2005 Baseball Roadtrip Part XI
Milwaukee, Minnesota and Chicago

Daniel and I woke up in Chicago on July 29 and drove to Milwaukee. Once again, we arrived at the stadium way too early. We picked up our tickets at will-call and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to avoid security so that we could get free parking. It didn’t work, and after being chased out a couple of times, we ended up having to pay for our spot just like everyone else. We still had a lot of time to kill once we’d parked, so we played some catch. With the exception of the mom, the people in the car next to ours were all pretty normal looking. For some reason, she felt it necessary to stare at us the entire time that we were there. We decided that we were sick of being stared at like caged animals, and walked over to the stadium to wait out the rest of the time before the gates opened.

The tickets that had been left for us were paid for by one of my mom’s co-workers at the District Attorney’s office. They were easily the best seats that I sat in all summer. We were almost directly behind home plate, offset to the left just a little bit, and only seven rows back. After finding our seats, we were starting to get hungry so we decided to go try some authentic Milwaukee bratwursts. Maybe my expectations were just too high, but I wasn’t all that impressed. Don’t get me wrong, they were good, but not as great as you would expect from the “Bratwurst Capital of the World.”

However, the bratwursts weren’t the only disappointment in Milwaukee. The fans fell short of expectations as well. When the starting lineups were announced, I was one of only a handful of fans to clap for the home team. I also missed a home run in the first inning while directing a woman to the section that she was supposed to be seated in. At first she wanted to argue with me that I was in her seat. But, after pointing out the section number, she decided that it was her mistake. I don’t know what is so hard about finding the right section in ballparks. Each stadium has a pretty logical system used for labeling their sections and they are usually numbered in order. For some reason though, a lot of people have trouble finding their seats and more fans than usual seemed to have that problem in Milwaukee.

I felt somewhat bad for Daniel at this game because his view was blocked by a rather large woman a couple of rows in front of him. I don’t know if it was physically impossible for her to fit all the way into her seat or not, but she spent the entire game sitting a good foot above everyone else while being propped up on the armrests. Luckily, she was far enough out of my view that she didn’t impair my ability to see balls and strikes.

The game was pretty good but began bogging down towards the end when there was a flurry of pitching changes. The fans here managed to irk me again when, during the seventh inning stretch, they sang “Home Team” instead of “Brewers” in the middle of “Take Me out to the Ballgame.” Even the small handful of fans that the Marlins (the Marlins for crying out loud!) were able to draw managed to personalize the song for their team. Not in Milwaukee. Why wouldn’t you sing your team’s name? It just sounds better than “Home Team.”

The Giants were down for quite awhile in this game, but ended up coming back on the strength of a Pedro Feliz home run and a botched play by Brewers centerfielder Brady Clark. Clark dropped a fly ball that ended up being ruled a double. More importantly, the drop allowed the go-ahead run to cross the plate for the Giants. Clark tried to make up for it in the bottom of the ninth when he hit a solo home run, but it wasn’t enough and the Brew Crew lost 7-6.

After the game, we headed back to my car and discovered some more reasons for me to dislike Milwaukee’s fans. There was a giant loogie on my front windshield, and someone had taken it upon themselves to dispose of their trash by throwing it underneath my car. Daniel couldn’t help laughing when he saw what had happened and I immediately started fuming. I was so ticked off that I didn’t even bother to wait for a river of fans to cross by the exit of the parking lot. Instead, I slowly pushed my car into the middle of the herd and forced my way through to the street.

Once again, I had been set up with a place to stay ahead of time by a friend of my mom’s. I stayed with Sue and Mike Betz in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, which was just a short drive from Milwaukee. The Betz family had three dogs, one of which wasn’t very fond of Daniel or me. Anytime that we sat up or tried to move around he started barking and wouldn’t stop for several minutes. However, we were both so tired that it didn’t bother us as we dozed off.

Daniel and I woke up on the morning of July 30 with absolutely no plans at all. We discussed going back to Miller Park to watch that night’s game, but decided against it after our unpleasant experience with the fans the night before. Instead we decided to go to a local Dairy Queen (Daniel had coupons) and then watch some movies. In the afternoon we set up a tent in the Betz’s backyard so that we wouldn’t have to bother with the dogs (Daniel is allergic to them). Mike and Sue ordered pizza and we ate while watching some TV. We went out to the tent and I went to sleep. I was woken up in the middle of the night by Daniel, who was talking to Mandi at two in the morning. I told him to hang up a couple of times and I heard Mandi complain that I sounded like a jerk. I already did not like this girl, and the fact that I had to wake up in the middle of the night to hear Daniel whispering to her drove me to near insanity. He finally hung up when his battery started to die and I was able to sleep in peace for the rest of the morning.

