Wednesday was Brian’s Birthday, so we went to Cleveland for some fun activities.
We went to Cleveland in the morning so we could go to a tour of Progressive Field at 11:30. It was probably the best $7.50 I’ve spent in a while.
We had to go to the Team Shop to buy tickets, and from the shop, we went into the stadium with our tour guide, Bud. Bud had a twenty-something helper who brought up the rear of the group (Presumably to make sure nobody wandered off or stole things).
We all rode in an elevator up a few floors and started out in the press box. We sat in the front row and had this awesome view of the field:
We were sitting at one end of the press box. Looking toward the other end:
Next door to the press box was the radio and TV booths:
Looking toward the first base side of the stadium:
To the third base side of the stadium:
Somewhere on the tour, up along the hallway where the fancy suites are, was this cool carpet:
Over a fancy restaurant for season ticket holders:
After we made it around to the outfield and saw the players’ parking lot from above (there were a couple of cars there already), we ended up in the visitors’ bullpen. This is the view of the field from the area where they do the warming up:
From the warning track:
Brian and I – Selfie on the field
Brian was really happy on the tour:
This is the script Indians behind home plate. I was really surprised that it was weirdly patchy grass. I thought it would either be normal grass with chalk/paint on it, or shaved out letters with no grass:
The press box, where we started, from behind home plate:
This is from behind home plate, looking back towards the visitors’ bullpen where we came onto the field (next to the Kia ad):
Another picture from near home plate:
Brian in the Indians’ dugout:
Couple photo in the dugout:
One of the sort of crappy panoramic photos I took:
After the Indians’ dugout, we went back into the underbelly of the stadium and walked behind the batting cages and ended up where we started.
From there, we went to Harry Buffalo for delicious bison burgers. The waitress took forever to bring us the check…so our walk to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was mostly during a downpour. We finally saw some taxis when we were within half a block of the museum. Booo.
I only took a few pictures in the museum…it was very crowded (I guess everyone wanted out of the rain…or, maybe it’s always that crowded…) and hard to get where you needed to be to adequately read and look at everything. It’s not really a museum for the very young…maybe super pretentious teenage boys, but other than that, it’s an old person thing…and old people are OBLIVIOUS to people trying to get around them. So there’s that.
A car that belonged to Elvis:
A ridiculous Little Richard outfit:
There was some stuff that just didn’t interest me (but I know enough to say it definitely should have a place there), and I could definitely come up with people and groups that I would have liked to have seen more about. I suppose it all depends on your taste and what the artists and other people have been willing to give to the museum and the space available. I really liked some of the old contracts and hand-written lyrics and letters. Also, being feet from John Lennon’s Sgt. Pepper outfit or the mellotron that Paul played on Strawberry Fields Forever, like, BLEW MY MIND. At some point, more of the stuff of my lifetime will have to be added (side note: artists become eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first album), so it will be interesting to see if they expand the museum or how they distribute space…there’s just so many artists and movements to consider.
The special exhibit right now is “Rolling Stones: 50 Years of Satisfaction,” which takes up the top 2 or 3 floors of the museum. I don’t really care about the Rolling Stones, but it was still pretty interesting. I felt a similar “WHOA!” seeing that Mick Jagger flag cape.
Also, all musical dudes are like 5’2″ tall.
I’m not sure what this rock and roll hot dog was from:
After we had seen most of the museum and were a few floors up in the glass pyramid building, the storm and torrential downpour really hit:
We sat in a theater showing a video of all the inductees for all the years the museum has existed (1986 through present). There were clips of songs and interviews and it was really fun to watch, minus the lady behind us who sang along to everything, even when she was reading the lyrics on the screen.
You like Moby, don’t you?:
We went through the gift shop so I could get pencils (SCORE!) and looked up and saw this:
We headed back toward Progressive Field and stumbled upon this on the way:
From Wikipedia:
The Free Stamp is an outdoor sculpture located in Willard Park. Created by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, it has been called the “world’s largest rubber stamp”.[1][2] The dimensions of the sculpture are 28 ft 10 in (8.79 m) by 26 ft (7.9 m) by 49 ft (15 m).[3] The sculpture depicts a rubber stamp with the word “FREE” in its stamping area.
The work was commissioned by Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio) in 1985[1] for display at its soon-to-be-constructed headquarters building on Public Square, which became the BP Tower.[4] The piece was originally designed to stand upright, with the lettering of the stamp hidden from view on its “stamp pad”. According to one of the executives working with Oldenburg, the message on the stamp was intended as a reference to the Civil War-era Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, located across the street.[5]
Sohio had previously been acquired by BP, and BP executive Robert Horton took over the management of Sohio before the sculpture was installed. He believed that the stamp was “inappropriate” for the location, and that Oldenburg actually intended to mock BP about Sohio’s loss of corporate freedom and the lack of freedom in office work.[6] The company gave the artists permission to move the sculpture to another part of the city, but they refused. As a result, the stamp was placed in storage in a facility in Whiting, Indiana.[1] Over the next several years, BP, the artists, and the city consulted to find a new site for the sculpture. Several sites were proposed, including the Cleveland Museum of Art. The artists, who wanted the sculpture to remain near Public Square, finally chose Willard Park.[7]
In 1991, BP donated the sculpture to the city of Cleveland.[4] The stamp was modified to sit on its side, and it was dedicated in its new location in November 1991.[7] Oldenburg reportedly said that it looked as if a giant hand had picked up the sculpture from its intended location at the BP Tower and angrily hurled it several blocks, where it ended up on its side.[5]
Here is the scoreboard from our seats when we got to the game:
View of the action:
Brian was sure the game was going to get rained on at some point. Early in the game, the sky looked a little threatening:
I went to the bathroom at some point and fished my camera out of my bag when I closed the door of the stall because I thought this was funny:
Our seats were in the second row behind the Blue Jays’ dugout. We had a ton of Canadians around us…this guy was wearing a blue shirt, but it was a North Face shirt; he was just a drunk Indians’ fan. Here he is molesting poor Slider:
The sky looked like this late in the game:
The Indians were winning and the game was moving along at a decent clip for a while, then, as in our fine birthday tradition, the Blue Jays came back and won. I was particularly bummed that Chris Perez (PURE RAGE!) didn’t get to pitch.
Of course, after our rainy day/Indians loss yesterday, we saw that the weather was perfect today, PURE RAGE pitched, and the Indians won. BOOOOOO.
