Midwest All In One

Barely waking up and being alive after Toronto, very, very , very slowly, move out of my hotel. Just trying to survive on the ride to Detroit. I’m running out of gad in Canada but there’s no way I’m finding out the conversion from liters to gallons and how much it’s going to cost me. It was .97 per liter. Now from what I thought was at least 4 liters per gallon. That’s almost $4 per gallon and go fuck yourself Canada. So I end up getting like a couple liters just to make me to the Great United States. And you know what is in between Canada and the U.S.?? That’s right duty free!!! And I ran out of Makers in like NY and I’m guessing cigarettes have to be cheap and boom they are. $34.99 for a carton and #30 for a bottle of Makers and a small airplane bottle come free. These cigarettes are plastered in non-smoking propaganda. I know there bad for me!! That’s why I smoke them God-Damn it. When I get to the border it takes 20 – 30 min to get across and it’s not cause of bomb checks, it’s just that they are slow as fuck, and I’m sure it’s because the people going through are just as retarded as the people letting us through. Anyway it feels like it takes me 3 days to get to Detroit but its only like 5 hours, did I mention I’m so damn hung over, and probably still drunk. I pull into town and find the cheapest parking lot near the park and go into an Indian food restaurant that’s also like a sports bar, which I’ve never seen. Kinda weird but good stuff. I just need a couple beers to feel a little normal. You ever been so hung-over that you think you will never be the same ever again!!! LOL. Those days are brutal as hell. If you haven’t ever experienced this, you need to do it just once but don’t try and do anything. Then you’ll just be thinking all day, “is this how I always do this?” After one of these days you now know what it feels like to actually be retarded. I eat a little and drink a couple and make my way to the park. The front of it is beautiful. There are huge Tiger statues out front guarding the stadium. There are Tigers’ outside because it’s the Detroit Tigers, for those people out there who didn’t know that. The inside of the stadium is just as nice as the outside. I was kinda hoping for a short porch on the right field side so they can hit it out of the stadium like the old one but it didn’t have that. But still good no matter what. I’m there early and need a nap. I sit in a seat and close my eyes. I get about 20 min of a good nap but am woken up by the worst thing I’ve heard on this trip. “Tiger fans this game has been postponed due to rain.” ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING ME????!!!!! I barely wanted to be in Detroit as it was now they just ruined my life. These poor old guys that were sitting in front of me look at me and say “eh what we will just gonna have to catch it another day” And I answer back “This just ruined my life.” Talk about a little dramatic. I just sit there distraught. I check the schedule for them and the Reds which is the game tomorrow, and looking at it I knew it wasn’t going to work out well for me. These are the games that I couldn’t miss, cause there was no makeup time for them. When I go to Canton, Ohio for the NFL Hall of Fame we are going to fly into Detroit watch the game and drive to Canton. So hopefully this works out ok.
I jump in my car and get the fuck out of Detroit. It’s pouring rain for a good 60 miles. I get about an hour outside of Cincinnati and I’m in Ohio, and wow oh wow, Ohio is not looking good for a state already. I grab some ice cream and get to my hotel room cause there no reason to be out in what I’ve seen of Ohio already. I jump up, and head into Cincy. Driving in, it starts to rain a little bit and I’m freaking out. If 2 games are rained out there is no way I’m making them both up. It’s drizzling on and off, I ask the people selling the tickets if there is gonna be a game, they seem kinda optimistic. Get into the park and it looks weird as fuck. It’s got a pontoon boat in centerfield, with a bar on it. It’s kinda nice. But looks very ummmm Midwest. It’s hard to explain, if you’ve been to the Midwest you might know what I’m talking about. I was told to have 3-way Chili in Cincy. And thank God they had it in the ballpark. 3-way chili is chili, cheese and pasta. What can I say about this. Besides its again very Midwest. They make the smallest most mundane things into large meals by putting a lot of things you would never think of putting together. Tater tots, chili and sour cream. Things like that. I’m trying to have a good time but it keeps drizzling and I’m freaking out thinking they are going to call the game at anytime. By the 5 inning I can relax cause it’s this far in the game and 1 more inning and it’s an official game. The Reds are down in the bottom of the ninth inning and Trevor Hoffman comes in to close the game out. Now people who know baseball know that normally this game is over. But what the Brewers don’t know is that I’m in the stands and the home team doesn’t lose when I’m there, He gives up 5 hits in 5 batters, letting the Reds tie up the game and then win. It was weird to see on the best closers in baseball history to give up 5 hits, not record and out and lose the game. I get out of Cincinnati as fast as I can. Pittsburgh is next and I’m there for 2 days and I want to get there kinda fast so I can go out and enjoy Pitt. Since everyone is telling me that the Pirate Stadium is the best ballpark in baseball, and I’m hoping it’s got some good cocktails as well since I haven’t had a really good cocktail since Boston.
I am sadly disappointed when I go out in Pitt. I am a block from Pitt College. So I know that it’s gonna be Jager and Miller Light. I need a little food, so I head out and end up at where the people at the hotel tell me to go. And it’s a college bar, but it’s got the Basketball and Hockey game on. I grab a seat at the bar. They give me a menu and say this part of the menu is half off. Now, on the half off menu the title says sandwiches. And under it, it says Rachel. So trying to break the ice I have to say “excuse me, where’s Rachel and how much is she?” This girl looked at me like I just punted her cat into a wood chipper as I called her a bitch. She didn’t understand why or what I was talking about. She turned to the other girl and starts to say something and I just told her it was a joke. I buried my face in the menu and the west side of Penn is looking like the east side on Penn in Philly. Badly!! I eat have 2 beers and want to get out so I don’t have to deal with these bartenders anymore. And I don’t know if many caught it on facebook but this is where I wrote “I’m about to give up on going into bars with woman as bartender’s” I think out of the many, many!! Bars I’ve been to , I’ve had 2 bartenders that were woman that were above average, and the rest shouldn’t even be let behind a bar at all. It makes us all look bad.
