Yay Baseball 2002

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Roll your cursor over the "YAY BASEBALL!" to the left to navigate the site	During the first day of their long journey home, Yay Baseball 2002 was able to listen in on a conversation between Jeff and Steve in which they discussed their highlights and memories of the trip. Following is an actual transcript of a portion of this conversation (really). Jeff: Alright, I've got some questions here, I can't really read them because it's dark. Steve: Good planning. Jeff: Well, it's kind of dangerous to drive with that light on, I think. Steve: You should have written it in invisible…glowing…ink. Is that on? Jeff: Well alright, we'll start with you then, because you seem to be on. What was your favorite part of the trip. Steve: Park? Jeff: Part. Steve: Well… Park? Jeff: PART! With a T! Steve: Part! Well, I had two favorite parts. One was doing… Jeff: Whoa, whoa. Steve: What? Jeff: Favorite part. Part. You've gotta choose one. Steve: It's a tie. Jeff: Ok. Steve: (long pause) One was getting to see two and a half games in one day. At two different ballparks. I really enjoyed the extra inning affair at Camden Yards and leading the cheers of "How-ie! How-ie!" for Howie Clark. And the other tie is the bottom of the ninth six run rally of the Cards at Busch Stadium over the Cubs. Jeff: Yeah, yeah, that was very cool. Steve: Specifically the game-winning home run and then everybody going batty for like twenty minutes. Jeff: Yeah. Steve: Yep. You? Jeff: The two and a half games was very fun, but given that one of them was at The Vet… That's gonna lose points. Yeah, that just isn't going to fly. Thank God they got that new ballpark. I want it to open now so I can clean out my pipes again. Steve: (laughs) Yeah. I'm assuming that one of your next questions is about least favorite parts, so I-- Jeff: Can I, can I finish answering what my favorite part of the trip was? Because I was just leading into that. I was in my rebuttal to your favorite part. Steve: I see. Okay. Jeff: Thanks. I don't really know what my favorite part of the trip was, actually… Steve: So you had that big round about answer to get to an "I don't know"? Jeff: Well, it wasn't part of my answer. I was just touching base on what you said. I mean, there were just so many great parts. It's still all a little overwhelming. I mean, we did so much in the last 12 days, and it still hasn't all sunk in yet. It's been a whirlwind. I tell you though, right up there would be Jason Simontacchi. That would be right up there. That's one that you didn't introduce. Steve: When he was shagging fly balls… Jeff: When he was shagging the balls, playing with the crowds, playing with the coaches, that was fun. Steve: Yeah, definitely. Jeff: You don't see it too often. You go to a Red Sox game, you know, and a couple nights a year, they'll have a big rally, you know, you get an extra inning game, but that was something you don't see too often. I go to the games early a lot, and you don't see that. That was pretty cool. I might even venture out and say that that was one of my five favorite moments of the trip. Steve: Okay. Jeff: I don't want to narrow it down any more than that. But since you were so eager to get to least favorite part of the trip, what have you got? Steve: Well, once again it's a tie. Jeff: Oh God. You are terrible with this. Steve: You gave one of a top five. Jeff: Right. Steve: I'm at least giving a top two. Jeff: Okay. Well, I've at least admitted that I can't make a solid decision. Steve: (long pause, irritated stare) My two least favorite parts of this trip were, and these are in no particular order… Jeff: Okay. Steve: 1. The Vet. Jeff: Yeah. Steve: Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Jeff: Well, if they really are tied for your least favorite then there really wouldn't be a particular order anyway. Steve: B. The city of Detroit. And, we didn't write about the 'salvage grocery store' in Detroit. Jeff: You're right. We didn't write about that. Steve: There is a salvage grocery store in Detroit, just a couple blocks from Comerica Park. What do they sell there? Jeff: Yes, and we feel quite remiss in not visiting the salvage grocery store