It's been so long since I posted (this is Jake, but Melissa
will get mad at me if I sign her out of her gmail account) so it must be
something important that brings me back to the keyboard. What could possibly cause me to return to the
entertaining pastime of writing while watching football you say, only the most
momentous road trip of all time. Sit
back and relax while I take you on a tale that will have you on the edge of
your seats in anticipation. Though you
BYU fans might want to skip the 3rd to last paragraph. While I know my view of the world is the correct
view, it often doesn't sit well with Cougar fans. I have no idea why. I apologize for the length of this post and
won't be offended if you don't read it.
For a little background you should know that Corrys are
Dodger fans. It has been that since the
50's when the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn. I was a Dodger fan before I was born. I'm pretty sure I watched Koufax and
Drysdale pitching for the Dodgers up in the premortal life. One of my great childhood memories is of all
my brothers and sisters sitting in my parents' room watching the Dodgers beat
the Mets and then the A's in 1988. Kirk
Gibson's walk off home run in the bottom of the 9th of game one is a top 10 moment in my life.
Up until last week I had never been to a Dodger game. My dad had never been to a regular season
game in Dodger Stadium (he and my brothers went to a few innings of a preseason
game this year).
A little over a year ago my father decided it was time to
get rid of his camping trailer (what does this have to do with baseball you
ask. well keep reading). Mark decided that he would like this trailer
hoping that he could fix the toilet and the roof so the leak from the toilet
wouldn't soak the carpet (preflush water in case you were wondering) and the
water coming through the roof could be diverted to the outside of the
trailer. He presented this plan to his
wife and much to everyone's surprise she said yes. Fast forward one year to this summer. Mark and his family camped in said trailer
for the infamous Corry Reunion. As luck
would have it this was the wettest Corry reunion I can remember in my entire
life (the evidence that Corrys were foreordained to be Dodger fans is mounting)
and by the end of the reunion the Mark Corrys had decided they would sell the
trailer rather than put a roof over what was now more of a pool than anything
else.
Mark put the trailer on Craigslist and sold it within the
day for $900. Being the guy he is, Mark
felt guilty about pocketing that money and came up with a plan to get my Dad
and his sons to a regular season Dodger game.
The date was picked, the tickets were bought, Doug's flight was paid for
and the plan was set for the greatest road trip ever to be made. I can only imagine what kind of trip we'll
take when my folks pass on and we sell the house.
Fast forward to last Monday, 5 days until leaving for
LA. It had been decided that my
father, my 3 brothers and one brother-in-law, two nephews,and I would make the
trip to LA for the scheduled game against the St Louis Cardinals. Our one remaining brother-in-law decided not
to make the trip. I don't believe Eric
is much of a Dodger fan, but for the life of me I can't understand why he
wouldn't want to spend 24 hours in a car driving to and from LA for a game he
really didn't care much about all in the span of about 36 hours. Back to Monday, the emails starting going out
and the final planning had begun. Doug
spent the week sending daily Dodger trivia via email to keep us excited.
Friday came and we departed from our separate
locations. I was down at Tuacahn
attending Aladdin with friends while Dad, Mark, Robert and Dallen departed from
Cedar. After finishing the play I met
the four mentioned at the Pineview exit on I15 and off we went. Mark drove first. He made his way through the gorge toward Las Vegas and only hit
the rumble strips 67 times. I was so
grateful for that as I didn't want to sleep through any of this trip. We arrived safe and sound at the airport in
Vegas to pick up Doug. We were a bit
behind schedule as Mark confused the minimum and maximum speed limit signs,
luckily for him it wasn't too long until he hit another rumble strip and we
were able to correct his error.
Doug hopped in the Yukon
and we headed out for Cali. We were one of 10 cars leaving Vegas for California on a Friday
night so traffic was good. Doug kept me
company as we left Vegas for which I was grateful. Doug lives out in Texas
while me and my other two brothers reside in Cedar City. Sometimes I forget how much I enjoy hanging
out with Doug, and he didn't disappoint on this day. Not that I don't enjoy hanging with Robert and Mark, but as I run with Robert 3 days a week and work with Mark 3 days a week they get a little tired of me.
Upon arriving in Barstow Dad decided he'd had enough of the
Garmin and decided to disobey the commands.
