Had a Blast on Vacation

It has been almost 2 weeks since my last post, but vacation will do that to a blogger.  The family and I left on Friday July 20 and headed to Colorado to see 2 of my brothers.  Along with doing cool things like hiking in Boulder, seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Denver Museum, and spending an entire afternoon at Dave & Busters, we watched a Rockies game and took a tour of Coors Field.  The game was Tuesday the 24th against the Astros.  I did not remember my camera that day, but nothing too note worthy happened other that sitting through an hour rain delay to start the game when only a few drops of rain fell.  We left in the top of the 10th with the score tied at 2.  Good thing we did because traffic would have been horrible 15 minutes later after the Astros scored 6 in the top of the 10th.  Denver traffic is bad, but after a game it is worse.

We took the tour on Thursday afternoon and once again the camera was left in the van.  I would highly recommend the tour to anyone who has a chance.  For $12, we saw the dugout, walked on the warning track, and got to go inside the visitor's clubhouse (only because there was no game that day).  We left Colorado after the tour headed to Springfield, MO for a Double A Cardinals game on Friday night.  Springfield is not really on the direct route back to Illinois, but we were out west and would not have a better chance to make it there this year.  We did run into a bad thunderstorm in Kansas that included hail and wind that knocked over 3 semis, but no harm was done to our van.

I did have this game scheduled into our vacation due to a theme ticket night at the ball park.  It was Christmas in July all weekend with the Cardinals wearing some awful looking red and blue jerseys.  That was no the reason we went.  With the purchase of a special $16 box seat (which ended up being in the front row down the first base line), we received an Adam Wainwright bobblehead.

The St. Louis Cardinals game away the same bobblehead in early July.  It honors Wainwright's Silver Slugger award from last year.

I always save my ticket stubs and make sure to grab a pocket schedule.  The Cardinals do a great job of featuring former players who made it to the majors.

4 card packs of Topps Series 1 were handed out at the gate along with this Joe Torre card.  I have 2 of these if anyone would like one.

Of course my son and I did some autographing.  We did not have cards for very many players, so I was not expecting too much.

Tommy Edman was on the DL, but still dressed and warmed up with the starters.  I see him taking over Greg Garcia's role in a year or two.  Decent glove with a little of left handed pop of the bench who can play any infield spot other than first.     

We got Junior Fernandez when he was walking to the dugout before the national anthem.  If he can stay healthy, he should follow the line of starting pitchers to Memphis next year and maybe the Cardinals bullpen. 

The game itself was not very good as Springfield lost 10-0.  The next morning we headed back to Illinois for a quick stop at home before out next game.  More on that in the next post.