Royalty Tours USA

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Royalty w/o 7/4 in review

"Royal" view at Fenway Park
Monday the King and I spent the Fourth of July in America's Most Beloved Ballpark in America, Fenway Park in Boston.

The Boston Red Sox played the Toronto Blue Jays in an afternoon game that started at 1:35PM. It was the King's 181st game he has attended there. As for me, it was my 93rd game in person in the that old ballyard.

That morning I went to Avis and I rented a car for the day. I went to pick up the King and we were on our way. We arrived within walking distance of Fenway Park around 12:45PM. We parked on the street for free. We did pass a parking lot that wasn't far from where we wound up parking for $40.

We proceeded to take the short walk over to Fenway. Before we went inside, we stopped off at our favorite street vendor whose located right outside the left field gate, the Sausage Connection.

Thankfully we had a beautiful weather wise. As a result, we got to see Mama who was there working with her son Harry. The King and I had a Sausage and a Coke. Needless to say, it was excellent as usual.

We said goodbye to them and we headed into the ballpark.

We got ourselves situated and we got a "royal" view from Section 23 just in front of the Grandstand. We saw a wild baseball game unfold in front of our very eyes. The Blue Jays took a 7-0 lead early on and they had to hold on for dear life as they beat the Red Sox, 9-7.

After the game, we had planned to go to Lowell, Massachusetts to see a minor league baseball game. Quite amazingly, mother nature decided to ruin that opportunity for us. It didn't rain for a long time but it did do enough damage that made the field unplayable when we arrived there. The grounds crew tried their best to fix up the field but they couldn't. So they decided to cancel the game.

So we wound up having head home earlier than expected.

Being that I had to get up early the next morning it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

Tuesday & Wednesday night I went home after work to rest up since the Mets & Yankees were both away due to the quirky baseball schedule this season.

Thursday night I went back to the Bronx as the road to 3K continued for Yankee Captain Derek Jeter.

He was hurt for a few weeks but came back and he joined the Yankees in Cleveland and played in the three games there. He needed 6 hits going in. He got 3 more there.

With that being said, he came back to the Bronx needing three more hits to reach this amazing milestone.
He had four games to do it at home before the All-Star Break.

Thursday night he didn't waste time getting his first hit in his very first at bat of the game. That was hit number 2,998 in his career. He didn't get another hit the rest of the night though. The Yankees lost to their divsion rival, the Tampa Bay Rays, 5-1.

We were joined by our friend Phil Butleman who was hoping to see history in person. Apparently it wasn't meant to be on this night.

Friday after work I headed up to the Bronx. Mother nature was at it again. As I went to the subway it was raining. I didn't think it was suppose to rain all night though so I thought they would eventually play.

On my way up to the Bronx, my pal Vincent Ascanio wrote me a message saying the game was cancelled. That was shortly before 6PM.

I had to meet the King anyway because he rented a car for the week and he parked it by the Stadium early so he could get a free spot on the street.

We decided to go to Donovan's Pub earlier than planned.

That's the way it goes. We can't control the weather. Given the circumstances, it was odd that the Yankees called the game off so early especially since it was Friday night. When Jeter broke the Yankee record for most hits as a Yankee, it rained that Friday night too. They waited a few hours and they wound up playing the game.

Over the years, the Yankees have had a reputation of calling games off when it wasn't even raining. It makes you wonder what their motives really were this time around.

I knew some people who had tickets for the game also. Since they decided to make this game up when the Rays return in September, those people got the shaft.

I feel bad for them but as they say and I quote "it's always buyer beware." Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

I had tickets for the games over the weekend so if indeed it was going to happen in the Bronx, the King and I would be there for it.

Stay tuned for the special post that we'll tell you what happened over the weekend.

In addition, I will be doing a special post about a roadtripper who does his homework to save other people lots of money when they go to a baseball game. Check back to find out how he does it.

Thank you for reading and following along.

Yours truly,

Gary Herman

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