We hit the road around 6am in order to make the trek from Pittsburgh to Toronto in time for the Blue Jays 1:07 P.M. game. Looking back on the previous night, it probably wasn’t such a great idea to get the Harry Potter book because it left us feeling quite exhausted. Nevertheless, we headed up to Toronto and of course got searched crossing the border. Apparently our “going to see a Blue Jays game” story was a bit too suspicious, and I guess the border guard thought it was odd for three Americans to do such a crazy thing. Once we arrived in Toronto, I realized why—there was no one at the Toronto Blue Jays game! The picture above accurately captures the emptiness of the stadium, where huge sections of the park were just completely empty. The SkyDome, as it was originally named, is now called the Rogers Centre. It has a long and troubled history—originally built in the late 1980s, the total cost of the facility was somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 billion dollars, and it practically bankrupted the province and government. When the stadium was completed, the city assumed a $165 million debt, which would balloon up to to $400 million by 1993—the same year the Blue Jays would win there second consecutive World Series against the Phillies. The reason for the massive debt was due to such extravagant features as a retractable roof, “state-of-the-art” video board, and the construction of the fancy hotel inside the stadium, where guests can watch the game out their window. The game itself was a quick one, with the Blue Jays coming out on top of the Mariners 1-0.


We left the Blue Jays game a little early to make sure we got to Detroit on time. Cutting across Canada, we had a slightly easier experience getting back into the country and made it just in time for the beginning of the 7pm Tigers/Royals game at Comerica Park. Tonight both teams were wearing Negro League jerseys as part of a tribute over the weekend series. Comerica Park was sold out due to the fact that it’s an awesome ballpark, the Tigers are in first place, and there were fireworks scheduled for after the game. The Tigers offense was out in full effect—Placido Palanco (former Phillie) and Craig Monroe both hit homers for the Tigers, and Magglio Ordóñez and Gary Sheffield both had multi-hit nights. However, Todd Jones blew yet another save to send the game into extra innings. Sure enough, the Tigers offense bailed him out—Brandon Inge hit a 2-run walkoff homer to save the day. The place went wild, and as a reward all fans could use their ticket to get a Little Caesars Pizza for just $1. Tonight was Mike and Suresh’s last game on the Tour for a little while, so here is a quick but entertaining interview:

We arrived in Pittsburgh last night after our rained out game in Mahoning Valley and met up with our friend Suresh from Philadelphia, who will be joining us for the weekend. Friday morning Mike and I headed to the Andy Warhol Museum, an artist who is at the top of my list. The museum is located right next to PNC Park, so next time you go to see a ballgame there stop by the museum first. It definitely has one of the better gift shops as far as museums go. After running a few errands and exchanging our temporary rental car and getting our beloved Chrysler 300M back (upgraded model!), we headed to PNC Park to catch batting practice (see picture above) and ate at the Outback Steakhouse located inside the park, which had nice views of the field. Today’s tickets were given to us by StubHub, and they were some of the best seats I’ve had at a MLB game yet this year. We sat right behind home plate, which offers some great views of downtown Pittsburgh.

Some interesting notes about PNC Park—the right field wall is 21 feet high, which is in honor of Roberto Clemente, who wore number 21 while playing for the Pirates. The stadium is very compact, seating just 38,500 fans at full capacity—almost 10,000 less than the old Three Rivers Stadium. During the game, the Pirates pitcher only made one mistake—allowing a 2-run homer to the Astros Carlos Lee in the 2nd inning that just cleared the fence. Those two runs proved to be the difference, as the Pirates weak offense just couldn’t get it together tonight. After the game, the park treated the fans to a fireworks show over the river.

Later that night, Mike and I decided to head to a local bookstore a few miles away to get the new copy of Harry Potter. By the time we showed up at 11:55 PM, the store was packed and there was a line of 300+ people standing in line down the block. Surprisingly, the majority of people in line were around 18 to 25, and not little kids. Even more surprisingly were the number of people dressed up in Harry Potter attire, including a bunch of kids who were acting as Dementors, which are soul-sucking fiends. We shot a great video of these so-called Dementors, but it needs some editing before it will ever make its way on to the site. 90 minutes later we had our copies of Harry Potter and returned back to the hotel for a few hours of sleep before our long doubleheader on Saturday.

