But that game won’t be necessary. The Rays, down 7-0 in the 8th inning, tied the game with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th and then beat the Yankees 8-7 in the bottom of the 12th inning, just after midnight. Minutes before, after a lengthy rain delay in Baltimore, the Orioles came back to beat Boston, eliminating the Red Sox from the post-season. The Rays are the 2011 AL wildcard winners!

I loves me some October baseball. Go Rays, and bring on the Rangers!

The Indians’ season, however, is over. They finished second in the AL Central, but just shy of .500 and 15 games behind the Tigers. Oh well .. 190 days until Spring Training 2012!

I was not really a WWF fan when I was a kid but of course it was impossible to not know about wrestling and its flamboyant characters like Macho Man, Hulk Hogan (who also lives in the area), Andre the Giant, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, etc. It’s weird that this happened less than two miles from my house … sad.

Friday night we headed down to Tropicana Field to see the Tampa Bay Rays host my Cleveland Indians. The Tribe came into St. Pete after dropping two games to the Red Sox, but still in first place in the AL Central. The Rays likewise had been in a slump, dropping two to the Tigers and falling into third place in the AL East.

My daughter loves going to Rays games with me because a) she gets to wear her Ben Zobrist “jersey” t-shirt and b) she inevitably wins our bet where the loser buys ice cream and it seems like I’ve been buying the ice cream the past few years when the Rays and Indians play. This year was no exception as David Price shut down the Tribe and the Rays won 5-0.

My attentions were divided during the game as I was constantly checking the score of the Lightning/Bruins game on my phone, hoping the Bolts could win Game 7 and move on to the Stanley Cup Finals. It was still 0-0 as we drove home from the baseball game and I listened to the radio in shock as the Bruins scored with 7 minutes left to go and went on to win the Eastern Conference. Thanks for a great season, Bolts!

Saturday morning we flew to Cleveland (via Charlotte) for my new nephew’s baptism. We landed on-time  mid-afternoon, picked up the rental car, and checked into our hotel. Then we met the rest of the family at Red Robin for dinner (mmmmm, bottomless steak fries).

Sunday morning was mass, followed by the baptism, and then it was back to my sister’s place for the party! Cleveland had been getting a lot of rain lately, but we lucked out and Saturday afternoon was beautiful (it did end up raining later in the evening, but by then we had retired to inside the house to escape the bugs and humidity). The kids all got to play outside while the burgers and hot dogs cooked on the grill and the adults socialized. It had been a while since I had been home to Cleveland so it was nice to see family and friends again over a few beers and games of cornhole.

We had an early flight home Monday morning (no Starbucks in the Cleveland airport!?) but that meant we were back in Tampa by lunchtime. Considering it was a holiday weekend, we had zero issues both ways, so that was nice. We swung by the grocery store on the way home to pick up supplies for the week and then I fired up the grill once we got home to cook lunch.

What better way to end a holiday weekend than with a dip in the pool? The water was up to 82 degrees which was just fine for my daughter and I who went for the first swim of the season.

It’s summertime!

The Bolts now await the outcome of the Boston/Philadelphia series (Boston currently leads 3-0).

I had tickets to Game 6 of this semifinal series against the Caps, but I’m more than happy not to get to use them. Instead I’ll try to snag some finals tickets.

GO BOLTS!!

Yep, my Cleveland Indians are in first place in the AL Central and the American League overall (2 games ahead of the Yankees, with my Tampa Bay Rays only 1.5 games behind them). Seeing Boston in last place in the AL East certainly doesn’t hurt my mood either!

I know it’s only one month into the season, so it’s definitely early, but I still need to take a moment to bask in the glory of the current standings.

Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Lightning staged an amazing comeback, down 3 games to 1 to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the NHL quarterfinals, winning three in a row including a Game 7 shutout. Then yesterday they won the first game of the semifinals against the #1 seeded Washington Capitals. GO BOLTS!

My Saturday afternoon flight seemed to be filled with spring breakers returning home. Since I was only going up for the weekend I just had a carry-on bag and luckily had an exit row seat so I still had plenty of leg room. At 12:45pm we were all boarded and ready to go when the pilot indicated the guidance system was malfunctioning (“that’s what tells us if we’re upside down”) so the secondary system needed to be tested before we could leave. Finally around 1:25pm we were in the air and on our way. The flight was smooth and uneventful and we landed at O’Hare shortly after 3:00pm. About half an hour later I was with my sister who picked me up and drove back to her place north of the city in Bowmanville.

That evening we took the red line south to have dinner with some friends at Burger Bar (which happens to be across the street from the Lincoln Park Apple store). The place had an excellent beer selection and an even better selection of burgers. We also sampled the fried pickles and green chile mac & cheese. After dinner, we walked down the street to Uncle Julios for a few more drinks. Then it was back to the train and home.

I had a slight headache when I woke up Sunday morning but we eventually made it out to lunch (salads) at Potbelly in Andersonville. We ran a few errands and I helped my sister with a few repair/maintenance issues around the apartment (including a TiVo hard drive installation). It was then time for the real reason for the trip (which we had planned last August): hockey!

We drove to the United Center (also known as the Madhouse on Madison) and got there about an hour before the 6pm game.

I only saw two other people wearing Tampa Bay Lightning jerseys like I was. Overall, though, the Chicago fans were well-behaved: I was only booed once (before the game even started!) and commented to once or twice. It was a good game (for me, but not the other 21,000 some fans there) and the Bolts beat the Blackhawks 2-0 (which included an empty net goal with 22 seconds left in the match), their fifth straight win.

Goalie Mike Smith blocked all 31 shots and was even mentioned as a “star of the game” by the United Center announcer (another classy touch by Chicago).

