On Tuesday we made the 250 mile trip from Orlando to Miami via the Florida Turnpike.  The intention was to grab lunch upon arrival and then take a trip west to give the boys a glimpse of the Everglades.  But omg, the traffic in Miami!  What a mess.
So it was a leisurely lunch at Latin Café 2000, then to the hotel and then to Marlins Park in time for batting practice.  Oh yeah, it was also 92 with a heat index of99 in Miami (while it was also 92 in Denver and with a heat index of 88…I love
dry heat).

Our first glimpse of Marlins Park elicited the reaction that they play in an office building.  A cool contemporary office building but an office building looking structure nonetheless.  But when we got inside, I was extremely impressed.  It is the smallest of the new parks seating just 37,000, is very attractively finished, has a huge concourse with a clear view of the field and with a good selection of concessions.  It has a retractable roof that is of course a dark color as opposed to the white circus tent that matches the ball at the home of the Tampa Bay Located in St. Petersburg Rays.

We were in row 1 behind the visitor’s dugout for a 4 to 3 Atlanta victory over Miami.  We saw three very competitive games on this trip including a 12 inning, 14 inning and two one run margins.  The game in Denver was the only one that was
not competitive to the finish.

So Baseball Tour 2012 is complete.  Four games, 44 innings, first extra inning games, first rain delay, Disney World, Universal Studios, high quality time with Uncle Benjamin and Aunt Fernanda and hopefully a lifetime of memories for these two guys to share with their grandchildren.  We have now seen 16 games in 11 stadiums (four games in Yankee Stadium, two at Citizens Bank Park and two at Coors Field) in our three years on the road.

We are looking at the Mid-West for 2013.  IF the scheduling permits, IF the names fit on our shirts and IF these guys want to spend that much time with their grandfather, our goal will be seven stadiums so we can make the claim to have been to all of the stadiums in the United States east of the Mississippi River together.  A big IF but we just might try it.

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As I mentioned in an earlier post, this Baseball Tour is a bit different than our first two because we decided a year ago to include a stop in Orlando to visit Benjamin and Fernanda and take Ryan and Logan to enjoy the theme park sights here for the first time.  For background, Benjamin went to work for Disney in 1999.  He has worked in numerous areas of their business over the past 13 years and is now an independent contractor for them.  I consider him an expert on the parks and how best to efficiently visit the attractions.  Fernanda, who hails from Belo Horizonte Brazil and met Benjamin when he was in Denver finishing college, started with Disney about 2005 and is now the Latin America Marketing Manager for Disney Destinations.

So Saturday was spent at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios while Sunday we visited Universal and its adjoining park Islands of Adventure.  The boys enjoyed the days with Ryan in particular feasting on the most challenging of the rides.  At Disney you can manage your day pretty well by utilizing their Fast Pass system for the most popular attractions at no additional cost.  The Universal version requires the purchase of an absolutely outrageously priced ticket with an Express Line that is mediocre at best and not available on all of the attractions in spite of the cost.

On Tuesday it is off to Miami to see the new Marlins Park for a game between Miami and Atlanta.  We head for home on Wednesday and start to plan for Baseball Tour 2013 which will most likely be a tour of some of the mid-western teams.

You can go to Clown College in Florida because this is where Ringling Brothers calls home.  Perhaps that is why the Tampa Bay Located in St. Petersburg Rays play their home games in a white tent.  Yes, they try to catch a little white baseball while staring up into a white tent ceiling.  Not an easy task as demonstrated by the Seattle Mariners catcher who nearly got hit in the head while trying to find an otherwise routine pop foul.

In any case, our trip was slightly diverted when one of my traveling partners was taken ill shortly after returning to our hotel in Atlanta in the middle of the night on Wednesday.  We were finally in bed at 3 and up at 7 to catch our flight to Tampa, hopefully without causing an unpleasant scene along the way.  The details of getting through the airport, security and time on the plane shall go unreported here.  So we headed for Orlando where the sick child could rest and get comfort rather than finishing him off on the roller coasters at Busch Gardens.

