Day 9 Chicago

Fireworks after a home run.
Coming to home after a grand slam, Konerko's 2nd of his 3 homers.

The park.


Erin as a White Sox.

Us at the park.

Paul next to Carlton Fisk

A shower from the original ballpark. Fans can go in here on hot days and cool off.

Display on the walls.

View of the park from the Interstate.

The last day of our whirlwind tour ended up with a trip to U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago. A lot of people have asked me why go to U.S. Cellular Field when you can go to Wrigley Field. Since I'm a Cubs fan I've been to Wrigley Field a few times and Erin has also been there so we wanted to check out U.S. Cellular since we've never been there.

Before we left Detroit for Chicago though, we went back to the Henry Ford Museum and took a tour of Greenfield Village. Greenfield Village gives you a tour of many old houses and buildings, whether they are replicas of the old homes or the older homes themselves. Among the things we were able to see was Henry Ford's boyhood home and also saw the courthouse that Abraham Lincoln tried cases as a lawyer for eight years. It was very interesting to tour all the old buildings and was definitely worth our time.

Our trip to U.S. Cellular didn't start out on a positive note as we were hit with $23 parking just to park in the lots around the stadium. It was by far the most we paid at a stadium for parking, plus the White Sox tickets were the most expensive to buy along with the Cardinals. Things weren't looking good for U.S. Cellular Field before we got into the stadium and then things got even worse when we saw a sign that said 500 level ticket holders can't have access to other parts of the stadium. This really ticked me off because we like to take a tour around the stadium and see what the stadium has to offer. I kind of understand why they do it because they want to make sure people don't try and move down to the lower levels to get better seats. But isn't that what ushers are for!

Luckily we talked to one of the food vendors and she told us that we could go talk to guest services and they could get us down to the lower level of the stadium for a quick tour. Luckily we got to the game an hour early so we had plenty of time to do it. We went to guest services and told them we were from out of town and we wanted to check out the rest of the stadium. They took us to an elevator and we were able to go down to the first level and look around. So if you ever visit U.S. Cellular go talk to guest services about getting down to the first level before the game.

There wasn't too much to see on the lower level, but they do have statues of their Hall of Famers just past the centerfield fence. There wasn't a lot of kids or fan interactive things at the stadium except for the usual speed pitch. One cool thing they do have is that on the walls of every level they have huge photographs of past White Sox players and memories. They did have decent prices on food and the selection of food wasn't bad either.

They did have a nice restuarant to eat at the game and also a patio to eat from in the outfield. Of course you had to have tickets on the first level to be able to go and eat there!

We had seats in the upper deck in the third row and the view was pretty good from there. For first time all trip we had a foul ball come in our direction. The couple sitting next to us on our right ended up catching the ball and I had no chance of getting to it. The stadium view wasn't anything that great and probably ranks as one of the lowest in that regard. There were a couple of things I did like. They used fireworks and play the song "Thunderstruck" right before first pitch and that got the fans into the game at first pitch. Also after every White Sox homer they set off a nice display of fireworks and the lights above the stadium flash. There were four White Sox homers including three by Paul Konerko so we got our fill.

The quote of the day came after we saw a confusing message on the scoreboard. The scoreboard read: U.S. Cellular would like to welcome New Mexico's biggest White Sox fan Emily Johnson 1970-2009. After the message flashed on the screen a woman behind us said "Maybe they're spreading her ashes at the stadium".

Overall U.S. Cellular is going to finish in last in our rankings because they had some big negatives about it especially the parking fee and the fact that you can't move from your level at the stadium.

The trip was definitely a trip of a lifetime for a baseball fan and it was a lot of fun despite having to leave for a couple of days for my friends' funeral. It was great to see all the different stadiums and take it a lot of baseball. I've got to thank my wife Erin again for agreeing to do this big baseball trip as not a lot of women would be happy to do this as their vacation. Before we left we joked that hopefully we'd still be married when we got home after all this driving together. Yes we're still together and we may have the GPS to thank for that!

