Florida Marlins, Tampa Bay Devil Rays ... baseball games and then some!

I've been MIA for awhile, but that is certainly not because there hasn't been anything exciting going on in my life. I've had some computer issues (no internet) ... so here is the recap (note I did not say quick recap) of my latest trip:

The first weekend of May, Jenny and I took another baseball trip to Florida. It was Nicole's great idea, but unfortunately, she had to cancel at the last minute - which is too bad because we had a great time! Jenny and I flew out on Friday morning into Fort Lauderdale. That's the first time I've been to that airport and frankly, could very well be the last and I wouldn't shed a tear. The carpet was this funky design that I think was supposed to be water on some parts and a beach on others. Interesting. I have been through a lot of airports and this one had the smallest baggage claim turn-styles that I have ever seen! Not to mention the fact that even though there were a ton of them, there just so happened to be four flights worth of luggage on ours when none of the others were even turned on. Go figure! However, I won't complain too much because both of us left the airport with our luggage - which is more than can be said for some of my recent travels!

From there we marched over to Alamo to pick up our rental - a hot little black Toyota Corolla, which we later learned had no power. But it sure did get great gas mileage, and that's all you can ask for from a rental car! We checked into our hotel, and decided to hit the pool for the afternoon before we headed down to Miami. I don't know why after 27 years of having sunburns I didn't think to put sunscreen on, but I didn't ... so my face, chest, and front of my legs looked oh-so-hot by the time we left the pool (which wasn't actually ALL that much later).

Miami was on the docket for the early evening - we were going to hit South Beach and see all the 'famous' sights and find a hip little spot for dinner. Well South Beach wasn't exactly all that easy to find, even with my GPS. We drove around and around and almost gave up, but we did eventually find it. The problem is that Miami drivers are nuts - people say Utah drivers are bad ... well, let me correct you: Florida drivers are horrible!! I think they should enforce the minimum speed limit rather than the maximum there, because no one came close to reaching that! Just this morning, I was validated in my thinking about Miami drivers - "Survey finds Miami worst road rage city" headlines on cnn.com ... enough said!!

Anyway, we were both tired and hungry by this point, so we were kind of irritable (go figure!) and just wanted to find a place to park so we could get out and (a) stretch our legs, (b) eat dinner, and (c) not be there too long so we could get to the game! We did see South Beach from the road, however, we never really got out to take a picture or really get a good look at it. But from the looks of Miami, I don't really think we missed out on all that much! Talk about trashy...

We did finally find a great parking spot, thanks to the nice man who motioned to us that the car behind him was leaving, and then went to a little Mexican restaurant for dinner. It was perfect - we sat outside in the courtyard and ordered our food - that part wasn't so perfect. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't awful by any means, but it just wasn't anything special. You'd think that Miami would have good Mexican food, but not so much. The highlight of that experience though was one of the waiters - Jenny left for a minute and he came walking by and as he walked by me said "wow you have beautiful eyes" and kept walking. ha ha Then every time he would walk past me, he would stare awkwardly at me for a few seconds with this big grin on his face until he realized that he was staring and then he'd look away. It happened a few time throughout our dinner, and then he muttered something under his breath as we left. Too funny.

The highlight of Miami: Highway A1A - Beachfront Avenue. I am not sure it is really called that, but it is in "Ice Ice Baby" - which, don't you worry, we listened to on my ipod as we were driving down it - just to make my brothers proud ;) Thank goodness for camera phones to make this picture possible - however, I can't really say that I think the song is all that accurate a depiction of Miami...

We made it out of Miami in good time and headed back up to Dolphin Stadium for the Marlins-Padres game. Dolphin Stadium isn't much to look at, but we were pleasantly surprised when we weren't even charged for parking - and we were able to park right in front of the stadium! Not too bad. The game was good - and the Marlins won, despite Greg Maddux (former Braves pitcher) on the mound for the Padres. Its always fun for me to watch ex-Braves play!

