Today marks the first of three trips to America Jr., our neighbor to the north. Vancouver is a very nice city, serving as the setting for many of the TV shows and movies you watch everyday. Back in the day the Canadian currency was worth approximately 1/3 less than the U.S. dollar, but as of July it was hovering around 94 cents to the dollar! Canada, you’ve come a long way.

The Vancouver Canadians (who aren’t going to win any awards for most creative team name) play their games at Nat Bailey Stadium, an older stadium built in the early 1950s that has undergone some upgrades that have made the park a good place to see a game. Tonight the Tour for the Cure did fundraising for the Canadian Cancer Society, and we were able to raise a decent amount of money for the cause. Thanks to Lori for helping the Tour for the Cure out tonight!

After the Ottawa Lynx move to Pennsylvania next year, the Canadians will be the only minor league team left in Canada.

Today we had sometime before the game to check out the downtown area of Seattle in the on-again/off-again rain. Chris and I visited the Seattle Art Museum, which we have to say was a bit lacking in content—all filler, no killer (art). We also had a chance to go to the Pike Place Market, where people seemed to like to stand around waiting to see fish being thrown from one person to another. It’s funny to watch people try to ignore the awful smell of the fish just to see this spectacle, and there are more than a handful who can’t take the smell and bail before the fish tossing begins.

I had to drop Chris off on a bus to the airport before the game, as his 3-month leg of the Tour was over (see “Goodbye Chris” post). Afterwards I headed to the Mariners game to see them take on the Toronto Blue Jays, my third time seeing the Blue Jays in the month of June. Safeco Field is a really nice place to see a game—it has sweeping views of the downtown area, and from the upper concourse you can lookout on the waterfront and see mountains in the distance. The place was pretty packed, and of course a lot of people were cheering on Ichiro, who is batting a ridiculous .364. It has a umbrella-shaped retractable roof, but air is still able to flow in and out of the ballpark from the sides, which remain open. As futuristic and cool as that sounds, Safeco Field is one of the only Major League parks to have a manually operated scoreboard, which adds to its uniqueness.

Safeco Field is also home to my favorite restaurant name I’ve seen so far. Right behind home plate on the main concourse there is a small Chinese food stand called “Intentional Wok.” Genius.

Let me start off this post with a really low quality, unflattering close-up of Chris Richards. Right before the Mariners game, Chris was scheduled to leave Seattle and fly back to Philadelphia in order to continue his education at the very prestigious Temple University. His ability to sell raffle tickets was crucial to our fundraising success to date, so he will be missed. Before Chris took off, he taped a quick exit interview. Although Chris has now left, he will not be gone forever. Check back for special appearances later on in the Tour as it comes back across to the east coast.

Tacoma is located just south of Seattle, in fact, the two cities share an airport. Arriving in Tacoma we did in fact experience rain, which was appropriate for the team we were seeing tonight. The game was delayed a bit, and our table had to be moved under covering and away from most of the foot traffic. If the Tacoma Rainiers sound a bit familiar to you, it’s probably because they were recently purchased by Nick Lachey, the former Mr. Jessica Simpson. His cardboard cutout is posted all over the stadium and you can even buy a Rainiers jersey with his name on it. I asked a fellow employee how many times Mr. Lachey has been to Tacoma to see his team play, and you could take a guess that the answer was less than once.

The Tacoma Rainiers also have a logo that is the same as my initials, so I felt compelled to get a hat with the “TR” logo. It’s safe to say I’ve never paid more for a hat in my life, so I hope Nick buys his current girlfriend Vanessa something nice with my $26.

Yakima is a very remote place in Washington, and the stadium reflects the size of the local town, seating just over 2,600 people. It’s a very basic looking ballpark, with no frills and metal bleachers for a majority of the seating. The one very cool thing the ballpark had was a miniature baseball field by the outside concourse for playing whiffle ball. Chris and I decided to conduct our very own home run derby contest and played each other for two rounds. During the first round, we ended up in a tie forcing us to do a final round to see who the champion would be. The video is below—the most interesting part is about halfway through a guy who worked for CBS came up to us and was very concerned about how the raffle ticket winner would get called if we were too busy with our home run derby. He obviously had purchased a number of tickets and wanted to know if he was going to win the game-used signed bat (he didn’t).

