Kansas City Special

Chorizy-E and BeefLoaf decided to take the Thursday night flight out to KC to get a little drinking and gambling done before the other fellas arrived.  Did I mention that we stayed at the Harrah’s in Kansas City?  Actually pretty nice accommodations.  I wish some of the local casino around here would clean up their fucking act and be a little more like this joint (I’m looking at you Blue Chip).  Anywho, after a bite to eat, we got to drinking and gambling……about an hour in, BeefLoaf got hisself a score.

Chorizy-E on the other hand just continued to piss money into the crack cocaine of casino gambling, Video Poker.  After we got kinda drunk we called it a night.

With alcohol intake, comes the need for food stuffs.  So we decided to hit the Harrah’s buffet at like 7:30am………..the other fellas were arriving at 8am into KC, but we couldn’t wait, we had to EAT NOW!!!  Chorizy-E was the driving force at the buffet devouring bacon and donut holes like it was his job.  BeefLoaf only ate Country Fried Steak, Biscuits and Gravy, and a hole bunch of other shit, which is light for him……….soon we were back in the casino waiting to meet up with Biguns and Slumpbuster.  They show around 8:30am and with not much else to do, we start drinking……..and gambling.   Biguns, Chorizy-E and BeefLoaf gambling with some blackjack and Slumpbuster gambling on his tolerance for Bloody Marys.  Our Blackjack dealer Jaclyn can tell this is a fun crowd the way we are slamming drinks and talking smack to each other at 9am, so she makes sure to get in on the chatter, she even cracked a fat joke at BeefLoaf (an easy target).  Finally, Slumpbuster and Biguns decide to grab a bite to eat around 10:30am and since ‘Loaf and Chorizy-E already ate, what are they to do??? (Look, I know it’s obvious, we aren’t the fittest group and if you said “EAT AGAIN!!!” that’s not an entirely bad answer, but if you know us at all, you know, it’s…..KEEP DRINKING AND GAMBOOOOOLING)…..so we do.  The boys are back in a flash so we decide to continue gambling and decide to meet up at the back bar at noon.

Everyone heads to the back bar to drink and plan our 3pm departure from the casino.  After a little chatter, drinks and video poker, our score card looks like this…..

Slumpbuster – 6 Bloody Marys, 1 double Tito’s and soda.

Biguns – 8 Coronas

Chorizy-E – 6 Makers and Coke, 2 Coronas

BeefLoaf – 6 Captain and Coke, 1 Miller Lite

Several people told us to hit The Quaff, which is an old school bar close to the financial district.  This joint was touted as having the coldest beer in town and that shit was right on the money.

The bar was cool and everything and we enjoyed knocking back some brews in a fine atmosphere, but what was even more interesting was some of the local folks hanging out on the overpass by the highway showing their anatomical parts to some other folks.  Looked a little sweaty, but that’s about all we could tell from the car (don’t worry, none of us were driving).

1. Slumpbuster’s greatest talent in life is chatting up ride share drivers, so that the rest of the passengers don’t have to carry on those mundane conversations

2. Biguns is a Peyton Manning apologist

3. Even though a beer slushie sounds good in theory, that Chorizy-E confirmed it to be “pretty bad” in practice.

Onto the game…..we were told two reliable facts for this journey to Kauffman stadium……

Uno – It shall be hot AF and we’ll need to hydrate…. [ X ] on hydrating, between the gatorades, waters and light beers we were rolling nicely in that 100 degree heat.

Dos – Kauffman is in the middle of nowhere and is a goddamn clusterfuck to get out of, which is a little more tricky for the 108ers used to strolling into the game late and staying for the entire game.  This was going to reverse our normal mojo.

So we got to the ballpark about 45 mins early and there was a decent line to get into the ballpark.  Unlike Sox Park, this line moved quickly, the staff at the K are apparently used to having large crowds and moved people through the line quickly.  The fans we met in line and later at our seats were pretty knowledgeable about baseball at large and especially about the Royals (post 2014).  Once we were at our seats, we got a visit from the homey @shankster714  It was great to see a familiar twitter friend so far from home.  We tried to get him to give us some dirt on @MySoxSummer from back in the day, but let’s just say we’ll keep that off of these pages.

Domestic beers were $11.50, but they were also 24 oz cans (that is a $1.75 more than Sox park for 8 additional oz, which is a pretty sweet deal), which is a great thing on most days but on the days when it’s 100 degrees, you need to drink them quite quick or you have a hot bottle of suds.

The game started out great, with a Yoan Moncada bases clearing triple and a White Sox 5-1 lead………..the 108ers decided to leave their seats after a few innings and stroll the ballpark.  There is substantial area behind the seats and behind the concourse, which included large misting fans to keep us cool in the suffocating heat.  As the game wore on, the Sox started to tumble (as per usual during this losing streak) so in the 7th inning, the 108ers decided to hit the road and head out for more FUN and ADVENTURE…..much to our surprise, the staff at the K were once again top notch, giving us perfect directions to the unmarked, but designated area in which we could grab a ride.  We rode off and headed back to the casino.

Once we were back, we hit the tables and machines for a bit and watched what was left of the game, the White Sox collapse was complete as they lost in extras to the Royals.  However, that didn’t mean, that BeefLoaf couldn’t hit another gem on the Video Poker machines………….

The crew decided to grab a bite and call it a night, except for BeefLoaf who found it necessary to stay up for another 90 mins, gulp down several more Captain and Coke’s, and dump back most of those new winnings.

