Hey, I'm Back

I've returned from my business trip to San Francisco. Fortunately, the meetings scheduled for Friday were canceled. My colleagues scattered to do their own things, which afforded me the opportunity to go to a Giants game. I had a great time, and AT&T Park is a beautiful ballpark. I was especially excited because Tim Lincecum pitched. And the Giants won 5-0.

Some things I learned about AT&T Park:

• Tickets are very expensive. The lower level seats range from $75 to $85. I'll take a $26 upper level seat, thank you very much.
• No one comes to the game early. I got there about an hour and half before first pitch, and I had the concourse all to myself. I pretty much had my section to myself until about 15 minutes before first pitch. It finally dawned on me why after I had been sitting there about 45 minutes. It's cold there.
• When the fog rolls in off the bay, and the wind whips up (which I think it does every night), it gets pretty bone-chilling in there. Luckily I brought a sweatshirt, so even though I was a little chilly, I wasn't terribly uncomfortable.
• All the staff members I talked to were very friendly and helpful. More so than I'm used to.
• The hot chocolate and coffee vendors outnumber the beer vendors.
• The churros vendor has a beautiful baritone voice. He should sing opera.
• The fans adore Tim Lincecum. And he was brilliant -- 8 innings, 4 hits, 0 runs, 3 walks, 8 Ks.
• Bengie Molina and Pablo Sandoval are so big and slow that when they reached, the Padres didn't even bother to hold them on first.

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What Did I Miss While I Was Gone?
So the Twins took care of the A's on Wednesday, so that was good. And they took the first two from the Angels to re-take the lead in the division. Too bad that they just gave it back as I write this.

I said before the Angels series that I would be satisfied with a split. However, I'm less than satisfied that the bullpen coughed up the lead in today's game. Come on!

We need to sweep the Mariners, and we need the Orioles to beat the White Sox multiple times. Let's get that division lead back, and keep it!

Are You Tired of Reading About This Trip Yet?

Well, this is the last installment.

Friday: Twins 4 - Royals 1
Saturday: Twins 7 - Royals 3

We finished up our trip by meeting a bunch of our friends in Kansas City to see the Twins face the Royals. We all had a BLAST!

That stadium is fantastic, and they've made some upgrades since we were there last. First, there's the ginormous scoreboard. It's beautiful. They also improved the sound system to match the scoreboard. It was all very cool.

The games were pretty fun. I would say Saturday's was more fun than Friday's, but I liked that the Twins won both the games. The Twins fans in the crowd were certainly more rowdy on Saturday than they were on Friday. And there were a TON of Twins fans. But the Royals fans were very gracious and friendly towards us all, so it was great competition.

The stadium also has other fun things like wiener races, singing "Friends in Low Places", and fireworks after Friday games. And the ushers don't seem to mind if there are beach balls floating around. On Saturday, they handed out Larry Gura bobbleheads, and we each got one. I'll have to Google him to learn more about him. There is little honey pot on the pitching mound with him.

The tailgating was great too. Lots of food and lots of fun with our friends. We also found out that Saturday was unofficially "wife-beater shirt" night, so there were a bunch of people wearing their trashy tank tops and mullet wigs. In fact, there was a whole bus load of them partying in the parking lot. What a hoot!



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OK, now let's catch up on what I missed while I was gone...

*The Twins dropped two of three to Seattle. Pthpthpthpth. 'Nuf said about that.

*Cuddy broke his foot during his rehab stint in Rochester. Good Grief. Cuddy honey, what is the matter? Stop breaking body parts, would you please? I suppose he's probably out for the rest of the season. I guess that answers the question about what to do with D-Span. Hmmm. Wait a minute. You don't think Denard is behind this, do you?

*While we were driving home on Sunday, we were listening to the Royals radio guys broadcast the game. Boy, do they ever have a love affair with the Twins. They were going on and on about how the Twins have great pitching and do all the little things right. And then the Twins proceeded to prove them wrong.

