On February 7, 2015 ThinkBlueLA ran an article about an upcoming trip by the LeClair family from their home in Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada to Glendale, Arizona for spring training and then onto Southern California for the Dodgers 2015 Opening Series. The following is a recap of that trip in the words of Mike LeClair.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Mike, Tanya and Curtis LeClair

Twenty-two days, eight Western States, over 6,000 kilometers [3,728 miles] traveled. Over 50 hours spent in the car and 328 liters [86 gallons] of diesel burnt. Five Dodgers spring straining games in Glendale, Arizona, five days spent (monetarily and physically) at Disneyland, three exhibition Freeway Series games and naturally the Dodgers three opening series games April 6-8 against the Padres – not to mention the countless calories and pounds gained from eating our way through Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, California and Nevada for three weeks.

That’s the Reader’s Digest condensed version of our recent trip south to watch our favorite baseball team. But there was more to this trip than just baseball – a lot more.

Not only was the baseball fantastic, but more important was the time that we got to spend with the many very good friends that we have accumulated from past trips south over the last five years. The main reason for this trip was for our son Curtis’s graduation from high school in June, and this was what he chose to do for his grad trip.

Along with the memories of time spent with such dear friends, we also have some fantastic memories of getting to meet some important Dodgers organization personnel and getting the ever-popular autographs generally associated with spring training – and some doozies we got!

After our 24-hour drive from our home in Cranbrook, British Columbia to Glendale, AZ and before we dove into spring training baseball, we headed north on the I-17 to spend a day in beautiful Sedona, Arizona on March 24 with ThinkBlueLA’s Ron Cervenka and his son Tim, and to spend some time with two special friends Pat and Morgan Lynch who live only minutes north of Sedona. Morgan prepared an awesome authentic Mexican-style lunch for us. Now keep in mind that we are from Cranbrook, BC where the closest thing to authentic Mexican food is our local Taco Time fast food joint. After the best Mexican dinner of our lives, Pat took us four-by-fouring on the ever-popular Broken Arrow Trail just south of Sedona. It was the perfect end to an awesome day. Thank you Pat and Morgan.

Before immersing ourselves fully into baseball, we spent the day in Sedona, Arizona – one of the most beautiful places in the world. Ron and Tim Cervenka joined us for this must-do day trip a short two hours north of Phoenix.

Pat, Tanya and Curtis about to do some four-wheeling in Sedona.

Although Ron and Pat worked together at the Burbank Police Department for 30 years, Pat was born and raised in Sedona. As such, he is a die-hard Dbacks fan. He kidnapped our traveling Dodgers gnome and put it where he thought it belonged. Obviously, Pat hasn’t seen the NL West standings lately.

Once we finally got to beautiful Camelback Ranch, our first visit was with Dodgers President and CEO Stan Kasten, who was gracious enough to take a few moments out of his extremely busy day to meet with us and sign a ball for us. Us being Canadian, Stan was mostly interested in talking hockey – go figure. The meeting seemed to go by so quick and, believe it or not, I didn’t even get a chance to tell him we were bigger Dodger fans than hockey fans, and probably the only Dodger fans from Cranbrook.

Meeting Stan Kasten was a great honor for us.

The next person that my son and I were lucky enough to meet and get an autograph from was Dodger Talk Radio co-host Kevin Kennedy, all thanks to my very good friend Ron. Because I have always greatly admired Mr. Kennedy’s baseball knowledge and excellent analysis, he was one person I especially wanted to meet on this trip and Ron was able to make this happen for us.

In addition to these autographs we were lucky enough to get autographs from Dodger great Manny Mota and 1988 World Series Champion Mickey Hatcher. We also got to tag along with Ron and Tim for dinner and the world famous Don and Charlie’s Restaurant (which is actually more of a sports memorabilia museum that just so happens to also serve great food) in beautiful Scottsdale. Ron and Tim were meeting with Ron’s friend and Dodgers minor league pitching prospect Lindsey Caughel and generously invited us to come along. What a treat that was! Lindsey is a great kid and it was extremely interesting listening to him open our eyes to the life of a minor league baseball player – and a tough life it is. (These guys are away from their families and friends for more than half a year every year).

