Man on the run

I've wiggled out the chains of love this weekend and will be a free man, if for just two days (and as much as a man can be free with a ring welded to his third finger on the left hand).

And where will my Southwest Airlines e-ticket take me this weekend?

It's the garden spot of the United States - the lower 48 to be exact. The land is green, the water is cold (but tastes a little like smoked steel) and the beer flows like a broken water main.


That's right, I'm heading North and East to the lovely rust belt - Steel City, U.S.A. Pittsburgh, home to Kennywood, black-smog, turd emitting steel mills and Primanti Brothers and its wonderful sandwich (look closely at the menu, "All sandwiches INCLUDE french fries, tomato and egg - That kicks off the cholesterol fest. Then you toss on some more toppings. Open wide, kiddies, here comes the heart attack between two sheets of bread).


And before everyone asks me why, or whether it's by choice (who in their right mind would choose to make Pittsburgh their destination?), let me explain.

Wife's chum from high school - the HeadShrinker - recently joined the married folks club. Her husband, along with nine or 10 or 20 other guys (I really don't know, I just receive e-mails from a group of addresses I've never seen before), choose a couple of ballparks each year to visit. From what I've been told, the Pulled Pork Pilgrimage has hit just about every baseball city and is all about the greatest sport, mass consumption of gut-splitting chow and the swilling of local brews. I'm not sure what I'm looking forward to more. All three are enough for me to ask for a furlough from the Melissa Compound; group them all into one trip and I'm liable to get sensory overload, landing me in some sort of detox center babbling about roast beef and cole slaw sandwiches deep fried in pig fat and drinking beers from 50-gallon oil drums.

Anyway, HeadShrinker's husband heard I was a baseball fan and deeply enthralled with this idea of visiting different ballparks each season. They are all from Northern California and mainly Oakland A's fans, with a smattering of San Fran Giants fans, so I kept to myself the fact that I bleed Dodger blue like Norm Peterson bleeds Sam Adams amber ale. That omission likely secured my spot on the party barge. Of course, once my ticket was punched I gave this crew the bad news - especially bad for those Giants fans who are likely plotting to yank my fingernails out one by one after I pass out from them forcing a second case of Rolling Rock down my beer-swollen gullet. And that could be an end result if I happen to let slip this nugget of baseball history.

The cat was maybe let out of the bag a bit when the crew was out here earlier this season for the HeadShrinker's wedding to this visionary of baseball road trips. The group pilgrimaged to Chase Field here in Phoenix where I joined them, of course in my Dodger gear. I guess they figured it was just a phase I was going through and that by the time the real pilgrimage hit this year I'd hitch my wagon to a less objectionable squad, say the New York Yankees or something. What I believe, however, is that they were distracted by my team colors by an over-enthusiastic "waver," who, unbeknownst to Valley dweller, was losing his shorts with each rise of the "wave." But as always a picture tells a better story than words:



So, that's this weekend's trek. I go from hiking through the sweet-smelling pines of the San Bernadino Mountains, to huffing through the concrete jungle of the Rust Belt, blackening my lungs with each breathe, and soiling my nostrils with asbestos, metal shards or whatever the hell else is in Pitt's air.

But it'll all be worth it when I shove a Primanti Bros. sandwich dowm my cake-hole, followed by a vat of whatever beer they have on tap.