Cleveland, OH - Slider

08/02/09 - Cleveland Indians - Progressive Field

I'll admit - expectations were fairly low. I had never been to Cleveland before but it's sports reputation preceded it. No team championships in any sport in who knows how long (1964 NFL Championship - I had to look it up). The Mistake By The Lake. Frankly, the only sports memories I have of Cleveland consist of John Elway scoring on them or Michael Jordan shooting over them. And, no, Ricky Vaughn and Pedro Cerrano highlights do not count. In fact, at Saturday night's game, they were giving away bobbleheads of their star player - that they had traded away a few days earlier. So we rolled into Cleveland fresh off of a Pirates game the night before and with 24 hours until Slider's birthday party on Sunday, in need of an activity.

As we drove into the city, the first thing that struck me was the lack of traffic. It was noon on Saturday and there might have been 10 cars on the road. We made it to our hotel and headed off to the first (and often only) thing that people suggest when going to Cleveland, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If you need directions, just drive until you see the 50 foot tall steel free stamp and then turn towards the lake - you can't miss it. This is definitely THE activity in Cleveland and we had no problem burning a solid 4-5 hours there.

For dinner, we headed downtown and ended up at a place called Phat Fish Blues, which featured some delicious seafood and live music. And walking around afterwards, we got the impression that we could have chosen any one of a dozen restaurants that would have had the same combination of good food and live music.

I'll save the mascot/birthday party details for the Slider's birthday party post but after the pregame party we headed into Progressive Field, formerly known as Jacobs Field. Whatever they want to call the stadium, when it comes to baseball, your dollar seems to go farther in the midwest. We grabbed some box seats off of Stubhub! two weeks before the game and we found ourselves behind home plate, nine rows from the field for under $40 a ticket! Similar to the Pirates game, the Indians ran between-inning promotions to keep the crowd entertained (I was this close to catching a tee shirt), the food was above-average (a burger that didn't double as a hockey puck) and the Indians managed to stick it to the first place Tigers 10-1 - even without their recently-departed, bobbleheaded star.

My expectations were easily exceeded. Prior to arriving, I read one site that listed Cleveland as the most boring city in America. Not even close (sorry, Birmingham). If you like sports, this is a two-day city. Hit the R&R Hall of Fame one day, a game the other and throw in some good food and live music and you have yourself a weekend.

Been to Cleveland and have a restaurant to suggest? Post it in the comments section and we'll give it a go when we come back to see the Browns or the Cavs (that should make Moondog happy).