PIGS ~ The Baseball Elixir

Last week sucked!

I just deleted and replaced three paragraphs and saved 4 minutes of your time with three words. 

How stellar.

Work had me taxed last week.  I was beat.  If I wasn't running 24 hours I was out late just the same.  In itself that's fine because it all pay$ off in the end if you get my drift.  But I hate falling out of flow from reading up on every one's content and making my own posts.  Oh yea...I had to work Saturday also.  Yeah...I was a little cranky about that.  But the real source of frustration for me was my car.

I was at a point where I wanted to decide whether to spend money on this one to get it back up to snuff or trading it in for a new one.  I chose to pump-up my baby with a cash infusion and I bought her some tender loving care.  I like her.  And I don't feel like payments again. 

She just needed some things to get her like new again.

My frustration came from arguing with the mechanic about what he recommended and what I wanted.  They were two very different ideas.  What he wanted to do was going to earn me a visit right back to the shop in 6 months.  My plan was to never see him or him see my car ever again.

A third source of my frustration this year is in my lack of having attended hardly any games this season.  Yea...I'm just a little more than #$*@!;! upset over that one.  It's just been that kind of a year for me at work and what has suffered most is me attending games.

Then there was the matter of ..uh...Argentina getting pounded by the Germans.   : o

What was I to do? I channeled all my sources of annoyance last week into action and did what must have been done in that situation.  That's right; ROAD TRIP!

But before I get to that, there was the matter of a Hot Dog Eating Contest on Sunday which took place a few minutes from my house.  I had planned on being there this year because I really didn't make any plans to leave the city.  I went Saturday morning and snapped a few pictures at Nathan's as they prepared the sight for the next day's festivities.  Not only was I not there Sunday, I didn't even watch it on TV.

But...I'd like to wish everyone a belated Happy Fourth of July. 
I hope America's Birthday was a blast for everyone.

So what happened? I got my car back and she felt Nice!  I was done with work Saturday by 3:30pm.  My son is hanging out on the Jersey Shore this week.  There was just me and my wife left pondering the next 2 1/2 days.  More in anger than anything else I said I was getting in the car and I was going to drive far away and find a baseball game somewhere.  Of course that meant her too.  But when I get like that she knows I'm serious and she just asked where did I have in mind.

I said Pawtucket because I haven't been there yet.  She said Baltimore (her favorite).  I said keep it within 100 miles for this trip.  I said Binghampton.  She said...uh No!  She said Connecticut.  I said for that I'm going straight through to Pawtucket.  She said...OK Fine!  I said~Fine!

I looked at the schedules and guess what?  Pawtucket was away Sunday.  But guess what?  They were in Allentown PENN, playing the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs!  We both looked at each other and said ALLENTOWN?

Oink   Oink  Oink

You guessed it!  Allentown here we come!

I checked for tickets on the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs website. 
Main seating was sold out but I got a pair of general admission tickets.

That meant little to me because I usually find myself roaming around if I'm in a new place anyway.  I like checking out every nook and cranny of a new park and I take a picture of everything.

A couple of minutes later I booked a room for 2 nights on Expedia.

We left the house 10:30pm Saturday night and were in Allentown by midnight without a hint of traffic anywhere.

Let me wrap this up with the short version.  I wanted to give the car a good driving.  I did just that.  I'm happy.  I felt all of my V8 again.  Saturday night we still managed to get some crab cakes at 1a.m. across from the hotel.  My wife was thrilled with that.  Like I said no traffic what so ever.  The next morning breakfast was outstanding.  Blah blah...We drove out to the Outlets and did some shopping.  We ate lunch.  Back at the hotel we took a nap and we were at the park by 5:30pm.  It was a sizzling 97 degrees at game time but without any humidity to speak of, I never broke a sweat once all day.

The game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs (AAA ~ Phillies) featured a rehab start by J.A. Happ (PHILA) for Lehigh Valley and numerous sons of former big leaguers making their way through their respective systems.  The game was very enjoyable and entertaining, the weather was tolerable, my wife and I were having a good time, The Forth of July Fireworks Show was a smash, we got ourselves a good night's sleep after a long day, we were in the car heading home Monday morning by 10:30 and arrived home by noon without so much as a hint of traffic again......

All of which made for, I dare say, a perfect way to end the Holiday Weekend
(as perfect goes).

Road Trips; the Baseball Elixir
"fixer of frustrations"

Enjoy the pics of the game:
AAA Minor League Baseball
Pawtucket Red Sox @ Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs
Coca-Cola Park
Lehigh Valley/Allentown, Pennsylvania
Sunday  JULY 4, 2010

Front view, Coca-Cola Park

East Gate

Game Program

Adam Mills warms-up for his Pawtucket start.

Iron Pigs pre-game warm-up.

Pre-game meeting at home plate.

PLAYING of our NATIONAL ANTHEM

FIRST PITCH

Iron Pig starter JA Happ makes his first pitch.

different views

Iron Pigs have a meeting on the mound.

Dusk; time for the bullpens to start getting busy.

Night falls over Lehigh Valley

One final look around and...

Pawtucket down to their last pitch...

...and this game went final.

****EXTRA INNINGS****

Jerseys at the game.

By the time the sun set on Monday my world was a much happier place.

Mike.BTB

http://thebrooklyntrolleyblogger.blogspot.com/

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