DLBT Resumes!!!

 Following a 2-year hiatus due to Covid, the DLBT finally resumed in 2022. It was pretty simple. We originally were just doing San Diego and Anaheim, but the Dodgers had one final afternoon game on a Wednesday so it worked out perfectly. 

Wednesday: Nationals at Dodgers

The game started at 12:10 Pacific Time so our 7am flight to LAX allowed us to go straight from the airport to the stadium. And thankfully, everything worked out for us to do just that. It was a gorgeous day in a gorgeous setting as you'll see by these pics...

Game was over after the first inning as the Dodgers put up 6 in the bottom of the first. Couple Dodger Dogs and afternoon baseball beers were on the menu on this great day!

Thursday: Rangers at Angels

 Easily the worst of the three stadiums we visited but Angel Stadium is perfectly fine. It was a perfect evening for baseball and we got to see Shohei Ohtani pitch (and hit). He allowed just 2 runs but the Angels couldn't muster any offense of their own (Ohtani went 0-4) and lost 2-0. More beers and Angel Dogs on the menu for this one as well. Pics... 

Friday: Twins at Padres

Great park and a great crowd showed up for a Friday night beatdown. Padres rolled to a 10-1 win hitting 5 homers. And this is before they added Juan Soto at the trade deadline from the Nationals. Had to continue the trend of beers and dogs. The Friar Frank was delicious just like the Dodger Dog. The Angel Dog was solid but not on the level of the other two. Pics...

Saturday morning back to the airport and back to Cincy. 3 days 3 parks checked off. Ready for 2023!! 

2020 Trip Canceled

Well, they finally stopped us. After 21 consecutive years of the DLBT, the 2020 trip was canceled due to the coronavirus (COVID-19).

Divorces. Births. Family vacations to Antigua. "Going away" for 11 months or just one month. Anniversaries. Nothing had been able to keep us from taking our annual trip to a new ballpark(s) or city(cities).

But a global pandemic was able to do the trick. So we wait for 2021 and hopefully fans will be allowed to watch games in person. And if so, we will resume our tradition. 

Miami 2019 (Marlins)

Getting lazy with these posts. Miami, in short, was humid but fun. Our second trip where we flew. This one was a Sunday - Wednesday trip to accommodate the school calendar.

Some pics...

2018 Tropicana (Rays)

Forgot to write this one up. But as you can expect, Tropicana is as nondescript as people say. It's a dump. No one wants to go there. I can't believe the Rays ever get any free agents to willingly play there. But, we crossed another one off the list.

We stayed in St. Pete which was actually really nice. The hotel we stayed in was fantastic. It was located on a busy corner where we parked our chairs and enjoyed the "scenery".

The most notable thing about this trip was it was the first time we'd ever flown for a trip (our 20th btw). Every other trip, be it Boston for 14 hours or Minneapolis for 12 hours, had been driven. Combined with the fact we just don't want to drive anymore and that we've seen pretty much every stadium within driving range we're going to have to make this more common.

Welp, that's about all there is to say about this trip. Oh, Fish jumped over a homeless guy.

Next year (well this year since I'm writing this up in March of 2019) is to Miami to see the cavernous Marlins Stadium minus Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, Marcell Ozuna, JT Realmuto, and just about every notable Marlin who has ever made any money playing for that franchise.

2017 NYC (Mets)

Two years ago we got extremely lucky when we stayed in the Financial District of NYC on the southern tip of Manhattan. We had no idea it would be so cool and laid back. So we tried it again and again it was great. Sadly, and again due to some extremely wild circumstances of which I'll leave out of this post we were without Keith. It was Paul (who decided NYC > Antigua and re-joined us), Jason, Matt, Fish, Shane, and myself.

