This would have been way better to see on Wednesday instead of the nothing that I saw at Coors Field that day.
College Baseball’s Radford hosting High Point on May15
For the full video (yes, there’s more) watch: this full length presentation.
A coach I once knew told me you me, “you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit” and I’m fairly certain in most cases that is true. However, my trip to Colorado might be the exception to that rule.
I flew to Denver on Tuesday evening, after finishing up an event at work. I was super excited because not only was this whirlwind trip including knocking Coors Field off my stadium list, but I would be getting to do it with my cousins, who I don’t get to see as nearly as often as I would like. The Colorado contingent of LeMasters were gracious enough to pick me up from the airport even though my flight got in at 10pm, let me crash with them Tuesday night, and take me to the game Wednesday afternoon. Did I mention my host cousin Ryan and his wife Emily have 3 children under the age of 5? So you can see, this hospitality was quite nice, given that with the birth of their third child, Nicky, they switched their coverage from a man to a zone defense.
I got into Denver and it was a little chilly but no big deal. Ryan, Em and I stayed up til about 1 in the morning catching and talking, swapping stories. It was awesome. When I woke up Wednesday morning, I saw white. White rooftops, white grass….white freaking snow. Yes, snow. In May. After I picked up my jaw off of the floor, Ryan and I did a little research and realized not only was the game delayed, it was flat out postponed! Boo.
So we went to Plan B, which included taking the kids to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to check out a Pirates exhibit. We met up with my other cousin Dayna and my Uncle Nick and cruised around the museum. Despite not having any baseball in my life yesterday, it was a fairly solid Plan B. I don’t know what I enjoyed more: the museum itself or watching Ryan’s kids looking at all the exhibits and asking questions about them. Thank you to Dayna, who brought her camera and took the following pictures. As you can see, clearly we are related because of the fancy edited frames and tints to the photos, thus making them look like scrapbook pages already.
After dinner, at about 6:30, Uncle Nick took me to the airport where I was scheduled to leave at 8:10. At approximately 9:30, when I should have been somewhere over Nevada, I was still in the terminal, staring at the amassing snow that was piling up on planes and runways alike. I decided it was then that I would investigate what it would take to switch my flight to the following day. When I had called Southwest earlier in the morning, upon learning of the fate of the game, they had wanted 200 more dollars. You see why I was at the airport, giving up a chance to watch David Wright play.
However, this very nice gate agent told me she would be happy to switch my flight to the following evening for free! Why, yes! Yes I would like to make that change! I had Thursday off…why not?!?
Not wanting to impose on my family any more than I had (and especially not at 9:30 at night) I set out to get accommodations. Fast-forward to this morning, when I headed downtown in search for a cup of coffee. I landed at the Westin lobby, lured by the Starbucks logo that hung outside and the hope of free WiFi, and as I was doctoring up my coffee, a guy across the lobby (who looked somewhat familiar, but from where I couldn’t place) called out and pointed to the letters on my UCSD sweatshirt, giving me the thumbs up. I finished up my coffee swirling and he waved me over. I asked if he was a fellow Triton and while he wasn’t, he did grow up in San Diego. He was sitting with another guy, and they introduced themselves as Dave Roberts and Aaron Harang, both members of the Padres organization with Roberts the first base coach and Harang a pitcher. Solid baseball people are just my kinda people.
We continued chatting and the Giants former #10 asked me what brought me to Denver. Ha! What brought me to Denver you ask? Why, something that surely the two professionals could appreciate. I gave them the short story about how I was trying to sneak in a trip to Denver, to get that stadium off my list and we chatted back and forth about our baseball backgrounds (mine was short, albeit unique compared to the other two). Of course work came up and when I mentioned I worked for a winery, Dave brought up his wine label (appropriately named “Red Stitch”) that is from fruit grown in Coombsville.
I had to say, this was beginning to shape up into a fairly solid bonus day.
The two, who were supposed to play golf but got rained out, where waiting on another buddy before they were going to head out to breakfast. They tried to figure out if they had any connections that could get me into Coors Field if the game did in fact get rained out (again). We ended up chatting for about 20 minutes or so before they headed out and I made plans to make my way to the field but I appreciated their time and it was fun talking with them, so at this point I was thinking to myself, there was still hope for this day…
…to be continued (at Coors Field)
…but at least there’s football baseball. A great quote, though in my world, weekends actually pay quite nicely. But I digress.
Happy Saturday night.
eight games, people. Eight.
PS- The 8-game MLB picture-in-picture is on mute, so I can listen to the USF game against Fresno State, in which Ted (so far) got a base hit and flew out to deep right center field, rounding out my baseball-centric evening.
PPS- David Wright went 3-5 with two RBI tonight. I watched it (obvi) and we have confirmation. He is still dreamy.