to find out more about it. That was bad reporting However, I think it might have something to do with the fact that Steve almost got us killed and possibly vegetablized on the streets of Detroit. Steve: Why are you talking about me in the third person? I'm here. Jeff: What? Are we talking to you? Who am I talking to? Steve: (laughing) Jeff: Well, you were talking to the recorder, so now I'm talking like I'm talking to the recorder. Steve: I'm talking to you. Jeff: Alright. Well, I'm talking to you. And I'm not referring to you in the third person. Steve: Now you're not. Jeff: But I was there. Steve: Right. Jeff: Alright. So yeah. Alright. So that's why we didn't go back. I'm upset that we didn't, but it was your fault, is basically what I'm saying. Steve: Anyway, with those two least favorite parts of the trip that I had, I have to say that at least the city of Philadelphia realizes that the Vet sucks, and so they're in the process of replacing it. Jeff: Yeah. Steve: At least not that I know of, Michigan doesn't have any plans to replace Detroit. And that's disappointing. Jeff: It is. It is. And I said it the other day, I think we should write letters. Write some emails, start a campaign, and see if we can-- Steve: Move Comerica Park. Jeff: Move Comerica Park. Lansing, you know. Lansing's alright. Move it to Ann Arbor. It's only 40 minutes away. They can accommodate 115,000 people for a football game, why not, you know, 8,500 for a baseball game? Steve: Tigers and Royals. Jeff: You know, the Yankees play there sometimes.. People like the Yankees. People will show up to watch Ichiro when the Mariners go up there. Do you smell skunk? Steve: You know Ichiro won the MVP and the Rookie of the Year award last year, and that is one of the 'Greatest Moments' that we have to choose from for this 'Baseball's Most Memorable Moments' thing? Jeff: Yeah, I noticed that. That was kind of stupid. I mean, aside from the whole moments thing, because it isn't really a moment. Steve: Right, most of them aren't. Jeff: Aside from the fact that Ichiro shouldn't have won the Rookie of the Year award because he had played 8 years of professional baseball in Japan. Steve: Right. Jeff: And aside from the fact that he was not, in fact, the Most Valuable Player in the American League, I might have to say that that is one of the most memorable moments. Steve: Sure. Jeff: I think it's pretty memorable that all of those things happened and they shouldn't have. Steve: I don't think that's what they had in mind. Jeff: I mean, that shouldn't have happened, but we all remember it. Steve: True. Jeff: Alright, so we've discussed the Vet, at length. I think that perhaps that's a good segue into least favorite parks. What was your least favorite park? Steve: Well, I think I already answered that question. Jeff: You didn't answer the question. You said what your least favorite park was, but the question wasn't asked, so you didn't answer it yet. Steve: Oh okay. So what's my least favorite park… Jeff: Right. With a 'k' this time. I know you had some trouble with that earlier. Steve: Alright. Let's see… I'd have to say Veterans Stadium, in Philadelphia. Jeff: Really? Okay. That was the one in Philly? Steve: Yeah. Jeff: And why? You didn't really discuss why, you just said it was a shit hole. That's not very specific. Steve: Let's see. Where we sat was really, really far away. I could barely see Andruw Jones make that fantastic catch. Jeff: That was a fantastic catch. Which didn't make TWIB. Steve: That's true. That was disappointing. Jeff: Right. Steve: The concession stands, while there was no one in the lines, which was I guess a good thing, if you actually wanted to eat the food. There wasn't any interesting food there, certainly, and what was there, what was on display, looked really really terrible. Jeff: Yeah, you seemed pretty upset when you came back from there. Steve: Yeah. And I was disappointed by the baseball atmosphere. There really wasn't any, because it was kind of the antithesis of an 'intimate baseball setting,' like you get at Wrigley, obviously, Fenway, that sort of thing. You know, it's just enormous, and it seats… Jeff: A lot. Steve: Lots of people. And, you know, there were only a