This trip was so unexpectedly fun. My sister decided we should invite all my friends on this trip again. I was hesitant about the idea since Boston was a stressful experience, but we made sure this trip was planned out and there was no room for complaints. My sister, my friend Steph and I took Amtrak down to DC on a Friday night, my friend Rachael drove down earlier with her parents, and my friend Jackie flew in early the next morning. The Amtrak ride down was soooooo much fun. We decided we had to make another music video and we started filming it on the way down. We woke up early on Saturday morning and met up with a childhood friend Toni who now lives in DC. We went to the Smithsonian before the 4pm game at Nationals Park. There are so many different museums within the Smithsonian that I wish we could've visited them all. We tried to make it to the National Archives before the game, but the line was wrapped around the building. We took the train to the stadium and it dropped us off right in front. There were all these outdoor bars leading up to the entryway. I wish we could've stopped off for a drink but we didn't have time. We wandered around the inside of the stadium and man was it nice. It just seemed like a perfect place for a ballgame. The Nationals don't have an actual mascot, but they do have mascot Presidents, Washington, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and so forth. We took some pictures with them, had them dance in our video, one of them unhooked Jackie's bra...you know, the usual. 

Our seats were in left field and MUCH nicer than I thought they would be. My one complaint about the experience was that it was impossible to buy tickets. They use a third party site and they were not all that accommodating, I had to use StubHub to get tickets. Anyway, it was unbelievably hot out that day, I might've accidentally fallen asleep during the game. I woke up when someone hit a home run that landed a few rows in front of us, that was pleasant...The Nationals were playing the Twins and the game went to 11 innings. The fans were so into the game and it was overall a real baseball experience. Stadiums can be built beautifully, with a fantastic skyline and great sitelines, but if the atmosphere isn't good, the experience isn't good. The fans are so important to the game and once you feel their attention turn elsewhere, you're screwed, the fun is over. Minnesota ended up winning the game in 11 innings on a single by Doumit. After the game was over, we stopped by the hotel, got ready for dinner and met some of my sisters law school friends out on the town. We wanted to stay out and get drinks in DuPont Circle but we were too worn down. Plus we had another big day ahead of us!

The next day, we fulfilled my nerd fantasy by going to the Newseum. A museum of news??? I'm ALWAYS in! We also stopped by the Capitol Building, the Lincoln Memorial, the new MLK memorial and various other big landmarks. We did A LOT of walking. I loved DC, it was my first time there and I really wish we could've stayed longer. There is SO much to see. I love history and museums and DC has so much to do, I wish I could've done it all, next time I suppose. After we tired ourselves out by walking what felt like ALL of DC, we headed to the train station, and took Amtrak back home. Another trip in the books!

Game Information:

June 8, 2013  4:05 pm

Correia vs Gonzalez

Final Score: 4-3 Minnesota Twins defeat the Washington Nationals in 11 innings

W: Roenicke L: Stammen S: Perkins

Rankings:

1) Fenway Park, Boston Massachusetts

2) PNC Park, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

3) Wrigley Field, Chicago Illinois

4) Nationals Park, Washington D.C

5) Target Field, Minneapolis Minnesota

6) Citi Field, Flushing New York

7) Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia Pennsylvania

8) Yankee Stadium, Bronx New York

Here are some pictures!

Also, here's a look at our DC video

Next stop: Yankee Stadium (technically)

Sometimes you have to do things you don't like. For me, something I don't like is going to Philadelphia. I won't even lie, I had never been there before. If it wasn't for this baseball trip, I probably never would go, even if it's pretty close to home. I've been born and raised a Met fan, and I'm a New Yorker. At this point, I think at the very least, a strong dislike of all things Philadelphia is innate at this point. We went to Philly because we had to, we couldn't accomplish our tour of baseball stadiums without a visit. My sister and I decided we'd be picky about who we saw there. We couldn't see them play against any ol' team (even though we'd be rooting for them) we had to see the Phillies play a team we could truly celebrate a win with. Right after Memorial Day weekend, the Phillies were playing a two game series against the Boston Red Sox...SOLD! We wanted to spend the least amount of time in Philly as possible so we left for Philly around 2pm on the day of the game, and were gone within 24 hours.

