The Ups and Downs of an Epic, Last Minute trip to St Louis for Game 7 of the WS

[The Rick]

Great story!

The Ups and Downs of an Epic, Last Minute trip to St Louis for Game 7 of the World Series
by THENATURALMEVS • NOV. 1, 2011

How we lost all our money, got in the stadium without a ticket, avoided getting arrested, and had a night we’ll never forget.

The story starts Thursday night in the middle of watching World Series game 6. Before the craziness starts I feel I need to clarify a few things and introduce the main characters of the following 36 hours we won’t ever forget.

Things to clarify:

Due to our conversations and actions, there are multiple times during this story you might assume we were drunk. Not the case. We had a few beers throughout the night, but the only buzzes we experienced were from baseball euphoria and lack of sleep.

Everything that follows is completely truthful… with the exceptions of a few names that will be changed to protect the Cardinal’s front office guy and D1 baseball coach we picked up at 330am… More on that later.

Quick Main Character descriptions:

Franco: Me. Founder of Next Level Ballplayer. Huge baseball fan that has been to numerous playoff games but never a World Series. Have multiple friends that call me by the nickname, “Dupree” (from the movie, You, Me, and Dupree) for my aptitude of sleeping on couches and making big trips work on little budgets. Currently live in Nashville, just celebrated my one year anniversary with my awesome wife and have a grown up job as a business analyst (NLB paying the bills!).

B Witt: One of my best friends since middle school. Two years younger than me. We played baseball with each other in high school and against each other in college. B Witt is the guy that doesn’t quite have the filter that most of the rest of the world has. He tells it how it is at all times, wears his emotions on his sleeve and just kinda does what he feels like… for better or for worse.

TStrick: The level headed, responsible, analytical, low key guy, with a master’s degree in Statistics. Our wives are close friends. TStrick is a huge sports fan, but despite being one of my best friends for the past 2 years, hasn’t come around to fully enjoying baseball. With that being said, he claims he’s watched more baseball with me this year than the rest of his life combined… Work in progress!

Quick note: None of us are Cardinal or Ranger fans. Just baseball fans… and TStrick. With that being said, we all decide to wear red.

Ok, let the madness begin:

Thursday Night

4th Inning of Game 6 of the World Series, Rangers 3, Cardinals 2:

B Witt and I are watching the game with a group of friends.

B Witt: Franco, if the Cards win this, do we go to St. Louis tomorrow for game 7?

Franco: I have to work.

B Witt: So do I. Doesn’t matter. It is game freaking 7!

Franco: Good point. How long is the drive?

B Witt: 5 hours.

Franco: Ok, lets check tickets.

At this point in the night, the cheapest tickets on Craigslist are $350. We decide to keep watching the game before making any rash decisions… Fast forward to the 11th inning.

Freese hits a walk off bomb. Final Score: Cardinals 10, Rangers 9

After the unreal roller coaster that was the last three innings of one of the most incredible games in World Series history, we decide we have to go to St Louis. We get on Craigslist and now the cheapest tickets to game 7 are $450. Neither of us can afford it. We decide to just stay in Nashville and watch it at a sports bar.

Friday

7am- B Witt wakes me up with a phone call. I hear a rerun of Crocodile Hunter in the background (who watches that with breakfast?!) We debate going to game 7 in St Louis. Too expensive. Can’t do it.

7-11:25am- Intense Internal Debate while working.

1125am- My new buddy David sends me his youtube vid of him in Busch Stadium during the last out. I get chills and super pumped up.

This starts taking me over the edge.

11:29- My wife calls

Wife: If been thinking about you at work this morning. I think you should go to St. Louis. When are you going to get another chance to go to game 7 of the World Series? (Great point!) Let the ticket be my Christmas present to you.

Franco: Babe you are awesome. Do you know how much tickets cost by any chance?

Wife: $200?

