this frugal hanger-on. More money for bowling.

Levi: Like, I mean that I’ve used it with the wireless internet here at work.

Does that mean I have an airport card?

sandor: Yeah, that means it’s wireless ready. It means it’ll pick up any wi-fi network it finds and allow you online, assuming it’s a free network.

stacey: monroe (our computer) will pick up any available network. also, i’m not sure if i’m going to go all the way to detroit yet . . . i was thinking maybe of just heading back from carmi. luke, want to travel together? which do you prefer?

Jim: Heading back to Chicago from Carmi with Luke will involve getting shoved out of the car at the University Park Metra station, so be aware of that. Unless you’re trying to keep your teleportation device secret from the government, wink wink.

Eleven!

The Devil Rays have now set the MLB record for longest win streak of the 2004 season. Too bad they have to play an AL team on Tuesday.

Original comments…

maura: yeah, but it’s the blue jays. who are without both vernon wells and carlos delgado.

i have faith. i mean, sheesh, mark hendrickson got out of that bases-loaded jam today, and i thought he was TOTALLY SCREWED at that point.

maura: not to mention: rocco baldelli WALKED today. when does he ever do that?!?

(rocco, if you find this via google, i still adore you! and your bobblehead is right next to my powerbook)

Levi: You know, when they were talking about moving the Diamondbacks to the AL a few years ago, maybe they were talking about the wrong team moving. I haven’t looked at the standings today, but I bet a 70-0 record would lead any National League division.

Steve: Eleven in a row is pretty awesome. But I would think that after 11 straight wins less than 1/2 way through the season the team would be a little better than 10 games out. Wasn’t Lou Pinella going around Tampa during the off-season touting how well the D-Rays were going to do. I heard something about how in the course of a week in front of three different audiences he said they would, “not finish last,” “finish third,” “challenge for a playoff spot” Paraphrasing of course…..

Levi: Also, I would think that after five seasons of finishing in last place, with almost no signs of progress, D-Rays GM Chuck LaMar would have been fired six or seven times.

maura: if they were in the al west, or al central, or nl east, they’d be less than five games out. the yankees (sigh) are running away with the al east, and boston, who the rays are now six games behind, has a better record than both those division’s leaders (and the nl east’s phillies, too)

thatbob: Gee! If I were in the al west, or al central, or nl east, maybe I’d be less than five games out, too! Gives a boy a chance to dream…

maura: 😛

I hope this is anxiety, not premonition

I just dreamed that we overslept and then dawdled and missed the second stop on this trip. However, I clearly don’t have our itinerary locked in my subconscious, since the dream was set at my aunt and uncle’s house in the Philadelphia suburbs, and we were late to Toronto. But what my subconscious did get right is that after I said to Levi something to the effect of, “It’s 4:00, so it’s too late for us to get to Toronto,” he swore loudly.

All was not lost, though, because I then grabbed the laptop and started looking up the NY-Penn League schedules. The dream ended before we made it to a game, but I’d like to think we did get to see some baseball.

The worst part of having this dream is that it was disturbing enough that I’m wide awake way too early after going to bed late last night (for those who don’t have this entire blog memorized, the posts here are being stamped in Central time, but I’m living on Pacific time).

Ten!

People in the Tampa Bay area are so shocked by the Devil Rays’ winning streak, they’re hitting the wrong pedal even more often than usual!

Oh, yeah, Levi wanted me to write about the Cardinals, didn’t he? Well, they’re only 8-2 in their last 10 games. And they may have only four losses in the month of June, but the Rays only have three losses this month. I repeat, they’re making people want to pick up their baggage at the Tampa airport really fast so they can get home to watch the games on PAX 66!

Nine!

Maybe the Devil Rays suddenly realized that the possibility exists for them to win the World Series in the same year that their hockey counterparts, the Lightning, won the Stanley Cup.

Or maybe the thought process is, “Well, we’re never going to see these NL West teams again, because we’ll probably be contracted out of existence before they come around again in the interleague rotation, so let’s make the most of it.”

More Tank McNamara, TiVo, and baseball

Whoever colorized today’s “Tank McNamara” strip has apparently never seen a TiVo remote. The buttons are in a variety of festive colors, not just red, assuming you consider gray and black to be festive colors.

Also, the colorizer has made everyone but the main characters orange, but that’s less of a problem.