Some observations about Dolphin Stadium: of course it is also a football stadium (the Miami Dolphins) so the seats are all bright orange and you can tell it was built for football, but the grass was beautifully mowed and it was quite a nice field. The DJ was excellent - he played great songs when all the players took the plate. The strangest thing though was the pictures of each player that they had on the jumbotron when they were up to bat - they had doghouses in them and then a variety of dogs. I did not get that at all. Its not like their mascot is or has anything to do with dogs, so that was all very confusing to us. The fans were pretty mild though and we had a good time - once we moved seats away from the loud girl who spent the entire game telling her date about the letter she was writing to the pastor of her congregation since she can't worship how she wants to if she is expected to be an engineer while she's at church ... interesting people in southern Florida!! AND, the Marlins had cheerleaders - yes, actual go, fight, win, pom-pom tossing, slutty (yes they were definitely dressed like you'd think they would be in Miami) cheerleaders dancing on top of the dugout. I have never seen cheerleaders at a MLB game - nor do I want to ever again!!

We got up early Saturday morning and hit the road - to Alligator Alley (Highway 75) to make our trek across the state to Tampa. Jenny saw a story on CNN a couple weeks ago about an alligator attacking a car that stopped on the side of the road - eating their tire - so we felt a little cheated that we didn't see any alligators on the road, or in the swamps that line the roads. We did see lots of fisherman though, if that counts for anything!

Once we got to Tampa, we decided to hit the beach for the afternoon. There are really no beaches on the Tampa side, so we crossed the bridge and headed to St. Petersburg, where we went to Madeira Beach. I was very smart this time - I put sunscreen on - on the parts of myself that had burned the previous day. Not so much on the rest though ... so yeah I now have some awesome racing stripes on my legs. ha ha

Back to the hotel we went (which was just down the street from Raymond James Stadium where the Buccaneers play - and across the street from the stupid Yankees 'Legends Field' - where they have spring training and a single-A farm club plays the rest of the season), to prepare for the next baseball game. We decided to grab some dinner beforehand - and then discovered that it was Prom night, so a lot of restaurants were out. We tried to find a good hole-in-the-wall Cuban place, but everything looked too scary for us to try. And then we found it - the perfect place - Jimbo's Pit BBQ, a local highlight that has been there for 35+ years. That hit the spot! And then it was off to St. Petersburg for the game.

About a month ago, I discovered that the game we were going to had a promotion giveaway for Cinco de Mayo - Tampa Bay Devil Rays Sombreros. We wanted those hats - we needed those hats - so we made sure to get to the game extra early. We pulled into the parking lot (which again, we did not have to pay for - these Florida baseball stadiums know how to do it!) and picked up our tickets to go through the gates at Tropicana Field a full 45 minutes before game time ... and guess what? The hats were already gone. WHAT?!? There couldn't have been 10,000 people there already ... but to no avail, they were gone. We walked to our seats and sat there for the duration before the game started - we were really bugged about the hats! Was it really so much to ask for? We didn't think so, but apparently it wasn't meant to be. The game was actually pretty boring. Tropicana Field looks like a spaceship from the outside - it is completely enclosed. We thought for a few minutes that the roof was retractable, but it wasn't. I guess its always a nice 72 degrees for the Devil Rays though!

We spent the first 8 innings of the game annoyed about the hats, and making fun of Tampa Bay because they kept making stupid mistakes - like the batter hits the ball to the pitcher, who missed it, but the first baseman got to it ... oh but there was no one covering first, so the runner is safe. Isn't that one of the first things you learn in little league? Always cover the bases ... apparently not! Though I do not think there were any actual errors charged to the Devil Rays, it was sort of a comedy of errors for us watching! We spent quite a bit of other time trying to figure out who around us would be drunk enough by the end of the game that we could steal their hats without them either knowing (or caring). There were a couple good candidates a few rows in front of us, but we weren't quite sure how we'd pull that one off. Our favorite was the cute little man ahead of us - he was the total package - a Dixieland band t-shirt, his grandpa hat, headphones with which he was listening to the game on the radio, and his scorebook that he kept track of every single play in the game! How cute is that?