We left on what felt like the hottest day of year, and of course got stuck in traffic outside of Philly. Anything to make the trip worse, right? We drop our stuff off at the hotel, I proudly rock a Red Sox shirt and we head to the game. The one thing I'm really impressed with is how they've turned that area into a Philly sports complex almost. You get off the train and you have Citizens Bank Park, Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Eagles and the Wells Fargo Center, home of the Flyers and 76ers. As a sports fan, it's both convenient and pretty awesome. Everyone kept telling me how phenomenal Citizens Bank Park is and how much I'd love it. Yea...not so much. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad stadium. It's just nothing special. I'm very willing to admit that my opinion is COMPLETELY skewed because there are few things I hate more than the Phillies. Our seats were not bad, I thought we should've been closer for the price we paid, but I'm accustomed to that since I frequent Citi Field. I thought the fans were going to be worse, and people were going to troll me for wearing Red Sox gear, but they largely kept to themselves. The stadium is also a friggin' bandbox. I'm pretty confident I could hit a home run there. The coolest thing about the stadium is when someone on the Phillies hits a home run, they have a giant Liberty Bell that lights up and rings. Even I can admit that's pretty cool. Other than that, it was an average baseball experience. Wasn't the worst place on earth, but certainly wasn't the best. We got some great pictures, most because we finally figured out how to use the panoramic feature on our phones. Speaking of which, I cracked the screen on my phone at the game. Thanks a lot Citizens Bank Park...

The next day we did nerdy touristy things in Philly. Visited the Liberty Bell, went to the Constitution Museum (so much fun!) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art where they filmed the famous scene in Rocky where he runs up the steps. Collectively, it was more fun than the game itself. Another thing, driving in Philly SUCKS. We thought we were going to die way too many times. We ended the trip by stopping off at Tony Luke's for cheese steaks. I'm not the biggest fan of cheese steaks to begin with, and the best I can say about Tony Luke's is "ehhhh." Anyway, THAT trip is in the books, on to the next one!

Game Information:

May 28, 2013 7:10pm

Dempster vs Lee

Final Score: 3-1 Philadelphia Phillies defeat the Boston Red Sox

W: Lee L: Dempster S: Papelbon

Rankings:

1) Fenway Park, Boston Massachusetts

2) PNC Park, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

3) Wrigley Field, Chicago Illinois

4) Target Field, Minneapolis Minnesota

5) Citi Field, Flushing New York

6) Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia Pennsylvania

7) Yankee Stadium, Bronx New York

Here are some pictures!

Next stop: Washington D.C. the nation's capital!

A new year and a new set of stadiums! It is 2013 and we start of our tour with a trip to Minnesota. This trip is especially fun for a few reasons. My sister is a huge Twins fan so she was super excited to go. The Twins were playing the Red Sox (my second favorite team) so I was pumped to go. Most importantly, my sister had just completed her second year of law school and she was coming home with me! I flew out to meet my sister in Minneapolis and all the week the weather looked to be beautiful. It was everything but beautiful, at least the day of the game. We were almost rained out! Our first full day in Minneapolis, since it was pouring, was spent mostly at the Mall of America. I'm pretty sure I could get lost in that place for a week and I still wouldn't visit every store there. The best part of the Mall of America is they have a little amusement park right in the middle of the mall. They have pretty legit roller coasters and best of all, they have a little log flume ride! Me, my sister and her fiance decided we CLEARLY have to go on the log flume right, that's pretty much specifically for children. We asked the woman if the weight disparity would cause any issues, she said not at all, no one ever gets wet on the ride. Yea, okay. I'm the idiot who chooses the front of the log, my sister's behind me, followed by Matt. It's all fun and good until we get to the final drop. Now, I can't even be mad, because it led to the funniest picture every taken, but it's not even enough to say I got COMPLETELY soaked from this drop. We all weighed too much collectively and man did we make a splash. I'm alone in saying this, but I was drenched when I got off the ride. I couldn't even shop for dry clothes because I was so soaked, my clothes were STUCK to me. Regardless, it led to this picture:

