Ravens head coach John Harbaugh. I had been trying for six months to put something together with him and brother Jim in Detroit (little known fact, John’s wife Ingrid is the world’s biggest Tigers fan), but with families and work and busy schedules, we couldn’t arrange it for our Comerica Park date.
But John Harbaugh had a better idea. “My dad wants to go to the game with you guys in Milwaukee tomorrow. Can you throw him a text and meet him there?”
Of course, immediately my wife deadpanned: “Who’s got it better than us?”
Noooo-body!
Except maybe the cool kids we met before the game at Busch Stadium on our special night in St. Louis.
As we were closing down our stand and preparing to grab some seats and a beer and a hot dog in the upper deck of Busch Stadium – one of only three ballparks on the tour that I hadn’t seen – I heard someone shout my name.
It was a group of four college kids from Marquette – two guys, two gals – who are about as crazy as we are, perhaps even worse. They had some extra time this summer so they decided to drive to 30 ballparks in 37 days and blog about it as their graduation present for completing their senior year.
8Their journey is unique and awesome as well. They called it the Diamond League tour.
For us, St. Louis was Day 14. For them this was Day 36, or the second-to-last day of their journey. Not only did we swab them all for the registry but they also extended the kindest Midwestern invite to join them the next afternoon in Milwaukee, in the parking lot of Miller Park for their finish line family celebration with brats and beers on a Wisconsin afternoon in a tailgating mecca.
Once I found out that Jack Harbaugh – former Marquette associate athletic director and Milwaukee resident – would be attending, I let the Diamond Leaguers know we could have a celebrity tailgater at this family reunion.
Day 14 was fantastic. We wanted to go back up into the Gateway Arch and never made it but we had an extraordinary time at the game and at every stop on Jenn’s new “birth” day.
As we exited St. Louis and headed west on I-70, we looked into the sky and saw that the federal courthouse was awash in rainbow colors. The Supreme Court changed the world that day and we’ll never forget that color display.
June 26th will always be known as a day of love…
8On the solid advice of Howard Balzer – who wins “Eating Tip of the Trip” – we drove southwest to Ted Drewes Custard Stand.
It was, literally, the best stuff I’ve ever tasted.
I will never make a trip to St. Louis again without eating custard at Ted Drewes.
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8
THE AIR IN MILWAUKEE WAS perfect as we pulled into
