Baseball Nirvana: Five Friends Journey To Milwaukee And Iowa. Part 2

Day 2

After getting a good nights sleep in which I won the snoring contest for the night and Charlie froze despite wearing jeans and a track jacket, we woke up bright and early to head to Dyersville, IA to play on the Field of Dreams. We weren’t quite sure how long the drive from downtown Milwaukee to Dyersville, IA would take.

MapQuest said around three hours, Justin’s friend said around three and a half hours, and the random guy sitting in-front of us at the Brewers game said hours and forty-five minutes.

Well, the drive for us took about four hours. At around the three and a half hour mark we stopped in the Dubuque, IA airport to ask for directions. When I say airport, I mean a landing strip and two people working there.

Thankfully, the one worker there was able to assist us and tell us that we were only 20 minutes away. We were so close we could taste it.

As we made our way into Dyersville, all we could see was corn field after corn field. This wasn’t edible corn though. Thanks to Charlie’s midwestern roots, he informed us that all the corn we were seeing was for animal feeding. He knew this because of the black tips on the corn.

Good work Charlie.

After four hours, two stops, and endless bad 80′s songs on John’s megamix — we finally arrive at the Field of Dreams. It’s more unbelievable than I imagined. All you see are corn fields and in the middle of all this is just a baseball field.

You drive through the long road that leads to the field and you see the famous white house from the movie and of course the legendary corn field fence. The light towers aren’t as tall as I thought they were, but they seem perfectly placed in an imperfect setting.

The field wasn’t as big as I thought it would be either. It’s only 281 ft. down the lines and 310 ft to centerfield. The field is perfectly kept. There didn’t seem to be a grass out of place.

The greatest place on earth

After my pathetic pitching performance, in which I couldn’t throw the ball of the plate for some reason, I was the second one to hit. World of advice — never throw a softball all summer then try to throw a baseball. It messes your arm up.

My dream was to hit one into the corn fields. Instead, I broke one of the wooden bats that we had.

My dream — thwarted.

Once I got done hitting, I went into the field. Unfortunately, I was being chased by a bee the entire time I was in the field. This bee was all over me like white on rice. No matter where I went on the field, this bee followed me.

For those of you not aware, I have a fear of bees. I have no idea what that phobia is called, but I have it. My parents think it’s funny. Me? Not so much.

I didn’t let the bee ruin my experience. Eventually this possessed bee left me alone. One of the best parts of being there was talking to the other people who made the pilgrimadge to the field.

There were people from St. Louis, Iowa, Nebraska, Massachusetts, and even Calgary (not Bret Hart) on the field with us. Everyone has a different story about why they came that day. Just amazing. I recommend that everyone go to this field.

If you build it, people will truly come.

We bought plenty of souvenirs and made our way back to Milwaukee. But before we got back to Milwaukee, we made a pitstop at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Madison and Ian’s Pizza was exactly what we needed after a long day on the field. Ian’s was started by a friend of mine from UMass, who wanted to bring the very popular pizza place Antonio’s to Madison.

The Pizza didn’t disappoint. I got a mac n’ cheese slice and a bbq potato bacon slice. It 100 percent hit the spot.

Sitting outside and eating in-front of Ian’s we saw more good looking girls in 20 minutes than we did in two days in Milwaukee. We have a theory as to why there are no good looking girls in Milwaukee. I’ll get to that later.

If anyone is in Madison, I recommend that you try out Ian’s.

While we didn’t stay in Madison for too long, Tom and I managed to stop in the Wisconsin House of Cheese store and State Street. We both got 100 percent Wisconsin cheddar to bring back home. Our wheels of cheese looked like shuffle board disks. Tom went with the more mild cheese, while I went with the sharper cheese.

We also sampled cheese curds at the House of Cheese. Very, very good. I could have eaten 100 of those things.

At around seven 0′ clock we made our way back to Milwaukee. We figured there had to be more going on Tuesday night than on Monday. It couldn’t get any worse.