Here's the final rankings for the stadiums that we visited:
1. Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati
2. Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City
3. Busch Stadium in St. Louis
4. Comerica Park in Detroit
5. PNC Park in Pittsburgh
6. Progressive Field in Cleveland
7. U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago

Thanks everybody for following us on the trip!

Day 8 Detroit

Paul giving Mickey some skin

Erin with Detroit's Statue of Liberty

Erin next to baseball foutain in Comerica

Baseball Ferris Wheel at Comerica

Ty Cobb Statue in Comerica Park

Tigers' Hall of Fame Statues

Scoreboard at Comerica Park

Detroit Lions' Ford Field right next to Comerica Park

One of many poles showing Tigers' history

Huge Tiger Statue outside of Comerica

View from outside Comerica Park

Wall inside Hockeytown Cafe next to Comerica

Hockeytown Cafe Next to Comerica Park

Old Car at Henry Ford Museum

Bus that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man

The chair that Abraham Lincoln was sitting in when he assissinated

The car President Kennedy was riding in when he was assissinated

Erin becomes an Oscar Mayer Wiener

Erin by Oscar Mayer Mobile

Today we visited the Motor City and our day trip included a visit to the Henry Ford Museum. The trip to the museum was definitely worth it as we spent five hours looking back at history. The museum isn’t just about the history of cars; it shows the history of everything in the United States. I guess we were a little slow in going through the museum as they told us it would take 2-3 hours and it took 5 for us.

For dinner we ate at Hockeytown Café right next to the Tigers’ Comerica Park. It was a cool place to eat with lots of Red Wings’ and Tigers’ memorabilia but the food wasn’t anything special. What I found funny was that there was no Lions’ memorabilia at all in the restaurant even though the Lions’ home field Ford Field is right next to Comerica Park. Perhaps they just aren’t too proud of the Lions’ franchise!

Comerica Park looks great from the outside, probably the best look from the outside out of all the stadiums. There were lots of Tiger statues at the front gate including one right in the middle that is great for taking pictures with. Our seats were in the upper deck just about straight up from the first base dugout. It was a very good view from our seats with the only negative being that we were right next to the stairs and people continually walked up and down the stairs blocking our view at times.

For the first half of the game we had a group of drunk young people in front of us that were loud and very annoying. Luckily they left after the fourth inning and never returned.

Comerica had a very nice looking scoreboard/jumbo tron and the downtown area was in the background of the outfield view. However Detroit’s downtown area is definitely not the best looking around. Comerica had a good number of things for the kids including a Tigers’ carousel, a baseball ferris wheel, and the usual fast pitch, and pitching machines. There seemed to be a great selection of different types of food, Asian, Mexican, and some name brand foods.

There were statues of the Tigers’ Hall of Famers although they seemed to be hidden out in center field. You’d never really see them if you didn’t go around the stadium like we did. They did however have a big statue of the late Ernie Harwell, the Tigers’ longtime radio broadcaster, right as you get into the stadium. Harwell was a broadcaster for 55 years including 42 with the Tigers.

After the game we had a little problem getting out of downtown Detroit. The GPS we were using went haywire a little bit and we were going around in circles for a little bit. Not the best city to get lost in at 10:30 at night considering Detroit has the highest crime rate in the nation. But we took out our map and did it the old fashioned way and got on the correct road and made it back to the hotel fairly easily.

You hear on the news about all the boarded up places in the Detroit area. We didn’t go around downtown Detroit really, but on our way to the stadium we did see lots of businesses that had closed. They were really boarded up but there were plenty of empty businesses.

As far as rating Comerica Park, we definitely enjoyed our trip although it won’t top our list. We were impressed with much of the park but it is facing some stiff competition so we’ll put it fourth out of six.

