Off to Saint Louis on June 20 to see the Cubs take on the Cards.  So far our moving the trip to June from the heat of July has worked perfectly.  It touched 90 on Thursday in Saint Louis but being a night game, the evening was perfect.

The Cards prevailed 6 to 1 in a game with no particular high points.  Busch Stadium is lovely with the added benefit of the Arch behind the outfield wall.  Ryan did nail his fourth ball of the trip on a toss from the Saint Louis third base coach.  Given that we sit behind the visitors dugout in visitor’s garb, the decision to toss the ball Ryan’s way elicited quite the negative reaction of the crowd as Ryan snared the toss in his Cubbies Cap.

Just a few shots from the evening.  Off to Kansas City for game 6 on Friday where the forecast includes a warning for “hot and humid conditions.”

Tuesday night after the Cincinnati game we headed to Oxford, Ohio, the home of the beautiful Miami University, where we spent the night in the lovely Elms Hotel.  Had I known that I would end up majoring in Business instead of Engineering, this would have been a logical place to go to school.

We went to Oxford to visit Betty Hofmann, Ryan’s and Logan’s  other great grandmother along with my Mother, Virginia Howell.  Betty lives in a very nice retirement community which I thought to be a perfect place for my Mother also but my pitch has not yet met with success.

Then on to my hometown of Liberty Indiana where the boys had lunch with my old friend Dale Cummins (aka Debbie Cummins of Facebook) at Liberty’s finest eating establishment, El Reparo, and then a tour of the high school gym to see where I spent my “glory” days of the 20th century.  My thanks to Christine Rude and Connie Rosenberger for helping us visit my past.  We spent the night at my Mother’s in New Castle Indiana where she has resided since leaving Liberty in 1968.

We left Toledo Tuesday morning after Monday evening’s game in Detroit and headed for Cincinnati with a multi-hour detour through New Castle Indiana where my Mother lives.  The detour saved Ryan and Logan from a trip down memory lane from both my Mother who grew up in Cincy and me who lived and went to school there for five years.

We arrived in time for batting practice but due to threatening weather, there was none.  So we had 90 minutes to watch the storm that surrounded us.  But the first thing we learned is that Great American Ball Park has itself confused with Yankee Stadium as it does have the second highest concession prices of any venue we have visited.  A bottle of water in Detroit was $3.75, $5.50 at GABP and $6 at Yankee on our last visit.

The mystery of the evening was how does a team throw 17 strikeouts, allow but 4 hits and manage to lose 4 to zip?  The Reds accomplished just that.  Ryan and Logan managed to leave with a ball each giving them each three for the trip.  A far cry from their 11 in 2011 but more than satisfying.  And we do have two games remaining.

After spending the night in lovely Oxford Ohio we visited their other maternal grandmother who will turn 85 soon.  With my Mother turning 88 soon, they are very fortunate to have had the opportunity to know that generation of their family.

Off to St. Louis on Thursday for the Cardinal Cub rivalry.  Can we have our fifth day of perfect baseball weather?

We were able to get into Detroit by lunch time and do a little exploring.  It is such a shame for the city to be in the condition it is.  It has much beauty in its buildings, plazas, small city park areas and the riverfront.  But also in the area are the boarded up buildings and abandoned lots overgrown with weeds.  And the big give away about the state of affairs in Detroit is the fact that many, many downtown traffic lights are set on yellow flashing lights during the weekday.

Comerica Park is lovely and ranks up there with my favorites.  It is tasteful with no advertising on the foul poles, much quieter music and less of the promotional hype that was absolutely constant in Cleveland.  Better food selection also including Mexican.  Unfortunately, the neighborhood in which it is located is absolutely dead.  None of the energy that accompanies all of the other downtown ballparks we have visited even though the energy level in Cleveland was a bit on the low side though nothing like Detroit.

We saw a good game with the Tigers prevailing 5 to 1 over the Orioles.  Ryan and Logan left with three balls including one caught on the fly in the right field bleachers during batting practice.  The temperature at game’s end was 68 degrees which was nearly 40 degrees cooler than the temperatures that pummeled us on the east coast in 2010 and 2011.

Three games down with three to go.  Off to Cincinnati for the Reds and Pirates with a detour to visit two great grandmothers.

This year’s tour was not set up to include a tour of any of our cities as our two east coast tours were, but rather simply to do six games in a week in six different ball parks in six different cities and visit two great grandmothers.  We’ve done six games twice but those times included multiple games in New York City.  So no opinion here on downtown Cleveland but the skyline does not begin to compare to Pittsburgh.

So we were merely in and out of Cleveland on Sunday.  I have to say that Progressive Field is probably my least favorite of the new era of ball parks we have visited.  First and foremost is the lack of modern food selection.  It is hot dogs and hamburgers at every single concession stand plus an occasional one offering pizza.  So the perfect reason for me to fast at the ball park.