We spent our final game at Camelback Ranch in one of the suites where we got to meet 1988 World Series Champion Dodger Mickey Hatcher, who proudly showed his World Series ring.

We were fortunate enough to be at the one and only spring training game that Vin Scully called at Camelback Ranch this year.

After our final Dodgers spring training game at Camelback Ranch on Sunday, March 29, we hit the road again – this time west on Interstate 10 – arriving at our hotel in Anaheim, CA around midnight. We then spent five very long days with tired aching feet on our Disneyland adventure. We then took in the Dodgers/Angels annual Freeway Series (two games at Angels Stadium and one at Dodger Stadium) to preview what all of us Dodger fans could expect to see after polishing their skills for the past month of March.

In the middle of the Freeway Series was yet another highlight of our trip. On April 4 we attended the Hall of Fame Sports Spring Open House in the City of Industry where we got autographs from Dodger legends and Cy Young award winners Don Newcombe and fellow Canadian Eric Gagne. Talk about great timing, eh?

Dodger greats Don Newcombe and Eric Gagne autographing baseballs for Curtis.

Then came April 6 – the one day every baseball fan from Coast to Coast has been waiting to arrive for the past five months. But this Opening Day was even more special than any other – it was our very first Opening Day live and in-person at Dodger Stadium – a day my son and I will never forget.

The day was perfect. The weather was perfect, the playing field was perfect, the Dodger Dogs were perfect. Everything was just as it was supposed to be… perfect. We had awesome seats in Reserve section 23 row A, so we could see everything without interruption or obstruction. It was so cool to just walk around the concourse to see how excited everybody was in the lead up to the game. It was everything… no… it was even more than everything we expected. I can see why people want Opening Day to be a national national holiday (or international holiday in our case).

Opening Day was perfect in every way.

We all know how Game-1 of the Dodgers 2015 season ended, don’t we Jimmy Rollins?

After the game we wandered down the street (Elysian Park Bl.) to our room at the Super 8 on the corner of Sunset and Elysian Park. It was an easy walk back, mostly downhill about two blocks. We were fortunate enough to have our room overlook this intersection where we could watch the comings and goings of the myriad of people, cars and fire trucks. Much to our astonishment it took over two hours for that intersection to clear out. When it FINALLY did, we decided to venture out into the streets of L.A. to get some supper (what you West Coasters call dinner).

Not knowing our way around or having a clue on where to go, we drove around aimlessly for an hour or so looking for a good place to eat. By pure luck, we stumbled onto a rather old looking place that seemed to be quite popular. Not knowing if this place was any good or not, I decided to send a text to Ron asking if he knew anything about this place. Lo and behold Ron informed us that we had stumbled onto one of L.A.’s greatest historic landmarks – The Original Pantry. We had no idea where we were when we walked in, but we sure did when we walked out. It was outstanding! Needless to say, everybody needs to go to the Pantry while visiting L.A.

Stumbling upon The Original Pantry was purely an accident – but a great one!

But for me the highlight of staying at this Super 8 was the fact that they had SportsNet LA on the television. Keep in mind that the only way for me to watch Dodgers games live in Cranbrook is on MLB.TV which, of course, has no pre or post-game coverage. For five straight days I watched as much SNLA as I possibly could. In fact, I told my wife and son not to turn the TV off at night so that I could absorb all things Dodgers even while I slept.

As our time was winding down, there were two very rare things that happened to us at Dodgers Stadium before the next two and final games for us.

Before Tuesday night’s game on April 7, Ron and another now dear friend and longtime Dodgers Season Ticket holder, David Baltazar aka “King Baltazar,” took us to a fantastic “super secret spot” for lunch – one that the three of us in our family had to swear to never reveal. And while I will honor this sworn secret, I can tell you that it is on the Eastside of Los Angeles and that it is a Market and Deli (wink… wink), and that it is literally two minutes from Dodger Stadium.

