Stacey is now listed as an official hanger-on. If this keeps up, someone is going to end up riding in the trunk. Fortunately, Levi folds up into a compact package, and a flashlight and a couple of comic books can keep him occupied back there for hours.
Darn it, someone is already sponsoring Karl Rhodes’ page at baseball-reference.com. But, Tuffy, I thought what we had was special!
Today’s best baseball moment:
Julio Franco talked about filling out a questionnaire for some media thing. When he got to the question, “What’s something no one knows about you?” he wrote, “My age.”
Other things I like about Julio Franco: his goofy batting stance and his goofy career path. He didn’t play in the majors in 1998. In 1999 he had 1 at-bat. He struck out. Then in 2000 he went to the Mexican League and hit something like .475. In the three years since then, he’s had 699 at-bats with respectable numbers. And he’s so old he makes Benito Santiago look, well, if not young, then at least less like the living dead.
The first tickets have been purchased, bleacher seats for the Red Sox vs. Tigers at Fenway Park. Up next, Phillies tickets, which go on sale on Thursday the 19th. Those may end up being the only tickets we get in advance, although we’re pretty sure we can use our connections to get free Cardinals and Pirates tickets.
Re: the long version of “Feels So Good”
I haven’t looked at the daily distances yet, but I know the trip is approximately twelve days.
That’s not nearly enough time for the long version.
PS Do you think Chuck Mangione wants to join us for a game? He’s from Rochester, so maybe he’d want to meet up in Toronto.
I’ve added approximate driving times to the itinerary, for Levi to calculate how many times the long version of Chuck Mangione’s “Feels So Good” can be played on each leg of the trip. Actually, since Levi has a first-generation iPod, I’m not sure how familiar he is with the concept of the “on-the-go playlist” feature of the third-generation iPods. This allows someone in the passenger seat to easily construct a playlist consisting of, for example, “Feels So Good” three times, the Beach Boys’ “Kokomo” twice, and then “Feels So Good” four more times. It would also allow someone in the driver’s seat to steer the car into a tree.
On another note, I got my brand-new passport in the mail today, so that I can more easily get into and out of Canada on this trip. My previous passport was issued in 1984, the last time I traveled outside the borders of the U.S. Why, it’s old enough that it has separate stamps for France and Belgium in it! (My mother finally dug the old one up from wherever she’d been hiding it and sent it to me, thus finally allowing me to apply for a new one.)
I guess I should make mention of the fact that the Boston Red Sox are the Sports Illustrated Sportsmen of the Year, which I guess makes sense, since as of now, the Sox winning is the feel-good sports story of the year. The story in Sports Illustrated is about Red Sox fans, which means it’s heartwarming and tearjerking, not to mention heartjerking and tearwarming.
The problem is with the timing, since this issue came out at the beginning of December (I guess it was tied to a TV special where they revealed the choice). What happens if, for example, Brett Favre thwarts an invasion of Earth sometime between now and the end of the year? Well, maybe now that the Sox won the World Series, it won’t matter so much if we’re enslaved by aliens.
I don’t think AAA would approve of staying in a hotel that has chunks of plaster all over the floor and pigeons roosting inside. But maybe I’m wrong. Their 2004 Tourbooks come out in April, so I’ll pick up the one for Michigan when I have the Triptik made and see how many “diamonds” they give the ol’ Book Cadillac.
While we’re on the subject of Detroit, just the other night, I watched an HBO documentary called “A City on Fire: The Story of the ’68 Detroit Tigers.” The part about the World Series might make Levi depressed and morose, but I enjoyed it. Our next baseball trip after this one needs to involve time travel.
It actually contained some content relevant to our National Anthem discussion: Mickey Lolich complaining about how long it took Jose Feliciano to get through “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the beginning of Game 5, and several other interviewees, including Ernie Harwell, talking about all the complaints received about this unique take on the anthem. It sounded fine to me, although they didn’t play the whole thing uninterrupted in the documentary, so I couldn’t tell exactly how long it went on for.
The birth of this blog prodded a couple of people to put their names into consideration as official hangers-on. Luke wants to go to Davenport and St. Louis, and Maura wants to join us in Pittsburgh in addition to Philadelphia, so I certainly hope she enjoys the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I have updated the itinerary with details of their attendance.
I read the itinerary this morning, Jim, and I have but one quibble. You say that we’ll stay in a hotel in Detroit.
