Final day

For my final day, I wanted to try to get to the beach.  I'd tried to get to the beach on Friday, but turned back at Church Avenue, as I was clearly not going to be able to get down there and back in time for dinner and the game.

So I got up earlier today and set off.  If I'd known the best subway lines to take, I'd have probably got there faster than an hour and a half!  The main problem is that I was banking on taking the 'D' train halfway and then switching to the 'B' - except the latter doesn't run at weekends, it turns out.  I ended up waiting a long time for various connections, which all added up to a long journey down to Coney Island to see the boardwalk and the Atlantic Ocean.  I paddled in it very quickly and then had to leave, as I had to check out by 2pm and I'd booked lunch at the restaurant in the hotel for 2pm too.  I got back to my room at 1.30pm, so just had time to finish off packing and check out and have lunch, before heading off to the airport.  The journey to the airport was easy, and I'm now sitting in the lounge just along from my gate, with about an hour to go before departure.

Toronto Blue Jays @ New York Yankees (game 2)

The final game of my holiday was the second game of the series, that the Yankees won the opener of the day before.  This time I was up the first base side, next to where Ichiro was fielding for New York.

Unfortunately, there was a New Yorker behind me with verbal diarrhoea and a very loud voice.  Occasionally the people he was with got a word in.  We all heard about TV he likes, his opinion on various films, everything really.

This game I missed the first inning due to having to wait for ages for a subway train (30 minutes!) and that was when Toronto scored their runs!  However, I saw the rest of the game.  It was much cooler tonight, and I almost needed a coat, but it was just about alright.  Derek Jeter nearly hit another home run tonight - it was just caught on the warning track in left field.

After the game, I looked around the store, which was packed for ages, and then headed home for the final time.  The subway platforms are so incredibly hot all the time, but fortunately the trains have cooling - once one comes.  As I had left it so long before travelling back downtown, I was able to get a seat easily.  My hotel is only one street up and half an avenue across away from the subway entrance which is very convenient, as there isn't a long walk once I've got back, although there are a lot of stairs to go up.

Toronto Blue Jays @ New York Yankees (game 1)

I had to queue a little to pick up my tickets are Yankee Stadium, and in the end, I didn't need my receipt that I had brought just in case they couldn't find my tickets!  Then I was able to pretty much walk straight in, which was unusual.  So, as I was hot, I bought an ice cream and went to my seat which was done the 3rd base line.  I've been in the area of section 130 before and it's quite comfortable, but you do have to look at an angle to watch play.  I also find it much harder to keep track of the game from such a distance.  However, it's amazing how close you really are to the fielders.

Anybody visiting the stadium this year could have been forgiven for thinking that the New York Yankees are a one-man team.  The team store has one tiny out-of-the-way corner containing jerseys for some of the star players, and the rest of the store is devoted to merchandise featuring Derek Jeter, who will be retiring at the end of the season.

This game was tight all the way with good pitching and good fielding, and I saw something that's a been a rarity this year: a Derek Jeter home run.  The crowd went absolutely nuts, as you might imagine, and then he nearly hit another later in the game.  The Yankees held on to win 5-3 and take the opening game of the series.

Journey to New York

This morning, everybody was woken up by the early riser who'd gone down to breakfast as soon as it opened at 6am and set fire to some bread, triggering the hotel's fire alarm.  Fortunately, it was just the bread that was toasted.   However, it means that I'm quite tired today as I had to get up at 7 o'clock anyway to give myself time to be ready to leave by 8.15am to get the metro to the airport for my flight to New York this morning - the final internal flight of my holiday.

As usual, the gate for my flight was as far as way as possible from the MetroLink station.   Not only was it on the 'A' concourse at the far end of the airport, but gate A19 is right at the far end of the concourse.  This has been an unbelievable theme for all my flights this year - the arrival gate at St Louis was three away from the very end, but every other gate has been as far away as it is possible to be!

This is also an Embraer aircraft which means my bag needed to be gate checked, so I had to remove everything I needed on board  into the bag that I'd kept for such eventualities.  However, we pushed back exactly on time and the pilot believes that the flight time will only be 2 hours and 1 minute, so we should be arriving early at Newark, which will give me time to get to my hotel and settle in properly.

Edit: it was about 2 hours, so I got to my hotel just after 3pm which was handy, as I had time to unpack and cool down before heading off to the game.

Edward Jones Dome

My hotel room looks out over the EJ Dome next door, home of the St Louis Rams NFL team!  This hotel would be very convenient for those games!  There's also lots of these signs on the pavements next to mounds in the road - it's not surprising US cars need to be so big and bouncy and get over the surface!

Milwaukee Brewers @ St Louis Cardinals (game 2)

I took the metro to the ballgame tonight (from Laclede's Landing!), and wore my long trousers and took my coat.  Tonight, I was in the back row of the bottom section on the end of a row.  This block was down the 3rd base line but still had an excellent view.

Adam Wainwright was pitching for the Cardinals tonight, trying to get his league-lead-typing 19th win of the season, up against Mick Fiers of the Brewers, making his first start since his start against Miami when he hit Giancarlo Stanton in the face, unintentionally.

Neither pitcher had control problems tonight as the game motored along with no score and just half a dozen hits for the Brewers.  Fiers took a no-hit bid into the 6th inning when Wainwright singled to break up the no-hitter.  Eventually, the Cardinals pushed a couple of runs across in the 7th inning which proved to be enough as Wainwright finished off the game himself, pitching a 7-hit complete game shut-out.  The Cards only got 3 hits, but they got them in bunches and in combination with a fielding error, which was mostly triggered by a slip in the outfield that allowed the first run to score.


The game was over in two and a half hours, which is far more like it - it didn't actually get cold either tonight, with the temperature staying at around 17C/63F for the whole game.  I took the metro back to the hotel again and watched the end of ESPN's Wednesday Night Baseball, featuring the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim against the Seattle Mariners.  The Angels won that that and later on, due to Oakland giving up 6 late runs to Texas, clinched the AL West division title.  So that's half the divisions clinched.  It's going to be a few days before the others are sorted out, as the key series get underway over this weekend: Royals/Tigers, Giants/Dodgers and the matchups involving the Cardinals/Brewers/Pirates all struggling for the NL Central.

Union Station

Today, I went for lunch in the restaurant at Cardinal Nation, which is just beyond centre field at Busch Stadium.  There were a few other people in there, mostly dressed in Cardinal red outfits, as indeed were many of the people outside the stadium who were clearly there for the day to visit and catch the game in the evening.  The food was more gastro-pub than full-on restaurant, which was good as it was a lot cheaper than many of the dinners that I've been having!

Afterwards, I took the metro into town to see Union Station.  It's no longer a railway station, but a monument.  Sadly, many of the retail units seem to be empty nowadays and there weren't many people there at all.  After reading all the plaques about the history of the station, the largest ever constructed, I looked around outside where they have a pond that's full of fish!  As I walked along the boardwalk they seemed to follow me, looking up hoping for food.

Later on, I took the metro back to Laclede's Landing to have a look at the river.  When I came out, I discovered that the metro exit was right near to my hotel - up a bit of a hill.  So I needn't have walked so far through the rain on Tuesday night to get to the hotel from the previous stop on the line - this one is much much closer!

You can see the arch from the metro station, although I have to get back to my hotel to pick up my ticket and get down to the game now.