We went to the Abbey off of Water Street and there were actually people there. I would say there were around 30 people at the Abbey that night, which represented a 25 person increase from what we saw Monday night.

Lucky for us, Tuesday night is Trivia Night at the Abbey. The categories were infomercials, today in history, and 2009 movies. We fully expected to win, but our resident movie expect — John, choked.

This is a man who has probably over 800 dvd’s in his collection. And not just your average run-of-the-mill dvd’s. He has Asian, Turkish, and German dvd’s. This is a man who looks forward to going to the Asian Film Festival every year.

All that and he’s never seen the DaVinci Code. We didn’t know Tom Hank’s character’s name in the movie and we lost. You should have seen the looks of disappoint on our faces. It was the same look my parents gave me when I told them I was going to Milwaukee.

Rest assured we will never forget the name “Robert Langdon.”

Other than Trivia Night, there were two other fascinating events that occurred at the Abbey. First, we saw first-hand an entire bar play the air drums to Phil Collin’s “In the Air Tonight.” I have seen anything like it.

Second, we saw our first good looking girl over the age of 18. Christine, who tried to cheat off of us in trivia by the way, represented the best Milwaukee had to offer in the two days that we were there.

We have a theory on Milwaukee’s female situation. Most of the pretty girls we saw were 18-years-old or younger. This is because once a girl turns 18 and goes off to college, she never comes back to Milwaukee.

If they do come back to Milwaukee, it’s probably not because it’s the best of situations. IE: There is a bun in the oven. Christine was the rare exception.

Day 3

Day three of our trip was reserved for eating and drinking. After another solid nights sleep, in which Tom won the snoring contest, we traveled to the Comet Cafe.

The Comet Cafe was made famous when they appeared on an episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on the Food Network. Since Tom and John are vegetarians, this was the perfect place to go. Half of the menu has vegetarian/vegan options and the other half has “normal” food as I call it.

A Brew City Hot Brown

The Comet Cafe didn’t disappoint. Large portions, good service, and overall just fantastic food. I myself, had a Brew City Hot Brown. If you are not familiar with a hot brown, it’s a mound of comfort food deliciousness.

Rye bread, turkey, mashed potatoes, and bacon piled high covered with some beer gravy. It was faaaaaaaaaaaantastic. As if the hot brown wasn’t enough, for dessert we had warm mini glazed donoughts served with a vanilla anglaise for dipping.

On a food coma scale, this meal was a 10 out of 10.

Next up was the Miller Brewery Tour. Originally we wanted to go to the Lakefront Brewery Tour because everyone told us that it was better than the Miller Tour. Unfortunately, the Lakefront Brewery only had tours running at three o’ clock on Wednesday and that wouldn’t have left us enough time to get to the airport and catch our plane.

The Miller Brewery Tour was okay, nothing special. Our tour guide seemed to just be going through the motions couldn’t wait to get us out of there. You do get to sample three beers at the end, so that was good.

After the Miller Brewery Tour, we had one more stop to make — Kopps Frozen Custard. If we didn’t have food coma from the Comet Cafe, this was to surely put us over the top.

Today’s flavors at Kopps — Red Velvet Cake and Macadamian Nut. I went with the red velvet cake. I went with only one scoop, unlike Tom and Justin who went with the two scoop option. 

Again, it was fantastic. Also, highly recommended.

And that concludes our trip. For just three days, I think we did and saw a lot. It was a great trip with great friends. Already I am looking forward to next year’s trip.

Early favorite for next year – Houston/Austin, TX.

Baseball Nirvana: Five Friends Journey To Milwaukee And Iowa. Part 1

There are very few things in my life that I would wake up at 4:30 in the morning for. If my wife went into labor at 4:30 in the morning, I certainly would wake up for that. Of course, I would need a wife first in order for that to happen.

The other thing I would wake up at 4:30 in the morning for would be to have the opportunity to go to the Field of Dreams. Anyone who knows me, knows that Field of Dreams is my favorite movie of all time (Wall Street and Return of the Jedi are two and three respectfully). Since that movie came out in 1989, it’s been my dream to play on that field.