Mother Nature struck hard today as the rain came down hard in the Mahoning Valley area of Ohio. We did a raffle for about a half an inning before tons of rain poured down on the field and the stands, sending the fans into a panic as they began to flee towards the exits with umbrella in hand. Luckily for us we were able to capture some of the mass hysteria and get the thoughts of a local fan attending the game. Great work from Mike the cameraman to catching a fan scurrying across the parking lot in the pouring rain!

Thanks a bunch to Stefanie for helping us out during a rain soaked night!

This afternoon was another Camp Day, this time at Jerry Uht Ballpark in Erie. This game in Erie marked my first time back in my home state since the beginning of the trip, and what can I say, this place is Erie-sistable. Seriously, they sell t-shirts at a shop across the street from the ballpark that say “Erie-sistable”—I bought one on a random trip to Erie last summer. Besides their creative t-shirts, Erie has a very nice stadium that has a nice variety of seating, including two levels of seating, and a beer garden with nice views of the field. Thanks to Rob today for helping us out and getting us all setup once we were inside the park. The previous night’s game had been rained out, so today’s first game was part of an Erie SeaWolves/Reading Phillies doubleheader. Interesting note about doubleheaders in Minor League baseball—whenever teams play each other twice in one day, each game is only 7 innings with a 30 minute break between each game. And for all those people who bought a ticket for the first game, they were encouraged to hang out for the second game for free. Pretty good deal.

Afterwards we traveled down along Lake Erie and headed to the Lake County Captains game. Before we got there, we decided to treat ourselves to Little Caesars Pizza, which used to be on the East Coast before closing down most of their locations except for in the Midwest part of the country. They have the best deal ever for pizza—$5 for a large! The pizza is amazingly greasy, and afterwards your stomach might not feel so hot, but it’s only $5! The Captains play their games at Classic Park, which was recently built four years ago. The town of Eastlake, Ohio assumed a $1 million dollar debt to build the ballpark, and in order to pay off the debt the town had to let go of five police officers and cutback on police services (source). How crazy is that? Usually towns will raise sales tax for a year to raise funds for a ballpark, not by cutting public services.

The video above was shot by myself as Mike and I battled it out in a foot-long hot dog eating competition. What can I say, Mike totally destroyed me and managed to eat almost the whole thing. I attribute my loss to my dedication to shaky camera work while trying to capture the moment. In case you were wondering what Mike’s big prize was for winning the eating competition… he got to keep his hot dog apron and he was given six more hot dogs, which he promptly gave away to some hungry senior citizens seated by our table.

Our first of three doubleheaders this week, we headed to see the Columbus Clippers for a 12pm game. Although we are done with Education Days, we now have to face a round of Camp Days, which are essentially the same thing. As a result, the raffles are pretty weak but the baseball is still in full swing. We did happen to have a small semi-successful raffle, and thanks to Ty for helping us out today. While we were talking to some of the fans, a few recognized Mike from the first pitch in Cleveland, politely heckling him for the pitch. Overnight he has become a min-celebrity in the Ohio baseball community. That’s what happens when you join the Tour for the Cure.

Later that night our game was in Akron, not too far from Columbus. Lots of steady rain did not keep fans away from the ballpark—namely due to the fact that you had a chance to meet NASCAR racing legend Bobby Labonte. People were lined up around the block for a chance to get autographs and see his car. Most stayed for the game and cheered on the Aeros. According to Wikipedia, the reason they are called the Aeros is due to “Ohio’s history of aerospace research including being the home state of the Wright Brothers and astronaut Neil Armstrong.” The Aeros play their game at the super-slick Canal Park, which was designed by the baseball architects HOK. The one thing you notice is the scoreboard—it’s the first I’ve seen that is completely digital, so the ads on either side can change throughout the game. All the other ads around scoreboards typically are billboards, and aren’t digital. Thanks to Nathan for helping us out tonight and getting us a great item for our raffle!

