Next Stop: Target Field for Royalty 7/15

Next Stop: Target Field

One week from tonight Royalty will finally be on "Target".

Tonight LeBron makes his announcement so I figured I would make ours too.

We will be seeing the Twins play the Chicago White Sox.

As a result, we will once again be able to say that Royalty is back in the unique company of those fellow baseball fans who can say they've been to every current major league ballpark.

It will be Major League Park number 56 for me.

Ironically the first time I went to the Metrodome to see the Twins back in August 1989 they played the White Sox as well.

This trip will start and finish at Target Field on Sunday July 18th. We'll be in the Show Me State on Friday & Saturday watching the Cardinals & the Royals play.

It's going to be a blast.

So be ready to check back for all the details and surprises that we may come across along the way.

Like the lottery, hey you never know.

Schedule for w/o 7/5

Here's the game plan for this week:

Tonight Reds at Mets 7:10PM

Tuesday Reds at Mets 7:10PM

Wednesday Reds at Mets 7:10PM

Friday Braves at Mets 7:10PM

Saturday Braves at Mets 4:10PM

Sunday Braves at Mets 1:10PM

Check back to see how it turned out.

Hope you enjoy your week too.

Yours truly,

 Prince Charming

Royalty w/o 6/28 in review

After resting up Monday night, I was all refreshed and ready to tackle the week ahead.

Here's how it turned out. Tuesday night I went to Yankee Stadium to see the Yankees take on the disappointing Seattle Mariners.

Cliff Lee who was acquired in the off season in a 3 way trade that involved Roy Halladay was scheduled to start the series opener. He dominated the Yankees last year when he pitched for the Cleveland Indians and later for the National League Champion Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series.

Now he's pitching for the Seattle Mariners. He was wearing yet another uniform and he owned the Yankees again. Lee threw a nine inning complete game to beat the Yankees, 7-4 to improve to his record to 7-3 this season. He going to be a free agent at the end of the season. I'm sure the Yankees will do whatever they can to sign him. Since they can't beat him they need to get him.

Wednesday night I returned to the Bronx. For the second night in a row the Mariners starting pitcher went to the distance to beat the Yankees. This time Felix Hernandez did the honors. Felix is a young star studded pitcher for the Mariners. He looked like the phenom that they signed to a long term contract on this night. He pitched a 2 hit shutout and he struck out 11 Yankees in the process.

The Mariners won, 7-0! With the win, Hernandez is 6-5. Thursday was an afternoon game.

Normally I would have been working but we were planning to hit the road so I took a vacation day instead.

I took off Friday as well as I could extend the holiday weekend.

Thursday before the Yankee game I rent a car from Avis for the weekend. I proceeded to drive to Yankee Stadium for the finale of the series.

The Yankees were trying to salvage a game in the series. After being shut down by Cliff Lee and King Felix as they call him, they were hoping to avoid being swept.

The Yankees behind their ace CC Sabathia led 2-0 going into the 8th inning. Then the Mariners finally broke through on CC. They wound up tying the game at 2.

In the bottom of the eighth, former Mariner Alex Rodriguez, A-Rod as he's known, came back to haunt his former team when he delivered a 2 run opposite field home run to right to give the Yankees the lead again at 4-2. The home run was the 595th of A-Rod's career.

Mariano Rivera came on to mow down the Mariners 1,2,3 in the 9th inning to preserve the victory for the Yankees and starter CC Sabathia who improved his record to 10-3.

After the game, the King and I and our friend Bryan Gilligan took a ride to Reading, Pennslyvania to see a minor league game.

I will continue with additional posts that will summarize and give details of the road trip that we took over the weekend to Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Washington D.C. and Bowie, Maryland.

Thank you for following along. Stay tuned.

Yours truly,

Prince Charming

Prince George's Stadium in Bowie, MD!

Prince George's Stadium 

Since the Nationals game went so long, we had very little time to get to Bowie on time.
Despite that fact, yours truly got us there barely in time for the first pitch at 6:10PM.

Like the game we saw in the afternoon, it went on and on.