But before I got to play on the Field of Dreams, there was plenty of business to take care of in Milwaukee, WI. Milwaukee, home of the Brewers, cheese, Kopps frozen custard, the Comet Cafe, and of course, the Miller Brewing Factory.

Here is an unadulterated recap of the first day of my three day trip to baseball nirvana.

Day 1.

After a quick hour and forty five minute plane ride, my buddies Tom, Justin, John and myself arrive in Milwaukee around 7:30 AM. The fifth member of our group, Minnesota Twins fan, current Chicago native, and our driver for the weekend Charlie was going to pick us up at the airport.

In typical fashion we took bets on how late he would be in picking us up at the airport. John showed the least confidence by saying he wouldn’t show up, period. Much to our surprise, Charlie was right on time and greeted us all with giant man-hugs.

Our plan was to head to the Comet Cafe that was featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, check into our hotel, and then head to the Milwaukee Brewers vs St. Louis Cardinals game that started at 1:30. Immediately our plan was tossed aside like a sack of potatoes because the Comet Cafe was closed and didn’t open until 10:30.

So after our initial plan was foiled, we decided to check into our hotel. Matthew, the extremely helpful and knowledgable doorman at the InterContinental recommended that we head to a place called Trocadero for brunch. I got to be honest, John is a doorman and if I had a vote for Doorman of the Year, I think Matthew would get it over John based on his performance.

Trocadero was awesome and while we were there, we experienced our first taste of Milwaukee’s obsession with Bloody Mary’s. I would say outside of beer, Bloody Mary’s are Milwaukee’s No. 2 most consumed beverage. Everywhere you looked, there were Bloody Mary’s being served.

Once we got done with breakfast, we headed to Miller Park. Now just to fill you in, Tom has a borderline unhealthy obsession with the Cardinals, which is why we are in Milwaukee in the first place. I am not going to lie, it’s a little concerning.

There's tailgating at baseball games?

From a distance, the ballpark looks like a giant spaceship. It’s the weirdest looking stadium I have seen from the outside. As we pulled into the parking lot, we were all shocked by what we saw.

People were tailgating at a baseball game!! I am not talking about standing like a putz by your car with a beer and you call it a tailgate. I am talking about an all out tailgate like it was the Green Packers vs. the Chicago Bears.

There were tents, generators, sausages as far as the eye could see, and kids throwing the baseball around. I was really impressed. We barely see any tailgating at baseball games here in New York.

Here was the best part of tailgating at Brewers games. Not only do they have porta potties, but there is a full restroom that anyone can access outside the stadium. And not only is there a restroom, but this place was spotless. If that was at Giants Stadium, that place would be filled with stuff so vile that decorum prohibits me from talking about it.

I will admit, I like what I saw from Miller Park. It was fan friendly, tickets are inexpensive, and you can stand wherever you want for batting practice. Our seats were on the field level, down the firstbase line ($50 is not bad considering those same seats are $250 at Yankee Stadium), but for BP we stood in the rightfield bleachers.

I didn’t catch a ball, but the girl who was standing there before caught one in the arm because she wasn’t paying attention. Terrible job by her. One last note about BP, Matt Holliday put on a show and Albert Pujols hit the centerfield scoreboard.

Here is what I didn’t like — the Brewers’ lineup that day. Here is the lineup that Ken Macha through out there against Chris Carpenter, one of the best pitchers in baseball

1. Corey Patterson, CF

2. Frank Catalanotto, LF

3. Felipe Lopez, 2B

4. Prince Fielder, 1B

5. Casey McGehee, 3B

6. Jody Gerut, RF

7. Jason Kendall, C

8. Alcides Escobar, SS

9. Dave Bush, P

What is wrong with this lineup? NO RYAN BRAUN!!! Ken Macha, how can you do this to me? If I am going to travel to Milwaukee at 4:30 in the morning, I better see one of the best players in the game play. No wonder why it was 60/40 Brewer/Cardinal fan ratio at the game.

