Geoff and a whole lotta water

Look at the price of gas in Canada - what does that even mean?! 

Canada, eh?

We had all day to get to Toronto, so we were in no rush at all to leave our sweet sweet soil. We cruised through Niagara Falls, birthplace of Rick Shook. He and my uncle were pointing out all the sights, like the park, and the carbon plant. We parked and strolled out to the falls. Wow. That is a lot of water. I do want to clear something up though. For those, like me, who have never quite made it Western New York and so their only knowledge of Niagara Falls comes from Superman II, it is not like that. You see, they filmed that from the Canada side, not our side, so from America the water flows from left to right. Everything was backwards in my mind. It was as if I was in bizarro world – little did I realize that would happen in about 30 minutes when we crossed the border.

I am in the drivers seat, Brian is next to me in the other Lazy Boy, Geoff was right behind me on the sofa with my dad next to him. We pulled up to the customs booth and talked to some nancy Canada boy. He asked us the standard questions:

Nancy Canada Boy: What is your country of citizenship?

Scott: We are all US citizens.

Nancy Canada Boy: Where are you from?

Scott: We are from Southern California.

Nancy Canada Boy: Why are you coming in to Canada today?

Scott: To see a baseball game in Toronto.

Nancy Canada Boy (real confused now because no one in Canada really goes out of their way to see a baseball game): You drove all the way here to see a baseball game?

Scott: Pretty much, we are seeing a game in all 30 Major League stadiums, we will be headed to Chicago after the game.

Nancy Canada Boy: What do you guys do as a profession.

(It was here that I was tempted to say that we were in a band)

Scott: I’m an engineer.

Brian: I’m an engineer as well.

Rick: I’m a chemist.

(Geoff opens his window so the nancy Canada Boy could see him)

Geoff: I’m unemployed.

After he got taken to the white room with the nice nurse we made it through. Canada is a weird place. Obviously it is a different country so things wouldn’t be the same. But the crazy part is that 90% of the country is just like USA and then all of a sudden there is something random. For example all the distance markers are in kilometers, and ‘color’ is spelled ‘colour’. Weird deal.

We got to the Sky Dome (actually now it is called Rogers Centre) about 2 hours before game time, which was perfect because there is a brewery across the street which stays open until 6 pm (Canadian Time). We pulled into a lot that cost us $10. I asked the attendant if he accepted US money because none of us had Canadian. His response, “You know you are in Canada”. Oh! We are in Canada?! Gees, I’ve been driving really fast then. What a jerk, that is two encounters with Canadian and both were not pleasant. Canada, eh. Well, we enjoyed a free beer from the Whistle Stop Brewery, and then another one back at the van, and then headed into the game. Canada is so bizarre, I don’t know what it is all a-boot. The homerun distance is measured in meters, or metres, I’m not sure. Their currency is all colorful and it has the Queen of England on it. I started to try and figure out why and I was thinking so hard that blood started to come out of my ears. Eh. But the worst thing was the fans. They were heckling their own team. And doing weird dances and stuff. I felt like I was back at Stanford; on the surface level everyone looks normal but once you sit down you realize you are surrounded by people who aren’t socially-centered. Best part of the game was that Rafael Palimero finally played. And we booed him. The whole stadium booed him. There was something special about hearing 16,000 fans rise up and with one voice say, ‘Rafael Palimero, you are a ginormous cheater. Stick a needle in him, he is done’. He went 0-4. Glorious.

By the way there are not fireworks after the game if the Blue Jays win.

One last Canadian story. We got gas as we were leaving Toronto and Brian went into the mini market to get a soda. He was trying to figure out how to pay for it, he had about 4 bucks in Canadian change and some US quarters.

Arab attendant with French accent: Let me help you with that.

Brian: But these are US.

Arab attendant with French accent: Oh, it is ok. It works too.

Brian (as he was exiting the store, addressing the rest of us): Wow, what a nice guy.

5 minutes later

Brian: HE RIPPED ME OFF!! Our money is worth more than theirs. ‘Let me help you with that’, of course, he was taking my money away. Damn Canadians.

Eh, I guess that is what Canada is all a-boot.