The Bowie Bay Sox, the Double A affilate of the Baltimore Orioles played the Akron Aeros, the Cleveland Indians farm club. The Bay Sox won, 6-5 in 11 innings! The game lasted 3 hours and 37 minutes.

After the game, we drove home. I got home at 3:15AM after dropping off Bryan and the King.

Another successful trip was in the books.

I woke up and returned the car to Avis. I wound up driving 1,552 miles over the 4 days.

Afterwards I went to see my doctor, Dr. Mark Fierstein, for my annual exam. Everything checked out fine. He said to continue to enjoy the games. I told him make sure I'm in good health and I will.

Nationals Park on the 4th of July!

Nationals Park

We were in our nation's capital on the Fourth of July.

After getting some sleep in Somerset, Pennsylvania, it was time to go to Washington D.C.

Unfortunately the weather was going to be brutally hot so our good friend Peter Agnew from Baltimore decided he would pass on the opportunity to join us.

We were looking forward to seeing Peter. We'll catch up with him next time we're down South.

As they say the show must go on. Royalty braved the elements and watched the Mets play the Nationals.

After taking an 8-0 lead, the Mets had to hold on to win 9-5! The game took 3 hours and 49 minutes which barely gave us any margin for error since we were planning to go to Bowie, Maryland to see a minor league game luckily it was only 20 miles away.

Royalty catches up with Gio Gonzalez!

Gio Gonzalez

Since I've been going to games and traveling all over the country, I've gotten to see many great players play from a distance.

Furthermore, by attending minor league games as well I've seen a number of players climb the ladder to the big leagues too.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. In 2004, the Chicago White Sox drafted a 18 year kid out of high school near Miami, Florida with the 38th pick in the first round of the supplemental draft.

His name was Gio Gonzalez.

Since then he has bounced around a number of different organizations.

He was traded to the Phillies in 2005 in the Jim Thome trade.

In December 2006, he was traded back to the White Sox in the Freddy Garcia deal.

Then in January 2008, he was shipped out to Oakland in the Nick Swisher swap.

On April 26, 2006, I got to see Gio pitch for the first time. He was with the Reading Phillies at the time. The King & I were in Norwich, Connecticut that day. Gio pitched for Reading against the Connecticut Defenders as they were called back then. I recall Gio pitching a great game in front of us.

After following him through different baseball publications, I finally got to see Gio in person on May 15, 2009 in Sacramento, California.

Royalty went to the Bay area to see the Mets play the San Francisco Giants that weekend.

Since we try to pick up minor league ballparks whenever the opportunity presents itself, we decided to go to Sacramento on that Friday night to see the Rivercats, the Oakland A's Triple A farm team play.

Gio who pitched the night before was at a table on the concourse signing autographs.

I saw him so I went over and I got his autograph in my scorebook. I spoke to him about that visit to Norwich. Gio was a very friendly person. I told him I was from New York City. He said he was never there. I wished him the best of luck in his future and I told him I'll look for him down the road. He said and I quote "I need to stay positive". He's been practicing what he preaches.

As a result, he made his major league debut in August 2008 but he after a short stint he was sent back down to the minors.

The Oakland A's were visiting New York in July 2009. Ironically I went to the Friday and Sunday games. On Saturday July 25th, we went to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox play.

Gio was back in the majors and he pitched the Saturday game in his first visit to NYC. He pitched great at the New Yankee Stadium that day. He allowed one run in 6 and 2/3's innings.

Just like in Sacramento when I saw him, he pitched the day before.

This past weekend we went to Cleveland to see the A's play the Indians.

Amazingly Gio pitched Friday night. He threw 7 shutout innings against the Tribe.

We arrived Saturday afternoon in Cleveland with plenty of time to get in the ballpark to watch batting practice. I decided to go down to the rightfield side where the A's were taking BP. Afterwards, I got Gio's attention.

He came over to sign autographs for the fans. I told him I saw him in Sacramento last year. He remembered me. He was amazed by how much traveling I've done. I told him I go everywhere.

He let me take his picture though the sun was beaming down so it's hard to see him clearly.

Furthermore, I got him to sign my scorebook for this year as well. I mentioned to him how I missed his brilliant performance at Yankee Stadium last July because I was in Boston that day. I gave him my business card with my contact information.

