Continuing our tour of the great midwest, the past 2 days have brought us to the city by 2 lakes- Madison. Thanks to Mike's Job at Epic, we were able to get a free hotel room as we looked for an apartment for him, Sam, and Andrew in downtown Madison. After going around the city looking at different hotels, I'm pretty sure that I'll be visiting here when I can, especially in the Fall as the Badgers take on some formidable new Big 10 foes. I may even try to come on Thursday nights, as that is when it appears the Orpheum is off the chain with their weekly dubstep concerts. Cause I LOVE DUBSTEP!
Anyways, Thursday pretty much involved us looking around for different apartments for the 3 trouble makers. I was able to meet up with good friend Nick McNaughton, who is doing an awesome cross country road-trip and happened to be in Madison at the same time as us. While the 3 amigos were out looking at apartments, Nick and I explored the city of Madison- and by city I mean Camp Randall Stadium- huge. This is also probably a good time to say I had the best Corn Dog ever over at State Street Brats, which is kind of like a much more deluxe Bronco right in the middle of downtown WISCO- when I visit, I'll pretty much be there all day.
I was also able to meet up with Mike Ou, a fellow Prep Eagle, who rows at Madison. As a rowing nerd, it was pretty cool to go see their boathouse- much better than Lexington, and just look in awe of the the facility. Mike was apologetic that I couldn't meet their legendary coach, Chris Clark, who I'm sure if I mentioned Vees there would have been some great stories. Of course, we met one of their assistant coaches who rowed under Vees, who had some good impersonations of Vees as well.
All of this was an appetizer to our appearance at Miller Park later that evening. When we booked this trip, we were excited because it appeared as if the Pirates were going to make a run at the playoffs, and the Brewers were in the same position as well. Of course, since that horrible call in Atlanta, the Pirates have regressed back to the mean- a few days after the trading deadline which is like a double whammy. And now the Pirates are plummeting down the standings, while the Brewers are rocketing up. But, nonetheless we were looking forward to Zack Greinke's pitching, and also redemption from Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder from their abysmal performances a few days ago in St. Louis. ANNND, we wanted Bernie Brewer to go down the slide.
This may be a good point to mention that in our quest for good seats, we purchased $10 seats in the ADA Loge Section of Miller- without any sort of thought of what ADA meant. Of course, now in hindsight we know that it means American's with Disabilities Act seats, meaning we could not, in good conscience, take these seats. So for the first 4 innings we just stood around the park and scouted for some good seats. We were rewarded with Greinke pitching fantastically and efficiently through the first 4 or 5 innings and winding up with a total of 9 K's through 7 2/3 innings. But, up until the 8th we had seen no homer's from anybody, and were in danger of getting our first shutout homerun game. Not a good sign.
Bottom 8, and we're now scared that our streak is in jeopardy. But, we have faith cause Braun and Fielder are due up 1st and 2nd respecitvely. BOOM Braun goes oppo boneyard off the Pirates reliever, the place goes nuts. More importantly, Bernie Brewer goes down the slide. Fielder comes up next and with the place still going nuts, HE GOES JACK CITY. Yes, that's right back to back Jacks. First time we've seen that all trip. So, no sooner does Bernie Brewer get down the slide, he has to go right back up. Pretty awesome sight. And, we saw K-Rod leg out an infield single to the first baseman, beating him in a bang bang play. But, he may have hurt himself as he wasn't able to finish warm-ups in the top of the 9th.
The categories with the discussion of how to warrant a shout out and mention of the Sausage Race:
Coming Attractions: We're wrapping up here in Madison and scheduled to roll-out to Chicago for the White Sox around 11. A little nervous heading back there because the weather is looking iffy and we have to be somewhere in the middle of Indiana tonight to make the drive easier to Cleveland tomorrow. Hopefully we get a good game tonight, but weather may be an issue.
What I Like: Madison the city was pretty awesome. Great college city that will just come to life in a few days. The boathouse is also quite awesome, and while I am jealous that they have great facilities, they definitely do not have the weather we get year round.
What I DIS-Like: State Street Brat's not serving Corn Dogs past 9 o'clock. Come on guys, even the Bronco does that. It would have been delicious.
Bleacher Bums: So aside from the whole snafu of figuring our seats out. Where neither Mike nor I wanted to take seats from people less able bodied than us, we enjoyed Miller Park. It was packed, the 20th sellout of the season, and the fans were loving every minute of it. It would have been great to get there early and tailgate, but time was prohibitive so we just sniffed the aroma's of brats and grills, and watched the finishing rounds of cornhole (not as good as bags). The Sausage race was also quite enjoyable, I've got a video of it so hopefully it will get on Facebook quickly. While the race was good, there were no Charlie Wildcard instances of tripping or dirty tactics and so the Polish sausage won (I think this marks the first time a Pole has won in anything). I also tried to make friends with the little kid next to me. Clearly, he had seen enough Stranger Danger to talk to me. Oh well.
The Food Debate: Aside from the Corn Dog at State Street Brat's, we tried the Brat's and Cheese Curds at Miller and were pleasantly surprised. The secret stadium sauce was delicious as well, but I was kind of expecting an animal style sauce from In n Out, but only got a dark BBQ sauce looking concoction., It was still quite good and went well on the brats and curds. I think i may be pushing 2 bills right now... uhoh.
DJ MMM: Here is an explanation for shout outs. If you want a shout out, you can't simply request a shout out (cough cough K-Fal), you actually have to do something. Mrs. Mitchell got one for organizing this trip, my mom got one for the cookies, Cati Mitchell now gets a shoutout for supplying us with Watch the Throne. We listened to this album all the way into Milwaukee and I must say it is quite the album. Aside from the Ego flouting, Jay-Z and Yeezy really do a great job working together and I hope I could save a bit of money to go see them in SJ in a few months.
So for shoutouts: You must do something or supply us with something or meet up with us in a city to get shouted out. Katherine/Katie/K-Fal you've received your name in this blog a few times as an example, but in the future please do something for us and you'll get a good name drop.
I think that is all for today, send more and more questions in (I'm telling you our inbox is overflowing) and we'll answer them sometime this up coming week!
-W+M
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