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I do not think there are too many people who can say they have seen a MLB game at 3 ballparks in 2 days. I was one of those people until a few weekends ago when I took in a game at Wrigley Field and then Miller Park on 4/21 and then a game at Comerica Park on 4/22. This is the third and final part of my weekend with Chuck mini-series. Here are the links to part 1 and part 2.
My friend and fellow ballpark chaser Ken Lee was in charge of getting Chuck Booth, aka the package, to the Lake Forest, IL oasis on I-94 for the handoff of the package. We had joked that meeting at 4:30 in the morning at a mostly deserted highway rest area was like some super secretive mission. I had gotten there a few minutes before the package arrived. I checked out the surrounding area and found we were safe for the exchange. The exchange went off without a hitch, I had the package and off to Detroit we went.
The 5 hour ride to Detroit was a breeze. Chuck and I had the chance to talk life, travel and our ballpark chasing adventures. Chuck being from Vancouver presents challenges as he has bounced around the US on his record attempt, small things like a US cell phone, credit card international usage fees and of course – the language barrier. Eh, sorry hoser, wow 5 hours in a car with a Canadian really rubbed off, put me in a car with Vinny Bagadonuts from Nutley, NJ for 5 hours and I would be eating sangwiches with fresh mutzadell. My wife Charlie is now thinking; please no - Bobby D already says orange, coffee and garden funny. My mom is now thinking, ahhh Ralph’s pizza (a little shout out to Ralph’s on Franklin St. in Nutley, NJ – a real pie made with homemade gravy.) My sis is now thinking, pepperoni bread from Vitiello’s Italian Bakery, right Kim? My mom now chimes in with; oh their crumb cake is to die for. Can you tell I haven’t had dinner yet?
Sorry for the walk down memory lane, now back to the blog. Luckily we arrived very early to Detroit as I made a few wrong turns trying to find the ballpark, umm Bob – you do not make wrong turns in Detroit, EVER. Well we survived and finally my ballpark chasing sense kicked in, well really the GPS on the iPhone, and we found Comerica.
Along my ballpark Quest in 2009 and 2010 I had been very fortunate to have met some wonderful families and in Detroit on April 22 I got to meet another one. Chuck had met the Salter family during his 2008 baseball travels and has kept in touch with them over the years. Joe and Dianne Salter with their sons Anthony, Jake and Robert met up with Chuck and me at Comerica. They were genuinely excited to be a part of Chuck’s record attempt and they treated us to tickets for the game.
I will take a moment here, well a paragraph, to say how lucky I have been to meet so many wonderful folks such as the Salters, they hadn’t known me prior to that day and here they were treating me to a ballgame. My good buddy David Quinn calls it the 12 months of Christmas, just random acts of kindness for the sole purpose of just that – kindness. I can tell after hanging out with the Salters that they subscribe to that as well.
For me Comerica is my 2nd ranked ballpark behind only AT&T Park. Yo, Mr. Just a Cub Fan, what about Wrigley, dog? Sorry, I am watching American Idol as I type. Well as I stated in my ballpark rankings which can be found here, I have Wrigley on the Mt. Rushmore of ballparks along with Fenway, Oriole Park at Camden Yards and Dodger (thank God Magic bought the team) Stadium. There is just something about Comerica I love. From the entrance with the massive Tiger statue (that’s Anthony with Chuck in the attached picture), to the kiosks of memorabilia broken out by decade throughout the park, to the cool scoreboard with the Tigers perched on top, to the play areas for kids, and to the statues in left field of past Tiger players – Comerica is a great park to visit.
Early in the game Chuck got a phone call from a fellow Canadian, Andrew DeBaeremaeker who was at Comerica. How cool is Andrew’s last name, he is the beer maker. Andrew was at the game with his buddy Scott whose last name coincidently is DePlayboeyphotograepher.
Actually Andrew and Scott are huge baseball fans from Toronto as well as fellow ballpark chasers. Chuck had met up with them at the Rogers Centre, honestly who doesn’t still call it the Sky Dome, a few weeks ago. It was cool hanging out with them for a while and hearing all about Canadian ballpark chasing which if you think of it, you can do in a day. Congrats everyone who attends a Toronto Blue Jay home game, you are a completed Canadian ballpark chaser. Craig, hope you have more bandwidth on your website.
I ended up making it to the end of the 7th inning with Chuck and the Salters. I wanted to do one lap around the main concourse of the ballpark and then had the 200 mile drive back to Columbus. In all I drove a little over 1,200 miles that weekend. During our chat during the game, Anthony mentioned he had never been to Wrigley, well Anthony when you are ready I would love to repay the favor to you and your family and take you to Wrigley – Bobby D style as I am the so called resident expert of Wrigley Field.