My sister dropped me off at O’Hare around 7:00am on her way to work Monday morning. I was a little nervous attempting to use American’s mobile boarding pass on my iPhone, but I had no problems with the scanners either at the security checkpoint or when boarding the plane. We left Chicago on-time shortly after 8am and we were on the ground in Tampa at noon. I had taken the morning off so I grabbed a quick lunch and then drove straight from the airport to work for the rest of the day.

So overall it was a great weekend!

Ever better, the Tampa Bay Lightning secured a spot in the NHL playoffs with their victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins last night. This will be the Bolts’ first return to the post-season since 2007. I’m actually flying to Chicago this weekend to visit my sister and go see the Lightning take on the defending Stanley Cup champion Blackhawks on Sunday night … should be fun!

On the other side of the coin, the Cavaliers are eight games away from closing out their joke of a 2010-2011 season. With only 15 wins going into April, it’s still possible they might not finish dead last in the NBA.

8:00am: the day started out with our new tradition, Saturday morning breakfast at the Black Bear Diner in Goodyear.

9:30am: we’re at the Player Development Complex watching the Indians’ morning practice.

We saw Shin-Soo Choo go by who was looking pretty good considering he got beaned in the head last night. We spent some time talking to Steve, one of the facilities guys at the complex (he claimed he remembered us from last year, which we doubted).

And what is it with good karma this trip? While we were in the parking lot, an elderly gentleman drove up in a car with Iowa license plates that read CLE-IND (pretty cool). He asked us if we had tickets to today’s game, to which we replied we did. He said he had two tickets he was trying to give away because he was going to the air show at nearby Luke Air Force Base. We told him we already had tickets but we were sure he could find someone else here at the complex. A few minutes later he came walking by again and said he couldn’t find anyone so he just wanted to give them to us to sell or use or whatever. Nice!

11:47am: we’re over in Tempe. Is it intentionally ironic that the Angels play in Diablo Stadium?

We checked out our seats and they’re already in the shade, nice!

1:00pm: the National Anthem was played by Jim “Mr. Trumpet” Doepke, who is on a mission to play the anthem in every major league ballpark as part of his Anthem Across America program.

Now, play ball!

4:30pm: another slug-fest. This one went back and forth but the Indians finally pulled ahead and won the game 10-7. This was the first away game victory we’ve seen by the Tribe in our three years of coming out here! Today’s attendance: 8,735. We’ve got dinner reservations in an hour so we’ve got to quickly get to our new hotel, check in, freshen up, and get to the restaurant.

6:15pm: the one reservation I didn’t confirm before the trip turns out to be the one that’s gone missing. We got to Rustler’s Rooste in time for our 5:30 reservation and there was no record of us. Luckily the Rooste opens at 5:00 so it wasn’t too busy yet and they found us a table outside on the patio. It seems like every time we come here there’s some sort party or reception going on, and today was no exception. The food was great (and plentiful) as usual.

Dinner was fast, but that’s okay because tonight we’ve got to re-organize and pack for our flights home tomorrow. It’s going to be another early start.

6:56am: we took the shuttle bus over to the visitor’s center where we started our hike along the South Rim. We missed the “official” sunrise, but the view was still spectacular.

It’s pretty chilly (mid-40s), but the brisk air makes for great hiking weather.

8:52am: we’ve been hiking along the rim for the last two hours … now it’s time to head down the Bright Angel Trail.

10:00am: we’ve made it the mile and a half (1,131 feet change in elevation) to the first rest stop. We passed the pack mules on their way back up from the Phantom Ranch.

Now we have to get back up to the rim which is the hard part!

11:20am: we’re back on the rim (that was some workout!) heading to our hotel. My brother was using his Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS watch during our hike. Check out this awesome graph/map of our entire hike it generated. It’s been an amazing morning but it’s time to head back to Phoenix for more baseball!

12:30pm: we stopped in Williams for a quick lunch and to check out the historic Route 66 loop.

5:17pm: incredible: we’re sitting in the right-field pavilion back at Goodyear Ballpark eating some free food and listening to a presentation by one of the Indians’ front-office staff.

How did we get here? We checked into our hotel in Goodyear about an hour and a half ago after the scenic drive back from the Canyon and decided to come over the park early. We got a great parking spot and ended up right next to a couple in a large pickup truck who arrived just in front of us. As we were getting our jerseys and such out of the trunk the guy from the pickup truck comes over and asks if we’re season ticket holders. No, we reply, to which he says “want to go to a party?” It turns out that he and his wife are originally from Akron but live here in Phoenix now and are Indians spring training season ticket holders. Tonight is the appreciation party at the ballpark and they have four tickets but only the two of them and wanted to know if we wanted to go! The answer was, of course, sure! He wouldn’t take any money for the tickets so instead we gave him our raffle tickets so he had more chances to win cool stuff like tickets to the All-Star Game (unfortunately he ended up not winning anything).

6:15pm: we’re in line for autographs at the party: Tony Sipp, Chad Durbin, Matt LaPorta, and Shin-Soo Choo!

7:15pm: game time! We’ve got great seats four rows behind home plate.

9:00pm: our luck continues! The father of a friend of my brother’s was at the game and we found him just behind the Indians dugout. The guy he was with had some open seats in the row so he let us move over and sit with them for the rest of the game. The weather tonight is beautiful. I love night-time baseball outdoors!

10:17pm: the Tribe beat the Rangers 12-6 in a slug-fest. Tonight’s attendance: 6,334.

10:45pm: we’re back at our hotel room. My legs are starting to feel the hike this morning, which doesn’t bode well for tomorrow. We’re gonna watch some NCAA basketball and then get to sleep.