Franco: Ummmm. Cheapest I can find right now is $450

Wife: ………… Well, how bout you just take $250 and see what happens. Maybe you can find a desperate scalper.

I love her. This is a sign! Time to rush to St. Louis

11:40- I call B Witt

Franco: Dude, I’m in. Let’s go to St. Louis. I have a $250 budget, but let’s just go make something happen.

B Witt: Awesome. Let me go tell my boss. I’ll come pick you up at 12:30. Your boss is cool with it?

Franco: Crap. I was so excited, I forgot to ask. I’ll ask now. See you at 12:30.

Both our boss’s are cool with us going… We might have claimed to actually have tickets to the game, but in our minds, it was only a matter of time.

12:00 Noon: I text TStrick

Franco: Dude, I know you’re working a half day today. Wanna go to St. Louis with B Witt and I for game 7? We’re leaving in 30 minutes.

TStrick: Can you wait til 1:30? I just got to this luncheon. My boss put it on to recognize my performance on our last project, so I kinda have to stay for it.

Franco: We will wait til 1. Get out of there asap!!

TStrick: I’ll keep you posted.

1:30 pm- Leaving Nashville, riding shotgun to St. Louis with B Witt (Driving) and TStrick (Back Seat) to see where the night takes us! Game 7 here we come. GPS estimated arrival time 6:05pm. Game time 7:05pm.

1:45 pm-

Franco: T, How did you get out of your own luncheon early?

TStrick: I ate as fast as humanly possible and excused myself while people were still halfway through their meals. I told my boss that I just got offered a ticket to game 7 of the World Series and she stood up and announced it to the whole room. People seemed excited for me. Then I took off… Do we have tickets by the way? I’m assuming not. And where are we staying tonight?

B Witt: No tickets. No idea where we’re staying.

The Ticket Situation

Still the cheapest we can find is $450. We all decide that our individual ticket budgets are $250. We also decide that when we get to the stadium, it’s every man for himself when it comes to buying a ticket/getting in the stadium.

2:00 pm- B Witt and Franco from the front seats: OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH COME ON!!!! YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!

Traffic jam. Middle of nowhere Tennessee. We aren’t moving. Quick debate about turning around. Traffic starts moving. We decide to press on.

2:30 pm- We are completely past all the traffic. Estimated St Louis arrival time 6:15.

Conversation turns to how we can get into the stadium. Notice I said “get in the stadium”, not limiting it to just buying a ticket.

Franco: Ok guys. We need to rake our brains for a few minutes and come up with a way to get into the stadium. I’ve bought reasonably priced tickets from scalpers to multiple playoff games and a Yankee/Red Sox game, but I can’t imagine there’s a discounted ticket to be found for game 7 of the World Series. Let’s get creative.

We brainstorm. Some ideas that come up:

-Finding a picture of an e ticket to game 7 of the World Series, swing by a Kinkos and print off three of them. Then the three of us would go to three different gates and try to talk the ticket scanning people into letting us in after the “ding” didn’t go off and they say our ticket isn’t valid… TStrick can’t find any e ticket pictures on his iPhone.

-Rushing the gates with the crowds and trying to squeeze in between the turn styles

-Wait until the 2nd inning and try to find a desperate scalper looking to unload tickets for $250

-Steal tickets from drunk people

-Cause a mini riot and then run in (B Witt’s idea)

-Climb the fence (also B Witt’s idea and voted dumbest idea ever by TStrick and I)

TStrick: Climb the fence? Do you think we’re going to the local high school baseball field?

Franco: Dude, that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. Even spider man would have a hard time executing that plan at Busch Stadium.

B Witt: Ok, fine. You guys are probably right. I’m back to my riot idea. I think that could work.

Franco to B Witt: Let’s get this out right now. Are you willing to go to jail tonight?

B Witt: I don’t WANT to go to jail, but I’m not ruling it out. I’m going to do everything humanly possible to get into that stadium tonight.