couple people there. But the guy sitting in front of us, Crazy Philly Fan, was entertaining. Jeff: Crazy Philly Fan was a joy to behold. Steve: Sort of a highlight. Jeff: Yeah. Steve: Swearing at the Braves fans and whatnot. Jeff: That was kind of kooky. Because usually you go to a home park and it's a large portion of people screaming at a smaller portion of people. Steve: Right. Jeff: But it wasn't like that at all. It was the crazy Braves fans screaming at this one poor sap. Steve: But he started it. Jeff: Well, I don't know if he did or not. Steve: Oh, he started it. The Braves fans were just cheering for the Braves. They were doing it loudly and obnoxiously, granted, but they didn't start anything with him. He was just… crazy. Jeff: I thought they were kind of giving him the business up top and he just started firing back. And I thought that they were antagonizing him a little bit, and then he took it to a whole nuther level. Steve: Eventually, but I think he started it. Jeff: That's a great phrase, 'a whole nuther level.' Steve: Nuther. Jeff: Nuther's not even a word. Steve: How do you spell 'nuther'? Jeff: I don't know. It rhymes with Yothers. Steve: Who's going to transcribe this? This is going to take a month and a half. Jeff: Seriously, who's idea was this? I'm going to go a different direction for least favorite park. I'm going to say Miller Park. Steve: Miller Park. Jeff: Because, Veterans Stadium, it's lame duck. You know it's gone. So it's irrelevant now. Yeah it sucks. You know it sucks. The new place is going to be nice. It still wont' have a great baseball atmosphere, because I don't know how much of a baseball town Philadelphia is or can be anymore. Though if they get all these pitchers together now that they've got that Bud Smith guy, they could have something there. But Miller Park is a total disappointment. It's one of the new parks. It's just like PNC and Jacobs Field, it has that same potential. But it has no character. And the fans suck. Steve: It's got the Bernie the Brewer slide. Jeff: It's got the Bernie the Brewer slide, but they dumbed it down, you know? Kids aren't allowed to drink, or some crap like that. He doesn't slide into beer, he just falls down onto a deck. Steve: The fact that he doesn't slide into beer anymore is crap. Jeff: Yeah. It's got a slide and a stupid mascot. Steve: He slides onto a friggin' landing. Jeff: Yeah, you know? It's got all the potential of all those other parks. It's new and it's nice. It's got a nice new field., nice seats, cupholders. It's got the retractable roof, which could be nice in Milwaukee. I don't know that they really need it up there. It just sucks. The ventilation shafts all over the place! You feel like you're in a warehouse. I remember going to Bank One [Ballpark], and thinking, you know, it feels like a stadium, at least. It felt more like a football stadium than a baseball stadium, but it was a stadium. Miller Park felt like a warehouse. Not in same way that… No, it felt like an airplane hangar. Because it was a little more open, and it had windows like an airplane hangar. Olympic Stadium, the Metrodome, those feel like warehouses. The Metrodome actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The Metrodome might not even be bottom five. It's better than Shea, because-- no, Shea gets pretty loud, actually. But I guess-- well, Miller park, definitely. Steve: What gets loud? Jeff: Nothing gets loud. I was going to say that Shea doesn't get as loud as the Metrodome, but Shea actually does. The stadium's worse, because it actually is like an airplane hangar because there are planes flying over it every 25 minutes, which is absolutely the worst. Steve: We didn't go to Shea on this trip. Jeff: We didn't? Steve: No. Jeff: (long pause. checking list) No, you're right, we didn't. I got confused. I don't know what happened. I think it was watching that Timo Perez highlight 15 times on the Jumbotron, made me think I was there. Steve: That'll do it. Jeff: Alright. So uh… we didn't talk about favorite park yet, did we? Steve: Uh… Jeff: We talked about favorite part. We talked about least favorite part. We did least favorite parK. Now we need to do K, best. What was your favorite park? Steve: