Gazooks!

Once upon a time, Hulk Hogan told me to take my vitamins. More recently, my doctor told me told me to take my vitamins. Turns out I need more Niacin in my life. Anyway, Flintstones vitamins were on sale, so I am once again a Flinstones kid- strong, and growing.

Usually right before I head out the door for work I pop out a vitamin from the bottle and say, "Looks like it's going to be a (Flintstone character's name) kinda day." I don't know why I say this, I just do. I've been taking these for a little over a week now, and have so far had one "Wilma" day, one "Barney" day, and six or seven "Great Gazoo" days. What the heck? Great Gazoo? F*** Great Gazoo! He's not a caveman! He's like, the wave of the future, and I HATE the wave of the future (see old blog post). Needless to say, it's been a pretty rough week.

Today was a "Dino" day. I have found that "Dino" days are so far much better than "Great Gazoo" days. Probably because everybody except me has the day off so there's no one around to yell at me (imagine Dino; "YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP!) ... and I can sit in my cube and blog. A good way to end the week before Labor Day weekend.

Kerplunk

Wow- I write about baseball stuff a lot. O well, deal with it.

I was checking out the White Sox score and saw in the game notes "Carlos Quentin set an MLB record by getting hit by a pitch in six consecutive games."

This made me think about the modern HBP (hit-by-pitch) king, Craig Biggio. Biggio recently retired having been beaned a career 285 times. I always liked Biggio. He wore a pretty baggy jersey, and had a poor head-size-to-batting-helmet-size ratio. You know those pre-game "Run around the bases" contests? 6 yr olds run to first, put on an adult batting helmet, run to second, put on a jersey, run to third, crawl into a giant pair of pants, and then hop/stumble/fall/roll their way home. Well imagine one of those kids then got lost after the contest and ended up batting leadoff for the Houston Astros. That was what Craig Biggio looked like.

Now bean him 285 times.

Laundry Day*

It's laundry day, and that means two things. One: I'm down to just my SpongeBob Christmas boxers, and two: it's a good time to catch up on vacation stories as I wash my clothes.

Two weeks ago my dad and I set off for New York to catch the Twins at Yankee stadium. I bought game tickets way back in early March, because after this season Yankee stadium is being torn down. I'm a baseball nut, and I just had to boo Derek Jeter in "the house that Ruth built."

The trip started with a few days of driving. We passed Lagrange, IN (A how-how-how-how), and made our first stop in Angola, IN. They had a bunch fireworks stores, liquors stores, and cigarette shacks. One cigarette shack was called "The Butt Hut," but I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of this. That was pretty much all that Indiana had to offer.

When we finally made it to New York our first stop was Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame. The museum was pretty cool, but a lot smaller than I thought it would be. They have a ton of stuff from the Babe Ruth era on display, but not too much on display from the modern era. I expected entire wings for Rickey Henderson, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, world championships, etc. What we found was a single sports locker dedicated to each individual team to cram their entire franchise's history.

The Twins' locker had a hat from Kirby Puckett, a baseball from Jack Morris' World Series shutout, a jersey and a few bats. One of the bats was Matthew Lecroy's, who hit three consecutive pinch-hit home runs to tie a major league record.

I asked one of the Cooperstown employees if the Barry Bonds asterisk ball was there yet. I knew it was going to be added to the Hall of Fame right around the time we were there, but he said it wasn't going to arrive for a couple more days. Rats! He said it'd go in the Giants' locker. This surprised me. The ball that broke Hank Aaron's all-time home run record, a ball that someone paid $750000 for, will just sit on the bottom of a locker not 10 feet from a bat that Matthew Lecroy swung. I imagined a whole Bonds display, with the asterisk ball displayed on a podium atop a silk pillow in it's own glass case, like the Hope diamond or something.

The Hall was pretty fun, but the next day it was time to move on to the feature presentation: Yankee Stadium.

Yankee Stadium tour

We were scheduled to take the stadium tour at noon and got off the train by Yankee Stadium around 11:00.

We decided to grab a quick lunch at McDonald's, and here I got my first real experience with true New Yorkers. There was a line of a few guys outside the Men's bathroom, and they were banging their fists on the door and shouting. "There's an F'in' WOMAN in there! She's been in there forever! Hey, lady, hurry up! She's probably delivering a baby or something! Hey lady, quit flushing your babies down the toilet! COME ON!" Turns out it was just the cleaning lady, but when she finally unlocked the door she and the guys in line got into a big shouting match. Welcome to New York!

We walked over to the stadium for the tour, and I was pretty impressed. We got to check out the pressbox, sit in the Yankee's dugout, walk along the dirt on the field, and check out Monument Park. I thought it was interesting that the really good seats behind home plate and along third base were in really terrible shape. How'd you like to spend hundred, or even thousands, on baseball tickets to find your seats held together with duct tape? (no joke- duct tape).

The tour guide gave everyone plenty of time for pictures and just had a few words of warning when we went down to the field. "Do not walk on the grass, do not lie down on the grass, do not pet the grass, do not bend down and pluck a handful of grass..." Here's a picture of me behind home plate, me by Yogi Berra's number in Monument Park, and me and my dad in the outfield. We did not touch the grass.

Game On!

We had tickets to the Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon game. Tuesday night we were right behind home plate... three decks up. Wednesday we were along the third base line, in the very top row of the third deck. I have touched the roof of Yankee stadium. That's what you get for clicking "best available" when you order tickets online. The Twins looked foolish and pretty much got their brains bashed in, but it was still pretty fun. I did indeed boo Derek Jeter everytime he came up to bat, but the 50,000+ people cheering for Jeter didn't pay any attention to me.

The grounds crew provided much more entertainment than the Twins. In the 6th inning five guys come out to sweep the dirt in the infield while "YMCA" plays. They march along the infield and pump their fists while dragging their brooms behind them, and then pause to do the Y-M-C-A hand motions before marching on. Here's a pretty choppy video.

Wednesday afternoon we sat behind Frank and his pals. It was a 1:00 game, and Frank and his five homies showed up absolutely plastered. Some memorable quotes from Frank:

said at least once an inning: "If I fall over, I'm on third base!"

after about an hour: "F*** this! I've been to Yankee stadium like 9000 times. Let's go to the f***in' bar!"

"That was a F***IN' STRIKE!! F***IN' UMPIRE!!" - after the second pitch of the game!

after Mike Mussina bounced a pitch off home plate: "That caught the F***IN' CORNER!"

Other than the Twins getting belted, it was a pretty fun trip. We left New York and spent 19 straight hours driving home. Yowza. Blogspot is acting goofy now and not letting me add more photos for some reason. O well- Fo'get about it (and yes, New Yorkers do say this. Other than the "F" word, it was the most popular expression used by the locals).