In the bottom of the 8th, Jenny spotted Rusty - the promotional guy who looks like Ryan Seacrest's twin (highlighted hair and everything) that goes around to the crowd between innings and plays all the cheesy games - standing in the section next to us. She told me that I needed to go talk to him, tell him our story, and get him to get sombreros for us. She wouldn't come with me, so I got up and walked over and stood behind him, until the Devil Rays hit a home run to tie the game. Of course the fans were going wild, Rusty being among them. He turned around to yell something to me and give me a high five, and that's when I made my move. He asked what my name was, and I told him - and then I proceeded to tell him that my friend and I came all the way from Virginia for this game, and when we got here, all the hats were gone. After that sob story (ha ha) I asked him if he could get them for us (with a wink and a smile of course). He asked where we were sitting, so I pointed up to where Jenny was and waved. He said that he couldn't promise anything, but that he would do everything in his power to get those hats for us. Ok Rusty, thanks. Did I really think he would pull through? Hmm, that remained to be determined. We chatted for a minute more, and then I went back to my seat.

By this time, the game was in extra innings. It was anyone's game, and it could end at any time. Jenny and I spent the next inning or two cheering very loudly (for the first time in the game) for the Devil Rays - partly because the crowd was really getting into it by this time, but mostly because we wanted Rusty to see that we really were fans. He stayed in that section and didn't really look like he was doing a whole lot. At one point he went down with some fans in the section below us and they were all yelling and cheering for the camera, and then he left. We were not feeling so optimistic about our hats at this point, and started looking for the drunk unsuspecting fans again.

Then, all of a sudden, Jenny says "there he is, let's go!" - and there was Rusty, motioning for us to come down to see him. So down we went - and there he was, with 2 Sombreros in hand. Hooray! There was a man standing there that said "hey can you get one of those for me too?" and Rusty promptly answered "are you as cute as these two girls?" ha ha I happened to have my camera in my hands, so we put the hats on and took a picture with them, and then spent the rest of the inning talking to Rusty there. We couldn't just take the hats and run. He was very impressed when we told him we were visiting all the baseball stadiums and we spent quite a bit of time talking about which ones we'd been to, etc. Then he asked us if we were in college ... we laughed ... um, no, we graduated ... "from high school?" he said ... WHAT? Seriously, do we really look THAT young? I, for one, graduated from college 5 years ago! I mean sure, it is flattering to look younger than you really are, but THAT much younger - hmm, I'm not really quite sure how I feel about that one! He did tell us a couple hot spots of Tampa after he realized that we were old enough to hit the bars...

The Devil Rays ended up winning in 12 innings - so it turned out to be a perfect night. The first 8 innings were boring, but the last 4 were great! The home team won, we saw another baseball stadium, and I flirted my way to souvineer sombreros for us (good to know those flirting skills really CAN pay off!) :) We're not really sure what we'll do with the hats now ... right now it is sitting on my chest of drawers - but after all the hard work I did to get it, and carrying them back on the airplane, we're not about to throw them away!

Since I had done quite a good job at sunburning the front of my body at the pool on Friday and the back of myself at the beach on Saturday, our plan to go back to the beach on Sunday after church didn't work out so well. We went to the Pier in St. Petersburg instead. We took a little boat ride on an electric boat around the harbor, walked around, and then there wasn't a whole lot left to do ... so we, embarrassingly enough, ended up going to see Spiderman 3 (which was super weird - but air conditioned!) until we headed back to Sonic (which was unfortunately sandwiched between a few of Tampa's MANY strip clubs) for a late lunch before going to the airport to head back home. Yes, people looked at us funny with our sombreros in the airport, and yes, we were wearing them when we were picked up that night!

That about sums it up (finally) - another weekend, 2 more baseball stadiums ... #17 and #18 of the 30 active ballparks on my quest to visit every stadium (#23 & #24 if you count the ones that aren't being used anymore) you can't really beat that in my book. AND, these two actually mark my completion of both the NL and AL East division stadiums! :)