Rankings so far:
1. Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati
2. Kauffmann Stadium in Kansas City
3. Busch Stadium in St. Louis
4. Comerica Park in Detroit
5. PNC Park in Pittsburgh
6. Progressive Field in Cleveland

Day 7 Cincinnati

Paul eating at World Famous Montgomery Inn


Erin with Reds' Version of Statue of Liberty

Paul next to a statue of a Cincinnati Red Stocking, the first pro baseball team

Paul with other great Reds' Players on Topps Baseball Card

Reds' Display Showing Their Starting Lineup for the Day

Huge Pictures of the Reds' 1975 and 1869 Teams

Another part of the stadium.

The riverboat party deck.

View of the stadium.

Red's mascots.

Us at the game.

The Bengal's Paul Brown Stadium.

Erin and a view from the ballpark. This bridge takes you to Kentucky.

The ballpark.

The view from our seats.

The boat party deck and a real boat in the background.

Baseball field display in front of the stadium.

The display again.

Front view of the ballpark entrance.

Erin in front of the ballpark.

Sunday July 5th
Today we visited Cincinnati although we didn’t do any site seeing besides going to the Great American Ballpark to watch the Cincinnati Reds take on the St. Louis Cardinals in an afternoon game. The Great American Ballpark was quite a site to see though. Cincinnati is right on a river with Newport, Kentucky bordering the other side of the river.

The ballpark sat right on the riverfront which gave you a great view while watching the game. We had cheap seats for the game but we still had a very good view despite having seats in the upper deck way down the left field line. There didn’t seem to be a bad seat in the house. The coolest feature of park was beyond the centerfield fence where there was a party deck, the Cincinnati Bell, which is in the shape of a river paddle boat. In fact, there were a couple of paddle boats that actually went by the stadium in the river.

There were plenty of things for the kids to do with inflatables, speed pitch, speed run, virtual batting and pitching, a Playstation 3 van, and more. They had two big pictures on the stadium wall of Reds’ championship teams from 1869 and 1975. The Cincinnati Red Stockings were actually the first organized professional baseball team formed in 1869 and in their first year they played 15 teams and went 57-0. They actually won a game 103-8! They had a Hall of Fame museum which you could visit for a small fee after the game which details the history of the Reds’ organization.

The Reds’ food options were top notch even though we didn’t have anything besides Erin’s ice cream helmet. We had to save ourselves for the World Famous meal which we were going to after the game. They had a great variety of food options plus they had a $1.00 food stand where you could get a hotdog, popcorn, pop, or candy for just a dollar each. That’s quite a deal considering the price of food and drinks at a normal game. Cincinnati also had a fancy restaurant built into the stands down the right field line just like at Progressive Field.
Both Erin and I really liked the look of the stadium and everything about it so we’re going to vote the Great American Ballpark as the top stadium so far on our tour.

The rankings right now are:
1. Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati
2. Kauffmann Stadium in KC
3. Busch Stadium in St. Louis
4. PNC Park in Pittsburgh
5. Progressive Field in Cleveland

For supper Erin and I went to the World Famous Montgomery Inn. This is a restaurant that is well known throughout the U.S. and there are four locations in the Cincinnati area. They are known for having the best ribs and I would definitely have to say they were the best ribs I’ve ever had. We were lucky because they were having a special Ribfest during the Fourth of July weekend where you could all you can eat ribs for the price of a regular ribs meal. We actually went to the location in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky because there was an hour wait at the Cincinnati Riverfront location. If you’re ever in the Cincinnati area, make sure you make a trip to Montgomery Inn.