Thursday

Due to the 10-hour drive it was mostly a road day. But we made it to our hotel around 4:00 and had the rest of the day to chill in the courtyard, have some pops, and a lot of laughs. Unfortunately for some who will remain nameless, food was NOT high on our agenda and it came back to bite them

That does not look like a bed

 Now I won't disclose who this is, but it rhymes with "Mason". So the trip was off to the races. Shane decided to fall down. Fish and Matt entered a stein holding contest in which they both "lost" but won the free beers they were holding

Fish "trying" to win the contest

Matt also giving his best effort

 Friday

"Hey let's walk across the Brooklyn Bridge". Great idea!!! OK well it wasn't sweltering in New York but when you're baking in the sun for a while it seems a bit toasty. But we walked anyway and it was pretty cool and something we'd never done before so yeah another new experience.

Other tourists

Oh look, cars! 

Yes, we walked across that

Following the bridge, we walked to Little Italy and had a good, albeit expensive, lunch. Then we meandered around the neighborhoods looking like total tourists.

After this it was off to Shea-errrrrr Citi Field in beautiful Queens/Flushing. If you have been to Shea Stadium in the past you know the place was hot garbage. I mean the last time we went we couldn't see the whole field from our seats. And not that we were blocked by pillars or columns, we were blocked by the roof over our heads. It was terrible.

Citi Field, however, is a palace. It's easily one of the best "new" parks we've been to. It's definitely nicer than the new Yankees Stadium. So we sampled the fare, watched some baseball, and left before the mad dash to the train.

Hey, it's Citi Field

View from our seats

The boys: Matt, Jeff, Shane, Fish, Jason, Paul

Saturday

Super low key. Took the Staten Island Ferry because, well, we had never done that before. We spent literally no time on the actual island. We got off the ferry and immediately went around the corner and boarded the ferry coming back to Manhattan.

After that, we had lunch at Shake Shack (another first!), visited Times Square, then hung out on a supposed "roof top" bar...which had a view of nothing. I think by this time we were done. We're getting old so we can't just go go go anymore. So sad.

Winding down, we had some BBQ back at the courtyard by the hotel and called it an early night due to the impending 10-hour return trip to Cincinnati.

And that's about it for the 2017 version of the DLBT.

Next year is our 20th trip and we're attempting to return to Boston for the first time since the very first ball trip...way back in 1999. Unbelievable!!

Note: I'm well aware this blog is not aesthetically the prettiest thing to look at. I'm aware it gets about 5 views per decade. It's more about writing down the details of the trip for us to look back upon down the road. And I'm cool with that. But hey, thanks for stopping by.

2016 D.C. (Nationals Park)

The 2015 trip might have been the turning point of all trips.  It was perfect.  2016 was probably the most laid back of all trips.  Or perhaps the most laid back trip anyone can remember...which means the last 10 trips have been pretty crazy.  We still packed in plenty of tourist-y things while in our nation's capital.  And confirmed the ball trip as the four fastest days of this and every year.

Sadly, due to some unforeseen circumstances we were Farfsing-less this year.  So it was just me (Jeff), Jason, Matt, Keith, Fish, and Shane.  Still a great trip but we missed our guys.  

Thursday
Facing an eight hour drive we again left at 6:00am to get ahead of traffic.  Nothing major occurred during the trip.  Well unless you count the time I had to spit my drink all over the window of the Popeye's we were eating.  Since this is a PG rated site I have to withhold the exact reason why said drink was all over the window.  Suffice to say our collective "IQs dropped a few points".

We arrived to our hotel (Embassy Suites) in time for their wonderful manager's reception.  Free beer is always a good idea!  Afterward, off to a local watering hole for frosty beverages and Fish decided to treat us to some karaoke (Ice Ice Baby).

(A very non-PG pic)... 

(L to R) Keith, Matt, Jason, Shane, Fish with the flip off!

Friday
Obviously there are so many things to see in Washington D.C. so we set out to see some of the standards and perhaps a few new sites.