Note about the new and improved Vimeo, which is what we use to show our videos. The design is a little different, but the BIG addition is the fact you can now watch videos in full screen. Click on the four little arrows in the bottom right corner to make any video go full screen.

After the Portland game we headed down the road to see the Volcanoes, who play at (shock) Volcanoes Stadium located right off the highway. The ballpark’s nickname is “Oregon’s Field of Dreams.” I’m not really sure why, because I don’t think any Field of Dreams should have a view of the interstate. Chris and I weren’t able to do a raffle, so we just hung out and passed out info to some of the fans passing by. The real highlight was Mr. Ice Cream (pictured above), who was serving delicious and affordable ice cream from a truck located down the left field line. I wish I had more to say about this ballpark, but that is pretty much it. Tomorrow: Yakima Bears.

Today we were in the Portland area for two games, and first up were the Portland Beavers. The Beavers play their games at PGE Park, a really interesting park that is owned by the city and is built right downtown. It sits a few levels below street level, so it doesn’t quite standout when you drive past it. It opened way back in 1926, and has gone under a major $38 million renovation recently in 2001. The park mixes in a lot of new and old technology—the field is the first synthetic turf field we have come across, but they still use a manual scoreboard to keep track of the score during the game. Thanks to Keri and Katie for helping us out today!

Portland’s PGE park was also the site for one of baseball’s well-known bloopers featuring Rodney McCray chasing down a fly ball and crashing through the wall. Amazingly enough he only suffered some minor scratches, but didn’t end up catching the ball. The section of the outfield in right-center was recently renamed “McCray Alley” in honor of this play. Here is a short clip:

The Eugene Emeralds play their games at Civic Stadium, which is a rare gem of a park that dates back to 1938. It has the feel of an old park very much similar to something out of the movie The Natural, with huge grandstand seating and an enormous wooden roof covering the seats. The roof also acts as a sound barrier so you can’t hear anything in the outer concourse area, which is where all the food and concessions are located. Unfortunately for the Emeralds and their fans, it appears as if the sale of the old ballpark is forthcoming as the owners (Eugene School District) are looking to sell it to developers. Tonight was a pretty good night for fundraising, thanks to Bryan for getting us an item to raffle off.

Interesting Phillies fact about the Emeralds—for a brief stint of time from 1969 to 1974, the Emeralds were the AAA affiliate for the Phillies and played in the Pacific Coast League. During that time, Mike Schmidt, Larry Bowa, and Greg Luzinski all played for the Emeralds. After 1974 the Phillies ended their relationship with the team and the Emeralds returned to the Northwest short-season A league.

The Dust Devils play their games in Pasco, Washington—and former pine tar aficionado George Brett is the owner.Tonight was the home-opener for the Dust Devils, and the fans poured into the ballpark to get a glimpse of the 2007 team. This was probably one of the fastest games we have attended so far on the trip, I think the first 7 innings were played in just over an hour. Chris and I were busting our way through the stands selling as many raffle tickets as possible, and finished up just in time for the top of the 8th inning. Of course as soon as we stopped selling tickets both teams contributed to an 8th inning that lasted about 30 minutes. Thanks to all the fans for making it a very successful raffle! Also special thanks to Tim and Erik the Crackjacks and Peanuts Guy for helping us out tonight.

Just in case anyone wanted to watch the George Brett pine tar incident, here it is in its entirety:

We arrived in Boise for temporary tattoo giveaway night, and Chris and I were some of the first people to have the huge massive Boise Hawks logo tattoo on display. The Boise Hawks are not a very good team. Going into the game, they had not won a game since the start of the season (earlier in the week.) And to no one’s surprise, they didn’t win tonight’s game either. I think the poor performance of the team might have affected the crowd’s ability to shell out for some raffle tickets. Our night was not very adventurous, as we had a fairly low key and standard raffle procedure. Thanks to Nat and Kelly for helping us out tonight!

Update: As of this writing, the Hawks are in last place with a not-so-stellar 1-10 record.