2005 Baseball Road Trip Part IV: Colorado and Kansas City

After going to Seattle and Arizona I had knocked off all of the clubs on the West Coast before school had let out. It was now time to start thinking about the remaining twenty three stadiums and make plans on how to get to all of them on one continuous trip without returning home. Andy was recovering from his surgery and was still planning on going to the rest of the stadiums with me once he got back from his first senior trip in Europe. We started looking for places to stay along the way and also bought tickets for some of the ballparks before we left. We ended up buying tickets for Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, Busch Stadium, and Camden Yards. We had a difficult time finding tickets online for Fenway and Wrigley since both teams had already sold out all of their tickets. My Dad helped us out though and bought us tickets for both of those stadiums at well above face value.

After looking at the long list of cities that we would be going to and finding the ones that we would be passing through, we started listing all the places that we knew we would have places to stay. By the time we were done though, we still didn’t know anybody in a majority of the places that we would be going to. Luckily for me though, Penny Rasmussen took the list of places and started talking to the people that she knew in each city. I was in contact with her and my Mom via e-mail and they provided me with contact numbers for the people in the various cities. It was a little strange calling or e-mailing complete strangers asking if I could stay with them, but everyone was very open to it and were willing to help me out.

Andy bought a plane ticket that would have him leave Reno only two days after he got back home from Europe and meet me in Houston on July 7th. We also bought some train tickets to Boston because of the Yankee paraphernalia that decorated my car and were set to go. I kept in contact with Andy until he left for Europe and then wasn’t able to talk to him for a couple of weeks.

Before leaving, both Andy’s and my parents us out by buying a whole bunch of food that was quick and easy to make and easy to store in a hot car. I loaded up the trunk and back seat of my Corolla and managed to squeeze my suitcase full of two weeks worth of clothing in there as well. There wasn’t much room left for Andy’s stuff so I hoped that he wouldn’t be bringing a whole wardrobe with him. I also started to try to prepare myself for the long drives that I would be facing over the first part of the trip by getting plenty of sleep. It was going to be brutal as I would go to seven games in seven days and I wouldn’t have a break until after I had seen the Marlins play in Miami, a week after I left. That was the plan anyway, but it didn’t quite end up that way.

On July 3rd, after throwing some blue ice into my cooler and double checking my packing list, I left my Dad’s house not to return for over a month. I headed East across Nevada and stopped for gas once before heading into Salt Lake City. On the way I passed through the Salt Flats which were amazing. It was very easy to entertain myself on this drive by reading all the messages that people had spelled out with stones on the flats. I made it into Heber City, a suburb of Salt Lake, at about 5:00 where I stayed with Penny’s sister Judy. It was the first time of many that I would have to walk up to a house, having never met the person that I would be staying with, hoping that I had the right address. It was very weird the first time and it only got slightly easier over the rest of the summer. Luckily for me though, Judy was very welcoming and immediately made me feel at home. We had some dinner and watched the Sunday night baseball game before I headed off for bed. It had been about an eight hour drive and I had another long one coming up the next day.

I woke up on the 4th of July and talked with Judy about my driving course for the day while I had a quick breakfast. I had originally planned on going straight through Utah to Denver but after hearing about some of the roads that I would have to take, I decided to change my course and take a more major freeway. It would probably end up taking about the same amount of time, but the safety factor was what swayed me. Especially on the 4th, I didn’t feel like taking any switchback two-lane highways through the middle of nowhere Utah. I headed out from Heber City heading north where I hit Interstate 80 which would take me through Wyoming. At this time, gas was up around $2.70 when I left Reno. Once I made it to Wyoming though, I saw an immediate drop in the price of gas. There was even one station that was selling it for $1.99. I hadn’t seen gas under $2 in well over a year. Gas was the one area that I felt pretty confident in before heading out for the summer. I knew it was going to be one of the more expensive parts of my trip but Andy and I figured out an estimated gas price based on the amount of miles we would be driving and calculated it out for anywhere from $2 a gallon up to an average of $2.75. We came up with a range of $1500 to $2500, which when divided between two people was pretty manageable. I had been saving all throughout High School for this trip, so money wasn’t going to be a problem. It felt good to know that unless there was a gas crisis, I wouldn’t be bankrupting myself getting across the country. Another factor that helped is that my car gets very good gas mileage. In cities it gets about 33 miles per gallon, and as I quickly found out, driving mostly highway miles, I could top 40 miles per gallon.

