Trip in Review

Alright then.  The Trip of a Lifetime^TM is over and it was awesome.  The highlights/lowlights:

1.  Fenway is kind of a dump.  It sounds almost sacrilegious to say since there's so much history there (I mean the greatest player ever Ty Cobb played there for christ's sake) but at the same time it's also should be kind of obvious.  The place was built in 1912 and, despite some renovations to put in more seats and what not, there's really not that much you can change.  It was awesome to see (second time for me, first for the other two) and we did get to see Ian Kinsler put one over the monster, but maybe it was because I've been there before or maybe it was because the Sox never bothered to show up and were out of it from the first inning, but it was a little bit underwhelming.  Still, it's the kind of place every baseball fan should see, the atmosphere was cool both at the park and around it (we ate at The Cask & Flagon - big time Sox bar, try the calamari), and since it was the 700th consecutive sell-out at Fenway we all go souvenir baseballs.  Pretty cool (currently selling for around $6 on ebay).

2.  Harvard is full of liberal arts hippies.  I learned this from a friend of Snacks' who we met for lunch in Cambridge.  We made some crack about bars having equations on the walls, a joke we must have made 40 times, and he said, "Not at Harvard.  They can't do math at Harvard, everyone is in liberal arts, I don't even think they have an engineering school.  The actual smart kids all go to MIT."  I'm now looking at Harvard in a whole new, and much more worthless, light.  Single best piece of information we learned on the trip.

We also were able to find Shay's,

which is one of my favorite bars in the world.  I'm not sure why, it doesn't exactly look like much, but I have fond memories of the trip I took to Boston with the missus and we spent some time here after watching the Harvard/Cornell football game (a game where both teams played spread offense which blew my mind).  It also sticks in my mind because this is where I watched Torii Hunter dive for, and miss, a line drive that drove a dagger into my tiny black heart.  We left immediately afterwards.

3.  The HOF is truly in the middle of nowhere.  And I mean really, truly.  It's like driving around Aitkin, MN or random butthole county, WI only if it took you four hours to get there.  More than once we cracked jokes about how there was no way we were in the right place, and as time passed and it looked more and more country/redneck I think the joke's almost became a new version of whistling as you walk passed a graveyard, but luckily we made it.  And there's nothing there except baseball.  Every store and every restaurant is baseball-themed, so it was pretty cool, even if we didn't have time to linger.

We did, of course, spend several hours in the Hall and it really doesn't disappoint.  Don't get me wrong, most of the stuff you're looking at/reading about happened not only before Snacks and I were born but a lot happened even before our dad was born so you really have to be a pretty hardcore baseball history nerd to really dig it, but luckily I am and the old man is and Snacks is probably a 0.75 or so, so we all enjoyed it.  There's basically a little bit of everything from every team, every era, and every stadium so it's like an educational tour but with some kick-ass visual aids like Honus Wagner's baseball card that I wanted to steal.  I actually think every baseball fan would enjoy it, but if you know the difference between Lefty Grove and Lefty Gomez, the difference between Al Kaline and Ralph Kiner, and Josh Gibson and Bob Gibson, you owe it to yourself to go.  If nothing else, you'll get to admire Cooperstown's ultra modern gas pumps:

4.  The Yankee Stadium Experience was awesome. Yes, I hate the Yankees just like everyone should, but when they built the new stadium they did it right and that entire experience was awesome except that apparently in New York you can't get a beer before noon on Sunday.  +1 point for Minnestoa.  Anyway, the place just blows you away with its size, both inside and outside, but the concourse is actually really nice and modern.  Similar to Target Field and the other newer stadiums, or at least the ones I've been to, you can easily walk around taking in the sites of the stadium and still watch the game - a big issue at Fenway.  It was also pretty cool to watch how the dudes in the right field bleachers (the drunks who are poor) chant each Yankee players' name who is in the field until the player acknowledges them.  It's the kind of thing that sounds stupid and Yankee-ish but seeing it was actually pretty cool.