*Speaking of that dumb game, that's totally my bad. We stopped at Dairy Queen and the Twins were leading 4-2. Apparently, while I was enjoying my medium dipped cone, all hell broke loose with the "doing the little things right" and our otherwise stellar defense coughed up the tying run. The whole thing gave me a stomach ache; I should've ordered a small cone.

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Twins 4 - Yankees 0

*Way to go Glen Perkins -- both on the birth of your daughter and on pitching a gem against the Yankees. Good couple of days.

*Adam "Adam" Everett hit a homerun off Ponson? Hahaha. Well, that just what the Twins needed. Nice work. And a good way to make up for that throwing away the game thing Sunday.

*And the Red Sox just knocked off the White Sox, so the Twins are back in first place again. For now.

Hey, Hey!

Go, Cubs, Go! Hey Chicago, what do ya say? The Cubs are going to win today.

That's the song they sing after the Cubs win a game. And Win they did -- 11 - 4! Wrigley Field is everything I expected it to be and more. It was old, and crowded, and magical. And the Chicago Dogs are fabulous.

Our seats were pretty good -- way down the first base line close to the foul pole. But we could see fine. We were lucky the weather was good -- it was hot but cloudy, so not too bad. And the fans sitting around us were really fun. Especially these four guys that must have been to a ton of games together and have been buddies for 30 years. They kind of reminded me of Saturday Night Live's Bears Fans Guys -- only Cubs "experts". They argued about everything, and you just know they always have. They were a real hoot.

The seventh inning stretch was just as advertised. I can't remember who lead it -- a former player who is a multiple all-star (I knew who he was, I just can't remember right now). Everyone sang it as loud as possible. When it was done, our four new friends started arguing about whether that player should go to the Hall of Fame. After about five minutes of that, hubby stirred the pot by saying that we think Bert Blyleven should be in the Hall of Fame. That started another 10 minute debate. Hilarious.

The game itself was great. Mark DeRosa hit a grand slam and Alfonso Soriano hit a three-run homerun. Very fun. When the Astros put in LeTroy Hawkins, our four friends heckled him greatly -- "He's a bum!"

After the game, the walk to the train station the train back to the hotel was so crowded. It seemed to take forever, but once we got on the train, we were happy we didn't have to drive. When we got back to the hotel, we were very tired. It was a blast, but it was exhausting.

Hello From Chicago!

Tuesday: White Sox 10 - Tigers 8 (14)

I must say I'm impressed with The Cell -- large concourses, comfortable seats, great atmosphere. It's a pretty nice stadium.

It was a nice evening, if not a little hot. But it could have been much worse. The giveaway was a Mark Buehrle growth chart. Let it be known that I despise Mark Buehrle! He's always such a brat, especially towards the Twins, as if he's some great pitcher or something (ok, maybe is a great pitcher, but certainly not as great as he thinks he is). Besides he's ugly and his mother dresses him funny. The last thing I need is a lifesized poster of him; I might use mine as a dartboard.

I was surprised by the number of Tigers fans in the stands. We were surrounded by them, so it was easy to not cheer for the White Sox. They said that it's really hard to get tickets to Commerica, so they just come to Chicago to see their team. In fact, some of the fans we talked to lived on the western side of Michigan, so it's easier for them to drive to Chicago than to Detroit.

The game itself was pretty fun. The score went back and forth most of the game -- Detroit had a big six-run inning, but the Sox tied it up 6 -6 in the eighth. I even blew Nick Swisher a kiss when he came in because they pulled Konerko out for a pinch-runner (just for THOSE Girls).

Unfortunately, j-bro and I both had pretty cruddy stomach-aches and a long train ride back to the hotel in front of us, so we left after the tenth. I know, I know, this goes against everything I stand for, but even baseball takes a backseat when stomach wellness is concerned.

When we returned to our hotel room, we turned on the TV to see Detroit had taken the lead 8 - 6. Then the Sox pushed across a run and had two on when Nick Swisher stepped to the plate. Well apparently, he viewed my departure as some kind of hate he could feed on and blasted a walk-off three-run homer to win the game. On a night the Twins lost, too. Sorry.

Here are some pictures for you.



Laptop batteries are running low. I'll get a post about the Cubbies game up as soon as I can.