But first, what led to this trip to Boston? I knew I wanted to go up to Boston to see the Dodgers, but I didn’t know what day until I saw the Dodgers’ rotation after the All Star break. I was hoping to see Clayton Kershaw, but it turned out that he wasn’t going to be pitching in Boston. The other desirable pitchers to see were Hyun-Jin Ryu or Walker Buehler. Since all three of those guys pitched in the All Star game, the Dodgers wanted to give them all some extra rest after the break, so Ryu was the only one to face the Red Sox and that was in the last game of the series. So Sunday it was for my trip to Boston.
Ordinarily, John is my guy in Boston, but he was on vacation with his family. So I was on my own for the day. I originally figured I’d get a hotel room, but I realized I could save some money by just taking the bus home after the game. Megabus had a 1:00 am bus to New York and the game was at 7:00. What could go wrong?
Anyway, I got into Boston a little after 2:00. My first stop was Cheers. I recently watched all of Cheers. It was a good show, but it’s kind of amazing now to think that people once had it on the same level as Seinfeld. The outside looks like what you would see on the show. The inside does not. You go down the stairs and there’s a little bar there that doesn’t look like the show. You walk down a hallway and there’s a dining room. Then there are stairs that go up to the Cheers set bar. That one does look a little like the show (it’s nowhere near as big as it looked on the show), but considering it was a bright day and it was above ground, it definitely didn’t have the feel of the show. I was going to get a beer, but both bars were so crowded that I decided to just leave. That turned out to be fortuitous.
 |
| As it turns out, nobody knew my name. |
My next stop was the Boston Burger Company, which was on Man vs. Food and a few other shows as well. I had what Casey Webb had on Man vs. Food, the Pilgrim. It was a turkey burger with cheese, stuffing, and cranberry mayo. It’s Thanksgiving on a bun. Not getting a beer at Cheers was fortuitous because my plan was to drink two beers during my day in Boston and one was going to be at the game. If I had a beer at Cheers, I would have passed on one at the Boston Burger Company. Not getting one at Cheers allowed me to order a Sam Adams Summer Ale. And as you may know, that is my traditional Thanksgiving beer (just like it was for the Pilgrims). How was the burger? Pretty good. I would definitely recommend it. But if I were going back, I’d want to try one of their other options. A lot of them looked a little too crazy, but there were some that I’d be interested in. Hopefully the next time I’m enjoying turkey, stuffing, and cranberry I’ll also be a couple days away from watching Notre Dame finish a good regular season with a win over Stanford (it’s been far too long since we’ve won there).
 |
| It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without Summer Ale. |
I had some time until the game. I stopped at the mall at the Prudential Center. There’s a chapel at that mall that I’ve made use of to go to mass twice before, but I had taken care of that with a vigil mass on Saturday. I was really just there to find a place to charge my phone and do some reading.
What was I reading? I recently listened to one of the many Notre Dame podcasts I listen to and they interviewed Jamie Reidy. He recently wrote Need One! A Lunatic’s Attempt to Attend 365 Games in 365 Days. Not only was he going to attend an event each day, he was going to travel around the country and get to at least one event in each state. You can see why this would appeal to me. It’s pretty close to what the original idea of this blog was. I bought the book right away, but I hadn’t starting reading it yet. I debated bringing it with me since I wasn’t bringing a bag and it might be annoying to carry around a book all day. As it turns out, it was a good decision. It was about 25 hours from the time I left on Sunday morning to the time I got back on Monday morning. The book is almost 300 pages (pretty easy reading, but still, it’s not short) and I read the whole book. From beginning to end. In that order.
I’m not spoiling much because it says it right on the back cover, but Jamie didn’t make it the entire year. But he did plenty of traveling and going to sporting events. He didn’t get to Hawaii and Alaska (he planned on going to the Midnight Sun Game in Fairbanks), but he might have seen an event in the other 48 states (I’m definitely not sure on that one, there were many days that he didn’t detail, but he went from coast to coast and did plenty of stuff in the middle). I attended at least 3.5 of the same events that he did. His Sports Year started in September 2013 and he was at Notre Dame-Oklahoma (no blog post because that was miserable), Notre Dame-USC , and the Pinstripe Bowl. I said 3.5 because he also went to Frozen Fenway, but he only stayed for the first game of the doubleheader. He was just there because hockey at Fenway Park was interesting and he wanted to count it as an event that he went to. Kyle and I went because hockey at Fenway Park was interesting and because we wanted to see Notre Dame. Notre Dame played the second game of the doubleheader and we didn’t feel like sitting through the first game in the cold.
