My daughter was in need of a new Rays t-shirt and wanted a “jersey” so we hit the team shop first thing. I wasn’t about to drop $90 on a “real” jersey so I ended up getting her a t-shirt instead with Ben Zobrist’s name and number (#18) on the back. Apparently she didn’t want to jump on the Evan Longoria bandwagon.  It turned out to be a good choice: Zobrist walked three out of his four times at the plate and scored two of the Rays four runs. The Indians unfortunately (for me) lost the game 4-0.

Usually when I go to the Indians/Rays there are quite a few Cleveland fans in the stands with me. Not so this time. While I did see a lot of Cleveland shirts and jerseys (including myself of course), I was the only Indians fan in section 121.

We were supposed to see the Go-Go’s after the game as part of the Rays Summer Concert Series, but unfortunately the band cancelled their tour last month. That was a shame as my daughter was really looking forward to jamming to “We Got the Beat.”

Overall, though, we had a great time at the ballpark. I almost totally forgot about LeBron.

“As you now know, our former hero, who grew up in the very region that he deserted this evening, is no longer a Cleveland Cavalier.

This was announced with a several-day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up culminating with a national TV special of his “decision” unlike anything ever “witnessed” in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment.”

There are some harsh portions of that letter (at least, harsh coming from a team owner), but there are some good points as well.

Art Modell seems confident that he will ultimately hold onto his title of the Most Hated Man in Cleveland. He may be right, but “King” James gets to wear that crown for quite a while.

Good luck in Miami, LeBron, I guess. Whatever. Meh. The Q will be a totally different place the first time the Heat come to play in Cleveland.

Let’s add “The King’s Elbow” to Cleveland’s list Championship Frustrations and move on as we always do. And oh yeah: Go Cavs!!

My daughter really wanted to ride one of the rides at Nickelodeon Universe so we bought some tickets and all rode the Pepsi Orange Streak roller coaster. It’s certainly not the fastest or most awesome roller coaster I’ve been on, but I’m pretty sure it’s the first indoor one I’ve ridden. My daughter enjoyed it so much she went on it a second time, by herself in the front car!

Before we left, I had to find the original home plate location from when The Met was there. Correspondingly, I found the original seat from The Met in the exact location where Harmon Killebrew hit his 520-foot home run in 1967.

With the car re-packed, we checked out of the hotel, picked up my caving photos at Walgreen’s, and then hit the highway. Eschewing the interstate for the more scenic route, we took US and state routes through the county which took us through towns like Mankato, Winnebago, and eventually Blue Earth, the home of Green Giant.

(Blue Earth is also where the western and eastern halves of I-90 were joined in 1978). From there we headed west on the beginning of our back-and-forth jaunt across the lower portion of South Dakota. It started out very flat, but very scenic.

We started seeing the first billboards for Wall Drug (which we plan on stopping at tomorrow), and stopped briefly in Mitchell to see the Corn Palace.

We had dinner at a Ruby Tuesday’s in Mitchell and got back on the highway. Eventually we crossed over into the Mountain time zone and reached our hotel in Oacoma around sunset (around 9:15pm).

Tomorrow we get to see Mount Rushmore.

GPS statistics after Day 5:

Of course, Cavs fans are nervous. They remember the disappointments of “Red Right 88,” “The Drive,” “The Fumble,” “The Shot,” and finally, Jose Mesa’s meltdown in the 1997 World Series. So, nobody here wants “The Elbow” to nudge its way into such infamy.

I hope not! I’ve already got lunch at the Cheesecake Factory riding on the Cavs’ winning the second round (I made a bet with a Boston fan colleague at work).

Let’s go Cavs!

After some warm-ups and basic practice, the three of us decided to play H-O-R-S-E. Needless to say with my daughter being relatively new to basketball, she quickly fell behind. When she missed another shot and got her “S” she cried out in frustration: “stupid hors!” (read that aloud if you don’t get it).