The crew wanted to get an early start out so although we hit the casino a bit in the morning, we were on the road early to get some KC BBQ.  We got touts for all of the places that people tell you about…..Arthur Bryant’s, Gates, Joe’s, Jack Stack, etc………….the consensus from folks we asked was Joe’s and that we had to go to the gas station version of Joe’s, so we did…………upon getting there, there appeared to be about a 2 hour wait/line.  The 108ers (save for MySoxSummer tryna get Bobbles) ain’t waiting 2 hours for shit.  So we grabbed a ride to hit Jack Stack.  Jack Stack also had an hour wait, EXCEPT, if you were willing to eat outside in the Saturday afternoon KC heat.  Of course we were, so we hit the ice water, lemonade (+ bourbon), and gobbled down tons of KC BBQ.  It was enjoyed by all, but if you have never had the meat sweats in 100 degree weather, well, I don’t recommend it,…..it really slows down your ability to get inebriated.  Even after we left and headed to the Power and Light district the imbibing was quite slow, somewhere in the 1 drink per hour range for the first 1.5 hours……..But with every crisis there is a HERO that comes through and saves the day and that HERO on this Saturday was Biguns who suggested shots to pep up the crew.

Once we downed that elixir, we were back off to the races again…….The Power and Light district seemed pretty cool with an array of bars and an awesome looking outside area, although the outside area was mostly vacant as it was daytime and it was triple digits on the thermometer.  After spraying to all fields so to speak and knocking down drinks at various establishments, it was off to the K once again to watch the Sox.

We arrive at the ballpark, well after the Eric Hosmer bobbleheads have been exhausted, (as usual, right MySoxSummer?) but before 1st pitch (unusual for us at Sox Park).  Saturday night was likely to be a sweatier night than Friday

AND there was supposedly a storm heading our way, so we’d need to navigate adeptly, plus, Biguns had some ideas about postgame.  It was the Melky Cabrera show as he went 4 for 4 including an early home run.  Once again, we decided to vacate our seats, which is too bad because Slumpbuster had gotten a real chummy conversation going with a lady of a certain age, so who knows how that would’ve turned out had we stuck around.  Anywho, we strolled to the OF and crushed more beers (Miller products are proudly served at the K) and met some other Sox fans as well as Royals fans along the way……one thing though that was disturbing…..

List of cool old skool jerseys or shirseys we viewed at the ballpark

5. George Brett

4. …………..

3. Frank White

2. ……………

1. …………….

Yea, the Frank White shirsey was the best we saw, no Brett Saberhagen, no Willie Wilson, no Steve Balboni, no Lou Pinella……….it was quite embarrassing that all we saw was 2015 era Royals.  This furthered our thought that most Royals fans have been loyal fans since 2014.

Once again, after the 7th inning, the 108ers decide to bid adieu the K and head off into the KC night.

Biguns was giddy about the chance to hit the Hi-Dive Lounge, that touts a “Mystery Beer Machine”.  This sounded like a great idea to all, our driver………who actually was the EXACT same uber driver that picked us up on Friday night from the game (his Cadillac Escalade was quite comfortable and he was a very nice gent)……decided to take us on a “unique” route to this bar through some of the more underserved neighborhoods in the greater Kansas City metroland area.  It is always a good reminder of how fortunate you are, when you traipse through a less fortunate part of town.

We arrive and immediately know it’s our kind of place: cheap beer,  friendly bartenders, shots flowing, good music, and sports on the tele.  We sit down at the bar, with a couple of seats opening up at their small front bar as if the gods had moved those folks out of the way so that the 108ers could get a front seat look at the “Mystery Beer Machine”.

Biguns is first up to order, since it was his idea and we wanted to see what Beers we would get out of the machine.  He turns around to the group and asks, okay, but once the beers come out, how do we pass them out.  “Dealer’s Choice” shouts BeefLoaf…..that’s right, the buyer of said mystery beer would get to pass around which ever beer they wanted to each 108ers and watch them “ENJOY” the barley and hops……….this was a rousing success

………of course, all good things must come to an end, some of this was force of nature as that storm that we noted came ripping through…………technology held its ground for awhile, but eventually it caved and we lost the jukebox and the tv’s…………that was okay, as the 108ers trudged on doing more mystery beer and more shots, BUT once water started racing into the back of the bar and Slumpbuster thought we’d have to help them sandbag the place, it was time to get a stepping.

The rest of Saturday Night back at Harrahs’ was a blur, there was one more drink for everyone, but Chorizy-E, who I assume just combat rolled back to his room after Biguns slammed a card door in his face (again) and then pulled him out of the car.  Ah, the memories or lack there of……

Time to head home……..a couple things about travel day from any trip.

1. Airport booze is a must, even if it is only one drink.  You have to have one or two to ease yourself back into polite society.

2. You want the travel day to end as soon as possible.  As Billy Bats said in Goodfellas “It’s good to be home.”

Well, #1 happened, but #2 failed us, as we were faced with 2 separate delays that lead to 4.5 hours of no flight.  We even almost saw a fight between two ladies when people were re-boarding.  Luckily the staff at Southwest is super professional and handled the situation perfectly.

As we were leaving Midway after arriving home, the 108ers said goodbye and quickly realized…..damn, we’ll be doing our thing again on Friday at Sox Park vs. Cleveland…..oh well, no rest for the wicked.