I really liked PNC Park in Pittsburgh. Jeff: Yeah. Steve: Tied with-- Jeff: (laughs) Steve: Well, just looking at the park itself, PNC Park is definitely the best. Everything about it, you know, the concourses, the ramps, the escalators, the food, the field itself, the layout of the field, the giant Jumbotron and scoreboard, it was all great. Jeff: Yeah. Steve: The backdrop from where we were sitting, up behind home plate, with the river and the skyline of Pittsburgh. Jeff: Yeah, that was even better than the pictures on the website. I was not even prepared for it to be that nice. Steve: That was great. Jeff: Uh huh. Steve: In terns of overall watching the game and baseball atmosphere, I would have to say Wrigley and Camden Yards. Jeff: Yeah, good choices. Steve: And Busch Stadium was right there too. I really liked a lot of the stadiums. I really liked Kauffman. It's too bad they don't have a good baseball team or very many fans, but that's a really nice field, a nice place to go watch a game. You can get seats wherever you want-- Jeff: They're really cheap. Steve: --for really cheap. That's a really nice place. The Metrodome was really fun. You know, they're really good and the fans get really excited. Jeff: Yeah, well, the fans weren't getting excited. I mean, same thing with the Royals. If they Royals simultaneously got a few draft picks, made some trades, got some youth, everyone would be there too. Yeah, I think my favorite might have actually been Busch. All things considered. The one problem I had with it was that the concourses were very narrow, they were very crowded, and they were really, really, really hot. Steve: Yeah. Jeff: Which I guess is just a function of it being in St. Louis, but it was oppressive. Really, really bad. Steve: The concession lines were really short. Jeff: They were, that's true. Steve: But the concourses were definitely narrow. Jeff: And again, Kauffman was great. With the pretzels with the cinnamon or the parmesan cheese. I would've had a cinnamon one, except that, you know, we were going to Waffle House. Steve: Mm… Waffle House… Jeff: Yeah. And the Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Always a plus. Worst gift shops I've ever seen in a baseball stadium, any pro facility for that matter. Steve: Oh, terrible. Jeff: Really disappointed there. No recognition of the past, no real attention to the future or the present. Camden Yards, I was sort of disappointed the first night we were there, but he second night, much better view where we were. The bleachers are nice, but first time visiting that's not a good spot. Steve: The fact that you can't see a good portion of right field from the right field bleachers is sort of stupid. Jeff: Yeah, center field would have been great. We probably would've loved it. But those are the quirks. Steve: That is quirky. Jeff: So now, is PNC now your favorite park overall? Do you like it better than Fenway? I mean, obviously there's an attachment there. Steve: Yeah, I don't think I can separate them. Jeff: Yeah. Well, that makes sense. Well, you initiate some conversation, I'm tired of it. Steve: Well, you've got the thing. Jeff: I do have the thing. Steve: You know what's on it. Jeff: I don't even know where it is! Steve: Well, that's not my fault. Jeff: It's under my crotch. I didn't blame it on you. Jerk. Alright, we did favorite part, favorite-- Steve: What is your favorite piece of memorabilia that you have in the car right now? Jeff: I don't really have any memorabilia. Steve: Maybe we should go to Cooperstown. Jeff: We already are going to Cooperstown. Steve: Okay. Jeff: Yeah, I didn't really buy any memorabilia. I bought a couple of hats, and I got the programs. Steve: Did you get a Cardinals hat? Jeff: No, I didn't get a Cardinals hat. They were too expensive and they didn't have the good one that I wanted. And for some reason they don't have any shirts except for Jim Edmonds and Fernando Vina and Albert Pujols. Steve: J.D. Drew. Tino Martinez. Jeff: Yeah, well that didn't make any sense at all. Steve: Since he's not been good since they've had him? Jeff: He's not been good for a few years. That's just a whole nuther story. Steve: You said 'nuther' again. Jeff: I did! It's like