Day 6 Cleveland

Erin and I from our bleacher seats


Guy pounding bass drum from bleachers during Indian Rallies

View from Upper Deck

Hall of Fame Plaques at Progressive Field

Hall of Fame Section in Center Field

Indians' Mascot Showing His USA Pride

View from our bleacher seats

Restuarant down the third base line

View of Progressive Field from outside stadium

Cleveland Cavaliers' Quicken Loans Arena

Johnny Cash's Tour Bus at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Michael Jackson Memorial at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Jim Thorpe Statue as you enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame

Brett Favre Memorabilia from breaking career records

Frerotte and Berrian Jerseys and football they used to set record

Player Bench from last game Vince Lombardi Coached at Lambeau Field

Head Statues of all of the Hall of Fame Players

Cris Carter's shoes and ball from breaking single season receptions record

Jim Marshall Memorabilia

Uniform used in the first indoor pro football game

Saturday July 4th

I finally got back into the Cleveland area on the morning of July 4th after a LONG trip back to Iowa for my friends’ funeral. I was supposed to get to Iowa Thursday morning about 10:30 a.m. but instead I spent 17 hours in airports and airplanes. I had two flights cancelled due to mechanical problems and I also missed a flight in Chicago because I was at the wrong gate. I missed the visitation but I was able to make the funeral on Friday.

I flew into Cleveland about 11:00 this morning and I dropped Erin off at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and then drove an hour south to Canton to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Erin enjoyed looking at the memorabilia of all the different bands and singers throughout the decades. Of course they had a big memorial for Michael Jackson and people left flowers, cards and other stuff at the memorial. Erin also heard the quote of the day while at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She was sitting outside looking out at Lake Erie which was behind the Hall of Fame and she heard some 20 year olds talking. One of them said “Yeah I’m pretty sure that’s an ocean but I’m not sure what it’s called.”

The Pro Football Hall of Fame was definitely worth the trip down to Canton. It was very interesting to see the entire history of pro football, not just the NFL. I definitely learned some things about the different pro leagues that were out there. The highlight of the visit was going into the room that had head statues of all the Hall of Famers.

Two of the things at the Hall of Fame dealt with games that I’ve attended in person. I was at the game Adrian Peterson broke the single game rushing record and they had a highlight video of that game. I was also at the Bears-Vikings game this year which Gus Frerrote threw a 99-yard touchdown pass to Bernard Berrian. The Hall of Fame had both players’ jerseys and the football that was used for the pass. The funny thing is I’ve been to only 3 NFL games in my life and history was made in two of them.

We ate at the Hard Rock Café in downtown Cleveland before heading over to Progressive Field for the game. Quickens Loans Arena, home of the Cleveland Cavaliers, was right next to Progressive Field. Progressive Field was a nice looking stadium but it would rate as the lowest stadium on our trip. That’s not necessarily a knock against Progressive Field because the first three we saw were outstanding. Erin and I sat in the bleachers at Progressive Field and that was a very fun atmosphere, easily the best atmosphere on the trip. At the top of our bleachers section they had an Indians’ employee pounding a bass drum during Indian rallies. If you’ve ever seen the movie Major League which is based on the Indians, they also had a bass drum in the bleachers. The fans in our section were very much into the game and they were doing their share of heckling of A’s leftfielder Matt Holiday. Progressive Field had a Homerun Porch in leftfield where fans could stand against the fence to try and catch a homerun. Progressive Field had the best Hall of Fame section of all of the stadiums we’ve seen so far this trip. They had individual plaques on each HOF player detailing their career. Another interesting thing in the stadium was a fancy restaurant that was built into the stands down the third base line.

Since it was the Fourth of July they had a huge fireworks show after the game and they also handed out red, white, and blue Indians’ hats to everybody that came into the game.
A word to the wise if you ever buy your tickets on Stubhub, make sure you bring their 800 number along with you to the game. We gave away our Friday night tickets to Erin’s relatives because we couldn’t go to the game. When they had their tickets scanned at the game the ticket people said that those tickets had already been scanned in that night. They didn’t have the 800 number with them, but luckily the ticket people gave them other bleacher seats. I’m not sure all stadium people would be that nice. Stubhub guarantees your tickets so if the tickets don’t work you can call their 800 number and they’ll get you different tickets.
Tomorrow we’re off to the Great America Ballpark in Cincinnati, just three days left on the trip.