Once I got on my way from Heber City, I called Danielle Pearson, the lady that I would be staying with in Denver. I had originally planned on getting into Denver on the 4th and seeing a game the next day while leaving early on the 6th. However, when I talked to Ms. Pearson, I found out that she had to leave town the next day and that it would be much better if I could go to the game on the 4th. It wasn’t a problem as I had some flexibility in my schedule at this point, and in the long run actually ended up helping me out a lot. While driving through Wyoming, I saw a ton of highway patrolmen, but thankfully my radar detector was picking them up in plenty of time to give me enough space to slow down before they could pick up my speed. Wyoming was a fun state to drive through because of the landscape and the wildlife. Nevada is a mountainous state and I’d never seen plateaus before outside of books or magazines. Another first for me was the sighting of a prairie dog. I also almost had another first when I nearly saw my first prairie dog become road kill. If you’ve ever seen that car insurance commercial with the two squirrels that run out in front of the car to make it crash, this is exactly what the prairie dog was trying to do. I saw him pass right underneath the car that was in the lane next to me, and looking in my rearview mirror, expecting to see a flattened rodent, I instead saw it do a barrel roll off to the side of the road. I’d never seen an animal play chicken with a car before and win. I guess prairie dogs are a bit smarter than your average jack rabbit though.

I got into Denver in the early afternoon and called Ms. Pearson to let her know that I had made it into town. She gave me an intersection to meet her at and after loading up my backpack I headed out. She told me that there would be a Starbucks at the intersection, and after looking around for awhile and deciding that I was in the right spot I planted myself next to a street sign and waited. However, I was not in the right spot and my cell phone decided to start acting up at the most inopportune moment. After waiting for about a half an hour I called Ms. Pearson again and she asked me where I was at. I told her where and she told me I was in the wrong spot. I ended up meeting her and she took me to her apartment so I could throw my stuff in there, and gave me directions to get to Coors Field. She had to get back to work and I felt really bad because I had made her have to take a much longer break than she had originally anticipated.

I started walking towards Coors and by the time I got there twenty minutes later, I realized that I had left my wallet in my car. As I was walking there I noticed that there were a lot of scalpers out, which took me by surprise because from everything I had read, the Rockies hadn’t had sellouts since the late nineties. I realized that this was probably because it was the 4th of July though, and prepared myself to have to deal with a scalper. After spending the better part of the next hour walking back to my car and back to the ballpark, I got in line behind about 30 people who were also waiting to get tickets from the ticket box. After standing in line for only a few minutes though, I heard some of the people at the front of the line come back and say that they were all sold out except for some $50 seats. I wasn’t about to pay that much for tickets at a Rockies game so I headed across the street in search of a scalper. As soon as I crossed the street I was hit up by one who had a fistful of tickets and was also negotiating with another guy at the same time. The other guy was apparently bargaining too hard though as the scalper blew him off to make me a deal. I wasn’t in much of a mood to bargain so I just paid the guy the $30 that he was asking for a $19 face value ticket. I didn’t see much of a choice and was glad that I was going to be getting my road trip underway. I bought some sunflower seeds and a Gatorade from one of the street vendors outside the stadium. The good thing about Coors is that they are very relaxed about what you are allowed to bring into the stadium. They have the same rules on coolers and other large objects as other teams throughout the league, but they were one of the more relaxed parks in terms of bringing in outside food.