First stop was the Archives.  Unfortunately you can't take pictures in here but seeing the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights is something no one will ever forget.  It's pretty cool to see the original documents.

Following the archives we set out to see the White House again.  Even if you've seen it before, it's still cool to see each additional time.

Front of the White House

Back of the White House 

Following lunch we made our way over to see Ford's Theatre for the first time (for most of us) and it was a pretty cool/sobering thing to see.  Words can't do it justice so...

After that, we went to the National Portrait Gallery where, as you probably have guessed by now, there are portraits of important people in history including all of the Presidents.

Then it was on to Nationals Park i.e. the reason for the trip in the first place.   A nice, new, clean ball park.  Check another one off the list!  See for yourself...

(L to R) Shane, Jeff, Keith, Matt, Jason, Fish

View from Section 105

Following the game was a trip back to Theismann's (yes, that Theismann) which was a bar/restaurant right next to our hotel in Alexandria.  Nice place to get a drink and quiet enough to have a conversation.  And the bartender gave Keith shit, which is always nice.  Then we crashed.

Saturday
It was HOT from the get go.  Sweltering heat into the 90s could have kept us inside for most of the day, but we had important things to do and see.

No matter how many times you go to Washington D.C. a trip to Arlington National Cemetery is a must.  If you have any love and/or respect for our great country it's truly a must-see.  And despite the heat we saw it. 

Eternal Flame for President Kennedy

If you have not seen the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier you must make a point sometime in your life to do so.  It is incredible.  Not a sound is made or spoken during this ritual because of the importance of the event and (thankfully) everyone respects its meaning.

(no words)

The Cemetery itself is incredibly impressive and obviously important.  You could spend an entire day there searching for important grave sites if that's your thing.  More awesome pictures.

Now comes probably the funniest moment of the trip.  Keith got left behind.  So here's the story.  After we left Arlington we wanted to go back to the heart of D.C. to see some other places (Smithsonians and some monuments).  Instead of taking one train all the way around (approx 10 stops) we decided to backtrack one stop then switch trains to go forward two stops.  Apparently Keith didn't get the memo.  So, when five of us got off at our stop, Keith was nowhere to be found.  We quickly found him.  Unfortunately it was too late for him to get off the train and join us so he was trapped and had to go to the next station.  Sadly no one captured the look on his face, but you can imagine a horrified person in a strange city on a subway train separated from the rest of his friends.  It was quite hilarious (you had to be there).

The good news is we all hopped on the next train that came no more than two minutes after the previous train left the station and caught up to him all in less than five minutes.  Crisis averted.  It could have been a lot worse considering we all had cell service down there.  That's not always guaranteed.  So we had our boy back and headed to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.  Well, five of us went.  Keith decided he liked being on his own and since he'd never seen the Capitol Building he walked down there and snapped some pics.

The Smithsonian was cool but crowded.  I got a few pics but we were in and out of there in an hour. 

Once back outside we had ice cream that was actually just the thing we needed to re-energize us to push on.  There had been talk of getting out of the heat and going back to the hotel and putting our feet up.  Instead we walked down to the World War II Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  All very cool in their own right.

Unfortunately, some people just don't respect the memorials as you can see here...

Parents were present yet didn't care

The heat had finally beaten us down.  So we returned to the hotel with no more separations on the train.  Everyone showered then we returned to Theismann's for dinner and drinks (and some Olympics watching).  Then shockingly we went back to the hotel to chill.  No more drinks.  No more debauchery.  Are we old?  It all just ended.  No desperate attempt to hold onto the weekend.  No nothing.  It was really strange and different.  And kinda nice.

Sunday
Return trip.  8 hours.  Yuck.  Still another great trip.  Looking forward to next year where we'll hopefully check off another new park.  Citi Field (Mets) and the new Braves park in Cobb County are the options right now.  Hopefully one is in town on the weekend we all coordinate our schedules.  And hopefully we'll be back at full strength with all 8 guys.