Happy Mother's Day

Sorry I can't be home to give you a present and card--this is the second best option I can think of.




Love You

Happy Mother's Day

(to everyone not my mom, quit stealing her present)

To Kansas City

Getting to Kansas City from St. Louis was a fairly easy trip, but I did get the chance to soak in some of the rural countryside radio coverage. For those of you curious as to what people in the great midwest do, aside from the whole unprotected sex/abortion condemnations, apparently they paint and dress up animal carcasses. Were animal carcasses nationwide to suddenly become all dolled up, then the Dallas-Memphis corridor would be Milan. If the whole bloating from unexpelled gases didn't make them too fat to be fashion models that is.

St. Louis

You can find me, in St. Louis rolling on dubs, singing it loud (what?!) checking out the Lou and I'm proud. --Nelly, Country Grammar.

Despite what I've heard from every person know who has visited St. Louis, the city turned out to be very cool and non life threatening. Quite the contrary, on over half the street corners I drove through there were women waving at me and telling me how cute I was. A couple of them even asked me out on dates!

After the game I went andele, andele, (past the) mami's, E-I, E-I, uh ohh.... To the top of the Arch. --Nelly E.I.

Not for claustrophobics is this one, with the viewing area being cavernous after being carried to the top in a pod reminiscent of the escape shuttles from Space Balls, only these were for a different national monument. The whole experience was very impressive though, and definitely the second coolest Arch in the good old U.S. of A.

With the sunlight quickly fading and me with no clue as to what to do that night, I went out to Babler's State Park a little west of the city to string up my hammock in relative peace and quiet. While I didn't delve deep into the ins and outs of the park, it was nice (re: cheap) enough for me to decide to stay there the next night as well. My only advice for those of you considering it is don't have some unusual genetic predisposition to getting Lyme disease, because this park will up your odds quite a bit. That's all I'm saying about that.

The next morning I explored the very hip Wash U area of St. Louis, a collegiate area next to Forrest Park, America's largest urban park I'm told. After some time at Kayak Coffee, a better coffee shop than any Seattle's Best, Starbucks, or Caribou around, I ran the park (ok, ran some, wheezed and walked a little bit, ran when the cute girl came around the corner, and then cut across a lawn to get back to my car in a shorter distance--happy?) and then drowned the sorrow my physical inadequacies by downing three mugs of beer before 4 o'clock. Fitz' Root Beer that is.

Usually when someone says that some really plain and simple food is incredible at a particular place, I'm all about it. Anyone can vouch that a Beignet, or Crème Brule, or other French sounding food is great because there's generally a much smaller sample size to compare it to. But if you tell me someone makes the best biscuit, or spaghetti, or water, then I figure for that food to be mentionable above all the other's you've tasted, it must truly be great. Usually. The St. Louis staple of Fitz's root beer, as delightful as the atmosphere was, tasted like plain old cold root beer.

The beer at the Anheuser-Busch Brewery tour tasted like plain old cold Beer as well, and I couldn't have asked for anything more. The tour was interesting enough, showing off the giant facilities and the brew tanks that would take a man drinking a case a day every day for something like 136 years to finish. There were the Clydesdale Stables, and then the after-tour brews, where they offer something called Budweiser Spykes as an option for your beer. You've got to love it when major beer distributors work on making the concept of spiking someone's drinks a commonplace term. The only thing that would make this better is if Pfizer had released a new drug under the same name. Pure marketing genius.

If this were the proverbial "wagon" you'd fall on to it, not off it.

As for the quest, I've been a few days behind (obviously) in my posts, but am lucky enough to be in Denver for a couple days, so look for more updates more often over the weekend. As it is, I think one last Nelly "quote", the consumate St. Lunatic, sums up my trip so far well enough.

Do you wanna come and take a ride with me, to visit 30 M-L-B parks in the Grand Marquis, see why I live this so. Hey, Must be the Ballparkquest! --Nelly Ride Wit Me

Special thanks to Nelly for contributing to this post. Your help and support can't be put into words.

Quest Question And An Answer

From Miles:
What is the Houston Farm System reference that seems to include your grandmother and the 4 chicks? Who are these four chicks? Why don't you proofread your entries? Is "awesome" going to show up 10 times in every post? Pictures of chicks would be nice. Balls.

The farm system wasn't explained well to start off with, but it is my oh so creative moniker for the suckers who put me up in cities or attend games and other events with me. Much like a baseball team depends on their farm system (the minor league teams) I depend on these people. Yes it doesn't hurt when they're girls like in my Houston post, but my question is why isn't my grandmother included as one of the chicks? I mean, I know good looking, and it definitely runs in the family from Grandma Deedee on down to yours truly. I don't proofread my entries because I don't ever make mistakes, so any typos, grammatical errors, or nonsensical entries are on your shoulders, not mine. Awesome (11) questions though Miles, and I'll get to work on the pics of chicks--do I have to be included or can I just be creepy and take the pictures from a dark corner of the bar? Strikes.

Play Ball,
Colin

email your Quest Question to Colin@ballparkquest.com

Cardinals vs. Astros May 6th

The View of Busch Stadium From The St. Louis Arch.

Traffic and Parking: I arrived early in order to make sure I could get a ticket and parking, avoided lots of congestion, and even snagged myself a spot in front of Hooters. Yes, found a parking spot in front of Hooters by pure coincidence, plain old dumb luck indeed. Even more remarkable was that I was only blocks from Busch Stadium, and even closer to The International Bowling Museum. My excitement was quickly dampened by the fact that I had not reserved tickets in advance, and could not afford the prices that the Bowling Museum scalpers were asking. Damn you Supply and Demand!

