The Great Lake Stadiums

Let it be known that Cleveland is home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, how could this town not rock? Well, we don’t know. We only spent about 3 hours and 7 minutes inside city limits, and all but about 20 minutes of that was inside beautiful Jacobs Field, cleverly nicknamed ‘The Jake’.

Similar to the Arizona Diamondbacks game we received the two cheapest seats in the whole place. We were actually placed above the foul pole – shattering all hope of us catching a Coco Crisp homerun and making it pointless for us and the 47 year old man in front of us to have gloves. The man in front of us reminded us that we always have to dream and one day it will all come true. Apparently his dream is to catch a homerun ball in the farthest section of Jacobs Field, bless his heart.

We relocated to much better seats which immediately enhanced our game time experience ten fold. A couple of quick notes about Ohio; one, just like Florida, there is no helmet law for motorcycle riders – you got to love that and two, one out of every three guys has hair at least shoulder length. They are old school rockers here. Helmets? Those are for pansies. Short hair? Not since ‘Nam. One of the long haired fans in attendance was our friend John, little brother of Matt Mackey the guy who hooked us up at the Olive Garden back in Virginia. John and his girlfriend Michelle joined us for the game. Which was two games in two nights with guests, what a delight. Michelle’s friend Nicole was also at the game and when she left early I said, ‘I hope to see you soon’ because I knew we might all be hanging out later. Michelle heard me say, ‘I hope we have sex soon’ and John thought I said, ‘You are a big baboon’. It was like the telephone game you played in elementary school on rain days because you couldn’t go outside and the last kid in the line always ended up saying something ridiculous, usually involving dinosaurs. Or in my case in Cleveland, it involved baboons.

The game itself was terrific. The Indians scored three runs in the bottom of the eighth to tie it up. Both Orioles and Indians failed to score in the ninth and we were headed into the first extra innings game of the road trip. On the first pitch of the bottom of tenth inning Mark Brossard hit a walk-off solo homerun over the right field wall. It was epic. The only problem with the game was the Rafael Palimero did not play and so Geoff didn’t get to use his line, “I don’t know if it’s the Viagra or the steroids but he really got some good wood on that pitch”. Maybe ol’ Raffy will play in Baltimore, we can only hope, because that line is too good to go to waste.

After the game we hung out at the Mackey household with our boy John. It is incredible, in a matter of a few hours Geoff and I have become best of friends with the Mackey brothers. We watched Mortal Kombat on TBS the Superstation and then slept in the basement. It was Friday when we went to sleep, it was Tuesday when we woke up. Man, sleeping in basements is just the best. I have no idea why we don’t have those things on the west coast, because they are the coolest, they remain unbelievably dark the whole day. I did feel rather awkward the next morning when I was talking to Reverend Mackey and I compared his basement to a Vegas hotel room. Not my best analogy. I don’t think it mattered because the Mackey parents were the nicest of hosts. They let us sleep in, made us coffee, watched the Little League World Series with us, and then even took us out to lunch. The Mackey family is the most welcoming family ever. Considering this is the family of my high school friend’s (Alicia) boyfriend (Matt) who we only met 3 days before. We were essentially complete strangers and they treated us like kin.

We left Cleveland to head to the Detroit game. This was supposed to be the shortest driving day of the trip so far. However, that was not the case. So we were headed to the home of Wes and Jenny Miller. Wes is an old friend of Eric Veneble who is someone I know from the Bay Area and we will be staying with him later. Eric set us up with Wes because, well, Detroit is not the town where you want to be sleeping in your van. I talked to Wes that morning and he gave me directions complete with, don’t turn right or you will be in a cornfield. What he failed to mention, is that Michigan Ave. is also called US 12. So we continued on the highway, on our way to Flint, for almost an hour before I realized we had probably gone too far. Nothing like 80 extra miles at $2.60 a gallon. Yet the wait was worth it.

Wes, who Geoff and I were referring to as Wes Mantooth which was Vince Vaghen’s character in Anchorman, was so fired up to see us. This made sense because I was coming off my first shower in a few days. We hopped in his mini van with his beautiful daughter Ali, Jenny, and Jenny’s brother Ryan. This is where something special happened. After searching for about 32 minutes for his sunglasses Wes starts up the car and pops in … NEIL DIAMOND. We were in Motown and we were rocking to Neil. I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

As if Wes Mantooth could do no better, he also managed to secure a parking pass and 4 field level tickets. A parking pass is kind of a must in Detroit. And the seats were incredible, about 10 rows behind the first base dugout. Furthermore, no one was next to us on either side so Ryan got to join us a few innings in. Comerica Park, the Tigers’ new stadium, is a sight to see. Very open and intimate. Extremely cool architecture and tiger sculptures everywhere. And in centerfield they have statues of their hall of famers and they are the greatest statues I have ever seen at a stadium. A perfect stadium in a not-so-perfect city. I will tell you though, Detroit Rock City likes to rock. It bragged several guys with mullets. There was one guy in a tank top rocking out to KISS most of the 7^th and 8^th inning. For some reason I get the feeling this guy was rocking out to KISS since the 7^th and 8^th grade. The fan highlight involved little Ali, daughter of Wes Mantooth. She was messing around with her nachos and threw some pieces of chips in the hair of the lady in front of us. That alone isn’t that big of a deal. However, it is believed that the women was the secretary of the CEO of the company that Wes Mantooth works for, the same women who got us these tickets. Probably not the best way to move up the career ladder, but it sure was funny. See if you can see the chip in the picture I posted.

After the game we all went to the Taco Bell. Nothing like authentic Michigan Mexican food. Believe it or not, there is not sense of urgency at the Bell at 1 AM. It took them about 8 minutes to take our order – probably because we ordered somewhere between 4 and 13 Sierra Mists.

We then went back to their home just outside of Ann Arbor and sat around their table and ate our delicious meal – which they bought for us, by the way – and just traded stories for over an hour. I had not laughed that hard in months. Most of what was said was vowed to remain at that table, and then sealed in blood, but I can say there was a segment involving milk and vomit.

I mentioned in some other post how weird it is not to talk to other people. For the most part it is just me and Geoff out here and sometimes we will go an entire day without talking to anyone else besides each other. And that is why it is so great when we have visitors, or hosts, or friendly bartenders. But this was the first time that we truly felt like we were back home. If only they didn’t live in Michigan.

Sadly, we had to leave the Manteeth early on Sunday in order to catch a day game in Cincinnati.