Baseball trips and racing sausages

I am hearing the call of the wild. It is getting stronger. I won't be able to deny it much longer.

It's getting to be time for another baseball trip.

I love baseball, and there is very little of it where I live. The local high school had a team for the last several years, but it has gone belly-up. The nearest minor league team is about 125 miles away (Appleton, Wis.). The nearest major league team is the Milwaukee Brewers, about 230 miles away. So it's no small deal (mileage-wise or money-wise) to see a big league game.

My last big baseball trip was in 2004, back when gas was about $1.75 a gallon. I had a wild plan to see three games in two days: the Timber Rattlers (the team in Appleton) one night, the Brewers the next afternoon and the Beloit Snappers, just north of the Illinois border, that night.

But the schedule wouldn't allow it, so I settled for two: the Brewers and Beloit. Early on a June morning, I hit the road. Destination: Milwaukee and Miller Park. Here's the main entrance.



I had never seen Miller Park (except about five years earlier, when it was under construction). My last trip to a Brewers game was a few years earlier in 1997, when they had just started work on the foundation of the new park. They were still playing at old County Stadium. Waited through a three-hour rain delay--but got to see the Crew win one.

Having lived in Milwaukee for years and seen many games at County Stadium, I remembered it well. Miller Park, in comparison, is much prettier and HUGE. My little camera's wide-angle lens simply isn't wide enough to take in all the interior. Here's the best I could do.



The Brewers were hosting the Seattle Mariners in an intraleague game, and I was in the middle deck, way down the right field foul line. A $20 ticket. If you like that price, how about the concessions?



During the game, I finally got the see the Sausage Race. I had mentioned the Sausage Race in a reply to one of Zarafa's recent posts, and she wanted me grind out some more information about it.

The Sausage Race is sponsored by Klement's, one of the top Wisconsin sausage companies. They make a number of varieties, and the American hot dog, the German bratwurst, the Italian sausage and the Polish kielbasa all take part in each race. The "runners" don foam rubber costumes and "run" from the left field corner down in front of the visiting dugout, behind home plate to the finish line, in front of the Brewers' dugout. On this day, the all-American hot dog hit the finish line first.



The Sausage Race is documented in Wikipedia. And here's the Racing Sausages' website.

Alas, the Brewers lost this day, and I had to get to Beloit for that night's game. But, of course, I got caught up in rush hour traffic after the afternoon game and was inching along. At least it gave me a chance to get an exterior shot of Miller Park in all its hugeness. (They had opened the roof. It was closed during the game.)



Then, off to Beloit, Pohlman Park and Single A minor league baseball. But I'll save that part of the story for another day.

TO BE CONTINUED ... SOMEDAY