A couple of things, actually.
One, that my brother played baseball in AT&T Park, home of the National Champions San Francisco Giants,
and two, this picture, of my brother talking to two of his biggest fans (our younger cousins) that waited patiently atop the dugout for him to come out, after cheering all game for him:
Jack, Josh and Ted
For those of you living under a rock, Sunday was the Super Bowl and I decided it was a fine time to break in my new television. Best Buy was having a sale and I had Christmas money and gift cards burning a hole in my pocket so I’m the proud owner of a 60-inch man tv. Yep, 60 inches of high-def glory. It’s spectacular, not gonna lie.
My brother and my parentals hadn’t met G2‘s mom yet so we all converged on my house to watch the game. There was a pool (Mom won 3 of 4 quarters, including the final she isn’t invited back next year) and lots of food. I may have overcooked. Possibly. Just a little bit.
Come to find out, I ♥ crock pots. I used two on SBS: one for chili and one for chicken nachos (recipes to follow below) and I also enjoy football food that’s odd, outta me.
Our menu consisted of the following:
It was a solid line up of eats, if I do say so myself.
The game was fun and truly, all I asked was that the game wasn’t a blowout so I appreciate the Packers and the Steelers making it interesting. I have tons of leftovers (as does my brother, who took a lot home) especially since it was near 80 degrees on Sunday so hearty chili wasn’t exactly a hit, although I tasted it and was pleased with the recipe, but I think next time I will add more beans.
Here’s the recipe round up for my SBS Party:
Slow-Cooker Chili
Ingredients:
Preparation:
In a large skillet, brown the ground chuck and drain the fat. Combine all the ingredients in a crock pot on LOW and let the magic happen. In approximately 7 hours, you will have deliciousness. This recipe has some kick on the back end, so I recommend mixing in the shredded cheese and sour cream when serving. The sour cream will cool the kick without sacrificing the flavor.
Southwestern Chicken Nachos (we used this more as a dip but heap this on top of chips and it could be delish!)
Ingredients
Preparation:
Empty the bag of frozen corn onto the bottom of the crock pot. Place the frozen chicken on top of the corn, then cover the chicken with the salsa and black beans. Cook on HIGH for one hour, then reduce the setting to LOW for 4 more hours. Shred the chicken with forks, then mix in the cream cheese until creamy. Now’s the time when you can pile up a platter of tortilla chips then top them with the nachos and additional toppings, but we just ate it as dip with the chips and it worked well. It’s currently being enjoyed on its own in a bowl, in a very cereal-like method of consumption.
Spinach-Artichoke Dip
Ingredients
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350. Combine all ingredients, saving 1/2 cup of cheese for use later, in a mixing bowl. Pour mixture into a 9-inch pie plate or quiche casserole dish. Sprinkle the top with a little cayenne and top that with the remaining mozzarella. Bake for 20-25 minutes and serve with tortilla chips or crackers.
Loaded Potato Skins
The only thing I hate about potato skins is that good potato I had to basically get rid of to get at the skins. As a big fan of carbs in general, this seems like such a waste! Sigh.
Ingredients:
Preparation:
Preheat the over to 400. Wash the potatoes and with a very sharp knife, cut them in half, long ways (or, hot-dog way, if you prefer). Scoop out the potato (I didn’t do this very precisely, again, because it seemed like such a waste of perfectly good potato insides!) and place on a foil-lined baking sheet, skin-side down until soft (in my oven it was about 30-40 minutes). While the potatoes are baking, begin frying the bacon. Be sure to fry extra bacon in case one of your guests likes to “sample” bacon every chance he gets. When the bacon is done, transfer it to a paper towel-lined plate and save the bacon grease. Crumble the bacon to bits. When the potatoes are done, I fried the skins in the bacon drippings to add a little more bacon flavor. Remove from the frying pan and return to the baking sheet. Top with bacon bits and cheese and bake again for another 15-20 minutes, or until the cheese melts. Serve with sour cream.
Peanut Butter & Chocolate Crunch Bars
Ingredients:
Preparation:
Beat HALF of the peanut butter and butter until creamy. Gradually add in 1 cup of the powdered sugar. With a wooden spoon, mix in the graham cracker crumbs, 1 package of chocolate chips, followed by the remaining powdered sugar. Spread evenly into a greased 13×9 pan. Melt the remaining peanut butter and other bag of chocolate chips in a saucepan on LOW until melted together and creamy. Spread over the top of the mixture in the pan and refrigerate for at least one hour (unless it’s a freakishly warm, 80-degree day, then keep them chilled for as long as possible so as not to melt in your house in February).
So that was my big Super Bowl Sunday cook-a-thon. I really like cooking. I like it even more when there are people around for whom to cook.