NYC to Cleveland in 7 Hours

Hibernia Diner
9 Green Pond Road
Rockaway, NJ 07866
(973) 625-3255
thehiberniadiner.com

WITH CLEVELAND UP three games to Boston's one in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series, and my ma holding a handful of seats to game five at Jacobs Field, there was really no choice but to pack up my aunt's car, wake up my cousin and take off for Cleveland.

As the story goes, upon hearing that mother had a pair of tickets to the game leftover after our family had snapped the rest up, my cousin Adam decided that if he could skip school for a couple days, I could skip work. Turns out he was right. So, Adam journeyed to Brooklyn last night, met me at work late this morning, and around Noon we set off through the Lincoln Tunnel headed for I-80 West.

We stopped, briefly, at the Hibernia Diner in Rockaway, NJ. It seemed like a good time to break for brunch. Adam grabbed an omelette, and I grabbed potato pancakes. I'm not sure how that omelette turned out, but the pancakes were perfect little ovals of starch, deep fried to a golden glow. They were awful, at best mildly satisfying, and everything I expected them to be. I gladly chowed down on Swedish Fish for the rest of the ride.

We hit the Ohio border around 6:00 that evening and caught a glimpse of the Cleveland skyline off in the distance about an hour later. We parked downtown a little after 7:30 and found our seats at 8:10. The opening pitch was ten minutes later. Nothing like good timing.

Dinner? Cheese pizza from the fine servicefolk at Jacobs Field. The game? Not so good. A few runs here, a few runs there, and suddenly the Indians found themselves far from clinching the series. There's always Saturday night, but we're definitely not driving to Boston to watch the game.

MIKE EATS NEXT TIME: Hibernia? Maybe, maybe not; Jacobs Field, well, there's always next year.