But most of all I think it is the most over commercialized of the over commercialized sports facility era.  The scoreboard is a disaster.  The left field foul pole is sponsored (but not the right).  They play music in between innings that is all about Pizza Hut and Taco Bell and on and on.  And, of course, the endless promotions.

On a day with a forecast of a 60% chance of thunderstorms, we did see a fine game with great weather including getting to see the young phenom Stephen Strasburg pitch a one hitter over his five innings before the Indians prevailed 2 to nothing.

Tomorrow night its Baltimore at Detroit.

I attended a game at Forbes Field here in 1967 but don’t remember anything other than that.  Then I brought my father to a game here in 1999 at Three Rivers Stadium but didn’t see the city because of his phobia about staying above the third floor in a hotel, so we just passed through for the game.  So what a nice surprise Pittsburgh has been as I complete the cycle of having been to all three of their baseball venues.  They have many fine buildings, both old and new, incredibly active river fronts, a vibrant downtown, abundant dining, the bridges, a beautiful baseball park and that’s just what I took in during our brief visit.  I was particularly intrigued by PPG Place with the many buildings’ unique design, the tallest of which makes an appearance from almost anywhere in the city.  I plan to bring Konnie here for a long weekend trip.

Oh yes, we saw a fine game on a perfect day for baseball.  Ryan got one baseball, came close on some others and we had the most entertaining five year old girl in front of me.  Fortunately she also got a ball courtesy of another entertained fan.  The Dodgers prevailed 5 to 3 in 11 innings with plenty of drama, including the Pirate pitcher Brandon Cumpton striking out the first four batters he faced in his major league debut and a game tying homer by the Pirates in the bottom of the ninth.  On to Cleveland for a Sunday afternoon against the Nationals where there is a 60% chance of thunderstorms.

Our fourth annual Baseball Tour began June 14 with a flight from Denver to Pittsburgh.  We moved the trip ahead by a month this year to see if we could avoid the brutal heat we had to deal with during the first two trips.

We originally expected to arrive late into Pittsburgh so no game was scheduled for today.  But on Saturday we will visit PNC Park to see the Dodgers take on the Pirates followed by games in Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Kansas City.  A whirlwind week.

So tonight was merely a pleasant evening enjoying downtown Pittsburgh including dinner at La Vela on Market Square, the fabulous PPG Complex, Three Rivers Art Festival, beautiful Point State Park where the Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers join to form the Ohio River and a stroll up the Allegheny to view PNC Park from across the river.

Tomorrow its Play Ball!

The long slog is over.  Today Chelsea Kancilia, the daughter of my wonderful wife Konnie and my step daughter for the past nearly fifteen years, graduated from the Seattle University School of Law with Honors.  We could not be more proud of Chelsea’s accomplishment.  Most of Konnie’s family joined us in Seattle along with Chelsea’s great Seattle friends and her fiance Kyle Banner for this memorable event and we are grateful for their participation and support of Chelsea’s endeavor.  She now heads to Austin with Kyle where she will try to conquer the Texas bar exam.  Here are some of the highlights of Her day.

One week.  Bang!  It’s over.  The speed at which a week goes is why Konnie and I try to take three week trips when traveling this far.  But since the time available is merely Isabelle’s spring break, we do the best we can.  I think we hit the highlights except for Saint-Chapelle which continues its restoration.  So our visits included the Eiffel Tower neighborhood and to the top of the Tower, La Madeleine, Opera Quarter, Notre Dame, The Marais, Trocedéro, Musée d’Orsay, Musée de l’Orangerie, Place de la Concorde, The Liberty Flame (which has been confiscated as a Diana Memorial), Fountaine des Innocents at the Pompidu, Montmartre, Sacré-Coeur, the Arc de Triomphe, Marmottan, Champs-Elysées and the Metro all over the City.

And today we visited the Louvre, a visit that went much better than I expected after our crowded visit to the Orsay.  We purchased advance tickets (a must!) and walked right in.  The Louvre is better equipped to handle the large crowd with less security, more seating, and snack bars where you can just walk up and purchase a bottle of water.  Oh yes, they also allow non-flash photography.  Thank you very much for that.  We saw the highlights including the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and Winged Victory.  And Isabelle spent the rest of the time exploring the antiquities including the beautiful sarcophagi and her first mummy.

So au revoir Paris.  And now its time to search for next year’s location.  Can’t wait.

Finally two places with no line to get in.  We started our heavily overcast, snow spitting day walking to the Arc de Triomphe and were able to go right up.  The weather was acceptable and we could see Montmartre and the Eiffel Tower so the visibility was adequate if very drab.  After picking up our Louvre tickets for Friday at the Virgin Megastore, we headed to Musée Marmottan.  Marmottan was an art historian who donated his house and art collection for a museum.  Then Claude Monet’s son donated 65 of his father’s paintings to the museum and it became principally a Monet museum.  The collection is beautiful.

So those two sites with about five miles of walking in between consumed our day.  To the Louvre on Friday to wrap up our trip.