The Homerun Ball 

Scott, Rick, Brian, and Geoff in front of Doubleday Field in Cooperstown 

The Origin of Baseball

It is so great having a couple of visitors with us because we get to share with them all the crazy stuff that has happened, some of which is a little too inappropriate to post on this site. Plus it is such a breath of fresh air to have someone new to laugh at my jokes and to have other people’s shannigans to make fun of. Like when we were going through the New York Thruway toll booth and Brian asked the attendant if they stay open 24 hours she quickly responded, ‘We take every damn penny we can get’. She was a gal who probably doesn’t send her boss a post card from her vacation. Sunday night, the night after the Boston game, we stayed in just outside of Albany, NY. We went into a Cracker Barrel for dinner, they were closed, but a young girl was still working in the store. Here was our exchange:

Scott: Excuse me, do you guys sell Ethernet cables?

Central NY High School Valedictorian: (blind look at Scott, mouth slightly ajar)

Scott: You know, an internet cable?

Central NY High School Valedictorian: (blind look at Scott, mouth slightly ajar)

Scott: I guess you wouldn’t have that here, it being a “Country Store” and all.

Central NY High School Valedictorian: You should try the Wal-Mart.

Scott: Bingo.

Then Rick asked her for directions to the aforementioned Wal-Mart. This took 12 minutes. It was so frustrated to listen to I thought about soothing it would feel to give myself paper cuts in between my fingers with the post cards they had on display. The dialogue finally concluded with this nugget, “Yeah, it is pretty easy to get lost in this town”. The only way someone could get lost in this town (population 1,562) is if they were blind and put their head down and spun around 48 times and then sprinted in whatever direction they faced. Even then it might be possible to smell your way to the Wal-Mart.

The fun, as you might imagine, did not stop once we got to the Wal-Mart. Interesting observation – the smaller the town the larger the Wal-Mart, go figure. This one was complete with a grocery store, photo lab, batting cage, Olympic size swimming pole, truck driving academy, and pharmacy. All under one roof. Geoff and I headed to the electronic section to take care of business. We were just about to start looking for Rick and Brian when they stumbled upon us. My uncle was carrying 7 boxes of Cheez-its and my dad had a case of beer. That was until bottles of beer began showering the tile floors of the home appliance section. Supposedly, the bottom fell out. Just a little gift of ale and glass my dad left for the high school salutatorian to mop up that night. They then went back to the grocery section and picked up a case of the same beer. But these men are college graduates – as our president put it, ‘fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, won’t get fooled again’ – so they inspected the bottom. Just as Brian tilted the case in the direction of Rick, in order to see the bottom, a broken bottle sprayed beer all down Rick’s nice khaki shorts. 2 brothers, 2 cases of beer, 2 broken bottles, 1 upset Wal-Mart.

But all the tomfoolery was saved for Sunday because on Monday we entered a sanctuary. Cooperstown. Home of the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and the birthplace of our national pastime. Folklore has it that Civil War General Abner Doubleday invented the game of baseball in Cooperstown, NY and so in 1939 Major League Baseball opened a Hall of Fame there to honor those who have graced our game and have played it in a god-like fashion. Names like Cobb, Ruth, Gehring, Mantle, Koufax, Clemente, Ryan echo through streets of the town.

On our drive out there we past a beautiful sports complex absolutely packed with cars. We realized there was some baseball games being played so we pulled over and parked to check it out. It was some national travel ball tournament being played at Cooperstown Dreams Park, an 18-field complex complete with batting cages and dormitories! As we were walking to the closest game a homerun came flying over the fence. Unfortunately, some squirrelly kids beat us to it. This would not happen again. We watched for about 20 minutes, the red team was dominating the blue team. Every kid on the red team was about 6’1” weighing a lean 180 lbs. There were some murmurs of steroids usage spread through the bleachers. Every kid hit a moon shot – they had an 8 run second inning. The blue team pitcher started crying. It didn’t help that we were heckling him. Oh, stop, I know what you are thinking, ‘how could you do that, he is just a kid’, if you would have seen the meatballs he was putting over the plate you would have done the same thing. He might as well have pitching underhand. Plus the blue team ended up getting all those runs back the next inning, aided by a homerun by no other than the blue team’s version of Chan Ho Park, the same kid we were heckling. It was then that we got serious. Geoff, Brian, and I retired to the outfield in hopes of catching a homerun ball. However the entire stadium is walled in so we couldn’t see the action. I then climbed a tree and relayed if it was a right handed or left handed batter at the plate. We were playing every kid to pull, at the speed these kids were throwing it would be hard not to, so Brian was in right field when sure enough a kid parked one over the fence. He caught it, hit me in stride 50 feet up, I sprinted through the parking lot, hoping to get lost in the cars before the squirrelly kids could come chase after the ball, and I yelled at Geoff to start up the car. He did, I dove in, we circled back around to pick up my dad and uncle, and we took off with an official Cooperstown Dreams Park souvenir. As I write this it is velcroed to the dashboard of the road warrior. The perfect hood ornament.