As one of the maps in my last post showed, I’ve been to sporting events in many of the 50 states, but not all. So I was thinking about what sporting events I would want to attend that I haven’t before and what events I would want to go to in the states where I haven’t been to sporting events. Here are some North American events I’d want to go to:
World Series at Dodger Stadium
World Series at almost any other stadium
NBA Finals in Boston
Super Bowl
Rose Bowl
A game at Lambeau Field
An SEC football game
Final Four
US Open tennis
The Masters- I don’t care about golf at all, but this is the one golf event I’d have some interest in doing.
NHL game in Canada
Even if I wasn’t limiting it to North America, no soccer event would ever be on the list. Baseball in Japan or any other country where it’s popular would be pretty cool. A number of Olympic events (winter or summer) would be cool. Aussie Rules Football would be interesting. I’d go to see cricket because I would love to understand how cricket works (I have no idea other than it involves hitting a ball). I can’t really think of any other international events I’d want to go to since I’ve already been to Wimbledon. What events on that list are realistic? If the Dodgers and Yankees play in the World Series this year, I’ll definitely look at tickets. I’m not saying I’m definitely going, but I’ll look. In 2009, the Dodgers were three wins away from making that match up happen and I was ready to go. Now, it would definitely depend on the price. If it had happened in 2009, I would have been more willing to spend the crazy money because it would have been the first World Series for the Dodgers since 1988. If it happened this year, it would be their third straight World Series appearance. Of course, they lost the last two years. If they had won one of those, I think I definitely wouldn’t spend the money on the World Series. Of course, a lot has to happen before we have a Dodgers-Yankees World Series. I don’t really care who the Dodgers play in their next trip to the World Series (hopefully this year) as long as they finally win it. I definitely hope to make a game at Lambeau Field happen in 2020 since Notre Dame is playing there. The US Open is always a possibility since it’s in Queens (I really should go one of these years). I wouldn’t rule out the Masters if I knew somebody that wanted to go and it lined up with my Easter vacation.
Now how about the states where I haven’t seen a sporting event? Here’s what I’d want to see in each state:
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island- Minor league baseball, I guess
West Virginia, Mississippi, Iowa, Oregon- College football
North Carolina- College basketball, but only if I could guarantee seeing Duke or North Carolina losing at home
Kentucky- Again, college basketball, but only if I could guarantee seeing Kentucky or Louisville losing at home
South Dakota- Sioux Falls has an independent league baseball team so I guess that would be my choice
Kansas- Kansas basketball, I don’t despise them so I don’t need a guaranteed loss
Oklahoma- You were expecting college football, but I’m saying minor league baseball as long as the Dodgers have their double-A and triple-A teams there
Wyoming- I guess Wyoming football, it’s one of three states that doesn’t have a professional baseball team (Alaska and Hawaii are the others)
Hawaii- Hawaii Football or the Hawaii Bowl
I am going to the Notre Dame game at Duke in November so I will cross North Carolina off the states to see a sporting event in list. I might get to a Pawtucket Red Sox game before the end of the summer (we’ll see on that one) so that would be Rhode Island. There’s a decent chance I’ll never see a sporting event in many of those states. I’m fine with that. I would kind of like to go to a football game in Hawaii, but that might never happen. I’m unlikely to be in Hawaii for the Hawaii Bowl on Christmas Eve. A regular season Hawaii game doesn’t work because of school, unless Hawaii has a home game during Week 0 (the week before Labor Day). I don’t anticipate seeing college football in any of the states I mentioned unless they host Notre Dame (even then, it wouldn’t be easy to get tickets for a price that wasn’t crazy). Sure, I could just go to some random game, but that would involve spending a Saturday not watching Notre Dame. Even if it was a Notre Dame bye week, that would involve spending a Saturday not watching all the other games.
My real sports fan goal was to get to every Major League Baseball stadium and I did that (but the Rangers will have a new one to get to next year). Jamie Reidy didn’t accomplish his goal, but I still recommend his book.
No comments:
Post a Comment