The rankings so far:
1. Kauffmann Stadium in KC
2. Busch Stadium in St. Louis
3. PNC Park in Pittsburgh
4. Progressive Field in Cleveland

Pittsburgh PNC Park

Paul with Roberto Clemente

Cubs Win!!!

View From Upper Deck of PNC Park

Lou Piniella Get Tossed From the Game

Satchel Paige Statue

Us in our seats along the first base line

Pirate Mascot

Another Pittsburgh Mascot

Derek Lee Swings Away

Lee Coming Home after First Inning Homer

Front Entrance to PNC

Paul With Statue of Longtime Steelers' owner Art Rooney

Entrance to Jerome Bettis' Restuarant

View of Heinz Field from Incline

View of PNC Park from Incline

View of Pittsburgh Downtown Skyline from Incline

July 1st
Erin and I took a climb up the Duquesne Incline this afternoon prior to the Cubs-Pirates game at PNC park. The Duquesne Incline takes you up a large hill which allows you to get a birds' eye view of the city of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh has three rivers that run through it which gives it a gorgeous view from up high with all the bridges and water in the city. I counted 17 bridges that I could see from up high and I’m sure there’s more than that. The Pirates’ PNC Park and the Steelers’ Heinz Field are very noticeable from this incline.

We ate at former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jerome Bettis’ restaurant called Jerome Bettis’ Grille 36 prior to the game. There wasn’t much for memoriabila in the restaurant, but the food was very good. And surprisingly we were able to get in there right away a hour and a half before gametime. The restaurant is located almost half between Heinz Field and PNC Park which are pretty close together.

PNC Park was another very nice field and also fairly new as it was constructed in 2001. Of the three so far we've seen, they had the largest and probably the nicest looking statues of former Pirate greats. Yes they did have great players at some point in their history, although it’s hard to imagine that based on the current state of the franchise. The team hasn’t had a winning season since 1992 and that has caused attendance problems. Under 16,000 fans watched tonight’s game which is not good considering everybody draws more people when the Cubs are in town. There were a lot of Cubs fans there so that tells you how many Pirates’ fans actually came out. This is part of the reason that the Pirates can’t retain their best players and usually have to trade them away. Of course the fans aren't coming out because the team isn’t good because they trade away their good players. So right now Pittsburgh’s franchise has some problems. Which is too bad because the stadium looks great and the ticket prices are very good.

Erin and I had tremendous seats for tonight’s game as we were just 14 rows up from the Cubs’ dugout down the first baseline. Plus you’ve got the downtown setting in the background with a bridge blended into the background. It was definitely the best view I’ve had at major league baseball stadium. The only real problem was the individual seats weren’t that big and the guy sitting next to me felt that is legs needed some room which meant that he also used nearly half of my seat area for his legs.

We took a tour around the ballpark and didn’t find as many kids’ activities as the first two parks but we did take the opportunity to spin a wheel for prices. I ended up winning a Pirates hat and Erin won a traveling mug. They did have a nice Hall of Fame bar that you could go into and get drinks and watch the game from there. They also had nice home plate shaped plaques of their Hall of Famers in the bar. They also have a section of the station that honors the top negro league players.

PNC’s strength I would say would be their wide variety of food they have throughout the stadium. We ate dinner before we came so we weren’t look for something to eat, but there was definitely some things I think would have tasted great. I can’t say that about a lot of stadiums including that park in Minnesota. The one negative about the food selection came from Erin. She’s on a mission to but ice cream in a helmet at every stadium on the trip. I think we went by pretty EVERY food stand in PNC Park and until we finally found one that had it. I’m pretty sure it was the only food stand in the park that had it. By that time we had missed about 3 innings because the game was flying by. And we also missed Cubs’ manager Lou Piniella getting to tossed from the game. This is the second time in three games we’ve had a manager tossed. And of course it had to be of the two teams we were really cheering for in the Twins and Cubs.