What was not pretty cool was Jon Rauch, and although I may be overreacting a little bit here I hope he falls in a giant vat of fire and snakes.  The one thing I said before this trip started was that if I could see one thing I'd like to see Mariano Rivera come into the game in the ninth with Enter Sandman playing.  I just think it'd be awesome.  So the game we're at the Yankees lead by 3 going into the top of the 8th.  Jose Bautista hits a home run so now it's just a 2-run game and Rivera is up in the pen.  Awesome.  Toronto brings in Rauch, who proceeds to give up a 2-run bomb to Swisher and Rivera was sitting back down before the ball even cleared the fence.  Thus depriving us of a truly awesome experience, and adding another tally to Rauch's ledger in my book of enemies. 

Note to Snacks:  Don't watch this.  I did, and I am now seriously considering driving to wherever Toronto is playing and stabbing Rauch with a spoon.


5.  New Yorkers are nicer than Bostonians.  I did not see this one coming but I guess I should have based on the class of douchebag you can see in Boston rather routinely, but specifically I'm talking people in the service industry here.  I talked about the Boston dinks in a prior post, but really they were all kind of jerks.  We knew things would be different when we stopped near Schenectady at a city whose name I don't remember on our way to Cooperstown for lunch and the bartender girl was like, super nice.  We chalked it up to being a kind of small town, but then it didn't matter where we went as long as we were on the New York side of the border people were nice and helpful.  Even in downtown NYC not far from Times Square we went to some English bar where we were forced to watch New Zealand demolish Canada in either rugby or Australian rules football.  At one point Snacks asked the waiter about a beer and she hadn't tried it, but rather than acting like an overaggressive douchebag like the guy in Boston she actually seemed apologetic and was all smiley and shit like that.  I really didn't see this coming, but it's not even close:  New Yorkers are nicer than Boston people.  FACT.  

6.  New York Pizza is overrated.  You know how if you go to Chicago and get Chicago style pizza even if you're not necessarily a fan of deep dish, which I'm not, you get it?  Like, you get why people go crazy for it and it's really quite good?  Yeah, New York style is kind of meh.  Maybe we didn't go to the best place but we knew we wanted NY-style pizza and then we saw Famous Original Ray's and being Seinfeld fans we had to head in and try it.  Meh.  Give me my thin crust cut in squares any day - midwest style rules.  [note:  I have recently been informed by an actual New Yorker that judging New York pizza based on Famous Original Ray's is similar to judging it by Sbarro.  Ouch.  Screwed that one up.]

Speaking of Seinfeld, we also saw the place that the Soup Nazi was based on.  We didn't go in, because we didn't want soup or to get yelled at, but Snacks got a picture.  Anyway, since we're both Seinfeld fans (and anyone who isn't probably enjoys watching Ghost Hunters) catching these couple landmarks made the trip just that much better.  We kept our eyes open but didn't see anything else - not even a Jerk Store.

7. My dad got hit on by an annoying old gay guy who wouldn't shut up.  So then we had to leave (not because my dad was offended by a gay guy but because this guy seriously would not leave him - and by extension all of us - alone) and ended up finding a great bar called Rumor.  So everyone wins.  Except the old gay dude.  And whoever he ended up picking up that night.  That guy is the real loser.

8.  Here are some other random pictures.  I included comments because you are dumb.

This is the Boston Beer Works.  This is where Snacks had that nancy beer.  Confession:  it was good.

This is a picture of the Green Monster and gives you an idea of where our seats were.  Apparently there was a home run hit almost here at some point but we weren't there because the Sox pitchers decided to walk everybody and we went to go check out the rest of stadium.  Verdict:  festive dump.

This is the inside of Fenway.  Yuck.