It was cool that I got to be a small park of Chuck’s world record attempt, since I am a bit delayed with my blog updates – Chuck did end up breaking his record and the new record stands at a complete game at all 30 MLB parks in 23 days. After seeing what went into just the 3 games on the weekend of 4/21, it would take a monumental effort to break the record. Well monumental for most of us, for Chuck it’s just another season of ballpark chasing.
A couple of shout outs – my buddy Ken Lee is proogressing (sorry, all the Canadian hasn’t rubbed off) nicely in his attempt to get to all 30 ballparks this season. Ken is halfway home as of today with 15 ballparks in the books. Ken’s attempt is a bit more daunting since he lives in the Seattle area and other than Safeco Park; he has a long way to go to get to another ballpark. Follow Ken’s travels on his website seeall30.com.
My other shout out is to SGT R.J. Breisacher of Toledo, OH who recently got out of the army and to celebrate his successful tour in Iraq and Afghanistan, he is driving to all 30 ballparks this season. R.J. is also at the halfway point as of today and will now be embarking on the western US part of his mission. You can follow R.J.’s travels on his website here.
One other update is I have secured the domain name justacubfan.com. It will be linked to this current web address and over the next month or so I will change the main domain over to the new address. I hope you understood that last sentence because I didn’t. The website may take on a different look but everything else will stay the same and all the info will still be here. No need to change bookmarks for the 3 of you who have my site bookmarked, both addresses will get you to this site.
The reason for the new address is to hopefully reach a broader audience. I have found that some people enjoy reading my
senseless dribble and I’m all for expanding the dribble. I have visited other sites by bloggers who have attached themselves to the Cubs; they have great websites but are more about the details of the team and games. I on the other hand offer a unique view about being ‘Just a Cub Fan.’ The hope is I will build a fairly good sized audience, one that will assist me in my lifelong dream of being a guest on the Lead-Off Man, throwing out the first pitch at Wrigley Field and leading the crowd in ‘Take me out to the Ballgame’ during the 7th inning stretch. Those may seem like lofty goals, but I got my amazing wife Charlie to marry a schlubo like me, so these should be a piece of cake.
I guess that about does it for my weekend with Chuck mini-series. I have to say it was a great experience and one that I will cherish for some time. So for now this is so long and good bye where it is now May, time to fire up the next 12 months of Christmas gift. Very well done Mr. Quinn, very well done indeed!
My friend and fellow ballpark chaser Ken Lee was in charge of getting Chuck Booth, aka the package, to the Lake Forest, IL oasis on I-94 for the handoff of the package. We had joked that meeting at 4:30 in the morning at a mostly deserted highway rest area was like some super secretive mission. I had gotten there a few minutes before the package arrived. I checked out the surrounding area and found we were safe for the exchange. The exchange went off without a hitch, I had the package and off to Detroit we went.
The 5 hour ride to Detroit was a breeze. Chuck and I had the chance to talk life, travel and our ballpark chasing adventures. Chuck being from Vancouver presents challenges as he has bounced around the US on his record attempt, small things like a US cell phone, credit card international usage fees and of course – the language barrier. Eh, sorry hoser, wow 5 hours in a car with a Canadian really rubbed off, put me in a car with Vinny Bagadonuts from Nutley, NJ for 5 hours and I would be eating sangwiches with fresh mutzadell. My wife Charlie is now thinking; please no - Bobby D already says orange, coffee and garden funny. My mom is now thinking, ahhh Ralph’s pizza (a little shout out to Ralph’s on Franklin St. in Nutley, NJ – a real pie made with homemade gravy.) My sis is now thinking, pepperoni bread from Vitiello’s Italian Bakery, right Kim? My mom now chimes in with; oh their crumb cake is to die for. Can you tell I haven’t had dinner yet?
Sorry for the walk down memory lane, now back to the blog. Luckily we arrived very early to Detroit as I made a few wrong turns trying to find the ballpark, umm Bob – you do not make wrong turns in Detroit, EVER. Well we survived and finally my ballpark chasing sense kicked in, well really the GPS on the iPhone, and we found Comerica.
Along my ballpark Quest in 2009 and 2010 I had been very fortunate to have met some wonderful families and in Detroit on April 22 I got to meet another one. Chuck had met the Salter family during his 2008 baseball travels and has kept in touch with them over the years. Joe and Dianne Salter with their sons Anthony, Jake and Robert met up with Chuck and me at Comerica. They were genuinely excited to be a part of Chuck’s record attempt and they treated us to tickets for the game.