My wife and I looked at each other for a second, then couldn’t help ourselves and burst out laughing. Of course my daughter thought we were laughing at her and got even more upset so we had to try to (delicately) explain why what she had said was funny.

We’ll definitely play with a different word next time.

I’ve evacuated from a jet (on the tarmac) and gone down the emergency slides during a passenger-initiated evacuation (back in 2003 when someone thought there was an engine fire).

I’ve been to a GWAR concert.

All of that pales in comparison with what I had to do today: coach a bunch of 9- to 12-year olds in a basketball scrimmage.

My daughter has started taking basketball lessons at a local rec center and on Saturdays there are league games. This was the first day of the league so the coach who runs the program did a rundown for the parents and kids present of how the games work, the schedule, the rules, etc., etc. Then it was time for the game. There were only 13 kids there so they were split them into two teams (red and blue). One dad had already volunteered to be a scrimmage coach for the spring season, but another volunteer was needed for the other team (the guy who runs the program is the referee). Before any of the other dads present could jump in (assuming they would have), the head coach/ref points at me in the bleachers and says “you’ll help me out, right? Come on down.” I tried to protest that I know nothing about coaching basketball but he wouldn’t hear of it (and it didn’t help that I was wearing a Dayton Flyers t-shirt, so he probably knew I had been watching the recent NIT tournament). Talk about being on the spot!

Now, I obviously enjoy watching and attending sports … but that’s where my “expertise” ends. I can’t really talk sports, I don’t follow statistics, I’m not that familiar with rules, I don’t know strategies, and I especially know nothing about coaching!

But before I knew it, I was on the sideline helping the kids get into their red team and blue team jerseys (luckily I didn’t have my daughter on my team). The game consisted of two 20-minute halves, with mandated substitutions every 5 minutes (to make sure everyone got to play). I had a team of 7 so I had to do two substitutions each time. The kids were wide-ranging in skill levels, so I had two strong, older players, two intermediate kids, and then 3 real beginners (“just keep at least one kid on the court who knows how to dribble” the coach told me). I stood on the sideline trying to shout words of encouragement while mentally juggling who I had to take out/put in, what the score was, etc. I knew I was in trouble when during a time-out one of the older kids said to me “Coach, can we switch from man-to-man to zone?” and all I could say back was “uh, sure?” You know how you should never show fear? Yeah, well, I think I failed at that … these kids knew I had no idea what I was doing and I was stressed out.

I think the game ended in a tie, but man, that was a harrowing 40 minutes! The other team’s coach obviously had more experience than me, which probably made me look even more incompetent to the parents in the bleachers on the other side of the court. I could just imagine the grumblings going on over there, but as my wife told me after the game: if they didn’t like it, they could volunteer next time.

Whew.

No April foolin’ here … my Dayton Flyers beat the North Carolina Tarheels 79-68 in the NIT Championship game at Madison Square Garden. Congratulations to the 2010 NIT champs!

Dayton might also have won the last NIT championship, based on rumors that the NCAA will be expanding their tournament to 96 teams next year (effectively killing the NIT). Incidentally, the Flyers last NIT championship was in 1968, which was the first year the National Invitational Tournament was played at the “new” MSG.

Way to go UD!

They looked great against the Cincinnati Bearcats on Monday night (a victory which won me a free drink from Starbucks thanks to a small bet with my sister, a UC grad) and continued to be strong against the Illini, leading by 16 at one point.

I wish they could have played like this in the A-10 tournament (we will beat Xavier one of these days!), but it’s great to see UD making an appearance in the Final Four, even though it’s not the Big Dance.

Go Flyers!!

9:49am: we’re watching some of the players warm up, listening to their chatter. Good natured ribbing is also going on which is fun to hear. It’s actually pretty chilly this morning (and windy!) so I’m wishing I had worn my jacket.

10:42am: during batting practice, we’re hanging out behind the outfield fence, attempting to snag some balls. As the morning wears on, more and more people are starting to join us.

