Royalty 2010 Year in Review‏

What a year it was. Here's a brief summary of the highlights that took place for Royalty in 2010.

First and foremost, the totals of the sporting events I saw live.

Baseball 178
Football 35 (26 NFL and 9 College)
Basketball 67
Hockey 58

If you do the math that's 338 altogether.

In addition, I went to 77 different venues including 8 that I saw two different sports and/or teams in.

Furthermore, I went to 27 different states.

As for the King, he saw 418 total sporting events. 399 of which were professional if you will.

He saw 243 baseball games. It was the 15th straight year he has seen 230 or more.

Now for some of the January highlights:

The King and I started 2010 in "classic" fashion on New Year's Day. We went to Fenway Park to see the Winter Classic between the Boston Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers. We also went to Providence that night for a minor league hockey game too.

That Sunday we saw the last football game played at Giants Stadium. The Jets played the Cincinnati Bengals in prime time needing a win to make the playoffs. They got it.

The next weekend we went to Foxboro to see the Baltimore Ravens knock out the New England Patriots from the playoffs in the wild card round.

Over Martin Luther King weekend we wound on the West coast in Southern California. We saw a doubleheader at the Staples Center. The Kings and Clippers were home that Saturday. We were joined by our friend Jean Ann Harrison who drove up from San Diego to spend the day with us. We went to the ESPN Zone between games for dinner.

That Sunday the King and I went to San Diego to see the Chargers play the Jets in the divisional playoff game. We met our friend Jimmy Lieberfarb there. We all went out to dinner to celebrate the Jet victory.

Thanks to that Jet win, I got to make another unexpected trip. This time I went to Indianapolis with my brother-in-law, Scott who wanted to get a sample of royal treatment.

We wound up going to Cincinnati on Saturday night for a minor league hockey game. On Sunday morning we went to see the Indianapolis 500 per his request.

In the afternoon, we went to see the Jets play the Colts in the AFC Championship game. The Jets looked good for almost a half but they collapsed and lost to the Colts.

We closed out January with a trip to Philadelphia, Reading and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We saw the King's favorite hockey team in Pittsburgh, the Detroit Red Wings. It was our farewell to the Civic Arena aka the Igloo as well.

We were joined by our friend and fellow roadtripper, Sean MacDonald who was born and raised in Ottawa, Canada but he nows lives in Japan. Sean was visiting the States on a sports road trip. He was in Atlanta. He knew we were going to be in Pittsburgh that Sunday the 31st so he decided to meet up with us. It was his first and only visit to the Igloo. After the game, we drove him to the airport so he could get back to Atlanta to finish his journey.

During our brief gathering, Sean give me the final push I needed. When I returned home I decided to finally start my blog.

The rest is history as my blog has been drawing more attention as time goes on.

As a result, I've gotten to meet many other people who share a similar interest.

Please feel free to explore my expanding blog list. I just added a guy named Charles Stephenson who's on a mission to see every football gridiron in the NFL and in the NCAA Division 1. Please feel free to go to his site called "Field Goal" to read about his story.

Besides these other great roadtrippers, I got to see other familar faces home and away.

For example, we saw Mike and Alicia Irr in Pittsburgh in January and July.

In May, I met fellow roadtripper Andrew Van Cleve who lives up the block from Wrigley Field in Chicago.

In June, Bob Kelly who lives in Norfolk, Virginia came up to Citi Field for the first time. We meet his brother Dennis and his wife Sue in Japan in 2000 when we saw the Mets play the Cubs. In December, we saw him on our flight to Cincinnati. He was going home from a business trip.

In July, we saw Bessanne and her son Dustin in Cleveland who we also met in Japan.

Also in July we said hello to Target Field for the first time. We were joined by Sean MacDonald and his buddy Peter Sharp as well the Buffalo Boys, Andrew Kulyk and Peter Farrell aka USRT.

Our friend Steve Fekete, Bryan Gilligan and Lloyd Ramsland made the trip with us.

