NYC

The hotel bathroom held wonders like an $8 intimacy kit, complete with condoms, lubricant and towelette. The shower was set off from the room not by a wall, but by a pane of frosted glass, leaving little for the maid delivering towels one day to wonder about. A basket of goodies beckoned in the bedroom, but an $8 candy bar kept us at bay. The lamp in the corner was 4-feet tall and featured a blue plastic pole molded into a geometric, repeating diamond shape. We decided this lamp, like much of the hotel, was not OK.

Nothing tepid happens during a weekend in New York City, everything is bigger, more expensive, more interesting and glaring. The buildings sing, the residents amaze and despite having the greatest third basemen in the history of the sport, Yankees fans delight in jeering every misstep and sad swing of Alex Rodriguez.

And so NYC and the ninth iteration of what my friends call Baseball Weekend is as good of a jumping off point for this blog as any.

We arrived via plane, and bus from Arkansas, Maryland, Indiana and of course, Pennsylvania. We'd all been to New York before, but never together. We stayed at the aforementioned Hotel Roger Williams, a small, nice place, but beset by a sea of pastel furnishings, poor fit and finish (odd placement of items, few hidden wires, a clogged shower drain), and those awkward floor lamps.

On Friday evening we spent a short time at Jack Dempsey's across from the Empire State Building. Someone -- not me -- thought that place was a good idea. It sucked. From the greasy business guy wearing a suit and sipping $12 cocktails, to the fact that tourists frequented the place made it undesirable as a long-term watering hole. They even served a turkey burger, which our friend Matt ate with abandon. Later he would also eat a vegetarian, egg white sandwich from the worst Dunkin' Donuts franchise on the planet, which made me wonder ... the lamp, or Matt's diet?

We settled in at another bar, Stout, not far away, but much, much better. The bar featured a broad swath of draft beer, decent food, and the Olympics in high definition. When Michael Phelps dove into the pool, vying for his seventh gold medal in the 100m butterfly, the entire crowd roared. Metrosexual men stopped thinking about themselves, women who know more about Jimmy Choo shoes than the Olympic Games looked on, a melting pot of ages, races and nationalities wondered ... and when Phelps snatched the gold by a finger width everyone exploded. High fives erupted across the room. The cheers and good vibes took minutes to dissipate. Only the Olympics bring that sort of unfiltered glue to a roomful of total strangers.

So any way, we had fun Friday and woke up Saturday mildly hung over and hungry. We hit a DD nearby and it was a huge mistake. I never thought coffee at DD could be bad, but it was both boiling lava hot and tasted nothing like coffee, or any other edible beverage.

We landed at Yankee Stadium early, a good two hours before the game, and watched the Royals batting practice while Mike snagged four balls from the field with his baseball snatching machine -- a battered, clear plastic Starbucks cup taped to a softball which is attached to a spool of string. The mechanics of the device are simple ... you find a ball near the wall, lower the snatcher, and the softball provides ample weight to smoosh the cup onto the once-free baseball, basically sucking it off of the field.

The game provided few highlights: Zach Greinke struck out the side in the first inning, Alex Gordon popped a solo home run, and a slew of errors (two on the same play by Gordon) gave the Yankees a chance to win. And win they did ... in the 13th inning, five hours after the first pitch.

In between the fans booed their former heroes since a third-place finish can't satisfy a town that believes anything less than a World Series appearance is an abject failure. Note: Jason Giambi's photo on the video board -- the lamest video board in pro sports, featuring the latest in 1970's technology -- shows a prominent mustache. The mustache though, isn't real, it's a black triangle photo shopped across his upper lip. Funny. I guess the Giambino couldn't be bothered to take another head shot after he grew his "Boogie Nights" upper lip fur.

Starved, tired, ready to eat anything ... even our four souvenir baseballs, we boarded the subway and thought about places to eat. Nothing jumped out at us, but we wound our way to Union Square and through some side streets and decided on the Blue Water Grill -- which had red awnings.

We didn't have reservations and the clientele, while not well-heeled, was well-dressed. We were not. Having come straight from the game we wore T-shirts, shorts, carried baseballs, and an odd baseball snatching device that looked like what might have been one of Alexander Graham Bell's original telephone prototypes. This did not bode well for snagging a table. But Mike solved the riddle. He bellied up to the hostess station and told the young lady that he had a reservation for four, for 7:30 p.m. under the name "Goodman." Now, none of us are Goodmans, but the hostess bought it, though the reservation did not exist and seated us at a table on the mezzanine overlooking the entire restaurant. The food was good, overpriced, but good.

The rest of Saturday went like this ... Mike and Jack bought rounds of drinks at an Irish bar and an awful reproduction of a European disco where thumping, brain liquefying music and the latest fashion fad stomped ambiance and class. Matt went back to the hotel very early. We retired to the Irish bar after a single drink at the gyrating disco bar and listened to a spirited band in the mold of the Dropkick Murphys. We ate pizza.

We saw Matt back at the hotel after a quick romp on the roof where the views of the surrounding city were inspiring.

And as for the picture up top? That's Jack flashing his lucky "Yankees Suck" shirt with the new Yankee Stadium rising in the back ground. He didn't dare wear it in plain view at the game, he wanted to go home to Indiana with all of his limbs and most of his teeth.

That ends our tale.