Category Archives: Gatherings

It probably shouldn’t warrant a headline, but given that I have 20-30 years on almost everyone else who participated in the light rail pub crawl co-organized by the folks at TwinsDaily.com and Aaron Gleeman, I know there were some people out there that did not believe my survival was going to be a given. Some of them are related to me.

I can honestly say that I have never had such a great time attending such a really bad baseball game.

I drove up from Cedar Rapids Friday night and by about nine o’clock Saturday morning, I was ready for breakfast. I grabbed an all-day light rail ticket at the Mall of America and by 10:30 or so, I was sitting down at a table at Hell’s Kitchen, which has become my favorite restaurant in the Twin Cities and especially so for breakfast on the weekends.

I’m no rookie at this pub crawl kind of thing (though I’m certainly a bit out of practice). We didn’t have a name for it back then, but I’ve been moving from one bar to the next with a group of friends since the early 1970s and I learned early on that if you know you’re going to be doing that kind of thing, eating first is a really good idea.

Thus, the breakfast quesadilla, bacon and bison sausage from Hell’s Kitchen. When you’re listening to a guy on stage singing “Sitting on the Dock at the Bay” as you’re being seated for breakfast, you know it’s going to be a good day. I probably didn’t absolutely need the second screwdriver with breakfast, but I figured, “what the heck.”

After breakfast, I hopped back on the rail to head back out to the Fort Snelling stop, where we were scheduled to “check in” before moving on to the first stop on the crawl. I’ve never “checked in” to go drinking before so I wasn’t sure what this involved, but the Twins Food Truck was supposed to be there (not that I was feeling the need to eat more).

Upon arrival, I immediately found a couple of familiar faces in Jeremy Nygaard and Topper Anton. I was relieved to discover they didn’t know any more about what getting “checked in” meant than I did.

I was also relieved that I didn’t count on getting my pre-crawl food from the Twins Food Truck, because they were a no-show. The word we heard was that the truck showed up and left because they couldn’t find a place to park, despite a half-empty parking lot next to the light rail stop.

Before long, Parker Hageman, Nick Nelson and John Bonnes of Twins Daily showed up and we all filled out name tags. So checking in wasn’t too complicated, after all.

My plan going in to the day was simple. I would have a beer at each of the four stops, maybe some water, as well, and generally just pace myself.

That plan worked well right up to the point where we bought pitchers instead of individual beers at the Cardinal Bar across the street from the 38th Street Station. Oh well, best laid plans, etc.

Harriet Brewing, near the Lake Street Station, was the next stop and I was doing a much better job of limiting myself to one beer, partially because there was a pretty long wait to use the one uni-sex restroom. But then Bonnes made me buy another beer, so again my plans were going down hill. The Korean BBQ from the Gogi Bros food truck was excellent, though.

Moderation was finally achieved at the Franklin Street stop due in large part to the lengthy walk from the station to The Joint. By the time I finished one beer, it was pretty much time to hike back to the rail line and the ride to the Warehouse District stop and Mason’s Restaurant Barre.

By this time, the Iowa-Iowa State football game was starting and it’s pretty much impossible for me to watch the Hawkeyes these days without drinking to excess, so there was no way I was going to get by with one beer, even though I’d only be able to watch about half the game before the Twins game was scheduled to start.

Of course, the fact that the organizers had arranged keg of free beer for everyone wearing the GrandDrunkRailroad t-shirts made sticking around for a few rounds a pretty easy decision.

I did find some fellow-Hawkeye fans in the group (and even a table of women who were Cyclone fans, but at least one of them had the smarts to marry an Iowa fan and they were on a Twins pub crawl so I guess they weren’t all bad) and even one of the crawlers wearing a Cedar Rapids Kernels’ cap.

It started to rain, so that meant an even longer stay at Mason’s than planned. Eventually, I did make my way over to Target Field and to the center field section where our group had tickets. I picked up some Walleye and fries, which was very good, despite being pretty wet by the time I finished eating it. I also did, finally, have that water that I’d been promising myself I would drink.

It’s funny. I’ll sit in rain and watch football, but I have trouble bringing myself to enjoy doing that when it’s baseball I’m watching. If it’s a good game, sure, but on Saturday night, the Twins were not playing a good game. So I found one of the phone-charging stations located on the concourse and had a beer while I charged my phone.

That’s where I was when the umpires apparently decided they didn’t want to watch the game in the rain any longer, either, and imposed a rain delay. It’s also when a number of our group migrated to Hrbek’s bar, just inside Gate 14 at Target Field.

I had pretty much decided I’d had enough beer for the night when it turns out Twins closer Glen Perkins had sent word to Hrbek’s to buy a round of beer for our party. How many times do you get a beer bought for you by a Major League Ballplayer… during a game? So, I obviously had no choice but to have another.

That’s about the time someone had the bright idea to get a group picture.

Now, I’ve heard there were something in the neighborhood of 100 people participating in #GrandDrunkRailroad and there were fewer than 20 in the bar for that picture, but it was a representative sample of the group. Men, women, bloggers, readers of our blogs, young and… thanks to me… old.

It was a great time. I needed some tylenol on Sunday, but it was more for my back than my head. I realized I haven’t stood so much in a really long time.

It was fun to talk to a number of people I’ve met at prior gatherings and to a number of people I haven’t met before. I’d like to thank Parker, Nick, John and Aaron for putting together a really fun event and for making an old Twins fan feel welcome. Of course, I also want to thank Glen Perkins for the beer!

– JC