It was a nice sunny Sunday afternoon in San Jose, perfect day to see a baseball game. The Giants play their games at San Jose Municipal Stadium which opened over 60 years ago. There isn’t much here in terms of design, but there are a lot of small features that make this a unique stadium. Many of the walls around the park are covered in old-school baseball art with pictures of Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, George Brett, and plenty more. Before every game a few Giants players sign autographs for fans, but the real highlight of the ballpark lies just beyond the 3rd base line—the BBQ. This place cooks up a lot of delicious food, and both Chris and I had a chance to sample the chicken dish (which was about the size of a whole chicken). The biggest on-field promotion during the game is something called “Smash for Cash,” where an old beat up delivery truck is hauled out to the field, and two fans are partnered up with two Giants players. If one of the Giants players can throw a ball and knockout a headlight on the truck, they split $50 with the fan. It’s an amusing and rather odd promotion that the fans seem to enjoy.

A huge thanks to Casey for getting us all set up and giving us passes to the delicious BBQ! If you want to go to a ballpark with a more intimate, old-school feel, and have a chance to eat really good BBQ head to San Jose.

Let me start off by saying The Price is Right is probably best gameshow in the history of television. A month before the Tour started, I had a chance to go see Bob Barker and the Price is Right studio in all of its glory before Bob retired. It was as you could imagine pretty awesome. Tonight, the Fresno Grizzlies were paying tribute to the greatest show of all time by hosting a “Price is Right” Night at the ballpark. The Grizzlies pulled out all the stops—the players were even sporting a ridiculously bright green Price is Right jersey, with the signature “Pick me Bob” on the back. Everyone, including the players, were wearing the name tags. In addition, every fan got a bobblehead of Parker the mascot, dressed as Bob Barker—they called him “Bob Parker.” How cool is that? The Grizzlies were nice enough to give us one of these jerseys signed by the whole team for our raffle tonight. This was the first raffle prize that I actually wanted for myself, as was actually tempted to buy raffle tickets for my own prize.

During the game, a real full on Price is Right game was being hosted in between innings with people being called from their seats to “Come on Down!” and participate in pricing games. And wouldn’t you know it—I was actually called down to participate in the last pricing game of the night. With Bob off the show, this was about as close as I was going to get to actually winning anything on the Price is Right. The Ballpark Barker Beauties then showcased our item up for bid—a Louisville Slugger bat. I was faced with a dilemma. Louisville Slugger is of course the presenting sponsor of the Tour for the Cure. I knew how much the bat cost, almost down to the penny. I knew due to the nature of my knowledge of Louisville Slugger, it was a bit unfair to the other participants, so I made an outrageous bid (double the actual price) and of course did not win.

However, I would say Chris and I were rewarded in a different way—we raised the most amount ever (and I know I tend to write that a lot) but this time we crushed our old fundraising record by raising almost 2x as much. Thanks to Sarah for getting us such a great item and for such a fun night at the ballpark. Below are winners of the greatest jersey ever made:

As I previously stated, the JetHawks suffered the worst beating in Minor League baseball history two weeks ago—losing 30-0 to the Lake Elsinore Storm. I’m not sure how you bounce back from something like that, but the JetHawks were still swinging tonight at Clear Channel Stadium. We were joined by Dylan, who we have been staying with while we are in the L.A. area. Check out his first pitch below—pretty good, right?

Dylan and Chris teamed up as a super raffle ticket sales team as we made it through the stands. After the first few rows, I knew we had a winning strategy: Chris with his loud booming voice + Dylan with his overpowering cute kid appeal = Lots of raffle tickets sold. Unfortunately the evil JetHawks Booster Club interfered with our going through the stands and convinced the ruling powers at the ballpark to stop us from continuing selling raffle tickets to the crowd. The JetHawks Booster Club is apparently the only group “officially” allowed to raise money directly from people in the stands. Nevermind the fact that members of the same Booster Club bought tickets from us (at a severely discounted rate) and who Chris bought a bat from earlier in the night to show his support. We showed our love for the Booster Club, but apparently they did not feel the same way about us. Even though the JetHawks are a Red Sox affiliate, and the Red Sox are the official charity of the Jimmy Fund, we were powerless against the mighty Booster Club. It is for all of these reasons that I am officially renaming the JetHawks Booster Club to the “JetHawks BOOOOOOOOster Club.”

We still did OK fundraising, and we have to say THANK YOU to Melanie who basically made sure the Tour for the Cure Team (especially Dylan) enjoyed our time at the ballpark. Melanie is, as the kids would say, “da bomb.”

The Quakes are an affiliate of the California Angels, and tonight Garrett Anderson was down here doing some rehab before heading back up to the Majors. The Epicenter is a nice place to see a game, namely due to the fact there are gigantic mountains looming past the outfield walls. Before the game, Chris tested his vocals at the Oreo Milk and Cookies table by singing a song about Oreos. Unfortunately, video of this performance does not exist.Thanks to Matt and Katie for getting us a bunch of items to raffle off. Did you know the Quakes employ dinosaurs? It’s true—the mascot of the Quakes is Tremor, the “Rallysaurus.” Tremor got the crowd going and the Quakes squeezed out an 8-7 victory against the High Desert Mavericks.

Tonight’s game was family fun night, and what better way to have fun then to have a Dr. Seuss night at Lake Elsinore Diamond. As you can see from the picture above, all the players who Cat in the Hat inspired socks. I think they looked pretty cool actually. Other staff members donned Dr. Seuss related clothing, and two of the girls working the game dressed as Thing 1 and Thing 2.