We did our best to keep him on the right side of the road and after
driving 15 minutes through the boonies we made it back to the I-15. I tuned out at this point until arriving at Riverside where we were
to attend a NCAA cross country meet. We
arrived some 3 hours early so we stopped at a small park to catch up on some
sleep. I slept in the passenger
seat. Dad stayed in the driver seat
while Robert took the back and Dallen took the middle. Mark and Doug decided stretching out would be
the best idea so they tried to sleep on the concrete in front of the parking
lot, that didn't work out so well for them.
In retrospect I'm confused as to how Dallen, the smallest and shortest
of all of us by a large margin, wound up with the best bed during this 2 hour
period.
We went to the meet and while dad did some watching, the rest
of us visited Denny's and then slept again in the parking lot. After the meet we made our way to Dodger
Stadium for our tour of the Stadium.
Robert did all the driving in LA.
I'm glad he drove, because I was feeling bad that we were going to miss
space mountain at Disney land, but Mark (having been to Disney Land recently)
commented that Robert's driving was just as good or better than any roller
coaster.
We arrived safely at Dodger Stadium and after buying tickets
for the tour we walked to the stands.
This was my first time ever stepping foot inside the hallowed grounds
and I felt much like Rudy's dad when he proclaimed upon stepping inside Notre
Dame Stadium, "This is the most beautiful site these eyes have ever
seen." (on a side note I felt it appropriate that Sean Astin threw out the
first pitch at the game later that night).
The tour was 2 hours of bliss.
Honestly I can't ever remember being on a tour that kept me so
interested from start to finish, from Doug rattling on about Marian Rivera
being the last player to ever wear #42 (Jackie Robinson's number, retired by
MLB) to Dad naming the allstars that played together so beautifully back in the
60s, I was enjoying every minute.
We found another spot to take a nap after the tour while
waiting to be allowed back into the stadium for the game to start at 6 PM. At this point I would like to plagiarize the
account of the game from an email that came earlier from Ryan with my own
comments in italics. Hopefully it isn't
too difficult to follow as we are both writing in the first person.
When I
arrived at the park, the Corrys had already taken a tour of the hallowed
grounds, otherwise known as Dodger Stadium.
Evan and I were ready to catch flyballs, while they were ready to catch
some sleep. We tried to catch some
flyballs, but we weren't close enough to the action.
When the
game started, we sat back and watched some good-old fashioned baseball. And, we also watched the Dodger's all-star
hitter, Matt Kemp, strike out three straight times. It was pathetic. There we were, screaming our heads off,
willing our collective forces into Matt Kemp's arms and bat to hit a massive
homerun over the left field fence, and each time Kemp fell flat on his face and
walked back to the dugout with a K (for you non-baseball fans, a K in baseball
stands for strike out). I knew that the
Corrys had the mind power to do great things, so I was confused each time as
our mind powers failed to help Kemp hit a homer. That's when I realized that each of the
Corrys had different thoughts going through their heads during the game, and we
weren't truly focused on the real task at hand.
These were the respective thoughts of the various members of the Corry
Crew:
Bob
Corry: I wonder if I could run a
cross-country race in and around the stadium?
We could have the finish line at home plate.
Robert
Corry: I wonder what kind of concrete was used to form the foundation for this
stadium? The Dodgers ought to build a
parking garage, and they could hire my firm to build it!
Jacob
Corry: This game is being played at the same time as the BYU-Utah football
game. Man, I hope the Utes trounce the
Cougars again. The Utes beat them every
year (and sure enough, the Utes beat the Cougars, again...arrgggghhhhh).
Doug Corry:
What kind of fertilizer do they use on the grass? Why didn't I become a groundskeeper rather
than a Dentist?
Mark Corry:
If I have a boy, how can I convince Krista to let me name our boy Fernando or Orel?
Dallin
Corry: I'm so glad my dad bought me this giant Dodger finger. I'm going to tease my sisters with it when I
get home...
Evan
Esplin: I'm hungry, can I get some nachos?