Foul ball etiquette

Someone at the Dallas Morning News web site had a little too much time on his hands.

Original comments…

thatbob: Five of those six graphics should have been framed in the big red circle/slash element which signifies to “DON’T” do something. I hope these unadorned graphics don’t find their way into stadia nationwide and wreak havoc with foul ball etiquette. (I couldn’t notice that title, “Foul Ball Etiquette.” Apparently all rules are off when you’re trying to catch a Barry Bonds homer.)

AAA update

Things keep happening to thwart me from going to the AAA office on Monday, my day off, so today I went after work to get the Triptik and the various ancillary items, which I can’t get from the AAA web site because this trip has too many destinations for it to work correctly.

They’re going to mail me the Triptik, but I had, at one point, two AAA employees rummaging through filing cabinets looking for maps and Tourbooks for me. So now I have two plastic bags stuffed full of materials, including a map of Chicago and vicinity, just in case you don’t know your way around in a car, Levi. In fact, it may annoy you to discover that the AAA cartographers titled one of the inset maps, with Lawrence and Ashland at the upper left, “Lincoln Park.”

Original comments…

Jason: They might have been more helpful if you were going to any AAA parks, like Memphis or Albuquerque.

thatbob: And everyone knows that baseball-related Chase Park is actually at the corner of Lawrence and Ashland.

From www.chicagoparkdistrict.com:

“In 1920, the Lincoln Park Commission converted a deserted semi-professional baseball field into Chase Park. Known as Gunther Park, the ball field was home to the Niesen-Gunther team beginning in 1905. The facility went out of business in 1913, during the construction of Chicago’s north side professional baseball field, Wrigley Field. A community member suggested the conversion of the old ball field into a park in 1914, and several years later the Ravenswood Improvement Association and some local officials petitioned for the park. The Lincoln Park Commission finally began land acquisition in 1920. Within the next two years, tennis courts, a playground, an athletic field, a wading pool, and a fieldhouse were constructed in Chase Park. In 1934, the Lincoln park commission was consolidated into the Chicago park district. The Park district demolished chase Park’s original fieldhouse and replaced it with a new building in 1976.”

A note about our, um, colleagues…

So far, I’ve only found one other baseball trip similar to ours going on this year, and Andrew and Ben’s trip starts tonight in L.A. They’re doing 9 games in 6 cities in 11 days, including — and here’s where Levi starts drooling — all three Cardinals-Royals games in Kansas City from June 25-27. Also, their web site looks nicer than this one, and they even have an actual logo. So, Levi, if you’d rather go on their trip than the one we have planned, I guess I’ll understand.

Original comments…

Jason: They seem like a couple of Normal guys.

But on their web site, it looks like fog is rolling into Bank One Ballpark. Or maybe it’s smoke from all the peyote Arizona folks do.

thatbob: There site *looks* good, but is lacking in content. And, more importantly, places for me to comment. So far they are no threat to you for my readership/commentship.

Today’s dialogue from "Tank McNamara"

Man #1: So that’s your new TiVo?
Man #2: By jumping past pitching changes and the commercial blocks between innings, you can watch a whole game and save almost an hour.
Man #1: What would I do with another hour? Look, I have these unwanted periods of consciousness. I use TV sports to get rid of them.

In other news, the Devil Rays have won a franchise record seven straight games, so clearly, Levi needs to go on vacation more often. Alternately, perhaps the Rays could be switched from the AL to the NL.

Original comments…

thatbob: What is a Tank McNamara? Is it related to the Simon and Garfunkel song?

Jim: There’s a Simon and Garfunkel song called “Tank McNamara”?

“Tank McNamara” is a sports-themed comic strip. The title character is a football player turned sportscaster, although many of the strips don’t include him at all, such as today’s. Many newspapers run it in the sports section instead of on the comics page, including the Tampa Tribune during the 1980s, which is where I first became aware of its existence.

thatbob: “Many newspapers run it in the sports section instead of on the comics page,”

In the sacred space customarily accorded to Gil Thorpe?!? For shame!

Epacris: That particular day’s strip is one of my top favourites.

(My all-time favourite is Calvin & Hobbes, 2nd June, 1983 aka ‘The Big Picture’)

I have TMcN on “My Yahoo” front page. Since I’m from Australia & (somewhat unusually) quite uninterested in sport, a lot of the strip doesn’t make much sense, but it can be quite fun about universal sporting foibles.