Unfortunately, shortly after arriving at the stadium, the predicted rain arrived and we had the unpleasant experience of a rain delay. As every die-hard Dodger fan knows, a rain delay at Chavez Ravine is extremely rare. But even though it rained extremely hard at times over the three hours leading up to the game, at 7:30 pm Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully proclaimed “It’s time for Dodgers baseball!”

If you would have told me that the Dodgers and Padres would be playing 45 minutes after this photo was taken, I would have said you were nuts.

April 8 was our last game and our last full day in L.A. and it was truly the highlight of our entire trip – thanks again to our very dear friend Ron Cervenka.

We started our day with a tour of Dodger Stadium, which is a must do for any Dodger fan. After our tour, Ron picked us up at our motel and we met up with King Baltazar at another L.A. landmark – The Original Tommy’s Hamburgers at Beverly and Rampart. After chowing down on delicious (and incredibly messy) Tommy burgers, we headed back to the stadium for our final game.

I thought I died and went to heaven when I had a double chili cheeseburger at the Original Tommy’s.

The three of us were pretty much on our own for our last game of this wonderful trip as Ron was going to be in the Vin Scully Press Box covering the game for ThinkBlueLA. After watching the Dodgers take BP and trying (unsuccessfully) to shag balls in the Left Field Pavilion where we were sitting in Ron’s season seats and one of King Baltazar’s came the highlight of not only our trip but one of the highlights of my entire life.

About 30 mins before game time, Ron happened to track us down. In an effort to avoid calling any undue attention to himself, he called me over and placed a baseball in the palm of my hand. As I looked down at the ball my eyeballs read the name Vin Scully on the ball. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Was this a hoax? No, it was no hoax – this was really happening. I was holding in my hand the Crown Jewel of all Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers autographed Baseballs – a Vin Scully autographed ball!

As Ron put the ball in my hand, he said he had no time to explain and had to go. He shook our hands, wished us a safe trip back home and disappeared! He was gone as quickly as he came. And that was the last time we saw him on this trip.

The ball that Vin Scully generously signed for us never left my sight after Ron gave it to us.

As it turns out, Ron was talking with Vin in his namesake press box and told the legendary broadcaster that he had some friends visiting from British Columbia for their first-ever Dodgers Opening Series. Vin commented how beautiful that part of the country is and said that he would be honored to sign a ball for them. As you can imagine, Ron was quite excited about this knowing exactly how fond of Vin we are. The problem was, Ron didn’t have a ball with him. But as luck would have it, and I mean incredible luck, there was a Game-Used merchandise stand just outside of the press box where Ron was able to get a game-used ball that Vin signed exclusively for us weary Canadian travelers. It’s a dream come true for me and I still can’t believe it.

I still can’t believe I actually have a Vin Scully autographed baseball, which proudly sits on my mantle 1,455 miles from Dodger Stadium.

With this act of kindness still fresh in my mind, we watched our last game at Dodger Stadium in which the Boys in Blue took the final game to win the series 2-1, still unable to comprehend what had just happened prior to the game. I have always tried to live my life by the famous words of the great Jackie Robinson: “A life is not important, except in the impact it has on others lives.” And though he may not realize it, Ron has made an enormous impact on the lives my family and me.

The next day, with a personally autographed Vin Scully ball in hand that was still warm from having been under my pillow all night, we started for home with a prearranged stop in Las Vegas to visit with two more very dear friends and Dodger fans – Linda and Jim Valkenburg. After a wonderful meeting we began our trek home in earnest, finally rolling in two days later absolutely exhausted but with many wonderful memories and many new friendships that will last a lifetime.

To all of those that made our trip one to remember for decades to come we thank each and every one of you. We simply cannot wait to do it all again.

(Photo credit – Mike LeClair and Ron Cervenka)