The Storm’s logo is simply the name of the team with a pair of eyes, which is apparently the best selling baseball cap for New Era. It reminds me more of a rollercoaster ride type of logo in an amusement park more than anything related to baseball, but what do I know. I was preparing myself for a high scoring game due to the fact that just a few weeks prior, the Storm set a league record for most lopsided victory, beating the Lancaster JetHawks by a 30-0 score. The Lancaster JetHawks aren’t that bad, and as of this posting they actually have a better record than the Storm.

Tonight Chris and I were selected to do one of the more unique and physically challenging events on the field—the reverse tug-of-war. For those of you not familiar, it’s pretty much what it sounds. Two people are strapped in wearing a harness connected by a bungee cord that stretches as you pull apart from one another. The object of the game is to pick up tennis balls and drop them into a bucket about 30 feet or so away from you. These directions were repeated to us several times before the start of the game. Chris decided not to listen to any of the directions given to him, as he attemped to throw balls into the bucket from far away, essentially cheating his way through the reverse tug-of-war. The crowd did not care for Chris’ style of dirty play as you can see at the end of the following video.

Just when we thought school was out for the summer, the Inland Empire 66ers surprise us with one last Education Day. Screaming kids, and lots of them. Chris and I were given a Steve Yeager autographed bat to raffle off. To be honest, I didn’t brush up on my LA Dodger history before the game so I was a little unsure of Steve Yeager’s career stats and highlights. After a little research here is what I found:

Interesting Steve Yeager Facts, current hitting coach of the Inland Empire 66ers (courtesy of Wikipedia)

1. Was a catcher for the Dodgers who in 1981 shared the World Series MVP honors with two other Dodger players, Pedro Guerrero and Ron Cey.

2. In 1976 he was injured when a piece of Bill Russell’s bat shattered and hit him in the neck, piercing his esophagus. He had nine pieces of wood taken out of his neck in 98 minutes of surgery. Yeager is famous for later inventing the catcher’s throat protector flap that hangs from the catcher’s mask, which he began wearing after the life-threatening incident.

3. Yeager served as technical advisor and also had a small role, as Coach Duke Temple, in Major League, Major League II, and Major League: Back to the Minors.

4. In September 1979, he and his family appeared on Family Feud with Richard Dawson. They played for a total of 6 days.

Even though there were a lot of kids there who were born over 15 years after Steve Yeager was named MVP of the 1981 World Series, there were still a lot of older adult Dodgers fans in attendance that helped us raise a bunch of money. Thanks a lot to Paul for helping us out on such a hectic day. Next stop of the day—Lake Elsinore.

Hello California. We finally made it.

Today was the first stop on our two-week stint of California, and there was no better place to start than Bakersfield. Sam Lynn Ballpark is one of the only (if not the only) ballparks that face directly west into the sun. Why is this such a big deal? Because the batters are staring right into the sun as they face oncoming pitches, making it virtually impossible to see the ball. For that reason, all of the Blaze games start after the sun sets each night. It has a bunch of other interesting quirks—the center field wall is the shortest in all of professional baseball, just 354 feet to straightaway center. The dugouts are located around 80 feet from each side of home plate, making for quite a long walk back to the dugout after you strike out. On the flip side, you can stare down the pitcher after you smoke a homerun to dead center for a good 10 seconds.

Tom, Steve and the rest of the staff were great—and special thanks to Jill for serving us food tonight! We were interviewed tonight for the Bakersfield 29 news, and I assume at some point we were on the local nightly news. It was a good start to our long journey in California.

Before the game, we had a chance to try out the batting cages located in the parking lot of Sam Lynn Ballpark. For just 50 cents, you get to hit 13 balls. Chris shot a video of me swinging a bat for the first time in almost 10 years—the shoulder-dropping needs some work.

Taking their name from Area 51, the Las Vegas 51s play their games at Cashman Field. The stadium has long been rumored as a potential place for a Major League team to play. Currently the park only holds slightly over 9,000—so I’m not really sure how they would pull that off. Today it was Memorial Day and the sun was out in full effect. A surprisingly decent number of people turned out today and we were able to have a pretty successful raffle, especially for a holiday on a Monday afternoon. Special thanks to Chuck for getting us a raffle item and Janet for making sure we were well fed. Here is one of our raffle winners from the afternoon:

Later in the day our old friends from college, Cole and Michelle, led us around the strip which is basically the adult version of Disney World. Also, we hit up our first In N Out Burger and it was delicious. Tomorrow we start our journey to California where we will be for the next two weeks.

It’s not very often you get to talk with Ronald McDonald, especially at a baseball game. We took some time to ask some hard hitting questions about Ronald’s feelings on his friends in McDonaldland. This is a TFTC exclusive and can only be seen on tourforthecure.org.

Welcome to Phoenix, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. The sun was out in full effect and there weren’t many people mulling about in the city. Chase Park is located downtown, and with parking located around the corner from the stadium, there are a number of pedicab drivers offering to take you a block or two up the street for the price of a generous tip. It’s actually a good deal considering that the temperature is usually pushing 100 degrees. Today we were invited to go down on the field and wave to the camera as they gave us a shout out to the crowd. Here is a short video greeting from the field as we wait for the pre-game festivities to start:

Thanks to Casey and Pete for getting us on to the field today!