Royalty sees the Tribe!

Progressive Field

Saturday night we went to Progressive Field which used to be called Jacobs Field. It's located right in downtown Cleveland.

We saw the Oakland Athletics play the Cleveland Indians.

We got into the ballpark early to watch batting practice.

More importantly, with the Athletics in town, I wanted to go to see if I could say hello to A's starting pitcher, Gio Gonzalez who pitched a great game on Friday night. Mission accomplished.

As for Gio, I'm going to do a separate post about him when I get a chance.

As for the game we saw, the Indians won a thriller, 5-4 in 10 innings. Matt LaPorta got the game winning hit in the tenth inning.

Royalty did have company again. First our friend and fellow roadtripper Pat Gorman, who's from New York was there.

In addition, during the game we got a surprise visit from a guy we met initially in Japan when we saw the Mets play the Cubs in Tokyo in 2000.

His name is Mr. Ballpark as he calls himself.

Fellow roadtripper, Andrew Van Cleve had met him on September 23, 2000 in Milwaukee when he saw a doubleheader at old County Stadium.

Mr. Ballpark's company was a pleasant surprise.

I did tell him we were coming but it sounded like he couldn't join us.

When it comes to seeing royalty in person, he always makes time to see us. With being said, we were very grateful. We got to talk and revisit our past adventures together which made for a fun filled evening.

Hopefully we'll cross paths again in the near future.