My brother managed to get Grady Sizemore to toss a ball over the fence to him (he asked very politely)! That was nice considering Grady snubbed him for an autograph before the game on Wednesday. He also snagged a ball that topped the left field fence and let me have it. Thanks, little bro!

11:59am: we’re in our seats, right behind home plate this time.

3:53pm: another home team win! The Tribe exploded in the 2nd inning with 8 runs and won easily 12-2 over the Oakland A’s. My brother and I were on the scoreboard video screen for the 7th inning stretch (why didn’t I think to ask the guys next to us to take a picture of that!?) and I caught a t-shirt fired from one of those air guns by someone over on the first base dugout.

6:34pm: we’re at Rustler’s Rooste for our (now) traditional steak dinner celebrating the end of our trip. We played it smart this year, after having to wait almost 2 hours for a table last year. This time we called ahead and only had about a 20 minute wait. We saw some A’s fans that were sitting in front of us at the game waiting for a table as well. On our way up here, we passed Tempe Diable Stadium, spring training home of the Angels, so we had to stop for another photo.

Great views from up here … hard to believe we were at the top of Camelback (in the center distance of the photo below) just yesterday morning:

8:31pm: on our way back to the hotel. Dinner was excellent, as expected. Unfortunately, the rattlesnake wasn’t in season so we didn’t get to try it.

9:30pm: need to get to sleep as we both have early flights tomorrow. We got back to the hotel in time to see Kansas get knocked out of the NCAA tournament. Wow. It’s too bad the trip is already over … I already can’t wait until next year!

9:18am: we’re at the head of the Echo Canyon trail of Camelback Mountain. Parking is ridiculously limited, so we had to drive around to find some available street parking. It took us 20 minutes to walk here from the car, so at least that was a good warm-up for the climb ahead. The trail is 1.2 miles long and the summit is 2,704 feet up!

10:22am: we reached the summit! It was an amazing hike/climb and a pretty good workout. We were much better prepared than last year (appropriate clothing/shoes, water, etc.) so that probably helped. The views are amazing up here (and I even had 3G coverage on my iPhone!).

11:41am: we made it back down. It took us an hour to get up, and then 56 minutes to get back down. Time to head over to Scottsdale for the baseball game.

12:55pm: parking around the Scottsdale Stadium is crazy. We drove around for quite a bit and finally found street parking about a 10 minute walk away. We still made it into our seats before the national anthem though, in the bleachers down the third base line. Another beautiful day to be out at the ballpark. 430′ to center field here … not an easy place for home runs.

4:11pm: a great game, but the Indians lost. The Giants started out with a 5-0 lead, but the Indians came slowly back and eventually had it tied up at 6 in the 7th. But San Francisco score the go-ahead run in the 8th and the Tribe couldn’t answer. 7-6 Giants win. The stadium was packed! Over 12,000 in attendance, wow. Walking out of the park, we met an older gentleman wearing a Indians jersey (Bob Feller #19) jersey who told us he actually saw Feller pitch a no-hitter in 1950. He was kind enough to take this picture for us:

5:30pm: it took us a long time to get back to the hotel in Avondale from Scottsdale, rush hour traffic around downtown and I-10. Time for a quick shower, a change of clothes, and then back downtown for the basketball game.

6:48pm: getting downtown and parked for the US Airways Center was remarkably easy. We’re in our seats (with some dinner) ready for the game to start. R U ORANGE?

9:36pm: the Suns win over the Jazz 110-100. Stoudemire was on fire and recent Vancouver winter Olympics torch bearer Steve Nash had a good game as well. We’re going to head across the street to the Hard Rock Cafe so my brother can pick up a pair of drumsticks. On the way out of downtown we’re going to drive past Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. So far, the home team of every game we’ve seen has won. Hopefully that bodes well for the Indians game tomorrow.

10:42pm: catching up on some NCAA tournament action via SportsCenter before heading to bed.