Carpenter just destroyed this lineup. In the second inning, Justin said that Carpenter was going to throw a no-hitter. Well, he came awfully close. Carpenter tossed a one-hitter in one of the best games I have seen pitched in person.

A one-hitter is the sports equivalent of turning 22 years old. Nobody remembers what they did or where they were for a 22nd birthday. But everyone remembers what they did or where they were for a no-hitter or their 21st birthday.

The most surprising aspect of Carpenter’s performance is that he threw 99 pitches. It was surprising because I thought Carpenter only threw like 70 pitches. That’s how much the Brewers’ lineup was dominated by Carpenter.

The other thing I didn’t like — and this really ticked me off. The only thing I wanted was an old-school, powder blue Paul Molitor or Robin Yount player tee-shirt. I went to one team store — no dice. I went to the second team store — sold out.

How is this possible? How can they not have had shirts for the only two stars this franchise has ever had? Just a terrible job by whoever is in charge of merchandising for the Brewers. This almost ruined my day.

The Cardinals won 3-0 in a 1950′s like two hours and eighteen minutes.

Overall it was a good day at Miller Park

Once we got out of the parking lot, in which Charlie had road rage for no apparent reason, we headed back to the hotel to freshen up for dinner and hit up Water Street. Charlie thought it would take two hours to get out of the parking lot, when in reality it took only 30 minutes.

Now I am going to backtrack here a little. Back in the Spring of 1996, Justin, Tom, and I took a trip to Hartford, CT to see WrestleMania XI. It was the WrestleMania where Lawrence Taylor took on the “Beast of the East” the late, great Bam Bam Bigelow.

After that event, we deemed Hartford, CT the most boring city in America. Well, Hartford, CT, you have been replaced. This honor now goes to Milwaukee, WI.

I know it was a Monday night on Labor Day, but come on Milwaukee, show me something. There wasn’t a person in town and barely anything was open. How is Buffalo Wild Wings not open on a Monday night at 7:30 when Miami is playing Florida State that night?

It’s inexcusable.

I saw more people on my plane than there were people out on Water Street on Monday night. One of the places that was open was the Water Front Brewery. There I experienced my third sausage product of the day and my first ever beer sampler.

Normally, the sampler is reserved for mozzarella sticks, wings, fries, etc…But in Milwaukee, the sampler is reserved for eight different types of beer served on a “Thank you sir, may I have another” paddle.

Only in Milwaukee.

The town was so dead that we decided to head to the Pfister Hotel and have some drinks because that is where the Cardinals were staying. Again, Tom has issues. Speaking of issues. When we arrived, we saw a bunch a people and when say people, I mean adults waiting outside the hotel for autographs.

If you are in your 30′s waiting outside a hotel room at 10:30 at night with a sharpie and a binder full of photos, you have some serious issues. At that point you should re-evaluate things.

The bar at the Pfister Hotel was pretty quiet (shocker there). We did see Tony LaRussa, Matt Holliday, Mark DeRosa, Skip Schumaker, and Julio Lugo walk into the hotel, but they weren’t drinking. I wanted to roll an olive at Lugo and ask him to field it.

We called it a night around 11:00. Part Two of our trip will cover the drive to Iowa, playing on the Field of Dreams, pizza in Madison, WI, a Brew Town Hot Brown at the Comet Cafe, and the Miller Brewery Tour.

Greetings From Milwaukee

Hello and greeting from Milwaukee, WI. After a pretty uneventful night, we are getting ready to head to Iowa. What’s in Iowa you ask? The Field of Dreams baby!!

I plan on giving a full recap on Milwaukee, Miller Park, Iowa, and everything else when I get back to New York on Wednesday night. But in less than 24-hours, I have seen a one-hitter, people tailgating at a baseball game, have had three variations of sausage, and have not seen a single good looking female.