I told him I recently started a blog and that I was going to write a post on him.

I told him I hope to see him again at Yankee Stadium at the end of August when the A's come back to the Bronx.

We'll wait and see.

In the meantime, I'm going to continue to follow Gio. I told him he finally found a home in Oakland. For his sake, I hope so he's traveled a rocky road to the Major Leagues thus far.

Time will tell.

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.

Spending quality time at Cracker Barrel!

Cracker Barrel

As they say breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

In my book, Cracker Barrel is the perfect way to start any day. Fortunately they serve breakfast all day.

Saturday we were in Cleveland to see the Indians play.

Beforehand, we arranged to meet a few good people who couldn't join us to see the Tribe. We arrived at Cracker Barrel in Brooklyn, Ohio around 1:15PM where we met up with our friend Bessanne and her son Dustin. They were so happy to see us and vice versa.

We got to catch on things and we all got to enjoy a quality meal as well.

I was told by my co-worker, Chantal Craib who tried Cracker Barrel a few months per my recommendation that I should have the pancakes. I took her advice.

Needless to say, I wasn't disappointed. When it comes to taste, royalty is second to none. We got the best of both worlds. We had great food and more importantly even better company.

I want to thank Bessanne and Dustin for making the time to join us. That was very nice of them. Hopefully we'll see them again the next time we visit Cleveland.

Maybe they'll surprise us and make the journey to NYC. They know royalty is here if and when they decide to come.

Royalty goes to the Steel City!

PNC Park

After returning to NYC Thursday night because the King had to go to work, it was off to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Friday morning.

We drove all day to get to Pittsburgh in order to see the Philadelphia Phillies take on the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park, America's best ballpark they claim.

In some regards, that may be true. PNC Park is a nice ballpark for the most part. The backdrop is second to none. As you can see in the picture the City of Pittsburgh with the bridge and the rivers in the background. It makes for a beautiful setting.

Unfortunately for the team it's not quite the same. The Pirates have been a bad team for a long time.

As for the game we saw, the result was different on this night. The Pirates won the game 2-0 behind former Yankee farmhand Ross Ohlendorf who picked up his first win of the season.

As for the Phillies, 47 year old Jamie Moyer was the hard luck loser. The game was nice and fast too. It took only 2 hours and 22 minutes to play.

More importantly, besides making our annual visit to PNC Park, we got to catch up with some friends that we know from Pittsburgh, Mike & Alicia Irr.

It's always great to make a road trip and see familiar faces along the way.

Mike & Alicia are big sports fans as well.

They have half season tickets for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

With the Penguins being so successful lately, they play in the playoffs that cuts into the baseball season so the Pirates take a backseat for Mike & Alicia. This game was only their second they've seen in person this year. Despite the horrible team they have, Mike & Alicia still show their support. It was great to see them again.

We look forward to meeting them again during the hockey season. The Penguins are opening a new arena in the Fall, the Consol Energy Center.

In addition, on New Year's Day the Penguins host the Washington Capitals at Heinz Field that Royalty is planning to attend. For that matter, Alicia is ready to go as well. Mike said and I "he's lukecold" about the thought. Hopefully mother nature will cooperate and it will be a day to remember for all of us.

Royalty visits Baseballtown!

Reading, Pennsylvania

After the Yankee game Thursday afternoon, we took a ride to Reading, Pennsylvania which was 150 miles from Yankee Stadium.

Reading is known as Baseballtown. It's also the home of the Reading Phillies, the Double A affiliate of the National League Champion Philadelphia Phillies.

They play at First Energy Stadium which opened in 1950.

It's a great place to see a baseball game.

In addition, many successful baseball players have played here on their way to the Major Leagues.

In recent memory, Ryan Howard the Phillies superstar first baseman spent some time right here in Reading.

As for the game we saw the Reading Phillies played the Altoona Curve who are the Pittsburgh Pirates farm team. Since both teams are affililated with the National League, the pitchers got to hit.

For the Curve, their pitcher Tim Alderson and Pirate prospect, hit a 2 run home run to help himself. The Curve went on to win the game, 7-1!