This is the second best shirt we saw on our trip (behind the "Jeter wears Wine Coolers" shirt.  I almost bought this until I realized that just because I laughed at a shirt didn't mean I'd ever wear it.  Also between this and the Wine Cooler shirt it's clear that Bostonions are better at shirt making.  The most clever shirt I saw in New York was one that said "Bahstan Sahks Cawkh."  Not exactly Joycian.

This is a picture of Joe Mauer and I'm not exactly sure why it's in here other than that this freakin' sally is in the hall way too much.  Like this:

And this:

Plus he's in their welcome video twice.  Ridiculous, especially now.  He's like the next Peyton Manning or Nicole Eggert - it's over.  Also pictured in that last one:  Jeff Reardon.  The biggest dickhead I've ever met.  Nice job robbing a bank, ass.  Even  fuckin' Keanu could pulled that off.

I really, really could have done without this.  Still, seemed fitting.

This is Yankee Stadium as you walk up.  It is super, super big.  Almost too big and super impressive.  Funny thing is that is exactly what your girlfriend said to me the first time I dropped by pants in front of her.

Y

Yankee from the inside.  I got nothing else to add.  This thing is a monster in a wonderful way.  Like Avril Lavigne.

Mariano warming up.  Little did we know this was as close as we'd get.

Thanks to this fucking guy.

Finally, this might be my favorite picture of the entire trip, taken in the wilderness of upstate New York somewheres.  And if you don't know why, I both pity and hate you.  Mostly hate.  But also pity.

In conclusion this was the awesomest trip ever and I'm super glad we did it. If you haven't it's clear that I'm much better than you, so, I guess, in your face.

Yeah, yeah. Stuff coming.

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I promise I will tomorrow.  I will have a complete trip wrap-up and my NFL picks over the next two days.  It's just been a whirlwind.  After Fenway we went to bars, then woke up early the next morning and drove 5 hours to Cooperstown, then drove three hours back that night to Poughkeepsie, then got up at 7:30 the next morning and drove to New York and did NYC stuff, then got up the next morning to fly home and had a fantasy auction that night and a fantasy draft tonight.  So yeah, it's been busy.  I'll get around to it. 

Tonight's draft was interesting because it's a "family league" and I co-own a team with Mrs. W.  In order to keep her interest as long as possible I let her draft a bunch of players for our team by giving her a list of of players and letting her pick.  Tonight, I think because I was fairly burned out and also because I wanted to punch my kids I gave her more leeway than usual.  She decided tonight, between pounding Chardonnay, that she'd pick guys who had "annoying names."  We ended up with a LaSean, a DeSean, and a Marshawn, along with Santonio, Hakeem, Marcedes, Jordy, Sebastian, and Willis McGahee (because "McGahhe is annoying because it should just be McGee, dammit.")  Good times. 

Also, did you know Joe Benson is white?  This isn't quite like when I learned Lew Ford was white, but it's close.

Snacks is a Dandy

1.  Check out this beer Snacks ordered last night.  I've never seen this before ever:

2.  Guess how many shirts Snacks packed for this trip, keeping in mind we're only out here 4 days.  I'll give you a hint - it's 15.  Fifteen shirts.  And they all have collars.  Fancy boy.  Might as well be a Harvard man.  Which, we learned earlier today, means that he can't do math because all Harvard students are fancy dirty hippies who major in liberal arts and don't eat meat because they're misguided liked Super Sioux Fan.  Smart kids to go MIT.  Fact.

Heading to Fenway now.  Hopefully these tickets Snacks got from some site that isn't Stub Hub aren't printed on some sort of cracker.

Day 1 Boston Recap

And Day 2 dawns at 10am.  Not bad, considering we were up at 4am and hit 8 bars throughout the day (Bell in Hand, Cheers, The Reef, Hub Pub, Green Dragon Tavern, Boston Sports Grille, Beer Works, and The Beantown Pub). 