Have you forgotten that there are half a million abandoned buildings in Detroit? Many of them are even hotels! Why pay for a dinky room in a chain motel when you could stay right downtown at the Book Cadillac Hotel?
I may have a new favorite non-Cardinal player.
Last night, we had a couple of people over to watch the opener between the Red Sox and the Orioles. We settled in, started the TiVo, and the first image of the season caused everyone to gasp in sheer, unadulterated awe. Johnny Damon, over the winter, turned into a god. He grew out his already shaggy hair so that it hangs over his shoulders, trailing out of his batting helmet or cap. And he grew a beard. It was hard to concentrate on what he was doing during his first at-bat, because all anyone in the room could look at or think about was all that hair. Then, on his first play in the outfield, he was coming in for a ball, not too fast, and it looked like there was no hope of his cap falling off. Everyone was disappointed. Then, like a silent prayer being answered, the cap popped off his head and his glossy locks floated free. There was much cheering in the Rocketship.
I apologize for not having a link to a photo. I haven’t seen one today, which just tells me, once again, that the majority of sportswriters have been doing their jobs so long that they no longer really love sports. Otherwise, today’s headlines would be along the lines of: Damon’s Hair, Beard Open a Glorious Season.
You know it’s going to be a great year now.
P.S. While looking up links for this post, I discovered that the Baltimore Orioles own neither www.baltimoreorioles.com or www.orioles.com. The latter hosts a site for the United States Beer Drinking Team, with a link for Beer Radio.
I have just added a link to our trip itinerary to the header of this blog.
Since they’re reflected in that itinerary, I might as well discuss some of the recent preparations I’ve made, because if getting there is half the fun, then preparing for the trip is the other half…
Places to stay: With the assistance of the AAA web site, I made reservations at relatively inexpensive hotels in Toronto, Montreal, Boston, and Pittsburgh (and the Canadian dollar better not get any stronger, so that the hotels in Toronto and Montreal stay inexpensive). Yes, the AAA web site doesn’t list every possible place to stay, but I like the assurance that a AAA inspector didn’t have a room infested with bedbugs, or however they decide on their “diamond” ratings. Anyway, the Toronto, Montreal, and Boston hotels seem to be a quick rapid transit ride away from each city’s respective stadium, and the Pittsburgh hotel is within walking distance, thanks to Hilton’s weekend specials. (I assume in this case, the AAA inspector didn’t have a room infested with the Hilton sisters.)
Unfortunately for Levi, the Skydome hotel in Toronto didn’t qualify as “relatively inexpensive,” especially the “field view” rooms. But maybe if I make it onto “Super Millionaire” in May…
Anyway, I haven’t made reservations for the Quad Cities or Detroit yet because I guess we’re not exactly sure how many hangers-on there are going to be. I have a place in mind for Detroit which looks like it’s in walking distance of Comerica Park. There seem to be plenty of choices in the Quad Cities, and I may end up deciding that perhaps we should stay in Galesburg, which is about 45 minutes south (since we have to make it to St. Louis for an afternoon game).
Driving directions: Speaking of making it to St. Louis, it turns out that the AAA web site is ill-equipped for making very complicated requests for their Triptik map packages. Each request can only have one starting point and eight destinations, and this trip is about twice that long. (Also, the request form doesn’t include the town in Pennsylvania where my aunt and uncle live.) Nevertheless, I tried making two separate requests, one starting in Chicago and going until I ran out of destinations in Philadelphia, then one starting in Philadelphia and going back to Chicago. I only ended up getting the second one, probably because the AAA computer wanted to be helpful and cancel one of my Chicago-Philadelphia routings, assuming I had quickly changed my mind about which cities I wanted to pass through on the way.
So one of these days, I’m going to show up in person at the local AAA office to challenge them and their route-highlighting skills.
Rental car: Obviously, it will be important to get unlimited mileage and be sure it’s okay to take the car into Canada. I am under the impression that the lowest car rental rates can be found at airports if you’re coming in on a flight, as I will be…but since Levi, I believe, rents cars more often than I do, perhaps he knows more than I do.
My flight: Right now, the cheapest L.A.-Chicago fare is on Spirit Airlines, but their one flight a day is a red-eye eastbound, and I hate red-eyes because I can’t sleep on planes; more importantly, a flight I took on Spirit in the summer of 1999 left me with no confidence in their ability to run an airline.
(By the way: “AAA” above is a reference to the American Automobile Association, not to minor-league baseball.)
