Day 2- Kirtland and Cleveland

        Day 2 of the tour.  What more could you ask for!?  We made our first long distance travel today.  We drove from Cincinnati to Cleveland.  We woke up this morning a little late due to the late game and got some final things done before heading out.  We went to Wal-Mart to get some food, and then back home to make sandwiches, print tickets for the trip, etc.  We got on the road at about 11:30 and started our drive towards Cleveland.  We made a pit stop in Columbus to refill gas and throw the baseball a little.  I wanted to stop by the horseshoe at THE Ohio State University, but we didn’t have any idea where it was or the time or desire to search for it.  We continued on, and went to Kirtland, about 30 minutes past Cleveland.

The Kirtland Temple

        When we got to Kirtland, we went straight to the Community of Christ visitors center for a tour of the Temple.  They showed us a short video about the temple, and then opened up the curtain and we were looking straight at the temple.  It was pretty cool.  The four of us were alone on our tour with Bill, our emotional tour guide.  We were able to go through the whole temple: the two big rooms as well as the 3^rd floor where they had classrooms and the prophet’s office.  Most of the building is still original and it was pretty neat.  It was interesting to hear the stories from the point of view of the Community of Christ church.  The general idea was the same, but I just thought it was so interesting to see what a difference the spirit does make in teaching.  When we first walked in, I was expecting a feeling like you get walking into a current LDS temple, but it’s not there, and I was thinking that it’s too bad that something so important is just being used as a tourist sight and not ‘living up to its potential’, if you will.

Here is proof for Hayley...

        We then went to the LDS visitors center and the missionaries also showed us a video there.  It was amazing the difference between the two.  The whole time you could feel the spirit as we were watching.  After the short movie, we headed out to the Whitney store as well as the Whitney home, saw mill, and the ashery.  The sisters who gave us a tour were pretty cool.  Taylor was spitting some game.  Typical Jensen move.

Newel K Whitney Store in Kirtland

        We hurried through most of the tour so we could get headed towards the game, and stopped at subway (eat fresh!) on the way.  We had a crazy lady serving us. Haha she freaked out when we walked in and said something like “where’d all these people come from?!” She then asked what kind of bread we wanted, and then proceeded to tell us all they had was wheat! Haha We drove into Cleveland, and I saw part of Lake Erie, the first time I have ever seen one of the great lakes.  It was pretty impressively large.  We pulled into Cleveland and parked right next to “the Q” and acrossed the street from the building where the giant banner of LeBron Bron used to hang.  I made my fair share of anti-LeBron comments. J

        We got to the stadium in the middle of the 2^nd, and the score was already 2-2.  I had predicted a 3-2 game and was mad that they were 2-2 in the 2^nd, and thought I had no chance!  We went in right at the left field foul pole and hung out on the HR porch for a few minutes.  We were on the jumbotron right then, only 5 minutes after we arrived. Check! As soon as the inning ended, they pulled the tarps out and people started clearing the stands.  And then it started pouring!  We slowly worked our way through the crowded hallways and made it to our seats- back row downstairs (aka under the second deck, which was perfect for a rainy game) about even with third base.  Eventually we did our stadium tour when it looked like it was clearing up and headed to left field.  It started pouring again as we passed a pay for a pitch pitching radar, so we stopped and everyone threw a few pitches except me.  I didn’t want to without my knee brace, especially in the rain, so I resisted.  Teej threw our hardest ball at 61 mph.  (Let’s be honest, I didn’t want to show these fella’s up.  That’s why I didn’t pitch! :p )  we then stepped around the corner once it cleared up for the last time and looked around their hall of fame in center field.  We got a ball out and threw for a few minutes there before continuing the tour.  By the time the game started, we were pretty close to right behind the plate, so we took a sit down and watched the game from there!

The Stadium from Center field

Mike and his friends being escorted out of their seats again!

        Our favorite fan of the night, Mike, was infront of us.  Haha- at one point he was desperately trying to get the crowd involved and started chanting “Let’s go tribe! Everyone get up!”  He was unsuccessful, so I started cheering at Mike, egging him on, to the joy of those around, and people behind us even helped us cheer Mike on.  (BTW, His name was on the back of his shirt, so we knew who we were cheering for.  Haha.)  Eventually he ripped his shirt off to start slapping his Indians tattoo on his shoulder blade. Too much!  He never heard us cheering, so we decided to support him and went to sit behind him.  He told us we were great fans. Haha.  I guess we drew too much attention when we moved down, because our good friend Gail the usher came down and kicked all of us out.  So we went back to our seats for about 5 pitches before relocating 6 rows behind the Indians dugout.  We stayed there the rest of the game.  We watched Mike and his friends move 3 or four times as he continually was kicked out of his seat!

        The game itself was scoreless going into the bottom of the eighth inning when Cleveland had a golden opportunity and attempted a suicide squeeze, but the batter missed his bunt! Sad.  So it ended up going 14 innings before Detroit hit a Cleveland batter with bases loaded and pushed the winning run in, making the final 3-2, as I predicted.  We got out at 2:06 am and made it to Kory Jensen’s place in Akron around 2:45.

The Jake aka Progressive field was not as impressive as we thought it would be.  It had a name to live up to, and we were not impressed.  It seemed squished and disconnected from itself.  The fans were also a letdown, although, we give them an asterisk due to weather and lateness of the game.  Also to damper the mood was the worst ever jumbo tron race- they had dunkin’ donut characters race through an obstacle course.  They went in a straight line and were all dead even until the last second. Haha it was boring. Let down.

Bullet points to mention

-There was a foul ball to the suites during extra innings, and most of them were empty, so there was a race between two fans, each about 100 feet away, and it ended with the teenager diving for the ball and beating the little kid.  It was great.  But then the stadium booed after cheering his effort, and he gave the kid the ball.  Later, there was a similar event where another guy hurdled his way to another ball.  It was great.

-We loved our Tiger’s 3^rd base coach, Gene Lamont.  I had fun heckling him, and we even got him to grin once or twice.

-We did work on promo’s tonight.  Garrett got a hat, which worked well since he is collecting hats, and I got a pull string backpack, which I passed to the girl next to me, since I would never wear an Indians backpack.

- We may have seen the start of a Cleveland tradition.  The birth of the rally hat.  A girl was wearing a rainbow umbrella hat and was on the jumbotron many times.  Each time, a logo progressively developed- first it said rally hat, then rally hat with a hat on the words, then with little animations around it eventually.  It was fun.

-We continued our in game traditions of calling wild 2’s everytime the count was 2-2 with 2 outs.  Our new favorite though, is cheering excessively each time a player takes a timeout in the box. Beautiful.

- While taking pictures in Kirtland, Bill would take each picture, and say “ready, steady, Eddy!”,  which was way ironic since his hands were trembling like the San Andres fault!

Game prediction standings:

Eric         2-0

Mitch      1-1 *

Taylor     1-1

Garrett    0-2

*asterisks denotes a correct score prediction.

Scoreboard:

Jumbotron appearances: 4

Balls from the game: 0

Promotion items: 2 (Garrett- Hat in Cle; Mitch- backpack in Cle)

Stadium hours: 12

Rainouts/ hours: 3.5

Extra innings: 5

Car hours: 7.25

Miles: about 350

States: 4