Today the Tour for the Cure welcomes a new Tour member for the week, Mr. Michael Herman. Today we spent our time before the game at the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, which we both thought was quite disappointing—except for the fact that you can see Michael Jackson’s glove rotating inside of a glass case. We were scheduled to throw out the first pitch at tonight’s game, so I gave up my usual pitching duties and had Mike throw the first pitch out to me. I know in the past I have been made fun of my first pitches, and it’s a lot harder than it looks. I tried to pass down all my wisdom to Mike about the first pitch, telling him he should warm up first, not try to throw it too hard, follow through, snap your wrist down, etc. I don’t think he took much of the advice, as this video will show:

…Just a bit high. Let’s analyze this pitch a little more in depth—using super sophisticated Photoshop analysis. You will see in the picture below a summary of what happened with this pitch—lucky for me and my extended stretch that I was able to bring the ball back down to Earth once it was secure in my glove:

Wow! What a catch! Later on during the game, Grady Sizemore must have been inspired by that catch to make his own unbelievable catch later on in the game. I highly recommend viewing the catch here (click on “Sizemore’s grab”)—although if you watch the catch from a different angle, I’m pretty sure the ball deflects off the wall just before it hits his glove. Still, it was awesome to see.

During the game we also met John Adams, who sits way up top in the bleachers in left field—with his huge drum. He has been coming to Indians games since 1973, and bringing his drum with him, banging away for 34 years. You can hear his drumming throughout the ballpark, and it’s even louder when you sit right in front of him. John is so recognizable that the Indians had a giveaway in his honor—a “BobbleArms.” You can read more about him here on the Indians website.

Thanks so much to Kate for getting us on the field tonight and getting us a great item for our end of the year online auction!

It’s quite a long drive from Omaha to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Nevertheless, the Tour for the Cure made it in time for the 2pm Whitecaps Sunday game. We weren’t able to do a raffle or info table of any kind, but I did spend most of the game in the press box with the official scorers seeing how they keep track of everything that goes on during the game. First off, let me just say that the press box usually have the best seat in the house. It is always located directly behind home plate, and has an elevated view so their are no obstructed parts of the field. Today there were two official scorers, who keep track of every pitch, even logging in when the first pitch of the game was thrown (today, it was at 2:05 pm). The other perks of the press box include free food and drinks, which is always a plus.

I also had a chance to go on the local radio to do a short interview about the Tour. Thanks to Jamie for setting that up! One interesting note about Fifth Third Ballpark—it was entirely financed by private funding—no tax dollars were used to help with construction costs. This is quite rare as most ballparks depend on city tax revenue to cover a significant amount of the costs.

Welcome to Omaha, home of the College World Series. Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium is HUGE—it seats over 23,000 fans. Most of these seats are covered up and roped off during the Royals games, making the park seem very empty, even though there are usually 5,000 attending on average. There has been some talk of moving the CWS out of Omaha, and some have started a grassroots movement at SaveRosenblatt.com. In case you were wondering, the CWS has been played in Omaha since 1950.

Rosenblatt Stadium is also known for their live organist, who used to play during Royals games but now only plays the organ during the College World Series. In 1988, Lambert Bartak was playing the organ during a Royals game when the Royals manager went out to argue a call with the umpire. During this time, Bartak began to play the theme from The Mickey Mouse Club. Just as he began to spell out M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E, another umpire motioned to the press box and ejected Bartak. To the best of my knowledge, this is one of the only times I’ve heard of the organ player being ejected.

Friday night The Tour for the Cure headed up the road to Tulsa to Drillers Stadium to see none other than the Tulsa Drillers. The ballpark holds almost 11,000 people, making it the largest ballpark in Double-A baseball. Originally the park started out as a multi-purpose facility that seated just 4,800 but over time the turf was replaced with natural grass and more seating was added. What is most interesting about the seating is that most of it is on the second level, making the upper tier the grandstand area with tons of bleachers.

Speaking of the upper seating area, that’s were I spent most of the night selling raffle tickets to various Drillers fans. Thanks to all the generous fans who helped contribute to the raffle and also a special thanks to Brian for helping me out throughout the night. The winners of the raffle ended up being huge Red Sox fans, quite appropriate for the Jimmy Fund.

The weather was threatening to rain out the game, but luckily the stormy weather held off just long enough to squeeze in a “Neil Diamond Night” game at AT&T Bricktown Ballpark. We had a small raffle due to the fact that a lot of fans seemed to be scared off by the threatening weather. As for the ballpark, AT&T Bricktown could almost pass for a small MLB park, seating 13,000 with two tiers of seating and a huge main concourse. Thanks to Mark for helping us out tonight with a raffle item and getting us set up on the concourse!