Perhaps the best thing about this trip so far has been how my dad is acting like a little kid.  He had to sit by the window on the plane, and as we were coming in to land he asked "where is the ocean?"  He's also been bouncing around like a little kid.  It's actually quite endearing.

And what have we done?  Well, we checked into our hotel (not before being accosted by a probably homeless and definitely crazy man who kept claiming to be Britney Spears - I'm not making this up) which is kind of like The Overlook crossed with the Mirage.  It's got like, and old but classy vibe, much like Suzanne Sommers . But with way worse boobs.

First order of business was to get some lunch, and I couldn't have been looking more forward to it.  The Bell in Hand is the oldest continually running bar in the United States and also has the world's best fish and chips.  I had it about 4-5 years ago when I came here with the missus, and couldn't wait to try it again.  Did not disappoint.  Absolutely fantastic.

We then had to check out the replica Cheers since my dad is such a huge fan of the show and holy god did that ever suck.  That isn't a replica of anything.  The bar, the literal bar, is a dead ringer for the one on the show and I think the chandeliers were similar, but that's it.  I mean I guess it's pretty hard to recreate a TV set in downtown Boston, but it just felt like false advertising.  It also didn't help that it took over 10 minutes to get a beer, and that the little dive bar just a couple hundred feet away that Mrs. W and I went to and loved had been turned into an ice cream shop.

This is where things could have turned ugly and I considered just breaking shit, but then we took a little walk down on the pier and let's be honest if walking by the ocean doesn't calm you down you're probably a communist.  We had a quick drink at an open-air bar on the peer, and usually I hate sitting outside but because it was by the ocean and also because technically there was no inside I enjoyed myself.  Also probably didn't hurt that I had an awesome blue drink that was garnished with a gummy shark that was technically a gummy fish. 

And then blah blah blah.  What is this a travel guide?  We did some cool shit and drank a bunch of beer and still got to bed at midnight which was awesome because we were up at 4.  And technically only Snacks and I were up until midnight because we had to drop the old man back off at the hotel around 10.  Then we went to the last bar right by our hotel and met the angriest woman ever.  She came in and sat down by us and proceeded to berate us for 5 minutes for being men.  I thought she would be pretty funny and entertaining but it turned out she was just mean and stupid.

Also mean and stupid is the help in this town.  Good lord, if you hate waiting on people get another job.  At dinner (Union Oyster House - I had the Swordfish with Asparagus and baby reds, Snacks went with the Lobster, while Old Man W had the shrimp and scallops with rice) we had some old lady who probably used to babysit Tim Wakefield's dad and I think she took questions about the menu as a personal affront.  Keep in mind these weren't complicated questions, just basics like "What's the catch of the day" and "What is the market price on Lobster."  You know, things she should have told us up front.

Then later at one of the bars Snacksy asked a question about one of the local brews and the guy's answer was "I don't know, I don't drink it."  Really?  You have no idea?  Nothing.  I guess that would have been ok if he wasn't so god damned irritated.  More interesting was when we were down in that area there is a huge run of bars and they were all either crowded or at least semi-crowded except one where there was absolutely nobody in there but the bartender.  So weird.  Literally the only person in this huge place was the bartender.  I suppose once people start seeing there's nobody in there they aren't going to go in alone, but it was just bizarre and looked like a party at Super Sioux Fan's house once she announces they aren't serving meat.  You don't win friends with salad.

Anyway today is Harvard and Fenway with a possible Sam Adams beer tour mixed in.  


 Here's some pictures:

Our hotel.  Can't you just imagine this lobby filling with blood as someone chases you with an axe?

This is the best fish and chips ever from the Bell in Hand (the oldest continually operated bar in the U.S.).  This is worth more to me than your life.

This is the best shirt I've ever seen.  Unfortunately they only had smalls.

This is a statue of that guy from the Beastie Boys song "Paul Revere."  I had no idea the band and the song were this popular here.

This is some stupid boat.

