The Baseball Road Trip

3 Comments Written by Mike on July 22, 2008 – 6:52 pm

An update two days in a row is probably a bad sign, yeah? The moon will soon turn blue, the oceans will flood, and Eddie Murphy will make a good movie again. We’re in Cincinnati right now. Well, Newport, Kentucky, to be exact. It’s a nice place, but we’re not caught up yet. Backtracking to several weeks ago, though, we were departing Kansas City on our way through Chicago. As fortune had it, we were actually passing through the city twice: once was to catch a Cubs game prior to heading to Milwaukee, and the next a five day stay during the All-Star break. Unfortunately, some giant indie music festival was sharing the city with us and it became near impossible to find CouchSurfers to stay with. Almost every other city was good on the first message to a surfer; Aman sent out 39 emails with only two people able to host. Those were for the second trip to Chi-Town. In the mean time, we were left as true homeless people. Except for the car, laptop, and all the other fancy shit we trudge along with.

As such, the first time we went through the city, we didn’t actually have a place to stay. We rolled into town, watched a Cubs game, and then took off for Wisconsin. For the first time in the trip, one of the games we watched was versus the Giants. As any good fan would, we made sure to saunter into Wrigley wearing full Giants regalia. Surprisingly enough, it went great. Note: the same would not be true if we came in wearing Cardinals gear. Everyone was very nice and the girls sitting next to us (die-hard Cubs fans) bought us a round of beer when they found out what we were doing. Crazy! In typical Giants fashion, Matt Cain pitched a helluva game only to have Walker come in the 8th inning and blow it in dramatic fashion. And you thought being a Cubs fan was tough.

The park itself was old in a very good way; it had history, interesting sightlines, and fun fans. Basically, it was the complete opposite of Dodger stadium, which was old in a bad, “we haven’t paid for renovations in years” sort of way. Wrigleyville is the nice, upbeat neighborhood surrounding the park. It’s a beautiful looking place with lots of bars, fancy restaurants, and some asshole trying to sell $45 stadium parking. That’s actually more expensive than the game ticket itself, mind you. We went exploring for a bit and then decided to sit down at our favorite rest stop (Starbucks) and plot out the next course of action. I am pretty sure I’ve seen more Starbucks than any mortal man should. I don’t even drink coffee, damnit.

After trying (and failing) to find able CouchSurfers, we set off for Wisconsin. It turns out that Milwaukee is only about an hour and a half away when you don’t account for the three hours worth of construction delays. Arriving a day earlier than expected, we broke down and settled on what would be our last emergency hotel stop of the trip in Racine, Wisconsin. Upon entering the hotel, we were greeted by a calendar featuring Brett Farve, AMERICAN HERO, riding a motorcycle. This was to be the first of many signs that Wisconsin is actually home to the Cult of Farve. You know when you go to a bookstore and they have a small section devoted to local sports? In the Bay Area there are an assortment of books about the Giants, A’s, 49ers, etc. In Wisconsin, there is a section devoted to Brett Farve. Not the Packers…just Brett Farve. It didn’t matter what bookstore we were in. I am pretty sure I could have walked into a McDonalds and found a shelf of biographies, actually.

Whoops…sorry to leave you all hanging, but we’re off to try Cincinnati chili now. More on Wisconsin later.