Baseball and old friends

You may know already, which makes me very late posting, that I went to DC to see my old friends DCHomer and TPUBGU (aka George and Rick), two of my best friends in the world and old Marine Corps buddies.  So I'm here to just give a little rundown of my visit, mostly focused on going to a couple of minor league baseball games.
I landed at Reagan National, where Rick picked me up and went straight to the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, VA, picked up some goodies and had a beer in the replica Tun Tavern.

New shirt bought at the museum
 

 Then we headed over to George's, where we caught up, told old "war stories" and drank plenty of scotch and had some very good Chinese take-out.

Me, George & Rick after a few scotches
 

Next morning we got up and headed to Gettysburg, where we spent a few hours with a tremendous guide who took us around the whole battlefield area and taught us history buffs a few things.  Then we had dinner at Dobbin House, which is a great restaurant that happens to be in the oldest house in Gettysburg and pretty much has always been at least a tavern.  If you've never been, go!
Then we hustled on up to Harrisburg for a AA Eastern League matchup between the hometown Senators and the Altoona Curve (it's still a stupid name, G!)  We had a very good time, of course but two things of note:  George decided he was going to be the world's biggest fan of this kid who played for Harrisburg, a first baseman by the name of Shawn Pleffner.  So G was hollering/rooting for this guy with every at-bat and every play at first base.  We had a great time with that.  On the way out I noticed a plaque, which George took a picture of but no longer has.  But since we all love baseball and history, this plaque telling us the history of the Harrisburg Giants of the Negro Leagues was pretty cool.  Oh, and the ball field is on an island in the river, same place that the Giants played.

The next day G had a prior engagement, so Rick and I shuttled off to Richmond to see his son and go to another Eastern League game, this one pitting the hometown Richmond Flying Squirrels against the Bowie Bay Sox.  Of most interest to me is the ballpark  in Richmond, which from the outside looks like a major league stadium.  There are very few of these "mini-major league" ballparks left.  Pawtucket is another, though even older than this one.


Me, Rick and Eddie.

It was a fabulous trip, getting to see old friends, drink and reminisce together and see baseball in the sunshine, which had yet to come to Maine.  And Eddie, thanks for suggesting Joe's, the food and beer were great.  Thanks for the ride also.

 George wanted to add these two pics.  The top one is of two pillars that border one end of a bridge that we drove through.  When you're coming across the bridge heading south, you'll see the State Capitol building between them.  Pretty cool.  The second photo is of the island that the ballpark sits on, and you can see it in this picture.   We did not take this.

Rangers Ballpark in Arlington

As some of you know, a very good friend of mine (and author on this blog) moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth area a year or so ago.  He invited several of us to come down to his place for a weekend and to go see the Red Sox play in Arlington.  Thanks again for the great seats, AA.
Suffice to say we had one helluva time getting together, as well as eating lots of fatty meat and drinking lots of alcohol.  There was also no shortage of belly laughs and ribbing to go around.  I will put up a piece on my personal blog All Things Zebster, hopefully this afternoon about the whole trip.  This short post is really about going to the game.

L-R My Bro, Ellery, Tim and AA

I cannot possibly impart the enormity of this ballpark and I'm not sure the above picture does it justice either.  If you've seen a game there on TV, you know it's big but the outside footprint of this place is arguably 50% bigger than what you would normally consider the ballpark.  I think you could fit four Fenways in there.  The façade has longhorn impressions all along a center strip.  As with many of the new ballparks, there are restaurants and pubs within it, along with your traditional ballpark vending outlets.  We stopped at one of the pubs, Bodington's, for a cold one before getting to our seats.

Yours truly

Little Brother

 

We all dreaded the fact that John Lackey was pitching for the Sox, even though his previous outing was pretty good coming back from the DL.  Well, we had a bird's eye view of his very first pitch sailing over the left field wall off the bat of Kinsler but he did settle down and pitch fairly well.  The Red Sox bats have been kinda dormant lately and this game was no different.  The game was 3-1 Rangers until they got a couple more in the 8th to make the final score 5-1.  The Red Sox downfall was also as much attributable to bad defense at the infield corners as it was the lack of offense, but it was a reasonably close and well-played game, which was really a sidebar to being out together and sharing our friendship and mutual love of the game and the Sox.  I'm not sure there's really anything else I'd rather do with my time.
Thanks again, AA, for being such a great host and to Tom, Tim and Ellery for the awesome companionship and camaraderie.

PS  Ellery is the lone wolf in our group when it comes to favorite teams.  Like the rest of us he's a Sox, Bruins and Celtics fan (yeah, I know, AA, you hate basketball) but while the rest of us are Patriots fans, Ellery is a Cowboy fan.  This pic's for you, Ell.

Ell in front of Cowboy Stadium

 

PSS Once we arrived back to AA's, we watched the DVRed Bruins/Leafs playoff game, which the Leafs won, which I did not know the outcome despite RJ's text to me during the Sox game.  LOL  And we did play a round of golf the following day.  Not sure if I'll throw that into the weekend blog or come back here and post one just about that.

Another great DC roadtrip

Just a little background first:  This is now four years in a row that I've made a trip to DC to see friends and go to games.  The current streak started when I had to get to RFK and see the Nats play there before their move to the new stadium.  I'd always bemoaned the fact I hadn't gotten to RFK when I lived in DC in the early 1980s.  My defense?  You couldn't possibly get a ticket to a Redskins game there.  The hole in my defense?  The Washington Federals of the USFL.
The roadtrip thing has been going on for some time between my brother and I, although the above is the last one we've done together.  A lifelong friend of his and a good friend of mine (Tim) had season tickets to the Nats.  So we stayed with him and then the next day we went to a game at PNC in Pittsburgh.
The next year my roadie also included New Britain, CT, near where my brother was working and Norfolk, where another friend lives, and then on up to DC to see Rick and George and go to a game during the inaugural season of the Nats' new stadium.  This is the famous "fan of the game" game.
Lo and behold on the Nats' schedule the following year is the Red Sox, playing in DC for the first time in 40 years.  So down to DC I go again.  One other special thing about that game is not only did I go with George and Rick but Tim and AA were also in attendance.
Now on to this year's trip.