Red Sox vs Indians ALCS trip report (long w/ pics)

[Lazy Meatball]

After making short work of pink eye Garret Anderson and the Anaheim Angels the Boston Red Sox were ready to go to the American League Championships Series for the third time in five years against the team they tied for the best record in baseball, the Cleveland Indians. Having traveled to multiple Red Sox road games in the past two years including Toronto, New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and San Diego, it was only fitting that Phil and I made the 600 mile 8 hour trip from Massachusetts to Cleveland Ohio. We stopped outside Buffalo to get dinner and watch the Patriots trounce the Cowboys.

We arrived late on Sunday night and checked into the Best Western by the airport (at checkout Phil argued and got us the corporate rate) and got direction from the front desk to the nearest bar. We made our way to a crappy dive bar in a strip mall called Whiska’s Pub which had 20oz Miller Lite’s for around $3. A couple guys in Pat’s shirts bought us a round since we were also New England fans. One of them told us about his history as “Waldo the intern” on the Mistress Carrie show on WAAF (Mass rock radio station). They also invited us out to Cleveland PM’s, one of the premier strip clubs of the outer Cleveland area. While this piqued our interest, we went to the gas station to buy beer and headed back to the hotel room as we were pretty tired.


Note the leftover fried calamari from dinner

The next morning Phil and I woke up and each enjoyed a shower beer before heading towards downtown Cleveland. We took North America’s greatest public transportation system into the KeyTower station in downtown Cleveland.


We found our way to the mall to get lunch at Key West restaurant at the mall where we had fairly mild nachos, barbecue chicken wings, and large beers.


From there we wandered the Cleveland waterfront, checked out Browns Stadium, and I took a dump in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As we made our way downtown we found this sort of pedestrian place called Fourth Street and got a pitcher of blue margaritas at some tequileria. We had a good view of the street and I saw many interesting sights, as well as some Tribe fans who gave us the finger.
streetwoman1
streetwoman2
streetwoman3

I also saw this reunion of sorts:
reunionpic1
reunionpic2
reunionpic3

There were also some sort of promotional free shot girls near us.
bargirl1
bargirl2
bargirl3
bargirl4
bargirl5
bargirl6
bargirl7
bargirl8
bargirlred1
bargirlred2
bargirlred3
bargirlasian
Which was nice.

We headed into Jacob’s Field early with the series tied 1-1. We managed to watch some batting practice and from the outfield I saw Mike Timlin,

Hideki Okajima,
and Julian Tavarez whose son looks like the goofy kid from Jerry Maguire.

I also checked out the little Heritage Park they have there which was cool.

Phil and I especially enjoyed the 24oz beers for $7, which is the same price as a regular beer at Fenway. We also brought our “It's Tito's October” sign which was so popular at Rally Monday.

Here’s some National Anthem Patriotic stuff

Well Jake Westbrook prevailed over Dice-K

in a 4-2 win for the Indians. So we went back to the Fourth Street tequileria to drown our sorrows. Well apparently I was less subtle with the random picture taking and some staff told us if I kept doing that we’d be kicked out. Phil’s response was “[censored] you, we were leaving anyway.” So we took our beers, stepped over the fence and walked out to the street.

Phil says This is Who I was taking pictures of. Because she might have been kissing some other girl

Apparently a police officer took issue with my violation of the open container law and started talking to Phil as I walked ahead. He asked Phil if he knew me or where I was going, to which Phil gave vague answers. Eventually the cop just told Phil that if he did know me, he should tell me to get rid of my beer, so Phil shouted ahead to me and I dropped my beer in a bush and walked away. The cop left us alone and then Phil revealed to me that the whole time he was talking to the cop, he was also holding a beer.

We took the subway back to the hotel, and then made a quick stop for some Taco bell. Unfortunately I forgot my Tito’s October sign at the bar we left.


Stay tuned for part 2

[Lazy Meatball]

Day 2

The next day I woke up feeling like crap, so I had another shower beer to get me going and we headed back into town. Not satisfied with Ohio’s bland style of Mexican food, we found the Cleveland Chop House and Brewery in the Warehouse district. I had a steak sandwich with an Irish Red Ale while Phil had a burger (with no bun, he’s on Atkins) and a grilled salmon salad with the house light lager.


The waitress informed us that we had just missed seeing Kevin Youkilis have lunch with his family and pointed towards the booth where he sat.


While we were dining the bartender updated us to tell us Mike Timlin just walked by on the street. I wrapped up half my sandwich and as we wandered over to the park it started raining so we ducked into a bar called the Maproom where we watched business people in suits drink on their lunch break. As the afternoon progressed we went back to Fourth St but we knew we weren’t welcome at the tequileria anymore so we headed across the street to Flannery’s Pub.
Flannery’s is across the street in this pic

It shouldn’t surprise you that the place was swooning with Red Sox fans, despite the Unwelcoming sign.

We also saw Dan Shaughnessy on the street.

While drinking al fresco we got into a friendly conversation with a black man who told us he was rooting for Boston, that when he goes to Boston he enjoys the attractiveness of both the black and the white woman, and that when he goes to a new city, he doesn’t care about the closest bar, he wants to find the nearest liquor store because of the much more economical prices of beer and Henessy.