Then we got too drunk and stopped taking pictures. The end.

Welcome to Boston

I’m writing this on the plane, and thus far things have been rather uneventful, with the exception of having to wake up at 4:30 am which is always an adventure.  We arrived at the airport without incident, and upon check-in the Old Man found out we were heading to Boston and confessed he was convinced L.A. was our destination, so that was stellar.  Unfortunately I had to inform him that although we were going to Fenway, we weren’t going to be seeing the Yankees vs. Red Sox (he had heard on the radio they were currently playing and had suspected that might be where we were headed).  It seems my father is yet another person who was fallen into the group delusion that watching the Yankees vs. Red Sox is the equivalent to seeing the Aurora Borealis located entirely within your kitchen.

We flew out on Sun Country and one major positive I was unaware of was we were given breakfast – sausage/egg/cheese mcmuffin (I of course removed the egg because I am not some savage who eats fake eggs that are probably made from recycled Styrofoam peanuts and food coloring.  I also just had to ask Snacks how to spell Styrofoam.  I had it as styrophome   I’m so dumb just like you.  Anyway, breakfast was delicious.  So while Delta has cut back to the point where they don’t even offer you peanuts or pretzels, Sun Country is giving out a nice hot meal.  That was a nice surprise.  Not quite as nice as finding out I still have Epic – Fath No More on my ipod, but nice all the same.

I also picked up Moneyball to read on the plane.  I hadn’t read it since it first came out and wanted to give it another go.  I forgot how enjoyable of a read it is.  If you haven’t read it and you like baseball or you like numbers or you are a nerd or some combination of all three you should pick it up.  Also you can stare at Brad Pitt on the cover since he’s playing Beane in the movie, so you got that going for you.  Meanwhile my dad’s over here refusing to read Game of Thrones, quitting after 3 chapters despite both of us telling him he’s got to keep going.  Yeah, that Sudoku sure is compelling stuff.

Oh, and as I post this from our room I can tell you it is the size of a regular person’s master bedroom and the two beds are no bigger than my daughter’s.  This should be fun.

And Away We Go

Remember how a while back I mentioned a trip my brother (Snacks) and I were taking my dad on, but couldn't reveal where because he reads this blog while beaming with pride and I didn't want to ruin the surprise?  Well we're leaving tomorrow, or today depending on when you're reading this, on a 7:10am flight to Boston.  We will spend two days there, including a game at Fenway of course, before renting a car.  Using said car we will drive the approximately four hours into the middle of nowhere that is Cooperstown which, of course, is home to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  That evening we will drive three quarters of the way to New York City (stopping for the night in Poughkeespie) where we will take in an afternoon Yankee game on Sunday, then returning home on Monday.

The best part is the old man has no idea where we're going.  My mom told me tonight that he is now convinced we are going to L.A. because both the Twins and Gophers are playing out there this weekend.  Of course, he forgets that if we did that we'd have to watch both the Twins and Gopher football and I can't imagine anybody subjecting themselves to that when they're trying to have "fun."  So it'll be pretty sweet.  He'll of course figure out we're going to Boston when we get to the airport, and I'm pretty sure after we spend two days there he'll think it's just a long weekend in Boston.  Then on Saturday we'll go get a car and head to Cooperstown and he'll be blown away since he always talks about going back (he took us there as kids).  

So that's Fenway Park, the Baseball Hall of Fame, and Yankee Stadium (better if it was the old one, but still) all in a four day span that includes 8 hours in a car.  Should be pretty freaking sweet.  I'm bringing the ole computer machine with me and hope to be able to find a little time to blog each day, possibly with pictures.  Stay tuned.

P.S.  I would be truly remiss if I didn't give a shout out to the ladies in our lives.  Not only does this take us all away from our families for five days but it's a significant financial outlay as well, and not once have any of them been anything but 100% supportive of this endeavor.  So thank you all.  We owe you big.