TStrick and I decide going to jail is not on the table for the two of us… Back to brainstorming

2:45 pm- Quick pee break. B Witt gets KFC and I offer to drive. Off we go. ETA 6:25

2:55 pm- The light bulb in my head goes off.

Franco: Guys, I got it! I have a legit idea with no chance of going to jail. So we’ve been seeing these signs for a casino coming up in about a half hour. What if we all put in $200, run into the casino, head right to the roulette table and put all $600 on red (for St. Louis). If it hits, we each have enough to buy a ticket. If not, we just take our $50 left over and have a good night watching the game at a bar outside the stadium.

*Side Note: I’ve never played roulette in my life at this point.

B Witt: That’s not a bad idea.

TStrick jumps in from the back seat: Let’s keep thinking before we jump to any conclusions.

I send out a quick email to a group of my closest friends outlining our situation, and asking for suggestions.

3:05 pm- I read an email response from my good friend RV who is a combination of Buster Olney and Rain Man. He pitched at the D1 level AND has his own mathematical theorem How many people do you know with those credentials? I digress. RV’s email:

Fool proof! The red bet gives you a 47.37% chance of getting in to the game. I can’t see anyway other than a fluke that you could find better odds than that. It’s confirmed on ESPN that regular seats are AVG of about $950+ and SRO is still $450+. I guess it’s possible you could ride it out til game time and see if you can find a desperate scalper that’ll go $250 but that’s highly unlikely.

After reading it to the car, we decide to take a vote. I make one, quick, persuasive speech to promote my plan:

“Guys. On a hard 100 point awesome scale, just being in St Louis watching the game at a bar is going to be an 80. If we’re in the stadium it’ll be at least a solid 95. 95+ nights just don’t happen. Those nights get put in the “epic” category. Let’s give this night a chance to be epic! Worst case scenario, we lose our $600 bucks and dip to a 60 on the awesome scale until we get to St. Louis and feel the electricity of the city and get back into the 80s.“

I feel like I just delivered a Lou Holtz quality speech. Clearly, B Witt and TStrick don’t feel the same way because we spend the next 10 minutes debating my arbitrary awesome scale that they call “confusing”… The awesome scale details are worked out and we’re ready for a car vote…

It’s unanimous, we’re doing it! 20 minutes till we get to the casino.

3:15 pm- Morale is high. We are convinced that we have a fool proof way to get into the game and we are pumped! B Witt collects all of our money in the passenger seat and makes a “cash stache” (making a mustache out of the stack of 20’s) and starts making faces at all the cars we pass… We all agree that we are already at an 85 on the awesome scale.



3:18 pm-

B Witt: Franco, give me your phone. I’m gonna take over your Next Level Ballplayer twitter account (@The_NLB). I’m going to tweet the crap out of tonight.

Franco: Ok, but no cussing or inappropriate comments.

B Witt: Fine, fine.

3:19 pm-

B Witt’s first tweet of the night:

The_NLB: This is B witt commandeering nlb twitter as franco, t smooth and I head to game 7 in st. Louis. Stay posted.

3:20 pm-

B Witt: Guys I’m freaking out up here. I just realized what we’re about to do! I don’t know if this is the best idea… AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I keep seeing it land on black! It keeps landing on black!!!! We got to do it. Okay, Okay, we are doing it. We have to give this night a chance to be epic.

We are still on. We decide on a few casino ground rules:

-We run whenever possible. Time is of the essence

-I will exchange the money and place our bet.

-TStrick will try to capture it all on video

3:28 pm-

B Witt’s 2nd (and final) Tweet of the night:

The_NLB: This is how you live life. If you are not living life on the edge u are taking up too much room. About to turn $600 into 3 game 7 ticks

3:29 pm-

Franco: “Fellas, our night is about to blow by luck and into destiny.” They don’t seem to fully appreciate the awesomeness of my comment. I’m convinced it will be our equivalent to the Tebow quote that’s up on the outside of Florida’s stadium

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