a colloquialism. I think it should be in the dictionary. If "d'oh" is in the dictionary-- Steve: D'oh! Jeff: --I think "nuther" should be too. Steve: Yeah. Jeff: What about you? You didn't really get any memorabilia either, you just got all those cups. Steve: I got the Cubs hat. And I did, I got lots of plastic souvenir cups, which Grace will be thrilled with. Jeff: You know what you should do? You should melt them all down and make like a bowl for chips. And it'll be like one souvenir for the entire trip. You can meld together all the stadiums into one, and put chips in it. Steve: Where am I going to get a plastic cup melding kit? Jeff: Um, we'll get you a Zippo, and another bowl and you can use it as a mold. Steve: That's a terrible idea. Jeff: It is. I kind of lost it. The do-it-yourself thing is what did me in. You could probably take it somewhere. Look in the Yellow Pages. Cup melders. Steve: Alright. Jeff: I think there's a couple over on, um, Mass Ave, by Tower, or Virgin. Steve: Oh right. Jeff: And then there's one around the corner on Boylston. There's one-- no there's two on Newbury. Actually, they're all over in the cup melding district. They're all over there. Steve: Yup, yup. Jeff: So that'll be good. Steve: I think I drove by there once. Jeff: So we covered favorite parts, favorite moments… Steve: Give me your favorite restaurant of choice that we've been to on our trip. Jeff: I like that one we stopped at outside of Chicago. Where we had the burgers and they didn't have the prices on the menu on the board. Steve: Oh right. Jeff: That was pretty good. I can't really think of any other good places we stopped and ate. There wasn't any place that I would hold out for like three hours for just to find one. Steve: There weren't any places where we would have gone, like, seven times. Jeff: No, no. There really aren't any places like that at all. So yeah. I don't know. So the South. That was a trip. Steve: We were in the South and the Deep South. That is official. Jeff: I don't want to go any deeper than the Deep South. I think our definition of the Deep South is different than most people's. Steve: I think you said it well a few days ago, that the South is a geographical region, but we were in the cultural South. From like Cincinnati, west. Jeff: Most people think of the South as a geographical region. I think it might be more of a state of mind. I think it might be. Steve: Yeah. Jeff: I think there's a lot of South in New Hampshire, and Vermont, and Maine. Maine especially. Steve: Yup. Jeff: I think it's very apparent that they live differently than we… live. Steve: Right. Jeff: They all smoke. Steve: Smoking is rampant. Can I say 'rampant'? Jeff: Sure. Sure. You can say 'ramparts,' too. What are ramparts? Steve: I'm not really sure. Jeff: Yeah. Steve: Which singer was it who said 'fleg'? Jeff: It was like, Milwaukee, Bristol recording artist, insert name of person no one's ever heard of here. Steve: Yeah. Jeff: That was pretty bad. That was one of the worst anthems that I heard. The one in St. Louis was pretty bad, but you didn't seem to mind it. Steve: He was fine. Jeff: He was pretty bad. He was a little flat, he putting the inflections on the wrong words. Steve: I'm tone deaf, so I couldn't tell. Jeff: Yeah, I'm tone deaf too. So you know it's really bad if I noticed. Steve: Maybe he wasn't really off and you're just tone deaf. Jeff: But I know when people are good. Steve: How do you know? Jeff: Because I can tell. Steve: But maybe you can't. Jeff: Well, I'm probably not clinically tone deaf. But, I mean, you know, I'm no judge on American Idol. Steve: Is that a clinical thing? Jeff: It could be. If you go to a clinic for it. Then it would be. Anything could be clinical. I mean there's clinics for everything. You know. Steve: Chuck Knoblauch needs a couple clinics. Jeff: Chuck Knoblauch, I don't know what Chuck Knoblauch needs. I don't even know if I want to talk about Chuck Knoblauch anymore. Steve: Alright. Jeff: I'd just like to forget he ever existed. I just want to block that out of my memory. Steve: Chicago hot dogs are fantastic. Jeff: Holy crap! Man! Alive! Are they ever?! Steve: Pickles, relish, which is sort of redundant but still good, celery