Finally recovered from Opening Day in Cleveland. It was probably the best weather we have had for an opener in 10 years. A little rain in the AM and then pretty tolerable. This year I decided to dress in many layers and of course over dressed for the first time.

We started our day at 8am and drove downtown to our hotel's parking garage for the first beer of the day. Checked into our hotel and waited for the local gang to show up. The rest of the day pretty much played out like any other opening day in the past. Stopped by and waited the rain out at a nice Irish pub while sucking down Irish Car Bombs and Imperial Pints of Smithwicks (my favorite Irish ale). This pub is a lot of fun on opening day. The bartenders are easy on the eyes and the other customers in the bar are friendly (the food is pretty damn good too). Once the rain stopped, it was time for the game.

The game was a blow-out. Tribe won 11-6 and we stayed for the entire game this year. We had a beer vendor in our section that will more than likely lose his job soon though. Beers we going for $5.75 and when we asked for 6, the poor guy had to start counting on his fingers and toes and still couldn't get it right. He finally said $22......wrong again. We felt so bad for the guy that we couldn't even rip him off. The next time around, he told us that he could only sell two beers at a time. We had to buy our beers in two's for the rest of the game!!

Went back to the hotel and made it just in time for the "free" alcohol at the manager's reception. The reception is where we make up for the high room rate of the Embassy Suites. Each of us tries to drink our share of the $278.00 room rate. We usually end up doing pretty well seeing that the hotel probably charges about $6 per drink.

After all that drinking, we typically head upstairs to drink a few more beers and get ready for dinner. Dinner is actually a new phenomenon on opening day; we have only been doing this for a bout 2 years now. We ended up going to a nice little restaurant called The Waterstreet Grill. The food was pretty good and reasonably priced. I had a ribeye that was serve with mixed vegetables and pan fried redskins. I also had a side of peirogi that were nothing special but edible.

The rest of the night was basically spent trying to find a decent bar that was open. We went to the Flats which seem to be an area vastly different from 10 years ago. Most of the establishments have closed and there was nothing really going on. Even the nudie bar that we typically make a stop at was undergoing a renovation and name change. Had a few more beers and headed back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel, we tried in vain to find an open pizza shop. The Rascal House used to be open til 4:00am and had great pizza but for some dumb reason, they now close at midnight. The snack bag the hotel left as a thank you for returning would have to suffice. Hershey bar, peanut butter cups, Kit-Kats, bag of pretzels and an apple didn't quite fill the pizza void, but we settled.

The next morning, we all woke up and tried to make up for any of the hotel bill that we didn't cover with free alcohol at the hotel's breakfast and then head home. All in all, it was another successful opening day.