I legitimately laugh every single time I see this picture, everything about it is ridiculous. Luckily I had enough time to go back to hotel and change before we left for the tour of Target Field. We decided to take the last tour of the day, which meant we got to sit behind home plate during batting practice. They almost canceled the tour on us because of the rain, but it started clearing up just in time.The tour was so much fun, minus the people we were with. It was almost only going to be the two of us, but a couple signed up last minute. They were from Toronto and the guy let it be known he was a HUGE Harmon Killebrew fan. To the point where he never stopped talking about him, no exaggeration. We got to see everything that I loved about Target Field. Ever aspect of the stadium is directly related to the Twins organization. The entrance gate numbers corresponded with the numbers of retired Twins. Each food section was named after a famous member of the Twins. Target Field is also the only stadium with a museum. There's a curator who rotates different display cases of Twins memorabilia, it's fantastic. There is so much pride within the organization and it was very creative how they found ways to commemorate their history.

Once the tour was over we were able to go down right behind home plate to watch batting practice. I was SO close to meeting Dustin Pedroia, my favorite player in baseball but I just missed him. He waved at me though, and totally fangirled over it. Whatever, it happens. The best part about watching batting practice though was, we met Bert Blyleven, Twins announcer and Hall of Fame pitcher! He was just walking around and stopped to say hi because made a sign! He even took pictures with us and talked to us for awhile. We had met his broadcast partner Dick Bremer during our tour and he loved our sign so much he said he'd try to get it on TV! After BP was over, we wandered around looking for food and had our first encounter with one of the greatest thing baseball has to offer, a full sized helmet filled with nachos. Ugh, fantastic! We devoured that and then realized it was roughly 3 degrees outside and we quickly ran to the team store and bought hoodies. The game was fun to watch, but the weather never got any better. We were freezing the WHOLE time which made it a bit miserable but fun none the less.We have a few traditions now at every ballpark we go to. We always take a picture under the sign for the stadium, I always buy a postcard to put in a scrapbook, and most importantly, we always have ice cream from those little ballpark helmets. And when I say always, I mean ALWAYS. It was like 30 something degrees out, my lips were bright blue, I was shivering like crazy, but I was waiting on line to get ice cream cup helmets because it's a tradition!

We did a little more touring of Minneapolis the next day, when of course, the weather was MUCH nicer. Everyone is so nice and polite, giving us directions when we inevitably get lost. We stopped by the Mary Tyler Moore statue, we had lunch at an unbelievably delicious lunch at a steakhouse called Manny's. Pretty soon, it was our time to go. It was a nice quick stop in Minneapolis but it was a lot of fun and I'd totally go back.

Game Information:

May 17, 2013 8:10pm

Buchholz vs Worley

Final Score: 3-2 Boston Red Sox defeat the Minnesota Twins

W: Wilson L: Roenicke S: Uehara

Rankings:

1) Fenway Park, Boston Massachusetts

2) PNC Park, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

3) Wrigley Field, Chicago Illinois

4) Target Field, Minneapolis Minnesota

5) Citi Field, Flushing New York

6) Yankee Stadium, Bronx New York

Here are some pictures!

Next stop: Philadelphia (boooooooooo!)

It has been an embarrassingly long time since I've last written, my apologies. With a HUGE baseball trip right around the corner, I figured there was no better time then now to continue writing.After starting off our tour of baseball stadiums with two of the best in the game, we continued the tradition with none other than Wrigley Field in Chicago. Wrigley is the second oldest stadium in baseball, behind of course, Fenway Park. While it seems each organization is trying to outdo each other by building this unbelievable fancy (and mostly beautiful) new stadiums, its the original stadiums that will forever stand out in my mind. My sister and I went to Wrigley during its 98th year of existence, there has been  A LOT of baseball played there. It's incredible to go to a game and know that nearly 100 years ago, someone was sitting in your exact seat with the same exact view. That's what makes baseball, well, baseball. There are two things that really make Wrigley stand out over the 29 other Major League stadiums. The most noticeable, the ivy that goes along the outfield wall. It is such an unique twist and one of many things that makes Wrigley beautiful. The other thing that is unique to Wrigley is, they have no giant video board! Which means, no replays, no annoying contests and announcements being rammed down your throat during commercial breaks like every other stadium. Within the next few years, there are plans in place to add a giant video board. While it's convenient for the fans to see a replay of the action, it's nice to go to a game and JUST watch baseball, no silly videos or promotions, just the game itself. There are other things that make Wrigley stand out too. They are one of two remaining stadiums that use manually operated scoreboards. The other of course is Fenway Park. They have guys hang out IN the scoreboard and manually change the score of not only the Cubs game, but every other game going on in baseball. It's another great piece of nostalgia for a sport that revels in nostalgic moments. My other favorite thing about Wrigley is the big board outside of the stadium. It's such a welcoming sight and it's so iconic, as is everything else about Wrigley Field. Even for the most casual of baseball fans, it's a must see stadium.One of my favorite things about Wrigley is how old school it is, they used to play strictly day games until 1988 when they FINALLY joined the rest of the big leagues and put in stadium lights.They still play an immense amount of day games even with the lights and I would imagine it's a quintessential baseball experience to see a day game at Wrigley.