Oh yes.  Baseball.  As I noted, Tropicana Field is a bit of an odd venue for baseball.  I'm actually surprised they got into the American League with that thing as their facility.  But we had terrific seats and it was a great game with Tampa Bay prevailing 4-3 in 14 innings.  Our second extra inning game in a row with a post midnight finish.

Our next game is not until Tuesday in Miami.  Until then, a weekend of Orlando amusements with Benjamin and Fernanda and a trip through the Florida Everglades on the way to Miami.

After watching the Rockies host the Pirates on Tuesday, on the morning of July 18, Ryan, Logan and I headed to Atlanta.  My former colleague Christine Genovese, a lifetime Denverite about to be transplanted to the Queen City of the West, had been kind enough to contact her nephew Matt who is working for the Braves.  The deal was if our flight was on time, thus enabling us to get to Turner Field by 5 pm, that we could be on the field for batting practice. 

SUCCESS!!  Flight on time!  Checked in to hotel.  Taxi to Turner Field arriving at 4:20.  Connect with Matt.  Nice young fellow.  Big black clouds in the sky.  Big lightning bolts.  Batting practice canceled.  Crap.  Nice try Christine and we are grateful.

So off to the 755 Club at the top of the stadium above the left field bleachers for dinner and to observe the storm.  When our allotted 90 minutes were completed there, we sat in the comfortable lounge chairs on the Suite level passing the time until the game was ready to begin about 8:30 pm.  From then on, a perfect night for baseball in Atlanta.

We saw a fun game from our second row seats in spite of our first rain delay of our fourteen Tour games.  While a 9 to 4 final with the Giants prevailing, it was actually a fine pitching performance for most of the game including a perfect four inning start for the Braves' starter.  Eleven of the thirteen runs crossed the plate in the extra innings including a Chipper Jones home run tying him with George Brett as the all time RBI leader among third basemen.  The negative was a 12:35 am finish.

It is extra fun to go to home games of franchises with a storied history.  In this case, the memories of Aaron, Mathews and the winningest lefty of all time, Warren Spahn, are posted around the property and inside the stadium.  We enjoyed our visit to Turner Field.  Our fifteenth game of our tours (and first indoors) comes Friday in St. Petersburg where Tampa Bay hosts the Seattle Mariners.

It’s time for the third installment of our summer tour of a few baseball stadiums, aka Baseball Tour 2012™.  There will be two fewer games this year as we deal with greater distances between parks and a different form of entertainment in the middle of the trip.

The Tour started with Ryan (12) and Logan (soon to be 11) taking their first solo flight from Phoenix to
meet me in Denver.  It is interesting to me how airlines now handle this age of traveler.  Rather than performing any oversight
activities such as making sure Jerry Sandusky isn’t picking them up, they treat them as they would any adult traveler.  Having seen this before with my granddaughter, I arrived an hour early.

 So on the perfect baseball weather night of July 17 (our 13^th consecutive game without a rain
delay!), it was off to downtown to Coors Field to see the last place Colorado Rockies take on the renewed Pittsburgh Pirates.
The Pirates prevailed 6 to 2 over what appeared to be a fine Triple A Rockies team.  We appreciated the cameo appearance of Konnie at the game and her bravery in donning the official T-Shirt of Baseball Tour 2012™ for the evening.

On Wednesday it will be off to Turner Field in Atlanta for a contest between the Braves and the 2010 World Series Champion San Francisco Giants.  Then on Friday we will be joined in St. Petersburg, Florida by my son Benjamin and daughter-in-law Fernanda to see the Tampa Bay Rays host the Seattle Mariners followed by three days in Orlando with Uncle Benjamin and Aunt Fernanda for some theme park heat, lines and excitement.  We wrap up the park visits on July 24 by
visiting the new Miami Marlins Park as they host the Braves.