The first three parks we’ve seen have to be three of the very best in the major leagues.(In fact ESPN voted PNC Park #1 based on their ratings) It’s hard for us to rank them because they’re all outstanding, but we both feel that Kauffmann Stadium is the top stadium we’ve seen so far. Busch and PNC are neck and neck with Busch maybe being just above PNC. Both have a great view of their cities’ skyline which KC doesn’t.

I’m going to be taking a break from my blog for a couple of days because I’m flying back to Iowa to go to the funeral of one of my best friends who was killed in a boating accident. There won’t be anything new on Friday but I will be back to blog about our trip to Progressive Field on Saturday. We’ll be visiting the Pro Football Hall of Fame and and Indians game on the fourth of July.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 Day 2

Busch Stadium
Pujols right before he hit his second homerun.


Pujols home run!

Busch Stadium Scoreboard

Randy Johnson, The Big Unit

Busch Stadium, Arch in background.

Paul by the "Wizard"

Paul in front of Busch Stadium.

Us in front of the Old Courthouse, where the Dred Scott Case was decided.

MLB All Star Game is coming to St. Louis.

Paul and the Arch.

Busch Stadium.

View of Busch Stadium from the Arch.

Paul at the Anheuser Busch tour.

Our first activity on Tuesday was touring the Anheuser-Busch factory after driving from Kansas City to St. Louis that morning. It was interesting to see how the beer was made plus there were free samples after the tour! The quote of the day came from a five year old girl that was on the tour. The tour guide told the group in my elevator to be thinking of what kind of samples we’d like to have after the tour. The five year old girl then responded by saying “mmm samples!”
When we got to downtown St. Louis we did a quick tour of the Old St. Louis Courthouse before heading down to the arch. The courthouse is best known for holding the controversial “Harriet and Dred Scott” case.

It wasn’t too busy at the Arch when we went down there at 4:30 especially considering the time of year. However my mood changed some when I got to the top of the arch where it was a madhouse of people. There were a lot of people crammed in a not very people space with small windows to look out. On one side of the arch you see a picturesque view of downtown St. Louis. I’ve included a picture of the Cardinals’ Busch Stadium from the arch. On the other side of the arch you can see the Mississippi River and on the other side of the river, Illinois. When looking out at the river I couldn’t help but think of my good friend that lost his life in the Missouri River just a few days ago.

After eating a delicious meal at Caleco’s in downtown St. Louis we just made it for first pitch at the Busch Stadium. The new Busch Stadium looked very nice with statues of all their Hall of Famers outside the ballpark. The park didn’t have as much “other” stuff as Kauffmann Stadium, but was it still looked great. One interesting feature of Busch stadium is the Patio Deck. Fans could sit on bar stools with a table in front of them to watch the game in center field. Our seats were right behind the plate in the upper deck and they were good seats despite being in the fourth deck. I walked around the stadium and took a look around and noticed that the view from the outfield bleachers was outstanding. If I went back to Busch I think I would try and get a seat out there.

The pitching match up of the “The Big Unit” and Chris Carpenter was as good as I hoped as Carpenter was lit up for his worst outing of the year. Even Johnson got a hit off of him. The highlight of the night was the two homeruns hit by Albert Pujols, the best player in baseball today. I was able to get a picture of his follow through on his first homerun swing which is included on the blog.

Erin decided she wanted to learn how to keep score at the game so I explained things and helped her through the first few innings. She was going well until I decided to leave and check out the new stadium and then the Cardinals made some line up changes and then her scorebook. When I got back the scorebook was a disaster and Erin had 12 guys in the line up for St. Louis. But she’s up for trying it again tomorrow! When I was gone looking around, Erin was hoping the kiss cam would not show her on the big screen because she was left sitting next to some other guy that was twice her age.

After the game we took a grueling 12 hour drive through the night to Pittsburgh which was not any fun at all, but we made it safe and sound. Right now we are at our hotel in Pittsburgh getting ready to see the city and tonight’s game. Before the game we are going to eat at former Steeler's player Jerome Bettis's restauant.