One second after this photo was taken Hamilton hit a ball one kajillion miles

Hello friends,

I’m lounging around in a post waffle bar haze with the boys while we figure out where we’re going today…pretty sure it’s Scottsdale in the morning for the Giants vs. Reds and then maybe Seattle vs. Milwaukee for the nightcap.  Yesterday was good times, perfect weather, lots of scoring including a bomb by Manny that landed about 20 feet from us and a home run from Josh Hamilton that was last seen somewhere over Mesa’s airspace.  We also hit a mini-milestone, arriving in time for the National Anthem before the Rangers game–first time yet.  Well done, JC.

Because all of the Satan Beelzebub t-shirts were sold out

Camelback was every bit as nice as I remembered it, only downside was that a) there were billions of people there (game set a record for Cactus League attendance)  b) Cubs fans are pasty.  Speaking of Cubs fans, what do you make of this lady who showed up wearing a Milton Bradley Mariners jersey to a Cubs game?  Why would somebody do something like that?  I wanted to make her my girlfriend but I got too nervous to ask her because she is so perfect.  If only I’d gotten to her 5 years and 80 pounds ago.  Alas.

Billingsley pitched for the Dodgers and sadly looked like Chad Billingsley.  What else did we see…um…Soriano, Chris Davis, Rickie Weeks and Corey Heart all swing at everything and miss often but Corey Heart did spend 15 minutes signing autographs for everybody who wanted one so that’s pretty cool.

I’m going to see if I can steal another waffle and sit in the pool for a little bit before we head out of here.  Big ups, suckers.

Sadly that's AM and not PM

You see that clock here?  That is when we got into Phoenix last night/this morning.  That is not a happy time to be alive, I don’t care how much fun you are having, when it’s 4:30 in the morning really you just want to go to bed.  Of course, when dealing with JC you tend to get everywhere much later than you’d planned and AZ was no exception.  J and I sat in the parking lot of Fat Pat & Oscar’s in Costa Mesa for 2 hours waiting for JC to pull his head out, which he finally did and graciously did without his shower/blow dry/hair coiffure before we hit the road.  And two truck stops, one drive through Quartzsite and six hours later, here we are.  Oh, the good news: Marriot has an all you can eat Waffle Bar.  The chances G Snide abuses this thing?  High.  Very high.  The line cannot be set high enough here.

On today’s docket–Dodgers and Cubs from Ho Ho Kam in the afternoon followed up with the Rangers and the Brewers.  It’s sunny, warm and I’m full of waffle.  Let’s get it going.  Or actually, let’s wake up JC.

J and I are headed out right after work to meet up with JC who will of course be completely unpacked, insist on taking a shower and then blow drying his hair and then getting gas all while mumbling something along the lines of, “Oh, really?  Today is when we’re doing this?  Shoot:man, I wish I’d known it was today:I have all these things I was going to do tomorrow:man:shoot, well, I mean:yeah, I guess I can still go:just let me get some stuff together:what sport are we watching again?”  Somewhere Jeff Greenfield is nodding silently towards his computer.

Expect updates and photos along the way, friends.

Mandatory Dress Code for the Greater Phoenix Area

Big boys weekend and with our google-doc based fantasy basketball draft taking up almost all of my free time I haven’t been able to blog it.  Until now.  That’s right, folks-it’s update time.  And sorry, I’m too much of an emotional wreck to write anything about the Dodgers…I just can’t do it.  I have opinions and I have thoughts, I just can’t put them down.  Oh, ok last thing: I don’t have DVR.  I have a VCR that I seriously don’t even know how to use anymore so if I don’t catch an event live I’m basically screwed but everybody that has DVR always tells me how amazing it is for sports, will change the way you live your life, etc etc etc.  So the two times I have ventured into the DVR-sporting world have both ended badly though, the first being Super Bowl XXXwhatever when we were watching the game on tape and thinking it was live and ended up missing the Patriot’s last second (and thankfully futile) drive against the Giants and then this last weekend where Game 3 of the Cards-Dodgers didn’t tape due to some mysto-error.  So whatever, that’s where I stand on DVR.

Now, back to last weekend-Greenie and I drove from his place in Irvine out to hellhole paradise on Earth Blythe to visit G Slim and take in the sight.  And yes, that was “sight” singular and not “sights”.  THESE PLACES ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. The highlight of Blythe was going on an extended “Deliverance” style float down the Colorado River which ended with me huddled around a cooler of beer in a rubber raft trying to fight off the shivers.  After a lovely (and that is not sarcastic, the place is good) dinner in Quartzsite at Grubstake (less scary at night it turns out) the three of us got our game faces on for the much anticipated Cardinals game the next day.  University of Phoenix Stadium is, just like everything else in Phoenix, impossibly new.  Since I forgot my camera I was forced to take some images with my phone which didn’t really do justice to the niceness of the environment or the number of food options available.  Our seats were fairly pure, unobstructed views and a nice little escape aisle right behind our seats so we could exit behind our aisle rather than have to fight through people to get to the concessions.

It's Nice

The game itself was solid…slow first half but as fantasy owners of both Larry Fitzgerald and Owen Daniels it was a points bonanza (sadly we were going against Andre Johnson who might be the best receiver in all of football, in fantasy at least).  I was all ready to complain about the parking situation there which essentially consists of parking (for free) at a high school about a mile and a half away and then being bussed to the Stadium Friday-Night-Lights-style but the total wait time round trip was maybe five minutes which is outstanding.  No traffic whatsoever either there or back (coming from the other direction might be a different story though) and a mere ten hours later I was comfortably back in my bed in Santa Barbara.  Obviously you can’t put a price on hanging out with two of your best friends for a weekend but if you were to do so you’d be looking at about $80 for the tickets, $50 in gas and then a few bucks for food as well (food is cheap in those parts).  Good times.

This weekend: Vegas for Silver’s bachelor party.  Any tales from the sports books will be passed along at will.  As I type this Ryan Howard has just gone deep to put Philly up 1-0.  Dammit all to hell.

**UPDATE**

Much rejoicing.