Once we got into the village of Cooperstown we removed our caps in reverence for those have been immortalized there. Our first stop was Doubleday Field; it is a small diamond with about 1000 seats just behind Main Street. Every year MLB plays one regular season game there. I could only imagine what it is like to see a Major League game in a stadium smaller than most colleges.

We walked Main Street a bit and checked out the local color all in anticipation of what was to come. It was about 2 PM by the time we entered the Hall, we only had 7 hours until closing, no time to dilly-dally. The museum alone is worth the 3500 mile drive from Southern California. They have everything. It is spectacular. We saw Babe Ruth’s jersey, Walter Johnson’s spikes, Stan Musial’s bat, Curt Schilling’s bloody sock, everything. We touched the cornerstone of Ebbet’s Field and pondered at the historical significance of the Rally Monkey. We were drowning in a sea of baseball and none of us wanted to come up for air.

In about 150 years there have only been about 15000 Major League baseball players. Only about 1% of those are enshrined at the Hall of Fame. There are more people at the average Blue Jays game than have ever played in the majors. Only the best of the best belong. Something special was going on here.

We got out just after dark and started driving towards Toronto. About 20 miles down the road we pulled into some BBQ joint. This was the type of town that doesn’t appear on the map and cell phones have no service. We were their only patrons and we sat at the bar so we could watch the Cubs Dodger game. Only one person was working that night, she was in her mid twenties and talked to us our entire meal. She was real excited about the new snow mobile she bought because now she can get around for 9 months out of the year. All four of us had the best beef brisket in 5 states, popped some coins in the juke box and put on some rockin’ tunes, and sipped on some beers as we watched the Dodgers dismantle the Cubbies. This is how baseball was meant to be enjoyed.

The Green Monster 

Fenway Park, more than an hour before game time 

Right field bleacher fans going nuts at Yankee Stadium 

Stanton Island Yankees Stadium - the is Manhatton in the background. 

Our boy Chad Cordero converting his 39th save. 

The Rivalry

Most would say that the best rivalry in baseball belongs to the Red Sox and Yankees. I am not going to accept or reject this claim, but I will say these were the two most anticipated games of the road trip.

To get things started, we arrived in New York City a couple of hours before my Uncle Brian was expected to arrive at JFK airport. So Geoff and I, in an attempt to avoid the Lincoln Tunnel (see the first NYC post) went through Stanton Island. Believe it or not, we stopped to hang out. On the North tip of the island is the stadium belonging to the Stanton Island Yankees, a single-A team for the, well, yeah you guessed it, the Yankees. The field brags the best view in all of professional baseball. Its outfield is opened up to the entire Manhattan skyline and if you have a pair of binoculars with 500x zoom you might be able to see the Statue of Liberty. And get this, while we were walking around their stadium taking pictures one of their staffers came up and started talking to Geoff, who told him what we are doing and he took us into his office and chatted with us for several minutes and gave us a few souvenirs. If you are in Manhattan during baseball season I highly recommend taking the Stanton Island Ferry (which is free by the way! You pay about $48 to cross bridges there but you can ride the ferry for free) and see a S.I. Yankees game.

So we took off and drove over through Brooklyn to get my uncle at the airport. Quick background on my uncle: Uncle Brian is my dad’s little brother. He is a baseball nut. I think I casually mentioned our trip to him when I saw him over Christmas and he was already planning on when he could join us. This guy flew out to Baltimore to see Cal Ripken’s record breaking game – he was gone from his home for only 26 hours. He flew out to see my sister play in the College Softball World Series. Whenever he is on a business trip he finds the nearest team, major or minor league, to catch a game. And … he rocks. So we got him a little before 4 pm and drove straight to the Yankees game in the Bronx.

