So, I'm heading to the East Coast for a whirlwind baseball tour in a few weeks. New York for the Yanks and Mets, then over to Philadelphia, and finishing up in Baltimore.

Most of the plans are already made, but we'll still be looking for places to eat in those cities. Hit me with some places to eat/drink around the ballparks or in the vicinity.

Um, no Boston?

How long are you planning on being in Bmore? Just day of game? A few hours before/after game? Only for the game? How far out from the stadium do you want to go?

First and foremost, you've got to do Boog's BBQ on Eutaw St., which runs right next to the stadium. Great pre-game or 7th inning sandwich. Do the pork. Most night's, the man himself is there and he'll pose for pics/autographs for free. Great guy.

If yr gonna be there a little longer and wanna do a pre-game at an actual bar next to the stadium do Pickle's Pub, and get the crab pretzel. I know on Raven gameday they don't do any happy hour specials, but with the O's they might.

Lemme know what yr parameters are based on the questions above and I might be able to better give you some details. There's some amazing restaurants in Little Italy where they play all-night Bocce, and also some more hip places up on Federal Hill if that's yr persuasion.

yeah, Boogs BBQ at Camden is a must!

yeah, wtf dude?

My thoughts too...as long as you are doing a Northeast baseball tour, might as well skip over the only legendary one...

I wasn't in charge of the schedule and that was my first question...where the hell is Fenway? I'm still not sure why we couldn't swing it. I think they have the A's that weekend too, so It shouldn't have been that tough a ticket.

FR, I think we are in Baltimore for the day of the game and back home after...we'll be there for half a day I'd guess.

Wow, I am insanely jealous of this trip. Have a great time, and fuck boston.

Fenway's an historic park and I'm glad I've been there once and yada yada yada, but Boston is the place for the easiest paper sighting for me

Cool, stick with the above. If you get the chance, head down to Fells Point. Otherwise around the stadium you'll find plenty of touristy things and the Inner Harbor is right there.

...apparently I'm told we are going to Philips Seafood in the Inner Harbor.

Cool, enjoy tourist town.

Nah, you'll be ok but its definitely the tourist trap because its the most recognizable name only because they now sell frozen MD crab soup in groceries across the country. Its not the best crab cake in town, or even the best Philips restaurant. Guess your kinda stuck, huh?

Ugh, I think someone made reservations...I'll see if I can convince the crew to go elsewhere.

Obrycki's Crab House and Faidley Seafood are both consistently rated as the best crab cakes in Bmore. Both are downtown.

http://www.faidleyscrabcakes.com/
http://www.obryckis.com

awesome...I'll put the word out and see what people have to say.

So as luck would have it a Tropical Storm/Hurricane Irene cut our baseball trip in half. We contemplated cancelling the trip entirely because we knew Irene was headed that way, but we decided to soldier on. We stayed near Times Square at Hotel Edison, not a great place, but it suited us just fine. The first meal was at Five Napkin Burger...I had the original burger, not bad. Then we headed over to Yankee Stadium, for the first 5 innings or so, the A's were kind of shelling Hughes and we heard one of our favorite derogatory terms repeatedly..."You're a BUM, Hughes!"....Yankee fans are an entertaining bunch. But, the mood soon shifted...to the tune of 3 grand slams. It was fun to see...final score 22-9. For dinner we went to Carmines...and we ate and drank ourselves silly. Maybe it was the three G and T's and two bottles of wine, but the food was awesome.

Friday started with a trip down to ground zero. We couldn't see much, but it was something we thought we should do. Then it was over to Katz's deli...I had the Pastrami and Corned Beef combo, it did not disappoint. Then we did a few more touristy things before heading to the hotel bar to drink before taking subway to Citi Field. We struck up a conversation with some middle aged women at the bar (who we later saw coming back in to hotel looking rather ragged as we were leaving at 4 AM for out flight out of town. ) Holy shit...the 7 train...that was one sweaty, packed-like-sardines, uncomfortable ass ride, can't fathom doing that every day, (granted it was 5:30 on a Friday). Citi Field was a great place to see a ball game, very comfortable. Trey Anastasio walked right past us at one point...and I thought I saw George Plimpton, but was reminded that he died in 03'. Mets fans gave us some shit for our Brewers attire, but honestly there wasn't much they could say besides..."hey, you're a week late! Milwaukee was here last weekend." We told them we were scouting the Braves for the playoffs. After the game we came back for some pizza in the city...not even sure what the place was called but it was fucking awesome. Margherita was the way to go. We slept for a few hours and got the hell out of dodge before the storm came to town. The trip was a success and hopefully Philly, Baltimore, ...and Boston are in my future.

Sounds like a good trip. Too bad the Bravos decided to mail it in.

I would love to do something like this with my dad and son. We'd probably drive out thru Pittsburgh, Philly, DC, NY, NY, Boston, and maybe hit Cleveland on the way home. (Maybe Cincy too.) I should throw the idea out there to see if he would fund it next summer after he retires.

Fun Yankee game to see. Nice trip.