Twerve Days of Baseball

Ed (no relation to Ted) Brogan:

Whoa man... I don't feel too hot right now. We are deeply in religer country and it is currently twerve noon on... what the hell day is this, Monday? And we are on our way to the World Series rematch of the Cardinals and Red Sox where Morgan has spoken with an ex-teacher who works for the Cardinals and will let us down onto the field to watch the big fellahs take batting practice. Stay tuned.

And where do I start... lots has happened...

First, a couple of overall notes. I'm beginning to question whether we are doing a baseball road trip, or recreating the Supersize Me movie. In the average day we eat a lot, drink a lot, sit in a small van for 8 hours and spend 3 hours getting kicked out of sections of baseball stadiums where we do not have tickets. I mean, honestly, we just stopped at a gas station and bought a taquito, a chicken/bacon/cheese sandwich, and an egg/meat pattie sandwich (without the bread, Devo is watching his carb intake), and 2 glazed donuts... From a friggin gas station! Who does that?! We're about to the point of the movie where Morgan Spurlock gets short on breath when he walks more than 5 feet.

Second, surprisingly traveling around the country watching baseball games, staying at hotels and drinking beer while unemployed is not cheap! Who knew?! But don't worry, BET has called with employment opportunities and I have purchased gancing.com for extra streams of revenue (a trailer of Morgan's gancing will be up by the end of the month).

Now, for the latest update: We arrived in the lovely metropolis of Kansas City, MO at 12:15, just in time for our hotel to realize they had screwed up our shuttle to the Royals game and buy us a cab ride out to Kauffman Stadium. And our cab driver was probably the smartest man in the world. He was in his fifties, looked like Jerry Garcia (if JG had been gently beaten with an ugly stick-- we think he may be the illegitimate love child of JG and Santa Claus) and he told us all about the local art galleries (where Morgan later ganced in front of a 30 foot high shuttlecock).

He gave us a tour of the Plaza area where we were staying and pointed out all of the bars that were full of "eager farm girls." He also pointed out all of the local hidden motels which charge by the hour, play host to portable meth labs, and house friendly women who will sleep with you if you pay them money ("You won't find these on google," he informed us). But most importantly, he educated us bumpkins about the great world of KC barbecuing. You have Arthur Bryant's, a nice, but touristy place where we later ate an entire pig.

Then there is Gates, "the GM of barbecue restaurants" -- we sampled some at Kauffman, and Devo called it "delish." But if you really want to go to the best place, there is a little hole in the wall called "LC's" which is the "Ferrari of barbecue." Unfortunately LC closes shop on Sunday's so we never got to check it out ("He's never been a religious man, he just wants a day off"), but we recommend checking it out next time you're in KC.

After allowing us to buy beer on the way, Jerry Garcia-Claus dropped us off in the parking lot of Kauffman and set us off to drink our 6-pack and be aware of the "right wing Christians." And we all were impressed by the Royals' stadium which is the nicest ballpark for a little league baseball team that I've ever seen. Full of fountains, and the Anti-PNC-- not an usher to be found anywhere to kick you out of your seats (not quite true as we learned in the 9th). And for Andrew Dombrowski, one of our most dedicated readers, they had the best beer deal yet-- $7.50 for a 24 ouncer, and you were allowed to by 4 at a time (usually it's 2)!!! What a world! Needless to say, Devo was drunk before he had his first sip (and somehow managed to get a sunburn exclusively on his knee caps-- he was quickly dubbed "Hot Knees").

