The wife and I took a little trip to Dallas this weekend to watch the Rangers take on the Mariners. We have been Mariners fans since we watched Ichiro play in Seattle last year. There are very few players in professional sports that give 100%, 100% of the time. Even fewer in pro baseball. The long grueling schedule combined with pointless games lulls most players in to a constant state of mediocrity. Ichiro doesn't play that game. He is 100% all the time. That is why he is so much fun to watch.
We trekked down to Dallas on Friday afternoon after the wife got off of her shift. She had been up since 3pm the day before and got off her shift at 11am. Understandably, she slept the whole way. We checked in to the hotel 2 miles from the ballpark.
After a short nap we took a walk in the nice, but cloudy Dallas evening to the ballpark. Just as we got our tickets scanned, the rain stated falling. And it fell, and fell and fell. We decided to get a beer and hang out. As we sat down the new iPhones became very important. Using the Weather Channel app, we were able to check the radar to see if there was any chance of the game getting started. Two and a half hours after the time the game was supposed to start, it was announced that the game would be postponed until Sunday. No big deal, the teams would be playing Saturday, and our tickets would be honored if we exchanged them for that game.
We stood in line, in the poring rain, to get our tickets exchanged. After getting everything taken care of, we walked over to the Arlington Trolly stop. There we waited, and waited, and waited. No Trolly. More on the Trollies later.
We had no cash, we were already a little wet, I had brought some rain ponchos, and the hotel was only 2 miles away. Might as well hoof it right?
We soon were soaked nearly all the way through. Note for the future, super thin $2 ponchos do not work well for walking in wind and driving rain. We make it nearly to the hotel, wet, tired, and hungry. That is when we saw Humperdink's. A restaurant and brewery. I wanted a beer and something to eat, so I managed to convince the wife to stop in. Humperdink's never had to soggier patrons. They ushered us in to an out of the way booth.
I was a bit worried that Humperdink's would be the typical extract brewery that has become popular lately. See Granite City or BJ's Brewpub for this type of pseudo brewery. What sucks about these guys? Well, they serve fresh beer like McDonald's serves fresh hamburgers. More on that later. Anyway Humperdink's turned out to be an all grain brewery with its own brew staff at each location. Cool! The wife and I had their Big Red IPA. A nice IPA. I thought that it was a bit light on the malt, and the finishing hops gave it a bit too much acidity, but beggars can't be choosers. We got a real brewery just across the street from the hotel? Jackfreaking pot.
We finished our food and our beers and settled down for the night.
Saturday we woke to find that the rain had not stopped. We felt that we may never see Ichiro play. What do you do in Dallas when it rains? Go for sushi lunch and go shopping, of course! We hit Ichiro's favorite place in Dallas to eat sushi, Mr. Sushi. It just happens to be a few blocks from a major shopping center, the Galeriea. I kind of wanted to visit Rahar Brewing Company in Ft. Worth again, but I knew we would not have time. Next time Rahar!!
We arrived at the ballpark to find that the rain had slowed to a light drizzle. The game was ON!!!
It turns out that the season ticket holders did not show up for the game, and the ushers were not caring where you sat. We sat down two rows up from the field, right behind the players warming up to bat.
Ichiro was so close we could have spit on him. It was awesome.
Ichiro turned out to have a great game, hitting a double, then a home run. Ken Griffey Jr. helped out a little too. They played nearly a whole game before the rain returned, getting to the bottom of the ninth before calling the game on account of rain.
As the game was called, we found our trolly that was going to take us to our car, parked back at our hotel from last night.
In an epic dick move, the trolly that was supposed to take us to our hotel, decided to call it a night, despite leaving several people at the ballpark. One of the other trolly drivers, pissed off at the other driver, was nice enough to take us, and many others to our hotels. We learned on the trolly from the other driver that this particular driver has a long history of stranding people. Turns out that we an many others were left yesterday by the same driver. What an ass.
Anyway we were hungry, and well, there was Humperdink's. We stopped in again. I had their Buttface Amber. It was excellent. Very nice malt front with touches of chocolate malts in the back a good brew.
We headed back to OKC, in the rain. The wife drove, she is working nights and wanted to stay up as long as possible. This time I slept.
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