Baseball Cities Tour

Pictures from the Rangers, Royals and Rockies games have been uploaded.

Special thanks to Ken Helgeson for the great seats we had for this game. For those who don’t know, Ken was a former boss of ours at NYNEX in Maine who now lives in the Kansas City area. We met Ken for lunch at a great Bar-be-que restaurant in downtown Kansas City, MO and had a fun time catching up. Thanks again, Ken. Our plan was to go from there to the Negro League Baseball Hall of Fame but it was closed on Mondays. We did get to see it from the outside. Will add it to the growing lists of things to try to do in the future. We were able drive “Cliff” to the ballpark. The ballpark was very nice with fountains in the outfield. The electronic scoreboard was interesting too. It had the greatest animations – such as when the White Sox pitcher walked a Royals player a base on top of two baseballs went across the screen, there were several different ones when the Royals pitcher struck out a White Sox player.

Lots of hitting but mostly the wrong team. Rangers lost making the record - Home teams 3 and Visitors 2. We sat in the belcher section for this game. These seats were right next to the Ranger’s Bullpen. We each received a Texas Rangers Baseball cap as we entered the stadium – that is why Mark is wearing one in the photo of us at the field. Not a lot of pre-game activities at this game on the field but they have a lot of activities (such as temporary Rangers tattoos, slugger contest with t-ball) for the kids including a play area. A Chevy Pickup came out with the Rangers Six-Shooters in the bed of the truck. These young ladies came around tossing t-shirts into the crowd. The Rangers mascot – Ranger Captain made the rounds as well. You will see him when pictures are posted. Between the two of the innings they had the Dot Race. Three different colored Dots raced around on the screen and finished the last leg of the race in foul territory on the third base side. The ushers had previously passed out coupons with the different colors on them. If you coupon matched the winning dot, you could redeem your coupon for a free bottle of Ozarks water. We had one winning coupon, but since we were leaving the next day, we gave it to the young man sitting behind us. During the 5th inning, they played “Deep in the Heart of Texas”.

Today we did some sightseeing in San Antonio. We started at the Alamo. In 1836 the Alamo occupied the grounds and buildings of the former Mision San Antonio de Valero. Used as a military post since the early 1800’s, the Texans had barricaded opening and mounted at least 19 cannon before the 13 day siege. Today, the Alamo grounds and buildings present a serene environment where visitors can contemplate nearly 300 years of history. It was interesting. From there we went to the River Walk (Paseo Del Rio). The RiverWalk runs through the heart of the business district. The tree-lined footpaths are bordered by shops and restaurants. We had lunch at Lone Star Steak and then walked both sides of the walk. There is even an outdoor theater ( Arneson River Theater) with the stage on one side of the river and seating on the other.

Pictures have returned to the sidebar - thank you Seth!
To see all the photo albums from the trip, click on any picture in the sidebar and it will take you to flickr. Once there, click on browse under the thumbnails to the right of the large picture. This will display all the photo album and you can then look at whichever ones you want.

What a great park! We arrived in downtown Houston early enough to walk around downtown and the park. From the outside of the park you can see the Minute Maid Express Train on the Left Field wall. Before the game there was lots of activity as well. First, 5 Harley Davidson motorcycles rode around the field. The first driven by Manager Phil Garner and the second by his wife. This was the Kick Start the Cure benefiting Mothers Against Cancer. Then, the flags for all the countries that participate in the International Little League were brought onto the field. At the end of the 5th inner (which is when it was an official game) play was interrupted to award long time umpire Bruce Froemming an award for surpassing the record for longest consecutive years of service for a major league umpire. This beautiful ballpark has combined in its design some of the quaintness and eccentricities of some of the old time ballparks. The left field scoreboard is reminiscent of Fenway park including the Monster seats and the ability to view the game from the rooftop of Union Station is reminiscent of Wrigley Field. (see Game 04 of 30 page for highlights of the game.)

If you are having trouble loading the site, please be patient. We use Flickr (www.flickr.com) to upload the pictures and then connect the pictures to this site. (Forgive me Seth if I don’t have the terminology just right.) Not sure what the problem is but we will work on it and hopefully we will have the pictures back. In the meantime, we will continue to update without pictures.

We attended the Atlanta Braves game at Turner Field on Tuesday night, April 12. It was a cool and windy evening. The stadium is very nice with lots to see and lots of pre-game activities. We were there for Little League Night. Before the game, there were six T-ball teams in the outfield doing a T-Ball exhibition. It was adorable! Just after that started, all little leaguers in uniform & their coaches paraded around the entire field. Pictures will be posted but do not really capture it. We were able to take a bus from the campground to the Atlanta subway system where we caught the subway for 5 stops and caught the Braves Shuttle to the field. All in all, it worked very well. The pictures and Highlights will be added later today.

Sorry KY Steve & Reneta–we cheered for the Braves but they lost!

We spent Easter Sunday enjoying the beautiful Florida weather at Dolphin Stadium in Miami Florida. The Florida Marlins won which was an added bonus to the day. (Check out the Game 02 of 30 page for highlights of the game.)

The first game was April 6th. There were 17 of us that attended the game. A limo picked us up at Coasters and delivered us at Tropicana Field. Thanks to the Gang from Coasters who joined us for our kickoff game. We had a great time and hope everyone else did as well. (Check out the Game 01 of 30 page for highlights of the game.)