Tales From the Road

A couple random stories from the recently concluded roatrip that I thought I'd share before I go to bed on a frustrating night...The first day back from a roadtrip is usually pretty busy catching up on all the stuff from the road...Not to mention when your car starts acting funny and the check engine light comes on as you drive back home from the ballpark following a 3-0 loss...Yargh!!

Rockford
The random story from Rockford involves the hotel...As you know my equipment was giving me issues in Rockford, so on Wednesday Rockford's broadcaster, who joined me for the middle three innings tonight, picked me up at the hotel early in the afternoon so I could go to the stadium to mess with stuff...I got to the park somewhere in the vicinity of 2:30 EST...Well we think I got everything resolved, but that's not the story...When I left the hotel it was a Howard Johnson...After the 6-5 win we returned to the hotel and it had changed ownership to a Days Inn...So we literally stayed in two different hotels for two seperate nights even though it was in the same building...

Windy City
Everytime we go to Windy City it rains...Saturday was no exception...The game delayed for 1:11 due to the weather and mad props needs to go to the Windy City grounds crew...Anyhow, tornado sirens were going off for most of the afternoon and batting practice was cancelled...So...the entire team took to watching the debacle that was the Belmont Stakes in the clubhouse...The newest edition to Windy City's clubhouse was a TV, convieniently placed for the race...Big Brown was pathetic, but the race was almost not seen as the TV station broke in to weather coverage talking about three half mile tornadoes that were on their way into the South suburbs of Chicago, specifically mentioning Crestwood, home of the T-Bolts...The groundskeeper had a watch to tell us when the storm was going to hit...6:15pm...Of course, everyone wants to see the tornado, yours truly included...Being from Chicago my wife and family usually make their way to the games there especially with this being the only stop...So the Mrs. was sitting in the dugout as I was out on the field with around half of the team watching the skies...The sirens kept getting closer and closer as the storm slowed...I deferred to the Oklahomians to talk about tornadoes as they had seen them up close and personal before...The closest I came was in Cozumel, Mexico this spring when I saw a water spout which is a tornado on the water...J.T. King was up in the upper deck trying to spot the storm...Around 6:30 there was still no storm, but there was a lot of the eerie calm moments...The siren immediately behind the park began to blare, but within five minutes it stopped and we got the all clear from the groundscrew...Tornado stayed south, severe thunderstorm on the way so 7:30 was going to be the earliest start...I went in the booth to set up and went on air at about 7:30, staying on for nearly an hour during the delay playing back interviews that were previously heard only on here (That's what you get with Calderwood's Corner, exclusive content!! There may be some more exclusive stuff on the way soon...)