We got to the game a little before 5 and went to Stan’s, this dive bar across the street from Yankee Stadium. Time to get something clear; I don’t like the Yankees. I’m a Dodger fan. The Yankees have beaten the Dodgers far too many times in the World Series. That, and their big business baseball mentality, is the reason I hate them and everything associated with them. So we were at this bar, a Yankee bar, nobody liked anybody else there. Everyone wearing Yankee gear. Everyone with a bottle of beer in their hand. Standing room only. It was two hours until game time. Amazing. I suppose people in New York don’t work on Fridays, they just spend all day waiting for the Yankee game. By the time we left, at about 6, the place resembled a frat party. My butt was grabbed a good 20 times, and lets be honest, I’m not that cute. Already the Yankees have gone up a notch in my book and I hadn’t even set foot in the stadium.

Geoff and I got right field bleacher seats because they are the cheapest and, well, we are on a budget. My uncle, however, had seats somewhere else and Yankee Stadium, like my home Dodger Stadium, does not connect the outfield bleachers with the rest of the park. So we were separated. I don’t think he minded because he seat-hopped and had a superb seat. We certainly didn’t mind because the right field bleachers are the place to be. As the first pitch was being thrown, the real first pitch not the stupid ceremonial first pitch where some half-wit CEO bounces a pitch to the back-up catcher from 40 feet out, the entire section was on their feet clapping. Then they remained clapping, but their started to become rhythmic. Next they started chanting the name of each player. And they did this until the player acknowledged them. Yeah, true story. The player would turn to the right field bleacher and wave. Every single player. A-Rod, all the way from third base, gave us, two idiots from Southern California, a wave out in right field. They ended the roll call by yell to the fans to their left, ‘Box seats suck’. Those fans replied, ‘We got beer’ (they don’t sell alcohol in the bleacher, for good reason). Touché. Suddenly the Yankees went up another notch.

The game was great. Randy Johnson threw a gem, Bernie Williams (who I don’t know why, but he is practically the most beloved man on that team) hit two homeruns, the right field fans got rowdy, it was great. It was a baseball game in the most storied stadium in the game’s history.

The only problem with the game was that Marino Rivera came in for save. A four run save opportunity against the Kansas City Royals is like cheating. It would be like Bonds injecting steroids in the batter box – it is just ridiculous. This sparked a conversation with Geoff about Rivera’s ability as a closer. He is, no doubt about it, the most successful closer of all time. However, Geoff made the mistake of saying he is the best post season closer of all time. For those who don’t follow baseball that much let me fill in the blanks for you. Rivera was on the mound when Luis Gonzales hit a walk-off single to win the World Series in 2001. He was also the losing pitcher of both game 4 and 5 of the 2004 ALCS, the series where the Red Sox mounted the biggest comeback in playoff history (no other team has won a series after being down 3 games). Not only did he blow saves in the playoffs, he didn’t just lose the games, no, he lost the series! Sure, I may be biased so lets put things on my terms. Say Eric Gagne is pitching in the ninth inning of game 7 of the World Series against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and he puts some runners on and then gives up the tying run, and then the winning run (or I guess losing run for him). Say that a few years after that Gagne is facing the Giants in the playoffs. And the Dodgers are winning the series 3-0. And Gagne blew the game and got the loss. Well, the next night, Gagne is out there again with a chance to take the Dodgers to the World Series, and then he blows it again. And the Dodgers lose. The Giants go on to win the World Series and record the most bandwagon fans in the history of athletic competitions. I would go on being a Dodger fan. But the next season when the Dodgers were up 5-1 against the Rockies I would not cheer for Gagne. I would boo him. I would boo him until I was horse. And then after I lost my voice I would begin booing him in sign language. But I guess the Yankee fans are a little more forgiving.

I am not going to lie though, there is something special about seeing a game in Yankee Stadium. I don’t think I’m going to go out and begin wearing pin stripes, but it was a rockin’ experience.