I headed into the stadium and bought my pin before going to find my seat in the upper deck. The weather was starting to get a little bit nasty and the game was on a rain-delay while they pulled the tarp onto the field. I was not very happy about this and started thinking about perhaps finding a hotel room should the game end up getting cancelled so I could go to the game the next day. After an hour though, we got the good news that the weather was going to cooperate and the game would get underway. After another half-hour delay while they pulled the tarp off the field and put the finishing touches on the infield, the game finally got started. I’m pretty sure that this was the first game played between the Rockies and Dodgers since I’d seen them play in Los Angeles with the late-inning beanings. In the top of the first, Rockies pitcher Byung-Hyun Kim, who has a history of pegging batters, hit Dodgers second-baseman Jeff Kent. Kent didn’t take it too kindly and walked out to the mound pointing his bat at Kim and the benches and bullpens quickly emptied onto the field. There was a lot of jawing back and forth, but nothing happened. Once order was restored, the game got back underway. There were a couple more beanings throughout the night, but nobody got tossed and I didn’t see any warnings issued either. I guess the pitchers weren’t being malicious; they were just suffering from a collective lack of control. Throughout my entire life of watching baseball, I’d always heard that Coors was the best stadium in which to see a slugfest. Unfortunately though, the game that I went to was relatively low scoring with the Dodgers winning in 11 innings, four to three. There were several other highlights for me at this game that took place away from the field. The first of these was the fact that this was the only game that I would watch while sitting over one mile above sea level. I was pretty far away from the field but the view wasn’t all that bad and it was kind of cool knowing I was in the ultimate nose-bleed seats. Also, before and during the game there were hundreds of fireworks going off all around the neighborhoods bordering the stadium. If I had decided to move down closer to the action (which probably would not have been possible because of the huge turnout), I wouldn’t have been able to see the longest fireworks show of my life. After the game was over the Rockies had their own fireworks and everyone who came to the stadium had front row seats for it.

After the game I walked back to Ms. Pearson’s apartment and spent the night. When I woke up the next morning, she had already left so I gathered up my stuff and headed out to my car. Once I got on the road towards Kansas City, I called Martin Hendrickson who I would be staying with there. I explained to him that I’d had a change in my schedule and asked if it would be alright if I showed up and went to a game a day early. He told me that it wouldn’t be a problem and to give him a call as I got closer. Sometime around 10:00 in the morning, I got the first sign that my cell phone was beginning to go on the fritz when I got a voicemail from the previous afternoon when I was trying to meet Danielle Pearson. This 18-hour delay for a voicemail wasn’t nearly as bad as the three day delays that I would have later in the summer.

Once I started to get away from Denver, I noticed that I was moving out of the mountains. For the rest of the day, I would be driving across the grassy plains of Eastern Colorado and all of Kansas. Kansas has to be the most boring state in the USA to drive through. It’s completely flat with no change in scenery until you hit some of the tiny little hills on the eastern side. Apparently, even the people who live there find it boring as one of the farmers who had a crop-duster was amusing himself by buzzing the traffic on the interstate.

I hit some bad traffic in Kansas City, Kansas and it continued as I went into Kansas City, Missouri. I ended up making it to the Hendrickson’s house at around 5:30 which was just enough time to stash my stuff inside before heading out for some dinner before the game. Martin, his son Logan, and I all went to the game after getting some Kansas City BBQ. I thought I knew what BBQ was before, but the pork sandwich that I had has to be the best BBQ that I’ve ever eaten. If you’re ever in KC, I can highly recommend Gates for dinner. Mr. Hendrickson wouldn’t let me pay him for my dinner and also bought my ticket to the game. The game was actually pretty good seeing as the Royals were involved and they won their first game at home in quite a while. Kauffman Stadium is a great ballpark for its age. Most of the seats are close to the field and the fountains that line the outfield give it a very unique look. It’s too bad that the team that currently inhabits it is absolutely terrible because the fans there deserve better. This was one of, if not the, most empty stadium that I saw a game in. The fans that were there though were really into the game and supported their team the whole way. The Royals won the game 8 to 5 over the Mariners and the Royals closer Mike MacDougal came into the game to close it out. I’d seen him pitch on TV before with his goofy windup and it looks just as crazy in person.

After the game, we headed back to the Hendrickson’s house and I spent some time talking about everything from Royals baseball to some of the work that he had done in the extradition field. By the time that I hit the hay it was 1:00 Kansas City time and Mr. Hendrickson said he felt bad about keeping me up that late. I told him not to worry about it because I was still on Pacific Time where it was only 11:00.

I woke up on the morning of July 6th and got on the road at around 8:30. I started driving south not sure where I would end up that night. By this time I had driven across half of the country in just three days and had seen two games already. Because of my schedule change, I was now facing a dilemma. I wasn’t supposed to be in Houston until July 7th to meet Andy. I had the better part of two days to get there and nowhere to stay in between. I was in contact with my mom back in Reno and she was trying to find me a place to stay. I was prepared to spend the night in a campsite or a roadside rest stop that night when I got a phone call saying Penny Rasmussen came through in the clutch once again. At first I thought it was just going to be a place to spend the night, but it ended up having repercussions that would help me out the rest of the summer. That’s coming next time.

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