I get up the next day and run down to a corner restaurant. It looks like it’s got shitty greasy ass food. Mmm mmm mmmmmmm. I grab a hot dog with everything on it. And that’s chili for free also, and a small fry, which is bigger than 4 super sized fries at McD’s, and a chocolate milk shake. The milk shake sucked but the food was good. It was exactly what I expected. I go back to the hotel and relax for a bit then grab the free shuttle to ballpark. I walk around the ballpark and it is looking like how people had been telling me. It has beautiful statues outside and these yellow bridges lined up and down the river. I get into the stadium and it has a gorgeous view of the bridges and the city. But the park in general looks very bush league. It looks like I walked into a minor league stadium. Don’t get me wrong it is pristine, but that’s probably because there is less than 9k in the stadium. And apparently this is a big crowd. I understand how people think this is a great looking stadium but it was more about the view from the stadium than the stadium itself. Now I buy shitty ass tickets like I have done at 95% of the places I’ve been. I am walking around and find a ticket on the floor. It’s for a lower reserved which is awesome but I look where the ticket was for and it was in a group of kids. I walk around to the other side of the ballpark, and ask one of the ushers if I can sit down in his section instead of sitting next to a bunch of kids. And he understands and puts me decently close to the field. Very nice seats and good game. The shitty thing is, I’m trying to take a picture of me with the field behind me and as I’m doing that I hear the bat crack and I don’t know how I knew it was coming towards me but it was and fast. I try and reach forward with my hat and grab it but between trying to have my camera not fall and break and trying to catch a ball that’s on fire coming towards me I miss it by a 3 rows, it bounces off and goes 20 rows away. I do get to redeem myself though. To preface this next small story I have to say that they were shooting t-shirts into the crowd and people were falling over chairs and diving to get these things. So when a ball cracks off the bat and bounces off the mid section of the park and sails towards me. Light’s right behind it, and instead of doing what I’ve been trying to do for years and catch it with my hat, I put my hands out and try not to look directly into the lights and catch it with my hands. Everything in slow motion. It bounces off my hands and falls down right in front of me. Now I’m the only one in my section but there are a good 15 or so in the section next to me, and some of them college kids. The ball drops in front of the hand railing and thinking these people are gonna run over here and jump over 3 rows for this ball. So I dive over the hand railing legs flailing in the air, I grab the ball and try to push myself up. I get up and show the ball off of course cause I’m awesome. That will get your heart pumping. Which after all this food and booze I don’t think my heart can take the work LOL. Now even the Pirates are winning and upping my record to 19 – 2 for home wins. I try and go out after and I looked up s a couple places on the yelp and there isn’t a lot in downtown. I walk a couple blocks and end up at this bar that had some decent drinks and looked like some good food. But I wanted to check out another place and there is another place right down the street I want to try. I walk into it and another woman bartender. I sit there and wait 5 min for her to even give me a menu. I check out the list and find something decent but end up waiting a little over 5 min for her to come back, and she isn’t. And after last night I’m getting fed the fuck up. I get up and leave. I’m not gonna sit in an empty bar and have a bartender not pay attention to me. So I go back to the place I was at before which also has 2 women bartenders. And the service is again shit but it’s the only place within walking distance, and I’m not going back near Pitt College to eat and drink again, so I bite my lip and just have bourbon, and a small quesadilla. Just need to get something in my belly. I grab a cab and get to the hotel, a 2 hour drive to Cleveland is tomorrow, and then heading into the burbs of Chicago to hang with family for a week.
I get up and get into Cleveland for a day game. The park is right next to the now desolate Kings Palace. I don’t know, maybe it was in my head but driving around everyone just looked sad. They are not going to the NBA Finals, the King may be gone in a couple weeks, there football and baseball teams I don’t think have won a game since ’94. I sit down at a bar across the street from the bar grabbing a great pulled pork sandwich. Surprising since it was another sports bar, and the chick was hot but didn’t know what bourbon was. And not like all the little intricacy of it but didn’t know that it was whiskey. I got to chat with her for a couple min about how she was working 60 hours a week when the Cavs were playing but now less than 20 hours and making nothing. Cause no one goes to Indians games. I have also been asking many of the bartenders I talk to if they get the full min wage. And they do not!!! They get like $2 an hour. And most of those people don’t even get a pay check because of the taxes. And seeing the prices of things in all these states, I can completely understand why people are going broke in this time of recession. The food, booze, gas, cars, tickets, and pretty much everything else you can think of is about the same price as what I pay at home. And I actually get a paycheck. People say but your living cost is more right? Umm I don’t think it can be that much more. I mean $400 a month more for rent is the only expense I can see. Maybe taxes on registration for cars each year and maybe a little more a month for insurance? But I’d say $400 - $600 difference a month? I don’t think that is a huge difference. I need to talk to more people about this, but I think my City is just that much better. Anyway about baseball now. I get into the stadium and it’s gorgeous. I think it’s one of the best I’ve seen so far. And they have 2 sections to walk in. One is in back where all the concessions are and the other is in front so if you do want to walk around the ballpark you can do so while watching the game. Which is awesome. You’re not in anyone’s way and you can still see all of the game. The food here is good, the booze is like 6.75 for 16oz awesome!!! And the people that are there which isn’t many are interested in the game and are cheering. But as I said before these teams don’t win, and bring down my avg. bringing the record down to 19 – 3. Now it’s time to hang out with the famaglia in the burbs of Chicago. It’s about 5 hours and a week of relaxation.