My sister and I didn't get a chance to see a day game there, and in fact, we probably saw one of the worst night games we could possibly catch. We saw the Chicago Cubs take on the Houston Astros, two of the worst teams in baseball. As fantastic as Wrigley is, the team that plays is there is, well, fantastically awful. The Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1908, they came close in 2003. They were five outs from heading to World Series in Game 6 of the NLCS. The Marlin's Luis Castillo was up and hit a foul ball down the line and into the stands that a handful of fans tried to catch. One fan in particular, reached for the ball, and disrupted Cubs outfield Moises Alou from catching the ball. If the out was recorded, the Cubs would've only been 4 outs away from the World Series. Of course, the Florida Marlins ended up winning the game, the series and went on to win the World Series that year. Just another heartbreak to add to the long list in Cubs history.

By the time we saw the Cubs, they had no shot of making the playoffs, neither did the Astros. It was just a late August baseball game that quite literally meant nothing. My sister found AMAZING seats behind home plate. The people in front of us were absolutely wonderful, giving us tips on where to go after the game as well as where to go in the city. They even told us to move up in front of them to get a better view. It was two couples in front of us, and they had been season ticket holders for 30+ years. They loved the Cubs more than I will probably ever love any team and they were so excited that we had come from New York to experience Wrigley Field.

While the game was boring, everything about Chicago was fantastic. I absolutely love the city. My sister and did as much exploring as we could before my flight the day after the game and man did we do a lot. We went up to the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower) and I even ventured onto the Skydeck. As someone who is terrified of heights, this is a VERY big deal. Another fantastic part of this trip happened on the drive to Chicago. My sister and I made a little "music video" of our trip to Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe." Remember, it was the summer of 2012, and it was pretty much the only thing on the radio. It all started while driving in what I think was Ohio and all we heard on the radio was "Call Me Maybe," a new Taylor Swift song and Christian Rock. My sister was complaining about how much she HATED "Call Me Maybe" but lo and behold, during what must have been our 20th listening of the song, she started singing along. By the 25th time, she was rocking out to it, so I started recording her secretly on my phone. When she realized it, she made me turn it off, then promptly changed her mind and we made a silly video of us rocking out to the song while driving. That ignited the spark that led to us dancing around Chicago to the song, ending in the final product. Embarrassing, ABSOLUTELY! But so much fun none the less, and a tradition we have (mostly) upheld.


Anyway, enough rambling about Chicago. The trip was amazing, it was sad to say goodbye to my sister but if it's possible, it brought even closer than we already were. I'm so glad I made it to Wrigley Field, it was everything I thought it would be and more. I would definitely go back in a heartbeat. This was our last trip of the season. Until 2013!

Game Information:

August 14th, 2012 7:05 PM

Harrell vs Volstad

Final Score: 10-1 Houston Astros defeat the Chicago Cubs

W: Harrell L: Volstad

Rankings:

1) Fenway Park, Boston Massachusetts

2) PNC Park, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

3) Wrigley Field, Chicago Illinois

4) Citi Field, Flushing New York

5) Yankee Stadium, Bronx New York

Here are some pictures!

Next stop: Minneapolis in 2013