So I took my leftover steak sandwich into Game 4 where we had seats in the left field upper deck and got to watch Paul Byrd start against Tim Wakefield.
Phil made up a new sign to replace our Tito's sign but it didn’t really have the same effect.
We quickly learned that some tall bald jerk in an Omar Vizquel jersey was obstructing our view of the batter so we had to start yelling at him.


Even the diehard former Indians ballboy Cleveland fan next to us agreed he was a douchebag. Our polite attempts were met with more taunting and standing, but eventually Vizquel switched seats with his shorter friend and they stopped standing so we could see better. Later when the Indians took a large lead Omar was in a better mood and bought a cotton candy and sent it my way which was nice.

I took a few bites and dunked the rest in my beer, which made it delicious.


Phil befriended the recent law school grad chick behind us so we exchanged some polite conversation.

I got a few pictures of her. (I am told I later grabbed her ass in the street)
lawyer1
lawyer2

Also at one point late in the game (sometime after the Red Sox went back to back to back homeruns) there was quite the line at the bathroom so I made use of the mop bucket in the janitor’s closet.
This is the bucket I pissed in
This is me in the closet.


Phil also managed to score an Aquos backpack by pretending to sign up for something and then walking away. Afterwards he scored a MLB Postseason ’07 Blanket by arguing with the credit card sales chicks.


After suffering two tough losses we mourned at a nearby strip club named Motions then took a cab ride home. The next day I ate a crappy chicken massala at Harpo's, the sports bar that was closed Sunday night and we drove my WRX home.

Here are some more leftover pics







stadium girl

[vikefan24]

Excellent report

[KilgoreTrout]

[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] pervcam

[Toro]

[ QUOTE ]
[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] pervcam

[/ QUOTE ]

How does he get away with that without getting slapped? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[KilgoreTrout]

[ QUOTE ]
How does he get away with that without getting slapped?

[/ QUOTE ]

He "pretends" to be very drunk.

[diddyeinstein]

^^ Yea you love those ass shots.

Great report. As soon as I scrolled down and saw the first picture of you, I was like, "Hey that's the guy from the DNC" this is going to be awesome. You did not disappoint.

[The DaveR]

Pretty sure you walked by me the afternoon of the first game, while I was enjoying some tea outside.

I AIM'd Daryn and he confirmed you were in town.

[ZenMusician]

A+ as always, sir!

-ZEN

[Lazy Meatball]

So the Sox rallied behind a dominating Beckett in Game 5 to bring the series back home where Curt Schilling and a rare clutch J.D. Drew Grand Slam ensured a much anticipated Game 7 at Fenway Park. Phil and I bought tickets the night before the game and were looking for revenge. So after picking me up in Central MA (as well as picking up a 6 pack of miller lite for the drive in) we headed in to Kenmore Sq t pick up our tickets so we could head in early.



We had seats in the outfield bleachers but opted to stand at the top of the section behind home plate. We quickly set up an alliance with our other standing room neighbors promising to protect territory in the even of bathroom or beer trips. Before the game started we had Italian sausages with peppers and onions and the vendor complimented my velour hat. Also, due to the importance of this event, Phil and I were both wearing business suits with a shirt and tie.



Before the game the Dropkick Murphy's did a great version of the national anthem and followed it up with “Shipping up to Boston” complete with preteen Irish step dancers.
During the game a friendly pink haired girl gave us pop corn,
PinkGirl1
PinkGirl2
PinkGirl3
I joined in an obnoxious “Weesssst-Brooooook” chant with a Sox fan to “get inside Jake’s head,” we talked to a girl named Jenny who Phil kept singing “8 6 7 – 5 3 0 Niiiiine” to, as well as her friend Courtney who Phil also go to know quite well.
Courtney and I

Courtney1
Courtney2
Courtney3
It turned out we could barely see whenever everyone in front of us stood up, so Phil being the gentleman that he is offered to hold Courtney up so she could see everything.

Let it be known that Phil has busy hands.


Phil's hands get busier


Daisuke pitched a good game

and the Sox offense rallied behind some big Dustin Pedroia hits setting up Okajima and papelbon to close out the series.

We then rushed down as close to the field as we could get to watch the Sox celebrate.

Red Sox celebrate1
Red Sox celebrate2
Red Sox celebrate3
Red Sox celebrate4

We saw Ortiz with the trophy,

More papi1
More papi2
and I must have heard “Shipping up to Boston” at least six more times when Papelbon came out. I’m pretty sure I exchanged more high fives that night than at any previous point in my lifetime. After things settled down Phil wanted to scour the stands for souvenirs and grabbed a bunch of soda cups that said ALCS on them. We also checked out what the view would have been like from our bleacher seats.
Phil found an unopened bag of kettle corn and found a nearly full, possibly untouched cup of beer and drank it.

We then took to the street to watch the ensuing conflict between dumb college students and Boston police in full riot gear including hippie stomping boots.

A bunch of people that it would be a good idea to sit in the middle of the street until the police started slowly driving their motorcycles into them. As we were dressed in suits we looked respectable and thus were allowed to travel back to our excellent parking spot minutes from the park undisturbed by authorities. At this point we were hungry and needed to sober up before we could drive home but almost everything was closed except for one pizza shop where I got a pepperoni and Phil got a steak and cheese.




here are some leftover pics: