Game 47 - Tampa Bay Rays

Game 47 - Tampa Bay Rays vs. Texas Rangers @ Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, FL (5/9/2015)

This post is very late (and a bit short) as I forgot to finish and post it back in May.

It seems an open weekend is a rare occasion lately.  Most of our weekends are spent at Ryan's baseball games, but this particular weekend happened to be 1 of only 2 weekends from May until August that he did not have a baseball game / tournament.  With that said, we decided to make a last minute trip to Tampa to catch a Rays game.  We were literally in Florida for only 13 hours.  It was very interesting how many things fell into place on this trip.  For starters, since I booked the flight at the list minute, Ryan and I were not scheduled to sit together, which caused a bit of panic for him.  However, after negotiations with both the gate attendant and other passengers, I was able to get us seated together. 

Then while boarding another plane, one of the flight attendants asked Ryan if he would like to sit in the cockpit and meet the captain.  As you can see from the picture, he really enjoyed it and the captain was extremely friendly.  Then, when we were checking into the hotel, they accidently gave us a room that was not yet cleaned.  After discussions with the hotel desk, we were upgraded to a suite over-looking the ocean.  Finally, the last thing I worry about on all these trips is finding tickets to the game.  I bought the tickets last minute and didn't really even pay attention to where they were located.  As it turns out, we were in the 2nd row over the right field wall.  Nice.

This stadium gets a lot of criticism as one of the worst venues in all of professional sports.  Sure it is not in the best area of town, it is a rather old-looking dome, the turf looks awful and players sometimes have to play fly balls off the catwalk.  There is also so much signage inside that it almost gives you a headache from sensory overload.  However, if you are traveling with small children and don't mind missing some of the game to take time to explore it is actually a fun place to visit.  The sting ray tank is of course a must-see and a fun experience, but there are a ton of other fun things for the kids, including craft areas, photo opportunities to get your picture on a baseball card, etc. 

The best part of the experience was by far the Ted Williams Museum and Hitters' Hall of Fame.  Ryan and I could have spent hours here checking out all of the various displays and information on all of the inductees.  The level photos, history and level of detail was terrific and it was much bigger than expected.  If you are into sport history, it is a hidden gem.  http://www.tedwilliamsmuseum.com/

As for the game itself, there was not a lot of excitement.  A small crowd of barely 20,000 watched the Rays win 7-2.  The one interesting thing to note is that all 9 runs were scored via 4 homeruns.

As many of you know, I'm using this tour to raise money and awareness for cancer research.  To date, I have raised over $4,500.  If you would like to donate, please go to the following link.  Thank you.

As for this weekend, another $201 ($1 for each point scored in both games) raised for the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research.  I encourage you to donate. http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/christopher-apel/christopherapel