Baseball Roadtrip - Day 8

Day 8 is our final game....Indians vs. Tigers

We started the day by waking up to find out our a/c unit leaked all night and caused the carpet near the unit to be wet....guess where I left the mini netbook charging last night? Luckily everything still works fine. On the way out of the hotel we told the front desk the issue and they said they'd fix it. (more on that later)

So what would a day on this trip be without getting lost? Somehow I missed my turn to get on Middlebelt and we had to break out Maggie to help save the day. This is definitely a situation where MPB would have been useful. We managed to find Villa Bakery and Mike had his first ever Pizza bread, which he liked (we are going back tomorrow morning before leaving town.) We left there and headed to Kohls to get some Tigers/Michigan gear. It was at this point that Mike told me to turn off the Matchbox 20 cd he had bought the day before because it was annoying him. It seems Matchbox 20 had the same effect on him it does everyone else.

We then headed to Wal-Mart after and this is where Mike had a gay or not gay moment. As we were standing in the checkout line, I caught him singing 3am (by Matchbox 20) while going into a full pitching windup and delivery. So I ask you gay or not gay?

After that we headed to Ann Arbor where we went to buy some U of M gear for Brooklyn (and me.) We found some good things for both of us. On the way back to the car, Mike made us stop at an ice cream shop so he could get a caramel apple he had seen in the window as we initially walked by. Turned out to be the best moment of the trip....because this shop sells SUPERMAN ice cream, my absolute favorite ice cream. It is one of those things I only find in Michigan, and the place I used to get it at closed a few years ago, so I had no clue where to get it. It was awesome.

After we left there, we had our 5 second Cindy is in a bad mood moment of the day. We were on I-94 heading from Ann Arbor to Detroit (but on the way we would be passing by the hotel.) Mike says, "Cindy do you have the tickets to the game with you?" In true Marco fashion she says "no." Mike starts to get concerned and a few minutes later Cindy says "they are at will call." So she knew all along where they were, but decided to shatter the self-esteem of the extremely fragile Metro Mike.

We arranged to meet up with my cousin Theresa and her husband James at 5pm at the Hockeytown Cafe. We got to downtown Detroit at 3:30 and decided to park in the Ford Field garage (the sign said $4 and it is next door to Comerica Park.) So we took our parking ticket, parked, walked in Ford Field to check it out, and then headed down to the first floor of the parking garage. (the sign now said $10 for parking, but as we suspected you pay the $10 as you enter; so when we left later that night after the game we had no reason to pay the $4 or $10 since the gates were open in the garage.....so basically we got free parking!) As we were headed to the Hockeytown Cafe, Mike spotted the Greektown Casino and he begged us to let him go. He told us how much money he would win at craps, he even said he would buy us jerseys with the profits. In case you haven't heard yet Mike lost $50 in 15 minutes. And the only time he won money was when he betted against himself, on accident. We left there and headed to Hockeytown Cafe. As we were walking the strap on my crocs broke; and we found out that Cindy giggles like a little kid when she hears the term "croc strap." We met my cousin at the restaurant and had a good pre-game dinner and met their 6 month old Alex. We finished dinner and walked across the street to the game.

Comerica Park is my home away from home, so the stadium was awesome. The game was a pitching duel and lasted about 2 hours 45 minutes, not bad for an American League game. I was impressed with the Mexecutioner's Edwin Jackson's pitching performance, although I was sad to see the Backyard Militia's Cliff Lee also get a quality start. Our seats were in the small wedge in centerfield, but we were in the middle of the row, Mike felt right at home because he was in the middle of a "man sandwich," but after a few innings I decided we needed to walk the stadium and watch the rest of the game from standing room only sections. As for food, Mike and I each had a pretzel and Cindy an elephant ear. We bought some pink Tigers outfits for Brooklyn, but failed in our attempt to find an Edwin Jackson away jersey for me (in fact for some reason they dont sell EJ jerseys at the stadium.) The Tigers won 5-1, so all is good.

When we got back to the hotel tonight, the room was warm because the a/c was turned off when they "repaired" it. The room smelled like mildew and so Cindy called to complain; as she was complaining the a/c unit started sparking and it smelled like a fireworks show had just happened. They finally agreed to switch us rooms but instead of a room with 2 double beds, they gave us a king with a foldout. So Mike is on the foldout (we convinced him the springs would be therapeutic for his back.)

So that is all for this trip, look for my next blog when we resume traveling in 18 years from this October.