salt-- Jeff: Not really, no, no. You're all wrong on that, because the relish is just cucumbers, I mean, they're all pickled cucumbers, but the pickle is a dill pickle, so it adds a whole new dimension. Steve: The pickle that was on there was a dill pickle. Jeff: Right. That's what I'm saying. The pickle was dill. The relish is not. But I don't know. Is relish pickled cucumbers? I don't even know. I'm not really sure relish is. Some relish is red, and you put that on hamburgers. Steve: Hamburg relish. Jeff: Yeah. Steve: Excellent stuff. Widely underused. Jeff: Celery salt: I didn't even know that existed. Steve: Great stuff. Jeff: I love celery. Steve: I'm going to start putting that on my popcorn. Diced tomatoes, onions… Jeff: The Wrigley one was the best, by far, with the sautéed onions. Steve: That was good. The sautéed onions were good. Jeff: The chopped ones are okay. Steve: The one at Detroit was pretty good too, with the giant pickle on it. It was hard to eat, but it was great. Jeff: I had my problems with that one. Steve: You did, yes. Jeff: Did you learn anything on the trip? Steve: I learned that-- Jeff: Other than Chicago hot dogs are great? Steve: Oh… uh… (long pause) Well, I now know how to make a Chicago hot dog, and I'm going to make use of that knowledge. Jeff: Did you learn anything that doesn't have to do with Chicago hot dogs? Steve: Um… not…having to do…with Chicago hot dogs… You know, I really wish there had been a restaurant that we would have found and, you know, gone to like seven times, and like waited hours until we found one so that we could go to it. Jeff: Yeah. Steve: Yeah, because if that had happened then I would have learned about that restaurant, about the culture of that restaurant. Jeff: Right. And it would have been great if we could have found a place like that that we could have taken Grace and… um… uh… Steve: Sarah. Jeff: Sarah! Right. Steve: Can you imagine if there was a restaurant where the servers would take your glass from your hand and refill it with Vanilla Coke without you asking? Can you imaging a restaurant with service like that? Jeff: You know what? I don't even want to talk about this anymore, because it's just depressing me. I'm going to segue to what I learned on the trip. Steve: Okay, what did you learn on the trip? Jeff: It's not something that I learned completely on the trip, it's something that I've been tinkering with for a while. And I thought that it may just be limited to New England, but I've found out that it's true everywhere. And that's that probably about 80% of this country is what's affectionately referred to as 'white trash.' Steve: Hm. Well, in all fairness, we didn't see 80% of the country. Jeff: We didn't see 80% of the country, but I've now seen 50% of the country and I feel that I can extrapolate that to the rest of the country. Especially because we live in the most urbanized section of the country. The Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Trenton-Atlantic City-DC-Baltimore-megalopolis. And once you leave that, there's not too much out there. Steve: Hm. Jeff: I was very surprised by Missouri. I always thought of Missouri as a, you know. It's got two major cities, and it's got a giant river, two giant rivers, one of which the state is named after. There's lots of commerce, and there's other more minor cities, you know, Jefferson City, Springfield. But man! Is it hick! Every other exit there's like, a Waffle House! Steve: Who eats at Waffle House? Jeff: And those porn bookshops? Steve: There were a great number of those. Jeff: Every other billboard you saw was either a pro-life billboard or a porn shop billboard. Steve: Or a Jesus billboard. Not that there's anything wrong with those things. Jeff: There's nothing wrong with Jesus and there's nothing wrong with porn, if that's what you like, but that's strange. They didn't fit. Once I started to see more of the Missouri landscape I became more and more surprised every time I saw a porn shop. And that's p-o-r-n, not p-a-w-n. I know we've had some problems with that in the past. Steve: Right. <-- Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City \| The greatest restaurant chain on Earth --> © 2002, Yay Baseball, Inc.