We spent July 31 in much the same fashion as we had spent the previous day. We did absolutely nothing productive. At this point in my trip I was just happy that my car was still running and that I had time for some rest. Mike and Sue cooked bratwursts for dinner, and they were much better than the ones served at the ballpark. We watched the Sunday Night Baseball game that night and cruised around on the internet for a little while. After a full day of doing nothing, I was tired and we headed back to the tent to get some more sleep. Daniel was smart that night. If he spoke to Mandi, he didn’t do it loudly enough to wake me up.

We woke before the sun was up on August 1 and took down the tent. We loaded up all our gear and hit the road towards Minneapolis. On our way out of Milwaukee we were run completely off the road by a big rig. Luckily, the median that was in the middle of the highway was a natural median and not a cement wall, so we didn’t wreck the road trip car. That would have put a major damper on the whole thing. After recovering from the mild heart attack that I had, I managed to make it the rest of the way to Minneapolis. We got there a bit too early (which was pretty standard at this point), and walked around to kill time. Daniel had talked to Mandi so much that his phone battery was dead once again and he just had to find an outlet somewhere so that he could charge it up. He ended up plugging into an VIP tent outlet outside the stadium and we sat there waiting for it to charge. It was a nice day in the Twin Cities, which made it even more of a shame that the game would be played indoors.

We bought tickets for $6 – the cheapest that we could find. We went inside and realized that our seats were terrible. In picking out seats, like anything else, you get what you pay for. According to the tickets, we weren’t supposed to have any access whatsoever to the lower level at the Metrodome. However, we managed to find an usher who was nice enough to let us go down to watch batting practice. We stationed ourselves in left field waiting for a home run ball that never came. While we were standing there we realized that we didn’t want to go back to our seats in the upper deck, and made it our mission to find seats on the lower level. After batting practice ended we were kicked out by the usher for the section where we had been standing, so we walked around the concourse looking for souvenirs and food. We settled on the Jumbo Dog, which was by far the biggest hot dog that I have ever eaten. It didn’t have the greatest taste, but it definitely gave the most bang for the buck of any hot dog in baseball.

We managed to sneak into some seats in left field that were pretty close to where we had watched batting practice. I still don’t have a clear conscience about what happened during the national anthem that night, but they say that confession is good for the soul, so here goes. The nation anthem was “sung” by a guy who was in a wheelchair and suffered from cerebral palsy. If any of you have ever seen a video of Dr. Stephen Hawking and heard what his computer-generated voice sounds like, then you have an of idea of what happened here. Another example would be those anti-smoking ads where the guy has to use a voice-box. I felt horrible, but for some reason I couldn’t stop laughing. Neither could anyone else in our section. Everyone tried to stifle their laughter, but, when they would finally manage to get it under control, they would start giggling again (thanks to the people around them). Once it was over, everyone looked around somewhat sheepishly and realized that they weren’t alone. Like I said, I still don’t feel all that good about it, but for some reason I just couldn’t stop myself.

The game that night was excellent and we were treated to a pitching duel between the Twins’ Johan Santana and Joe Blanton of the A’s. Both pitchers lasted 7 innings and stymied the other team. Blanton allowed only 2 hits while striking out 4, while Santana struck out 7 but surrendered a pair of runs. Justin Morneau supplied the only Twins’ run for the night on an absolute mammoth of a home run to right. The ball banged off some bleachers in the upper deck, but it wasn’t enough as the A’s won the game by a final score of 2-1. Due to the low-scoring and excellent starting pitching, the game was one of the shortest that I would watch all summer, clocking in at just under two and a half hours. That was just fine with me as the Metrodome is another stadium that isn’t all that impressive. I was glad to see that earlier this year the Twins took a big step towards getting their own stadium, so hopefully this problem will be fixed in the near future. Baseball is so much better outdoors and in a stadium that was built exclusively for that purpose.

After the game we headed out to the car and started the drive towards Chicago. After getting cut off by yet another truck in Wisconsin, I decided that was enough driving for the day and we spent the night at a rest stop.

The next morning came too early once again, but we made it to Lombard, where Mandi lived, before lunch time. Daniel made me stop at a flower shop on the way and we pulled up to her house around 11:00. Luckily enough for me, I got to use a shower and relax a little bit before we headed out. I don’t know what exactly the deal was, but one of Mandi’s friends picked us all up and drove to some mall to look for a restaurant. All I remember is almost passing out in the backseat and having them keep turning around and staring at me and Daniel. It was weird, and I eventually just closed my eyes to block it all out. The drive couldn’t end soon enough for me and I was glad to be back by my car. Daniel and Mandi decided that they wanted to go to the game with me that night at US Cellular Field, so we all crammed into the Corolla and drove towards downtown Chicago. The whole time that we were in the car, Mandi did nothing but complain about how cramped it was. I did my best to hold back with a comment about how I was never planning on having 3 people in the car that summer.

