May 16th, 1998

Saturday May 16th, 1998

Texas Rangers 3 @ Cleveland Indians 10
Stadium: Jacobs Field
Now: Same (now called Progressive Field)
Gas: 

Maple Heights, OH $8.85

Clear Springs, MD $9.34
Lodging: Elicott City, MD

We were lucky to get into this game.  During this time, the Cleveland Indians were celebrating an unprecedented streak of sellout at the new Jacobs Field.  We were there of the 231st consecutive sellout of what would ultimately reach 455 straight game.   When we were purchasing tickets for this trip, we had split all the games up between us on who would get the tickets and we knew that this would be a tough ticket to get.  Brian was in charge of getting the Indian tickets and originally they said that it was all sold out, but the person selling the tickets told him to call back on Saturday because they might be releasing some tickets for purchase.  So Brian did just that and we got our tickets.  Not only did we get tickets, but they were really good tickets along the 3rd base side in the lower level.  They were actually handicapped seats so they had a lot of leg room.  

The skies were cloudy and there was a threat of rain that day, but it didn't come, it just made it a real muggy day.  This was the fist place we had been too where they used a barcode reader to scan the tickets instead of ripping the stub off, and thought that was pretty crazy.  This is also where we met Anne the usher.   Since we were at the top of the lower level, she was the usher in charge of the two sections right by us and she would hang out by us in between innings.  Once we told her about what we doing, the first thing she said was " Will you guys marry me?"  Of course, the answer was no (Don't worry Christa and Shana, we never considered marrying her, even though she could have hooked us up with free Indian tickets in "The Cleve").

The most memorable moment of the game was a Home Run hit by Jim Thome of the Indians.  He hit it so hard that it was still rising when it hit an auxiliary scoreboard in right field.  It also broke a few lights, causing a few sparks to fly.  It was nothing like Roy Hobbs in the natural, but it was still a shot.  

It was an afternoon game and our goal was to head to Maryland where Shana and Christa were staying at Shana's parents house.  We knew that it would be long drive and we figured we wouldn't get in until early morning.  But we left right away from the game, made excellent time and made it to Shana's parent's house by 11:00 pm.  We faced some really miserable weather along the way but still made really good time.  We made such good time that the first thing they both said when we got there was "Were you guys speeding the whole way?"  (Which we were not, because we knew we were a marked car due to our California plates.  More on that in a future post.)  It was great to see our girlfriends and we spent the rest of the night hanging out and talking.