It was a nice feeling to breathe West Coast air and be close to home. While it was cold and raining

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Ken Lee, Chuck Booth and Doug Miller all at Safeco Field for the game #18 in 14 days on April.19/2012. hotel roosevelt (They would later be featured on TV several hotel roosevelt times above the King s Court Seats. ) Chuck also had a special welcome wave from the TV Jumbo Tron and was given a free gift bag from the Seattle front office.
Chuck Booth (Lead Baseball Writer and @chuckbooth3024 on twiter)- It was a great day for a new baseball park.  During this trip, anytime that I have had a single game only for a day, I have felt a little bit more relaxed while watching the action. hotel roosevelt I flew into FLL (Fort Lauderdale Airport) really early and caught up on some writing. hotel roosevelt I was fully rewarded hotel roosevelt with my National hotel roosevelt Car Rental to the tune of a Chrysler 200 that was black in color.  I made my way to my Best Western Hotel near the airport.  Check in time was not till 3 PM, but I was able to coerce the staff to let me take a room early.  I really appreciate the professional way the Best Western staff always helps me in the travels.
I left for downtown Miami at 4 PM.  I had nice directions into the ballpark.   I have not driven into Miami very many times in my life so it is still fresh. hotel roosevelt Once I hit around the 7 th street area, I scouted the same parking spot that Lori Martini had told me about near the park.  I parked for $15 and the spot was a mere 50 feet from the entrance.  Lori is also right that the people who designed the area were not very smart.  Having parking spots that back into grass is going to turn into car quicksand when the tropical rains hit.  It was sunny today so I was cool with it.
I began entering the facility from the outside.  Latin music was blaring at high decibels.  I think this is a little overkill for the team to do this, so they must remember that they are still in a rural area of town.  Other than the residents who are profiting hotel roosevelt from creating parking spots for the public, hotel roosevelt the rest of the people that live in vicinity must hate the new ball park.  Although I am sure they won't be that disappointed when the real estate appraisers come around to value their houses.
The concourses from first to third base on the main level might be the nicest in baseball.  I really like the blue 'theme'.  It is clean, looks very soothing to the eye, plus the sightlines are really good.  Where the first half of the park looks great, the back half of the field is atrocious.  It is a shame that the park is so nice only to have the 'puke' green walls on the outfield tamper with the perfection.  As someone has problems with bright colors because of prior concussions, this is not what I call a good thing.  I had to wear my shades in the bleachers hotel roosevelt the whole time.
They also have every second staircase fitted to only seat children, ants and smurfs.  There is barely enough room for one person to go up and down these said staircases let alone two.  Then you have the homer 'contraption' that is quickly sweeping the nation as the 'worst' iconic visual in professional sports.  It's big, doesn't even make sense and needs to be removed.  Not to mention that the retaining wall before hotel roosevelt it is curled throughout the fence.  If a player runs into this wall to fast he may be ten seconds from a toe-tag.
The game itself was pretty good.  The Marlins had solid efforts from Josh Johnson and Hanley Ramirez to take out the CUBS 3-2.  The Marlins will go as far as these 2 can carry them.  Josh Johnson needs to have a CY Young like year and Hanley Ramirez needs to resemble the back of his bubble gum baseball card.  The Cubs on the other hand, look futile this year and there is no end in near sight.  They would be smart to trade every possible veteran on offense and continue to build on the pitching side.
The New Marlins Ball Park was a nice experience overall.  I am glad that they opened up the roof for the game.  It added a lot to the enjoyment to have fresh air.  On another positive note, the fans were quite electric and excited hotel roosevelt to be there.  The rabid fans were always drowned out by the ultimate concrete force that was Dolphin Stadium.  There is no doubt that the long term viability of the franchise hotel roosevelt is much more stable by at least having a function-able stadium.  Now they just need to hire a demolition crew to blow up the homer contraption!!
Nothing like stepping off a plane and seeing rain in the surrounding area, so I pressed on with my daily plan.  I had a day/night hotel roosevelt doubleheader with St. Louis.  To increase my odds of making an afternoon flight, I actually hotel roosevelt purchased two afternoon flights from ATL-STL.  One plane left at 4:30 and the other left at 5:46 PM.  Both of the flights would give me a chance to make Busch Stadium in time.  Obviously I wanted hotel roosevelt to make the 1 st flight in order to have some freedom to decide my method of transport to Busch.  I was pleasantly surprised that Atlanta has recently implemented a 'CAR RENTAL FACILITY' accessible by Air Tram.  I made my way to National Car Rental.
