Canton OHIO! + Pits Pirates

08/19/2010

Saturday, August 7th 2010

The trip started off pretty rocky. Justin Went to check in on line Friday night when it showed our first flight was being delayed and we’d miss our connecting flight. After two separate phone calls and on line, we got an earlier flight of 5;50 instead of the original 7;30.

We got to the airport, had to go to the ticket window since our printer wasn’t working. So we had to wait in line to get to the window. We finally got that taken care of. Then it was through the security and then we had to rush to our gate. It wasn’t too long before we boarded the plane to Detroit. We found our flight to Cleveland and hung around for a little bit before our plane was to board. We got on and now I know from firsthand knowledge, from Detroit to Cleveland driving is only about 2 hours so I was not overly surprised when I heard the air time was only… 16 minutes, but I still had to laugh. It probably took 5 minutes to get up to the correct altitude, 5 minutes of flying and 5 minutes to land. We got to Cleveland about noon time.

We plan on having lunch with Nick, Justin’s bro in law, and his fiancée Laurie at a wing restaurant. This place had 44 different flavors of chicken wings on 7 levels of hotness.

Justin ordered chicken fingers and onion rings while Laurie Nick and I got the 40 wing platter with 7 different flavors. (we doubled up on a honey bbq)

Nick was talking about how he loves hot food. So he was thinking of ordering one of the flavors at the 6 level of hotness and he asked if he could sample it. The waitress brought out a toothpick and Nick tapped his tongue. At first he said it was hot but not too bad so then he sucked the rest off and that is when he started sweating and snots came running from his nose. Then he had to cry uncle and say that ok, that was hot. Justin asked if he could eat a chicken wing with that on it and he said no way.

(side note, the chicken wing place we went to in TX had a thing were if you could eat 25, 50, 75 100 wings, you got your name on the wall)

I had six of the wings that I ordered, 2 from each of the 3 flavors. Then Nick asked if I was ready for the hot one that he ordered. So I ate one and I definitely had hotter but didn’t like the flavor. I had others that Nick ordered including eating more of the ones I ordered. I had 18 wings in all and I didn’t want to tell anyone but I was still hungry. I could definitely eat 50 wings on a hungry day I was thinking.

In the middle of me sweating and Nick sweating and having his sinus cleared, we had plenty of conversations. We talked mostly about jobs and stuff we have done. Nick works for FORD in Detroit as an engineer or some type. I don’t know, he’s pretty high up there. Laurie is a DR. She was mostly talking about how busy she is. It was a nice lunch we then said our byes and Justin and I were off to our hotel to check in.

We checked in and rested till 4;30 when we got up to head to the NFL Hall of Fame Enshrinement. We got to the football stadium which the ceremony will be held. The people told us there was no more parking left there but they had a shuttle from the fare grounds a mile and half up the road. We got the grounds and parked then we were told that there was a bus for handicaps and elderly and so we got onto that bus and the bus brought up right to the front gate of the stadium where the regular bus dropped off about 8 blocks away. Before we went into the stadium, we walked to the collectable stand. I bought myself a Rice sf 80 t-shirt that has all his stats on the back and bought my friend Sidney a Smith Dallas 22 with his career stats on the back. I also bought a shot glass.

We went into the stadium and there was a little bit of confusion as we had handicap seats and they weren’t marked, it was just plastic chairs stacked up and some were in rows. We finally got two seats and sat down and Justin explained the stadium and where everyone would be standing and where the stage was. We were on the field. It was awesome.

There was a few former players walking around and, shaking hands, taking pictures and giving autographs. Some big dude came over to me and shook my hand, thanking me for coming. I found out it was former Cowboy Nate Newton. That’s cool.

Chris Berman was the MC.
There was 6 people being inducted but Jerry Rice was the only one I cared about. It was nice to say I was there for Emet Smith’s induction but it was all about Rice for me.

The former owner of the 49ers was the presenter for Rice. I was getting extra excited. When Rice took the stage, I felt like he was talking to me. He thanked the fans 4 separate times and talked about growing up and living with a fear and talked about where the fear came from and well, just wow.
It was like a great movie. It made me smile, laugh, be in awe and feel sad and sorry. All that in under 15 minutes. I felt like he was talking to me and me alone. Like I was the only one there. I was no where near as excited as I was for Nolan Ryan but I was very excited.

We wanted to break before the crowd did so we left about 5 minutes into Smith’s speech. It had been a long day and we had another long day coming up.
We went back to the hotel and crashed. I had combos and ice tea for dinner. I fell asleep pretty quickly after that.

Sunday august 8th 2010.

I woke up at 6;30 and got ready for the day. We headed done for the complimentary breakfast which was very good. They had a waffle maker but we didn’t have time to stand in the long line for that. Once we were done we were off to our second part of our trip.
HELLO! PITSBURG!

