Back From Florida...
Made it back on time in spite of seemingly every force both natural and unnatural conspiring to make us late--from a long line at the rental car return forcing us to miss our 5:50 flight (ended up catching the 7:00 AM instead), getting stuck circling Southern Georgia for 40 minutes in wicked turbulence while we waited for fog in Atlanta to lift, losing our luggage (which thankfully showed up on the next flight), yadda yadda. Anyhow, here's a random disjointed rundown:
-Ballgames we saw: Friday
Atlanta at Philly, high point of which was watching Chipper
"Laaaaaaaaarrryyy" Jones have a little fun with some big drunk dudes sitting near us out in RF. He took the abuse pretty good-naturedly, and signed autographs for like 35 minutes after he left the game. He was nowhere near the sourpuss I thought, but is instead more of the big ol frat-boy cracker type. Phils play their ST games in a sweet new yard,
Bright House Networks Field. One of the great things about ST games is just sitting bullshitting with the fans around you, and this game had by far the best bunch I encountered...everyone from a retired teacher from Berwyn who answered to TBone to a irish chap named Ian sporting a Cov City football jersey who knew baseball better than a lot of Americans.
Saturday took a drive down to Fort Myers to watch the Twins take advantage of a Dodger 9th inning
meltdown. Check out the pitching line on one Doug Nickle..talk about a choke.
Dave Roberts from LA is the real deal, reminds me of a smaller Kenny Lofton. Another cool thing about ST is the fact all these guys run the bases with wild abandon--saw more steals in 4 days than I saw all last season with the Sox..well, I exaggerate a little.
Monday was a matchup between the
Tigers and Pirates in Bradenton. Packed house to watch 2 cellar dwellers duke it out in a pretty ratty stadium in a decaying Florida town. I did get to BS with Dimitri Young before the game though and told him the whole story of how he
broke my finger at the Cell last summer. He cracked up and said he'll throw to Kris next time.
Aside from baseball--the other high point of the trip was the traffic. Seemed everywhere we went something jackknifed or someone blew off the road. Got stuck on i-75 for 2 hours Saturday night. MOst of the traffic we were stuck in was the ubiquitous Bubba Trucks that are everywhere in the Sunshine State.
You might be a Bubba Truck driver if...
...your wheels of choice are an F150, Ram or S10
...you have a Bucs sticker on your door or tailgate (bumper stickers don't count)
...you have a window sticker commemorating either one of the Earnhardts
...you've got at least 4 wheels...just in the rear
Started and finished
_Positively Fifth Street_ while down there. Great book that makes me want to fly to Vegas next month and try and win a seat in the WSOP. Had our own Wilkins World Series Of Poker Frday night and got schooled by my old man.
Dad and Gerry are doing great. Guess in the end that's what matters most.