The game went well, Mark "Teabags" Teahan and the Royals got their asses handed to them by Kenny Rogers, Mark "Tishy Tishy Gum Drops" Teixera, and the rest of the hard hitting Rangers, and we thought we'd make it out of there without incident. As is usually the case, we were wrong. By the middle of the 9th inning we had upgraded our seats to a great spot near home plate, right behind a constantly swearing father and his two children ("What, you want more money from me? Get in line behind your fuckin' mom"). And, as is often the case, Morgan got that unshakable urge for some public gancing ("Boys, if gancing is wrong, I don't want to be right") so he grabbed Devo (who is getting more and more like Glen Humplik, Tom Green's laughing sidekick, every day) and they went to work by the Royals dugout. Morgan did some great moves, including some nice gance interaction with our usher, and by the end of it we had two sections giving some great applause. Everyone loved it... except for the aforementioned usher who followed the two fellahs back to our seats and immediately asked to see our tickets. After a few cries of "What, I thought this was America?", Devo made the unwise choice of telling the usher to check the swearing father's tickets. Unlike us, the swearing father had actually paid for the seats he was sitting in so he did not take too kindly to this, and as swearing fathers will do, he began to swear. "What the fuck are you asking that about? I fuckin' paid for this shit, did you fuckin' buy the fuckin' seats you're sitting in? Get these fuckin' guys out of here." And after suggesting he not swear so much with his kids around ("I'm not swearing at my fuckin' kids, I'm fuckin' swearing at you") we decided to obey the usher's bidding and leave, but not before hearing swearing dad's 8-year-old son say "Dad, why did you do that? Those guys didn't do anything, why do you have to yell at them?" That's right little dude, keep it classy.

Shortly after, K-Rod (Ed. note: it was actually Cordero) finished off the Royals to complete the 8-1 win and we got in line to run the bases... Unfortunately 12,000 8-year-olds had the same idea and after learning we were 45 minutes away from running the bases we decided to suck it up and go find a taxi ride home.

Luckily, we had one of the world's best negotiators, Eric Devon on hand and he got right down to business--
ERIC: How about a flat rate to the quarterage hotel?
CABBY: No, I only go by the meter, there's no way--
ERIC: $20!
CABBY: Deal!

Phew... what a day... and that was all prior to 4PM. I'm gonna lay off the carpal tunnel for a little bit and let the Big man update y'all on the night experiences when he sees fit. Albert Poo-holes, we're on our way!!!

BIGGIE:

There are a lot of fountains in Kansas City. No, I don't think you get it. There are a flippin' lot. It is apparently the fountain capital of the US, and second only to Rome, Italy in the world. These Kanssourians are very proud of their fountains and will take you on driving tours and show you their favorites and talk about how fountains changed their lives. We got a number from one fellow bar goer- 316... but I think there are probably a lot more, and they are awesomely sweet and make you want to totally flip out.

It was Devo's birthday last night so we were aiming for the fences, even though it was a Sunday night in KC, and it looked like we were definitely going to have to bring out the big guns. Mojo and Devo heard from some not-as-eager-as-they-hoped ladies and found out the spots we needed to parlay in Fountain City. After some intravenous caffeine from Starbucks, we went back to our hotel room, blew the dust off some playing cards and had a heated battle of asshole with straight liq's. "Hot knees" needed a little time to recover but soon we were all on our way to gargoyle/brogan/jemus status. Back out on the town, we hit the aforementioned irish pub roof deck and were well on our way to getting the birthday boy directions from Shy Beaver, PA to Intercourse, PA.

The Jayhawk ladies from KU and Royal Teahen we were hanging out with provided plenty of entertainment, interesting conversation, and a lot of information. We also talked to the most influential guy in Kansas City, the owner of Guy's Chips and Guy's Nuts. He was most definitely the Katie Franklin of Fountain CIty. We headed over the state line into Kansas, and although we thought about how cool it was that we had partied in two states, we also realized that when we were in D.C. we were averaging at least three states a night. One of the kind, interesting and accommodating Jayhawks had us to her house-- yeah 23 and living in a house owned by her roomate.

One big, happy, dsyfunctional Kansan Family

The midwest is a strange and wonderful place, and we just want it to know that we really like its style. As a collective, dear reader, we have taken a real shine to Kansas City, and in turn, the city has spritzed us with countless fountains and treated us to some of the best, albeit gas-producing, barbecue this humble blogger has ever experienced.