Last week, the annual
Great American Baseball Road Trip took place...
Following the success of the quickly thrown together trip to Cleveland and Pittsburgh last season, this years trip was less strenuous, more planned out, and did not disappoint.
The destinations were Baltimore and Philadelphia... Their opponents were the Yankees and the Mets. How would cheering on our respective home teams go in visiting parks? Very well...
We (Big Nasty, Bad Steve, Young James, and Anthony (no nickname)) drove down from NY on Thursday. It was a brutally hot day and made for a general group malaise upon arrival in dilapidated Baltimore. After walking around the humid, beggar-laden harbor for a bit and getting our pre-game eat and drink on, we went over to the breath-taking Camden Yards. Not sure what else one would want out of a ballpark than that. Perhaps a real team to play in it maybe.
There were too many Yankees fans in our section. It was like we were in Yankee Stadium, except everyone was white and knew each other... Not really a fun group to be stuck around. So there was absolutely no threat of getting into anything with any of the Orioles fans unfortunate enough to be where we were sitting.
The game was tight between Wang and Cabrera... Typical entertaining AL game: lots of back and forth and running around bases... Then the clouds opened up and the night was pretty fucked. We left our seats for higher, drier ground... And we found our way to a couple groups that felt the need to punch each other in the heads based on their rooting interests. The guys in the Ripken t-shirts were on one side against the black guys who weren't security guards.
We waited out a couple rain delays and the game was eventually called with the Yankees leading by 2 in the 8th, to be picked up from that point on July 27th when the Yankees come back to town. Don't think we're gonna drive down to see it when play resumes. Scott Proctor can blow that lead without our help for sure. The rain did let up but we were left soggy so we just walked around lovely Baltimore and called it a night. The highlight of our trip to the hotel was accidentally walking thru the mega-sketchy strip-club block and having one of the barker's say, "I smell pussies" after we declined his invite to come in with no cover charge. Fucking degenerates.
The next morning we headed right out for Philly for the 1:30 game... Of course, the rain resumed in the morning and it looked like another shit day for a ballgame.
Fortunately, it let up and the game started as scheduled. They do have some really good food options at Citizen's Bank Park... but all in all it wasn't as nice as some of the other parks we've gone to (hard to get to our seats, can't walk around stadium without detours, parking and traffic a bitch, far from downtown).
After some shenanigans by Charlie Manuel got El Duque pissed off,
things were looking good for the visiting Mets as my man Delgado smashed a homer out of this ballparks silly dimensions. 
There were plenty of Mets fans here... But they were spaced out whereas the Yankee fans seemed more clustered in Camden. When the Mets opened up a 5 run lead, it was time to go exploring...
While waiting on a line for some ice cream, some poor woman got hit by a mustard bomb. I didn't see it happen, but I heard it. And after it happened, no joke, she was wiping mustard off her face for 10 minutes (a lot of people wanted ice cream so I got a long look at the mess). I felt bad for her. It was right in front of the "smoking pen" which is gross in its own right, and many people were laughing. I didn't laugh, but I did feel the need to document her plight. Mustard bomb lady, if you're out there, I feel for you.
Any ticket holder can get dangerously close to the visitor's bullpen here. In fact I might have gotten a steroid contact high just from standing there.
When we got back to our seats, Jose Reyes was stewing for being called out trying to steal. The replay showed he was safe, but he really acted like a baby about it between innings, refusing to put his glove and hat on, not throwing the ball around, needing the Latino coalition to counsel him...
Mota and the rest of the pen did what they could to give the game back, but Billy da Kid was coming on in the 9th, much to the delight of the fans, especially the dick in the Romano jersery...
A "Let's Go Phillies" chant was quickly turned around into "Let's go Billy" and stupid Phillie fans clapped along with us... 3 up, and 3 k's later, Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Taking Care of Business" was being sung by a horribly clapping Anthony and
it was party time.
After a miserable time getting out of the parking lot (gotta love split double-headers), we headed to the famous dueling Cheesesteak spots, Pat's and Geno's.
Going off anonymous recommendations and appearance of the lines, we opted for Pat's.
Cheez whiz, onions, and steak is the bomb.
We then checked into our nice downtown Philly hotel and got in shape for the night-time activities. This is Anthony's hairy left foot while ironing. His pinky toe nails were the subject of much ballyhoo.
For the second game of the double header, we cheered the Mets on at a local pub. After Wagner closed the Phillies out again and we exchanged high-fives, a girl behind us asked to no one in particular, "Do they realize they're in Philadelphia? New York Mother Fuckers." That was fun. We eventually moved on to the next establishment where we were treated much better by the lovely women of Philadelphia the rest of the night.
All in all, a great trip, with Baltimore having the nicer ballpark, but Philly having the waaaay nicer city for a young man.
And as a treat,
here's the CD that was made especially for the trip that never made it due to a good ol' CD burner malfunction. Enjoy.