I will take a moment here, well a paragraph, to say how lucky I have been to meet so many wonderful folks such as the Salters, they hadn’t known me prior to that day and here they were treating me to a ballgame. My good buddy David Quinn calls it the 12 months of Christmas, just random acts of kindness for the sole purpose of just that – kindness. I can tell after hanging out with the Salters that they subscribe to that as well.
For me Comerica is my 2nd ranked ballpark behind only AT&T Park. Yo, Mr. Just a Cub Fan, what about Wrigley, dog? Sorry, I am watching American Idol as I type. Well as I stated in my ballpark rankings which can be found here, I have Wrigley on the Mt. Rushmore of ballparks along with Fenway, Oriole Park at Camden Yards and Dodger (thank God Magic bought the team) Stadium. There is just something about Comerica I love. From the entrance with the massive Tiger statue (that’s Anthony with Chuck in the attached picture), to the kiosks of memorabilia broken out by decade throughout the park, to the cool scoreboard with the Tigers perched on top, to the play areas for kids, and to the statues in left field of past Tiger players – Comerica is a great park to visit.
Early in the game Chuck got a phone call from a fellow Canadian, Andrew DeBaeremaeker who was at Comerica. How cool is Andrew’s last name, he is the beer maker. Andrew was at the game with his buddy Scott whose last name coincidently is DePlayboeyphotograepher.
Actually Andrew and Scott are huge baseball fans from Toronto as well as fellow ballpark chasers. Chuck had met up with them at the Rogers Centre, honestly who doesn’t still call it the Sky Dome, a few weeks ago. It was cool hanging out with them for a while and hearing all about Canadian ballpark chasing which if you think of it, you can do in a day. Congrats everyone who attends a Toronto Blue Jay home game, you are a completed Canadian ballpark chaser. Craig, hope you have more bandwidth on your website.
I ended up making it to the end of the 7th inning with Chuck and the Salters. I wanted to do one lap around the main concourse of the ballpark and then had the 200 mile drive back to Columbus. In all I drove a little over 1,200 miles that weekend. During our chat during the game, Anthony mentioned he had never been to Wrigley, well Anthony when you are ready I would love to repay the favor to you and your family and take you to Wrigley – Bobby D style as I am the so called resident expert of Wrigley Field.
It was cool that I got to be a small park of Chuck’s world record attempt, since I am a bit delayed with my blog updates – Chuck did end up breaking his record and the new record stands at a complete game at all 30 MLB parks in 23 days. After seeing what went into just the 3 games on the weekend of 4/21, it would take a monumental effort to break the record. Well monumental for most of us, for Chuck it’s just another season of ballpark chasing.
A couple of shout outs – my buddy Ken Lee is proogressing (sorry, all the Canadian hasn’t rubbed off) nicely in his attempt to get to all 30 ballparks this season. Ken is halfway home as of today with 15 ballparks in the books. Ken’s attempt is a bit more daunting since he lives in the Seattle area and other than Safeco Park; he has a long way to go to get to another ballpark. Follow Ken’s travels on his website seeall30.com.
My other shout out is to SGT R.J. Breisacher of Toledo, OH who recently got out of the army and to celebrate his successful tour in Iraq and Afghanistan, he is driving to all 30 ballparks this season. R.J. is also at the halfway point as of today and will now be embarking on the western US part of his mission. You can follow R.J.’s travels on his website here.
One other update is I have secured the domain name justacubfan.com. It will be linked to this current web address and over the next month or so I will change the main domain over to the new address. I hope you understood that last sentence because I didn’t. The website may take on a different look but everything else will stay the same and all the info will still be here. No need to change bookmarks for the 3 of you who have my site bookmarked, both addresses will get you to this site.
The reason for the new address is to hopefully reach a broader audience. I have found that some people enjoy reading my
senseless dribble and I’m all for expanding the dribble. I have visited other sites by bloggers who have attached themselves to the Cubs; they have great websites but are more about the details of the team and games. I on the other hand offer a unique view about being ‘Just a Cub Fan.’ The hope is I will build a fairly good sized audience, one that will assist me in my lifelong dream of being a guest on the Lead-Off Man, throwing out the first pitch at Wrigley Field and leading the crowd in ‘Take me out to the Ballgame’ during the 7th inning stretch. Those may seem like lofty goals, but I got my amazing wife Charlie to marry a schlubo like me, so these should be a piece of cake.
I guess that about does it for my weekend with Chuck mini-series. I have to say it was a great experience and one that I will cherish for some time. So for now this is so long and good bye where it is now May, time to fire up the next 12 months of Christmas gift. Very well done Mr. Quinn, very well done indeed!