By the 9th
inning, the Dodgers were down by one run, and I feared that the home team was
going to disappoint us and walk away with a big fat loss. As I thought of failure, I realized that the
Corrys cannot drive hundreds of miles, through the dark of night, to watch
their beloved Dodgers lose to the dreaded Cardinals. It was at this point that I decided we needed
to rally the troops and cheer on the Dodgers to victory. After two quick outs, the Bums (nickname of
the Dodgers) were down to their last at-bat, Andre Ethier. Thoughts of "Yo Adrian" hailed from
the fans. With two strikes, Andre pulled
a line drive down the right field line for a base hit. The Dodgers were on life support, but they
were still alive. Prior to this point in the top of the 9th
inning as hope was fleeting out of the stadium Matt Kemp provided the spark to
keep hope alive. It was in the top of
the 9th that Kemp ran to the centerfield wall chasing a deep fly ball, He missed
the catch and hope was lost until he caught up with the grounder coming back
toward second base and hurled the ball toward 3rd. With the strength of Hercules and the accuracy
of Robin Hood he hurled the ball and caught Molina trying to stretch a double. The tag came in
at third. As the umpire showed the out
sign the crowd went wild.
Don
Mattingly (the Dodger's coach) wisely substituted a pitch runner for the slow
Ethier, and a few pitches later, the pitch runner stole second base. Thus, with two outs, and with the tying run
in scoring position, the Dodger's final hope rested upon the shoulders of Luis
Cruz. Luis Cruz is a young third baseman
for the Dodgers, just called up this year from Triple-A Albuquerque to help the
Dodgers. With a full count (again, for
you non-baseball fans, this means three balls and two strikes), Cruz belted a
long fly ball to deep center field for a double, scoring the tying run. The stadium went bonkers, and the Corrys were
cheering their hearts out.
With the game now tied, Mattingly
the genius that he is substituted Herrera for Cruz on Second and sent Rivera to
the plate to bat for Ellis. Herrera
played with the count and hit a low line drive that hit off the glove of the
Cardinals' second baseman at full extension.
The ball dropped harmlessly to the ground and Rivera rounded third.
The second baseman threw the ball home...and then time just slowed. Everything was slow motion. It appeared as if the runner was running
through water, slowly trying to beat the ball home. I heard the soft sounds of the movie
"The Natural" playing in the background, and I think I spotted Robert
Redford behind home plate (next to the mysterious lady in white). The runner dove for the plate, and the
audience held their breath as the umpire stretched his arms and declared,
"SAFE"! Instantly, the lights
in the stadium rained down flakes of electricity and the power went off.
When the
umpire yelled safe, the Corrys went wild.
There was dancing in the aisles, cheering from the fans, and happy music
being played on the organ. The Corry's
beloved Dodgers had won! The screaming and jumping lasted for what
seemed like 10 minutes. We would later
recall that all this yelling combined with the minimal sleep had made for some
awesome headaches, but so worth it.
We watched
the postgame interview, and laughed when Luis Cruz got drenched with Gatorade
and water. Simply awesome.
Eventually,
it came time for us to leave, and we slowly walked back to the cars.
While walking back to the car I couldn't stop staring at the permagrin
that Evan had, and I felt exactly how he looked. Like a kid who had just experienced one of
the best moments of my life. I took
Doug to the airport, while the rest of the crew drove back home to Cedar City.
(Thank you Ryan, back to just me now) As we slowly made our
way out of the stadium we turned to KSL radio to listen to the Utah-BYU
game. I hate to listen to the Utah-BYU
on that station as there is not even a hint of impartiality, but at least it
was on. At one point the static became
got bad and the traffic got worse so we turned it off and I followed the
updates through Mark's iphone. We did
turn the radio back on just as BYU had the ball 4th and 12 late in the forth
quarter. After listening to the final 5
plays on the radio and hearing the surprise in the voices of the announcers at
the events that unfolded I was just happy the Utes won. Until seeing the replay of the final plays I
was under the impression that the BYU player had run into the Utah fans after picking up the blocked kick
ala Stanford in the infamous band game.
Had I actually seen the play in real time I might have kicked a hole
through my TV after seeing the unsportsmanlike penalty on the fans. Not sure if the Cougs just weren't supposed
to extend that game as it was 11:56 when the clock finally expired (the third
time) or if it was Karma for the previous yellow flag, but I'm happy that when
they play again in 2016 I'll be able to say that the Utes haven't lost to the
Cougars in 7 years.
We made it safely back to Cedar and I assume Mark and Robert
made it to their 9 AM meetings in one piece (we arrived in Cedar just before
6). It was a great trip and I hope to do
it again sometime.
Doug did take some pictures, and when he sends them or posts
them I'll update them here.
