A Few of the Finer Things - October 2015
Over Labor Day weekend I once again took a “Father-Son Baseball Is America Tour”—this time with 12-year old twins Evan and Seth. This was my third such trip with baseball loving sons of this age and each one was spectacular. I highly recommend the experience.
We began very early Friday morning. We flew from Phoenix to St. Louis (via Denver). The plane from Denver to St. Louis was a small commuter jet that had one seat on one side of the aisle and two seats on the other side and I had to duck to avoid hitting my head on the top of the plane. The boys thought it was so cool to board a plane on stairs outside as opposed to a typical jet way—they felt like rock stars or athletes going to the Super Bowl. We arrived in St. Louis, rented a car and headed to our hotel which was a couple of blocks from Busch Stadium downtown. We checked in, dropped our bags and walked over to the stadium to see the Pirates and Cardinals. Gates were to open two hours before the game; we arrived two hours and thirty minutes before only to find a line two blocks long TO GET INTO BATTING PRACTICE—the game was not going to start for two and a half more hours. St. Louis is a baseball-crazy town and the fans sure love their Cardinals. The boys were very impressed how EVERY Cardinal fan is dressed in team gear—whether it be t-shirts or jerseys of players from today or from my youth…it was very cool to see. Gates opened, the line moved along pretty quickly and we entered to see the Pirates taking batting practice and warming up in the outfield. I got the attention of Pirate closer Mark Melancon (who went to U of A) with a, “Bear Down, Mark!” and a wave of my U of A hat. He smiled and waved and came over after he was done warming up and gave the boys a ball which he signed (Wildcats are the best!)—they were very excited. The Pirates beat up on the Cardinals that night 9-3. I taught the boys how to keep an old fashioned scorebook and they dutifully recorded every play—I told them that they will now be able to keep the scorebook for their own kids’ teams someday!
The next morning we were up before the sun and headed to Chicago to see our Diamondbacks play the Cubs at Wrigley Field. Both boys slept most of the way (following in the footsteps of Jonah and Brett who had the same tendencies on their trips). We arrived at our hotel downtown, parked, dropped our bags and took the L to Wrigleyville. We were all three decked out in Dbacks gear so we stuck out pretty clearly among the blue-clad Cub fans. We had a lot of friendly conversation with local fans who are very excited about their team’s prospects…a rare topic for them this late in the season! There was great energy around Wrigley and the historical ambience of the place is very cool. The boys loved it all. We entered and were very excited to watch our Dbacks take batting practice. The boys met so many of the players they watch every day—Paul Goldschmidt, AJ Pollock, David Peralta, Ender Inciarte and Jake Lamb all signed a baseball for them. Even Dback hero Luis Gonzales was there (he is with the team in a front office position) and he signed as well. But the highlight was when Dback rookie catcher Oscar Hernandez walked out of the dugout with a bat (slightly cracked) and gazed over the handful of kids congregated around the first row just beyond the visitor’s dugout and pointed to Seth (in his Dbacks shirt and hat) and handed him the bat! Seth very excitedly asked him to sign it which he did and for the next four hours the smile did not leave Seth’s face. The game began and the Dbacks unfortunately could not overcome the great pitching of Cubs ace Jake Arietta and we lost 2-0. A fun part of the day was getting text messages from friends and family who saw us on TV (our seats were located right outside the Dbacks dugout and we were quite visible in our Sedona red whenever the camera showed someone at 1stbase). My nephew even recorded a clip of us celebrating a Dbacks double play that he saw on TV—you can view at bottom and see that Seth is celebrating while holding the scorebook! We met up with some cousins who live a short walk from Wrigley that night for dinner before taking the L back to our hotel and getting some much needed rest.
The next day was quite an adventure. We again began just before sunrise and drove toward Detroit. The Cleveland Indians were playing the Tigers and gates were opening at 11:00 for a 1:00 game. What I neglected to account for when planning the trip was that Chicago and Detroit are in different time zones. As we drove along I noticed it was an hour later than I thought. But in true Weiss form we had left in plenty of time and would’ve arrived at our location around fifty minutes early so we were fine on time. We dropped our car at the rental car office and Ubered to Comerica Park. We arrived just as gates opened but the two teams had played late the night before so neither was taking batting practice. Former Dback Trevor Bauer was throwing in the Indians bullpen though so we watched him for a while and when he finished he tossed the boys a ball which he then signed. We walked all around the park—Detroit has a neat thing they do with their retired numbers—each player who has a number retired has a statue just beyond Center Field. The boys were excited to take a picture at the Hank Greenberg statue. I gave a “Bear Down!” to Indians manager and former U of A great Terry Francona who signed a ball for the boys (same thing happened last year when Brett and I saw them in Kansas City but he didn’t seem to remember me). Justin Verlander was pitching for the Tigers that day and we were all excited to see him. The Indians beat the Tigers 4-0. After the game we grabbed an early dinner and took a short Uber to the Amtrak station where we boarded our train back to Chicago. When planning the trip I noticed that the Cubs were in Chicago for the weekend but the White Sox were not but were returning Monday for a day game on Labor Day. I thought a day trip to Detroit would be fun (and add another city/another ballpark) but I figured I would be way too tired to drive back to Chicago that night. So I found the train option and that is what we did. It went great (boys were excited that train had Wi-Fi) but that time difference that I was unaware of made the trip closer to six hours than the expected five. We taxied back to our hotel and got a good night sleep.
The next morning we were all excited to sleep in just a little bit (at least until 8:00) before meeting some more cousins for breakfast. We then headed on the L to the south side to see the Indians play the White Sox. Gates opened and the Indians were taking batting practice. We walked all around US Cellular Field (still Comiskey Park to me even if it is the “new one”) and the boys really enjoyed racing ninety feet against the motorized White Sox player Scott Posednik and testing their pitching speed on the radar gun. Evan even cooled off in the outfield shower that Brett used last year. We were sitting in the second row behind 1st base and got a baseball from Indians first baseman Carlos Martinez who tossed it to us after taking warmups between innings. That made seven balls and a bat that the boys amassed over the four days—they were quite happy with their haul! During the second inning the heavens opened and the rain came down pretty hard—not hard enough to delay the game and only for about ten minutes or so. We were well prepared with ponchos and we were even able to keep our scorebook kind of dry (but still accurate). The Indians beat the White Sox 3-2. We are awaiting our invitation from Indians fans to come in if they ever make the playoffs—we seem to be good luck for them! We headed back to our hotel, picked up our bags and got back on the L to the airport to come home.
It was a great four days and the only sad part was realizing that this might be the last trip like this that I take—at least while my boys are “little boys”. Evan suggested that we do this every twelve years—he even said that on the second trip the boys plan it all and Dad just gets to come along for the ride. Sounds like a good idea to me!
- Gary Weiss, October 2015