After the game I had the privilege of driving to Tyler’s apartment in the Financial District of Manhattan. Which means we drove through all five boroughs in one afternoon. I don’t know if that means anything. This time we actually met up with my boy Tyler. He was more than pumped to see us but not nearly as excited as we were to have a place to stay in New York City. The next morning Tyler hit the gym and we took showers. We then grabbed some breakfast in midtown, paid about $4 for a shot glass of orange juice, walked the park for a few minutes, and hit the road.

The first state we drove through once we left the city was Connecticut, the sunshine state, gorgeous. Actually this was the most uneventful state we past through, except there was an inordinate amount of traffic on the highway all because some guy in a corvette decided to run out of gas on a bridge that was under construction. But he probably runs a company, so he is more important than us, he is more than entitled to stop his car in the middle of the interstate. I bet he uses his cell phone a lot.

We managed to roll into Boston just a few minutes after my dad made it to the curb. It was great because after we picked him up we had nothing to do for the next 22 hours. So we walked a little of the Freedom Trial and drove around Boston until we found Fenway Park, our Sunday afternoon destination. This is one of those cities, like Whittier, CA, that really makes you proud to be an American.

The next morning Geoff and I suffered the curse of time zones as my dad and uncle got up at some ungodly hour. I don’t think they realized that rocking means sleeping in – that is to say, sleeping in rocks. Oh well. We drove about 3 miles to the train station, had a few beers in the parking lot, and then took the green line to the stadium. It was 9 AM. But by the time we got to the stadium there was already a significant crowd. After taking a quick lap around the ballpark we grabbed some microbrews at the nearby bar. If you go Beer Works don’t order the Boston Tea Party Ale, it sounds so cool but it is just not worth it, trust me.

The ticket taker heard Geoff say how excited he was to go to the game. She asked if this was his first game at Fenway, and he told her we drove to Boston from California to see this. She then asked, without batting a eye, zero hesitation, ‘You guys in a band?’. My dad, uncle, Geoff, and I. In a band. Together. Are you high?! How was that her first question? She might as well as asked, ‘You guys in the circus?’ at least that makes sense seeing as I’m a hairy freak. I’ll tell you one thing; a band with the four of us would definitely not rock.

We got into the game about an hour early which gave us plenty of time to walk around the interior of the stadium and eat some Fenway Franks. Want to know what heaven is like? Imagine eating a Fenway Frank with your dad, uncle, and best friend on a Sunday afternoon in Boston. This is my life. Who needs a home or a job, I got the road, I got buddies, and I got baseball.

Fenway Park is the most historic park we have been to thus far. When we walked through the turnstiles it was has if we went through a time portal and came out the other side sometime in the 1920s. The skeleton of the stadium is completely exposed, the walls are made of brick, some of the seats are still made out of wood. I know this may sound like blasphemy to say, but Fenway Park is not a good place to watch a baseball game. Do not get me wrong, the experience was unbelievable, my words could never do it justice. But this place is horribly designed, it is just awful. There are entire rows of seats that cannot see homeplate because there are pillars in the way. The rows are about 9.3 inches apart. I’m not joking here. I just saw the Apollo 11 capsule in the Smithsonian and those three astronauts had twice the leg room any fan in Boston gets to enjoy. They really wedge you into those seats, the ushers actually walk around with shoe horns to help get you in. I’m serious. Here at Fenway the 7^th inning stretch is mandatory. A few years ago a group of unruly college kids decided to boycott the age old tradition and remain in their seats for the entire game. Well the game went into extra innings and they couldn’t move when it finally ended. The Red Sox had to call in a team of physical therapists to help them regain strength in their legs.

The team makes up for it though by playing great baseball – we even saw a homerun over the green monster. Plus, in between the 8^th inning, the entire stadium sings a long to Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline, complete with the ‘So good, so good, so good’ chant. Only the hard core fans know about that. Nothing rocks quite as much as Neil Diamond at a Red Sox game.

We had incredibly high expectations of both games and neither team disappointed. The key to this rivalry is that both teams have psychotic fans and they both play great baseball. This weekend might possibly have been the pinnacle of this trip. But I shouldn’t make such a ridiculous claim; we have so much more rocking to do. Much more.

Two great Americans. Both are to scale based on greatness. 

This man ate the entire bag of kettle corn. 

Geoff in front of the White House