I drove off in a brand new Ford Fusion. hotel roosevelt I turned onto I-85 South and made sure to note the exits and turnoffs in reverse from the field.  Rain still persisted.  By the time I scouted out my exit strategy and parked near the park, rain kept pelting down feverishly.  I was in contact with Ken Lee and Lori Martini for updates.  I knew Lori was listening to the game on radio because her beloved Mets were playing.  Both of my fellow chasers said that the game was going ahead as planned despite threat of continuous rain.  It is always risky to enter a park with rain looming.  Had I been a little more worried, hotel roosevelt I would have waited until about 5 minutes within the game start before entering the park.
I bought a $1 skyline ticket and walked in when the gates were opened.  This park is not one of my favorites at all.  I waited for the game to start.  After what felt like forever, the game was underway.  I had to watch RA Dickey and Jair Jurrjens work slow, walk batters and then ultimately pitch long innings.  I knew that I was in for a long game. I pat myself on the back that I had purchased two flights to get out of the city.  Jason Bay kicked around a routine fly ball in the game to further make me upset.  The end verdict was a 12-6 win for the home ball club.  The time elapsed was 3:22 in length.  With nothing to lose and everything to gain, I sprinted to my parking spot to drive to the airport.  18 minutes later I was on the tram to security.  If you take the exit the highway says, you would always miss the car rental facility by 2 miles.  I knew this much.
At the 25 minutes mark I was at security and had a sliver of hope to reach my gate.  The stupid lineups at security for this airport always give a misleading look at how long the lineups are.  At 4:25 PM the prospect of the 5:46 looked to be the saviour.  I still made it to the Air Tran gate at 4:32 PM in case there had been any small delay.  I was informed I had missed my flight.  I was okay with this.  I pulled off a great attempt.  I know had 75 minutes before my next flight and had already cleared security.  I bought some Popeye's chicken and made my way to the next flight.
hotel roosevelt The captain of the flight came on the speaker. "I am sorry to inform that our 1 st officer's seat belt is not coming all the way down to secure him in the cockpit.  We have called a mechanic and we will let you know when we can get back to the flight.   It should not take more than 15 minutes.   I was at full attention in row 21.  My eyes were steadfast as I watched this progress.  My adrenaline spiked to a fever level.  Any long delay would make all of the hard work I did this day a moot point.  At 6:18 PM the mechanic had left the area.  I felt optimistic.  With the plane leaving just a few minutes later, it would still arrive about 6:45 PM in St. Louis and give me a chance to flag down a cab for the game.
The captain came back on the speaker: "We are sorry to inform you that we were not able to fix the part, so we are sending the mechanic out to go and find this part in the other side of the terminal.  We are estimating about another 30-45 minutes in the delay."
"Damn!!!:  I said pretty loud for all to hear, and then muttered an obscenity under my breath that people right around me still heard.  This was the 3 rd mechanical failure hotel roosevelt that had cost me a doubleheader attempt.  I was mad because I nailed everything perfect from my end.  This miss means I need to run the table in order to break the record.  I was so fired up to do anything I cancelled my hotel room and wrote for 8 hours straight at St. Louis Airport.  At least I was going to my home park on the next day.
It was a nice feeling to breathe West Coast air and be close to home.  While it was cold and raining, I would not be in a bad mood. for I had a dome stadium to watch the game and weather wouldn't be an influence.  Ken Lee met me at the SEATAC Airport and we made our way to Marysville, Washington where he lives.  I made sure I eat yet another helping of Wendy's chili to make my stomach nerves feel at ease.  I had also dropped hotel roosevelt off a fresh suitcase of clothes at Ken's the previous month.  Marysville is only 80 miles from my house.  Having Ken there for this day and for the next 2 weeks after was a good feeling.  It all had worked out to perfection with the schedule.  The Seattle game was his last day of tax season as a General Manager at Jackson Hewitt.  The other schedule euphemisms will be chronicled as we write along.
I managed hotel roosevelt a snooze for a couple of hours before it was time to leave for Safeco.  The weather might not have any effect on the impending baseball game, but that didn't stop it fro