Six major league baseball games in five cities in seven days and 6,500 miles by the time the boys return to Phoenix. The oldest parks. The newest park. Obviously Ryan and Logan are fans. We watched all 54 innings and stood in the bleachers for batting practice for multiple hours before the games including tonight in Philadelphia where the game time "feels like" temperature was 102. It is brutal in the pre-game bleachers as they can each attest to now but to the persistent go some spoils as they head home with four major league baseballs including the two snagged tonight. That's exactly four more than I have to show for over a half century of attending games.
When this trip was conceived, it wasn't part of the plan to find the Colorado Rockies somewhere on the road. It was just a coincidence that it happened. I selected a week when most of the east coast teams were playing at home and started with a trip that went Boston, New York, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Cleveland. But air travel complications caused me to re-visit that plan and I ended up with Boston, New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia. But trying to go through Phoenix and stay on United presented new complications which the layover in Chicago cured.
In the meantime my friend of many years, Jerry Schemmel, was added to the radio team of the Rockies, fulfilling his lifetime dream of being a Major League Baseball play by play announcer. Thus the fortunate convergence of events tonight. We had great seats again but this time I didn't have to make my daily visit to an ATM and pound the 100 degree pavement looking for sellers or dealing with those middlemen because of our tendency to end up at sold out venues. (Baltimore was the only game not sold out.) And the fitting climax to this epic journey was to spend some time in the press box tonight witnessing the broadcast and seeing the views of the broadcasters. It seemed to be a thrill for all three of us.
Phillies 6 Rockies 0 as we saw our second five hit shutout in as many nights. There may be pictures with this post that don't look like much but they were intended to capture the views from the perch of the broadcasters. Oh, and I saw one of the most beautiful women I've seen in awhile. There are two pictures of her.
Heading for Denver via Chicago on Saturday with my travel partners continuing on to Phoenix. I do believe they are ready to begin the 2011 planning. Count me in.
