So, it's been awhile. I'm not sure who or how many of you still read this blog, but I'm on my lunch at work and thought I'd keep everyone up to date with what's going on in the lives of Erik & Peter. Yes, you read that correctly, I'm at work. Erik and I have traded in our lives as bums for real paying jobs. I work at a large architecture firm in Milwaukee, Eppstein Uhen, and was even so broke from the ball tour and subsequent student loan payments that I've taken on a second job at a fish market. Erik moved out west to Las Vegas, one of the few places we didn't go on the trip. He is working on the John Edwards primaries campaign, and hopefully he will get elected in January so he can remain employed.
In baseball news, Erik and I spent the remainder of September going to Crew games before we got jobs, and after the playoffs came and went, we have started to focus our attention on the Winter Meetings, off-season roster moves, and the Dominican & Hawaiian Leagues' scoreboards. I also am going to a lot of minor league hockey games, the other sport Erik and I frequent.
The main reason I decided to write a random blog entry today was that Erik and I are starting to kick around our ball tour plans for 2008. While on the "big tour," we more or less decided to visit all the new parks that are opening, Spring Training, and many other baseball events in the following years as an annual means of keeping in touch, and as a way of stretching our ball tour out until the day we die. Our main event next year is going to be a trip out to DC to watch the Brewers battle the Nationals over Memorial Day weekend in their new still-untitled ballpark, which is set to open in April. This trip may or may not include a train ride up to New York to see a game in the last year of Yankee Stadium, and/or a ride up to Boston to watch the Crew play at Fenway Park in an interleague series the week before. This all depends on our cash situations, and if we can get free places to stay in each of the cities.
Right now we are leaning towards only going to DC, because we also want to return to Memphis in March to watch the Civil Rights Game at beautiful AutoZone Park. The CR Game was inaugurated last year as a part of a weekend-long series of events to commemorate MLB's drive towards racial equality in the game throughout the years. It would be my third time to the city and Erik's second; we both had a blast there in July and hope to make the return trip in three months. That's about it on the newsfront...more to come as plans get finalized, and when I start watching the Series de Caribe on my computer in February.
touch with baseball when his childhood heroes Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, and Jim Gantner retired but the Great Home Run Chase of 1998 reignited his passion. As a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Erik became involved with the campus chapter of Habitat for Humanity. With this group Erik traveled to Portland, OR and Baltimore, MD to work on construction projects and help the group raise $25,000 to partially sponsor a house in Milwaukee. Also at UWM, Erik met Peter Nagel. The two attended their first Brewers game together during Opening Weekend 2003. Despite their failure to ignite the coals at their first tailgate, the two had a blast and were soon making weekly trips to the ballpark. Erik has gone on to several colleges and changed careers several times, and has moved all the way out to New Hampshire, but has always stayed true to his baseball roots by holding part-time stadium usher jobs. To this day he looks back fondly on his incredible cross-country journey.