That night I would be staying with Betsy, who was the girlfriend of Greg that I had stayed with near Wrigley, and the sister of my aunt’s coworker back in Reno. We got into Chicago early enough that we could wander around and kill some time, so we headed down to the beach on Lake Michigan. I’m still impressed with all of the Great Lakes that I’ve seen. They’re pretty much miniature oceans. We started to get hungry so we headed to a McDonald’s, where I got a phone call from my aunt back home with big news. It started out just like any other phone call that summer, with her checking on me and asking how I was doing. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on though since I usually talked to my family at night after the baseball games were over. After the small talk my Aunt Jackie got around to it. She had a reporter from the local newspaper on the other line who was interested in writing a story on my road trip. I was really embarrassed and didn’t necessarily want the greater Reno/Sparks area knowing about my road trip. I agreed to talk to the guy thinking that I wouldn’t be able to provide enough information over the phone to make it worth a story – but we spoke for 45 minutes! I was running on adrenaline at that point and still can’t remember all of what I told him. But I do know that he asked me all of the standard questions, such as, “What’s been your favorite ballpark so far?” and “Where did you come up with the idea of doing this trip?” (Don’t worry, my ballpark rankings are coming in the final article so you’ll get the answer to that question.)

After I hung up and explained to Daniel what had just happened, we headed back over to Betsy’s building and relaxed in the air-conditioned lobby for awhile. Betsy showed up a little bit after 5:00 and took us upstairs so that I could stash my suitcase before the game. She helped give us directions to the nearest “L” train station and how to get to US Cellular Field. With a little help from her building’s doorman, we were on our way.

We got to the stadium and started looking at ticket prices. The cheapest that we could find were $14 apiece. We got our money out and were prepared to pay that price but the guy behind the window told me the total was only $21. But, in order to get that reduced price, I had to throw away the Gatorade that I’d been drinking. I didn’t hear him at first, and still don’t understand why (I think it had something to do with Gatorade not being a sponsor or something), but I wasn’t about to argue my way out of a 50% discount.

We headed into the stadium and I started looking for a place that I could get my pin. However, it didn’t take long for me to realize that everyone was sold out of them. Whoever designed US Cellular field must have taken lessons from the designers of Shea Stadium. It is absolutely impossible to go back down once you’ve gone up. It was awful. I tried explaining to an usher that I just needed to go down to buy a souvenir, but he told me to get lost. I went back up to the seats where Daniel and Mandi were sitting and started worrying that, after going to 20+ stadiums, I might finally get shut out of a pin.

I wasn’t that impressed by our seats, or much of anything else at this stadium. For a newer stadium, it certainly seemed that the designers dropped the ball. We were sitting in the upper deck behind the right field foul pole, and it was absolutely impossible for us to seat hop. The ushers here treated everyone the same, which is as if you had insulted their mother.

The game made up for the rest of my experience at The Cell, and I was excited to get to see the Major League wins leader pitch that night. Jon Garland came into the game with 15 wins, but he left without his 16th. The White Sox got on the board first after a two-run home run by Paul Konerko in the bottom of the first, but the Blue Jays came roaring back with a five-run second inning. The Jays didn’t look back from there and racked Garland for seven runs before he was pulled.

I got to see a great play in the outfield early on in the game when Scott Podsednik ran full speed into the outfield wall to make a catch. He bounced off the wall hard, losing his hat in the process, but was still coherent enough to toss the ball to his centerfielder so the ball could get back to the infield.

Another highlight was when White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen was ejected from the game in the fourth inning. Apparently there had been several borderline calls that were going against the White Sox, and Ozzie complained loudly enough to be heard by the home plate umpire. After one such pitch, the umpire looked over towards the home dugout and motioned that someone had just been tossed from the game. Ozzie didn’t agree with the decision and so he decided to come out and let the umpire know it. The fans here absolutely loved it and chanted his name throughout the argument. Ozzie must have made his point because he finally walked off the field and into the locker room.

The rest of the game passed by nearly incident free until the very end. One of the Blue Jay relievers threw up-and-in twice to Jermaine Dye, hitting him with the second pitch. Dye lay on the ground for awhile before getting up and taking his base, and the fans were clearly displeased. In the top of the ninth, Chicago’s reliever took it upon himself to protect his teammate, and after getting two quick outs, hit Toronto’s Russ Adams. This prompted a warning from the umpire for the reliever and both benches. That was the end of the action though, as the White Sox weren’t able to make a game of it in the bottom of the ninth. The game ended in a 7-3 win for the Blue Jays.

I couldn’t get out of that stadium fast enough after the game was over. On our way back to the “L,” I found a memorabilia trailer that wasn’t sold out of pins. I bought one of the last ones that he had and we got out of South Chicago. Daniel and Mandi walked back to Betsy’s building with me and we said goodbye. I was happy to be rid of Mandi, but bummed that I would be back on the road by myself starting the next day.

Coming up next time, I run into more car problems, catch a game in Detroit, head to Cincinnati, where I meet family I didn’t even know I had, and, of course, catch another ballgame.