Royalty meets up with Rick Morris of the FDH Lounge in Cleveland, Ohio in the middle of May!‏

On Saturday, May 17th I woke up early so I could go to Avis to pick up a car rental for the weekend. I wound up getting a Ford Focus since that's all they had left. I drove it back home so I could pick up the King as we drove all day to go to Cleveland, Ohio. We stopped off at the rest area in Pennsylvania just past the Delaware Water Gap just before 1PM. Luckily we got there at the right time. When we came out of the rest room, the line was a mile long. A few buses pulled in for a pit stop on their way to Yankee Stadium. The Yankees were playing the Pirates that day at 4:05PM. There was a mixture of Yankee & Pirate fans. As I say, timing is everything. I was beside myself but I was all smiles when I got there. 

Reason to smile

We got back in the car ‎& I drove to Brookville, PA where we got gas & made to order food at Sheetz around 3:45PM. I wound up eating my chicken fingers & mozzarella sticks in the car as we continued on to Cleveland. We arrived there shortly after 6PM. I arranged to meet up with our pal Rick Morris of the FDH Lounge outside Progressive Field, home of the Indians by the Bob Feller statue. I called him when I was 20 miles from downtown. He told me he was there already. He said he was going to stop off at a local bar so he could watch the Preakness. I told him I'll see him by the statue when he got done. We wound up meeting up around 6:30PM. We had bought some cheap tickets in advance so we were able to head right inside once we met up. We wound up meeting the King who was inside already in section 554 upstairs behind home plate. 

Me by Bob Feller statue

View from section 554

As for the game we saw, the Indians were hosting the Oakland Athletics on this night. Former Met & Indian Scott Kazmir was starting for the A's. Thanks to home plate umpire Jerry Layne he wasn't long for the night. He wound up getting ejected for complaining about the strikeout zone or the lack thereof. He lasted just one ‎& a third innings. He gave up a run on a wild pitch while walking three & striking out one. However he got off the hook for the loss thanks to his teammate, third baseman Josh Donaldson who tied the game at one with a run scoring single in the top of the third inning which was followed by a two run homer by first baseman Brandon Moss which gave the A's a 3-1 lead. The Tribe got a run back in the bottom of the sixth inning thanks to a sacrifice fly by shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera to make it a 3-2 game. The Athletics wound up putting the game away with three more runs in the top of the seventh inning when Josh Donaldson & Brandon Moss struck again. This time Donaldson delivered a two run triple & Moss added a run scoring double to give the A's a 6-2 victory. Relief pitcher Dan Otero threw three & two thirds of shutout relief to earn the win. Josh Tomlin who started for the Indians suffered the loss despite getting a quality start as he went six innings allowing three earned runs. The bullpen let it slip away once he came out. 

Regardless of the outcome, it was great to spend some quality time with our pal Rick Morris who's a big fan of the King & I. I want to thank him for always making time to join us when we come to visit. 

After we said our goodbyes to him, we walked back to the car ‎& we drove 200 miles to Somerset, PA where we spent the night at Days Inn.

Stay tuned for another special post that will recap how we spent that Sunday.

Thank you for reading & following along.

Yours truly,

Gary Herman

Joey Kraft joins me again at Safeco Field for the weekend finale!

Me & Joey Kraft

Sunday morning, I checked out of Super 8 in Wilsonville, Oregon and I drove back up I-205 to I-5 North to Seattle to go back to Safeco Field to see the Mariners play the Indians at 1:10PM.

I called my buddy Joey Kraft a few times to give him a progress report.

He told me he scored some free tickets for us.

He decided to exchange the four tickets he got so we could upgrade ourselves to some great lower level seats behind home plate.

We wound up 21 rows up from the field.

A similar view at Yankee Stadium would have cost a fortune not the case in Seattle though.

It worked out beautifully especially since Mariners' ace Felix Hernandez was pitching.

I saw him pitch twice against the Yankees this year at Yankee Stadium. He shut them out both times. One was a complete game and the other was 8 shutout innings of domination.

With that being said, I had high hopes that Felix would pitch well again.

Unlike most good pitchers I see pitch, Felix lived up to the hype again.

This time he shutout the Indians for 8 innings allowing just 4 hits and striking out 9.

The Mariners cruised to a 3-0 victory.

During the game, a young man in front of us got a foul ball that caromed over from the next section. I just missed it.

After the game, Joey went down to the tunnel where the umpires go to the clubhouse and he saw home plate umpire Jerry Layne and he wound up getting the game ball which he decided to give to me.

That was a very nice gesture on his part.

In addition, during the game we met a few guys from the Anaheim, California area. They were Kevin Gallagher Senior & Junior.

This father & son combo said they go to a new ballpark every year. This year happened to be Safeco Field.

They made a great choice.

Kevin Senior told me he has season tickets for the Angels just 5 rows from the on deck circle.

When I mentioned I was from NYC he said his wife is from Brooklyn. It's a small world he said.

He told me he's originally from Chicago on the South Side.

He grew up a big White Sox fan.

We enjoyed each other's company during the game.

Afterwards, we exchanged contact information.

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

As for Joey & I, we went to the waterfront area again near Puget Sound to have a farewell dinner at Cutter's Bayhouse.

After that, Joey went home and I headed back to the airport to make it home temporarily.

I returned the car to Alamo and I proceeded to catch my US Airways flight to Philadelphia then to NY LaGuardia airport.

I drove 731 miles over the 4 days.

My time in the Great Northwest was well spent.

Thank you for reading and following along.

Yours truly,

Gary Herman