We also spent some time in the Show Me State and we met up with Don Steiger and his son Donnie who live in St. Louis.

In addition, we saw Dot and her Mom while we were in Kansas City. In late December we saw them again as they returned the favor by coming to the Pinstripe Bowl to see their Kansas State Wildcats.

In August, I had the privilege of meeting a family from a small town in Oregon called Burns. These people were visiting NYC for the very first time. Needless to say, we've been in touch ever since.

The Feist family sent me a beautiful Christmas that had pictures from their memorable visit.

There was Kevin along with his wife Toni and their three kids, Caleb, Austin and Carli. They also were joined by their in-laws from Nevada.

I got Kevin's attention because he was wearing an Oregon Ducks shirt.

Since I was planning to be at the Ducks first game over Labor Day weekend, I wanted to see if you knew what time that game was starting since it had still said TBA.

As a result, I wound up talking to him and his family the rest of the game. I took them back to their hotel in Midtown Manhattan since I had some rare time on my hands.

I wound up meeting his son Caleb who was with some friends at the Oregon Duck game when I went there.

Furthermore, Kevin told where I can park and take a shuttle bus to the game.

On my trip to the Northwest in September, I met up with Joey Kraft, who lives in Seattle. I met Joey back at the 2009 World Series in Philadelphia on Halloween night.

Joey and I saw a few Mariner games together and he showed me around the City too.

In October, I went to Denver to see the Jets and Wyoming. I was planning to meet up with fellow roadtripper, Danielle Granquist but unfortunately she told me she had a family commitment in Chicago that weekend.

I did see our friend Dick Harding at the Bronco game though.

In the middle of November we went up to Buffalo to see the Sabres and the Buffalo Boys. We had some other roadtrippers who came from Detroit for the weekend to see their Lions play the Bills. They were Jim Vegeant and his buddy Bob Kelly a different one from the one I mentioned earlier.

On that Sunday, we went to the Cleveland Browns game against the Jets where we see saw our friend Jimmy Lieberfarb's Cousin Ira. He introduced us to a guy named Rob Morris who has a sports talk show on the internet. He was blown away by the accomplishments of the King and I. For more details about his show, please check out his website that's listed on my blog list.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, our friend Lloyd Ramsland joined the King and I as we all got to go to the new hockey arena in Pittsburgh, the Consol Energy Center. We also met up with Mike and Alicia Irr who were at the game too since they have half season tickets for the Penguins.

In December before the Philadelphia Eagle game on a Thursday night, I met up with another roadtripper,  Kurt Smith who lives near Philadelphia for dinner. He recently started a business selling e-guides to different ballparks which will help you save money if and when you decide to take in a baseball game.

Please feel free to check out his website that's on my blog list for all the details.

A few days later over that weekend, the King and I went to Cincinnati to see Nippert Stadium, home of the Cincinnati Bearcats. We were planning to meet up with another road tripper, Jake Cain who couldn't make it due to a last minute change in plans.

Jake still was able to help us by hooking us up with his season tickets for the Bearcat game that he couldn't use. I wound up meeting his father who give me the tickets. Needless to say, we were very grateful.

If you want to find out more about Jake, please check out his website that's on my blog list.

In the middle of December, the King and I went down to Florida to see the new basketball arena for the Orlando Magic, the Amway Center. In addition, we got to spend some quality time with the King's brother Henry who put us up for the night.

Christmas weekend I was in Chicago and I met up with Andrew Van Cleve again and roadtripper Bob DeVries and his fiance Charlie Cahill.

On New Year's Eve, the King and I closed out 2010 in Columbus, Ohio watching the Blue Jackets play.

I look forward to reuniting with some of these people in 2011 as well as meeting up with others that I got in contact with during this past year. I hope to meet some more newcomers as well.

Thank you for reading along with my year in review. Without you, none of this would have been possible.

Yours truly,

Gary Herman