We listened to music most of the way. Justin told me about a movie that at the time he couldn’t think of the name. It was Elizabeth town. He said that it reminded him of the driving with the different sceneries and how the music, unlike the movie, didn’t match. We listened to a lot of sports talk and music along with the chatting. Good thing for GPS. No way I could be the co-pilot.

We got to Pittsburg about 11;30 so we had 2 hours before the game would begin.
We walked around the outside of the park. It was kids’ day and there was a line of about 300 kids out side waiting for autographs. Just out over the outfield was a river with a walking bridge that leads to the down town area. From the bridge, you could see inside the stadium so justin got a picture of the stadium. There was also some plaques on the side of the bridge that Justin read me. Near one of the gates to the stadium was a statue of Pittsburg Pirate’s great, Honus Wagner. I was wearing a Red Sox T-shirt and a guy says to his two sons “look, they’re wearing Red Sox shirts”. Justin thinks the guy was originally from MA. We had seen a bunch of people, well, considering it was Pittsburg.

We walked into the stadium about 12;30. Stadium #17 for me!
I wasn’t too hungry but I was hot and thirsty so I got a slush and Justin got a pretzel.

Our seats were in the 3rd deck behind home plate. We decided to sit in the handicap seats instead. We had a pretty good view and we were out of the 95 degree blazing sun down the right field line. A security guy came by and asked if they were our seats. Justin said they weren’t and told him where our seats were. They guy said that he isn’t suppose to let us sit there, but if someone comes along with tickets, we would have to move. … No one ended up coming so we got to sit there during the game.

I loved how many kids were at this game. Unlike Fenway and Yankee stadium where you either can afford a ticket or if you can, there is none to be had. They had kids go out onto the field with the players during introduction and after the game they’d invite all kids to run the bases. OH, and they were giving away Pirate’s plastic batting helmets when you walked in for the kids. I got one too.

They announced the starting line up and I only knew one player from the Pirates and 3 from the Rockies. That’s how bad these teams are.

The game was pretty one sided with the Rockies hitting more doubles than I can recall in a game. They had hit 7 in 6 innings.

We wanted to make it back to Canton by 7 at the latest because the Hall of Fame game would begin at 8pm. After the 6th inning we decided to leave. The Pirates scored some runs, it was 8-4 Rockies when we left.

The stadium was nice and the people were friendly. The food prices were reasonable considering it was a major league stadium.

We got back in the car and we were off to the 3rd and what would be final event for the weekend.

HELLO! HALL OF FAME GAME!

We were driving along, and about to leave Pennsylvania and Justin saw a sign on the highway that read “Welcome to West Virginia”
Neither of us are good at this geography but we didn’t think we were supposed to be passing through West Virginia. Justin pulled over and looked at the GPS map and saw that we were on the right track. The tippity top of West Virginia, wedges between the bottom of Ohio and Pennsylvania. We would only be passing through for 5 minutes. That’s all. The GPS was correct. However, that was a little scare there for a moment.

We finally got to the fare grounds parked and bored our shuttle.
We got to the stadium and headed right in. We had tickets in the end zone but pretty far back. Not that there was many rows in general.

Players came out onto the field to stretch and warm up. Justin said that Terrell Owens and Chad Ochosinco came out together and were the last ones. He saw Dez Bryant, but he was on the sideline since he was injured. He also saw a lot of other familiar names. The owner of the Cowboys was on the sideline before the game.

Since we had to wake up early the next day, we decided to watch only the first half and then go. At half time they were having a Cowboy’s 50th anniversary celebration and Justin and I were not interested.

The game itself was anticlimactic as the starters were only in for the first possession. However, on the first drive by the cowboys they had got a field goal that was kicked in our end zone. If there was not a net, the ball would have landed about 5 feet from me. At half time, the score was Dallas 6 Cincinnati 0. I guess the important thing was, no one got hurt.

At half time we headed back to the hotel and stopped at chilli’s on the way back for a late dinner. We continued on back to the hotel and went to the computer room to check in and print out our boarding passes. Justin had a bit of trouble with it but eventually got it straight. The only problem was, Justin originally thought our flight time was 12;30 but it was at noon time. So although we had planned on going to the hall at 8AM, but it was only opened at 8 for the Hall of Fame week end. It was opened regular time at 9. That would be cutting it too short so we didn’t have time to visit the Hall.

Monday

We woke up and had breakfast down stairs. We then got our stuff, checked out, got in the car and headed back to the airport.

We returned the car and had a hard time finding our gate. The delta section was not clearly marked well. After walking around the entire airport, we finally found it. We bored and had a layover in NY before getting home.

THE END

If you read the entire thing.
Than you should probably get up and get a glass of water.