Tickets: Speaking of scalpers, the gate tickets were $13 for standing room only. So much for the aura of reasonably priced middle america. At least I missed out on parking fees.

The Stadium: Getting there over an hour early turned out to be a great idea, as the city had turned out for a daygame of the defending World Series Champs. I caught a little BP where Edmonds ripped five consecutive home runs before returning to the dugout. Only a year old, the stadium is walkable, with a great view coming into it and looking out of it. For someone who generally only enjoys interactable attractions, the St. Louis Arch is pretty spectacular, even if I wouldn't want to watch the game from there.

Hot Dogs and Beer: For the first time, the hot dog here was actually special and delicious. Far and away better than the simply dogs of prior stadiums, I actually made a point of enjoying this one. Believe it or not, as far as beer goes, there are only Anheuser Busch products sold at Busch Stadium. And you'd better believe the beer was ice cold goodness on a hot Sunday at the park.

Heroes of the Game: Proving that Ballplayers either have a sense of humor, or are entirely conceited with their own abilities, the heroes of this game are Scott Rolen and David Eckstein for their choices of at bat music. David Eckstein, who chose Bon Jovi's Blaze of Glory, has only one strikeout on the year, making his song choice all the more puzzling and all the more awesome. Scott Rolen's song choice is a little more self explanatory. In an obvious bid to have his contract extended, Rolen approaches the plate to Limp Bizkit's Keep Rollin'. While this is ridiculous, the fact that Rolen looks identical to Kevin Spacey to me got funnier and funnier throughout the game.

Fan of the Game: Mr. Calvin Scott from Carbondale, Illinois (I think). Mr. Scott and I struck up a conversation for the first six innings of the game, trading stories about the Astros, his Vietnam Veterans rings, role models, and little league baseball, which he refuses to coach anymore for fear of getting into trouble for "going upside the head of one of those little punk kids." Mr. Scott, I know you said you weren't good with "The Computers", but if you got your niece to check this out for you, here's our picture together.

The Drive: To St. Louis

If there's one thing that I learned during my drive from Memphis, TN to St. Louis, MO, it is that unprotected sex is all the rage round these parts, followed closely by unsolicited condemnation of an all inclusive untargeted audience. How do I know this? I pieced it together from the popularity alongside the highway in Missouri to purchase billboards for the sole purpose of condeming abortion. Any offense that I took from this comes from such an uncouth and, in my opinion, ineffective way of projecting your opinion and belief. It almost makes me wish that someone, just to play devil's advocate, would take out an billboard like so.

F.S. Player: Betsy

(an older picture of Betsy and Myself, me with more hair, her with less engagement ring)

After the Marathon to Memphis Drive, I was lucky to have a place to crash. I walked into the tail end of Betsy's Cinco De Mayo Party/Dog's Birthday party. Cinco De Mayo is to the Afternoon what Christmas is to the Morning, there really isn't a different time that you can celebrate either one of them. If they should run longer, then all the merrier, but starting Christmas at night time? Cinco de Mayo in the morning? That's just crazy talk.

As it was I pulled up at the end of the party, post-Coronas, post-Taco Bell, post-Ceremonial viewing of Nacho Libre. No matter though, for there was still playing on the main screen in the house, the one and only Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero, for those not in the know, is the Greatest Video Game since Super Mario Cart. And most any true Guitar Hero partier will steal a line from pool players and swear that they are better once they've had a few beers. Not that it matters for in everyone's mind they are that Guitar Hero digitally rocking it out onstage. It definitely earns two thumbs up from this guy right here.

As for Betsy, between the drive for me and the Cinco de Mayo party for her, our conversations were brief, and uninteresting, so I won't bore you with her praise and adulations of how awesome I am, as I'm sure y'all already know that.

The Drive: To Memphis

Well, if anything can be said about this trip, it is that I'm getting a lot of sitting time. The ride from Dallas to Memphis was a mere 7 hours, followed by a short jaunt up to St. Louis in only 4 hours.
On the way to Memphis, it looked as if the rabbits of east Texas had taken a cue from lemmings and run headlong into traffic en masse over a particular stretch of highway. The highway shoulder littered with rabbit bits and bloated carcasses was eerily reminiscent of the opening scenes of Terminator 2, in which Mankind survives across fields of human skulls fighting, and losing, to the machines. Pray for us all that Roger Rabbit doesn't show up buck naked in a blue glowing crater. Even if he does speak better English the last thing we need is a rabbit running California.

F.S. Player: Brad

A good friend from High School, Brad is funny. The kind of person who could speak for three days in T.V. and movie quotes, and not have it be annoying. The kind of person who Tivo's The Wonder Years. The kind of person who had two dogs named Bob and Sam, which fits into my theory of easily scoldable dog names, but against my rule of having your dog name indiscernible from a person's name. Leads to too much confusion for those not knowing why Bob pissed the floor the night before, or Sam was licking your face. Rather than go into a ton of minutiae about the man, I'm just going to throw in a couple quotes he dropped on me this visit.

At the ballgame: "If Dippin' Dots is still claiming to be the Ice Cream of the future like it was 15 years ago when I was buying it, when is it just going to be Ice Cream?"

While watching The Wonder Years: "Kevin's dad always was the most intimidating authoritarian figure when I was growing up. I kinda think he still is."

After I explained my belief that many women have their wedding and married lives planned out like the elaborate machine from Mouse Trap, and all they need is the ring to have the cage come down and trap you: "If that's true, then I must be the guy that does the back flip into the cup."

You're either the Mouse, or the man getting flipped. Either way you're gonna lose.