Lake County 2, Lansing 1. Giant Sandwich 1, Husband 0.

With an off day for the Indians on Monday, I decided to catch a Lake County Captains game.  There were several reasons for this – I hadn’t made it out to Classic Park yet this season and I wanted to watch an exciting young Captains team (that includes 2011 first round pick Francisco Lindor).  My husband John also wanted to take a shot at eating the “Moby Dick,” the giant fish sandwich I talked about earlier this year.  We weren’t alone – even Manny Acta decided to take in the Captains game tonight (though he didn’t try to eat any giant sandwiches).

Those are prospect watching glasses.

The most exciting developments through the first half of the game were sandwich-related.  There was great pitching from both teams, with only a handful of hits and a 0-0 score until the 8th inning.  We walked into Classic Park a bit before 7 p.m. and basically said, “he wants to eat that giant sandwich.”  They set to work making it and told us it would take about 20 minutes.

Yes, I'd like 5 lbs. of indigestion, please.

It's a lot of food, it's going to take a while.

Nobody has yet conquered the Moby Dick, so I decided it was best to lie to my husband and tell him a few people already defeated the sandwich.  He was nervous enough as it was, it made him feel a little better to think that it was actually possible.  He settled in at the special table reserved for people attempting the challenge:

If I'm in for a world of hurt, I'd like a happy whale smiling at me.

This was a lot of food – the sandwich had tons of fried fish, fried clams, cole slaw, french fries, lettuce, tomato and cheese and totaled approximately 5 lbs.  The worst was the oversized roll…that’s what my husband thinks was his downfall.

It was cut into 4 pieces so you could actually pick it up.

Getting started...

He started off really strong, moving easily through a quarter of the sandwich in less than 10 minutes.  At first we didn’t realize you had the entire game to make your way through this monstrosity, although his strategy was to go as fast as possible and not break momentum.

Getting some sandwich-related attention.

It wasn’t long before people stopped by to cheer him on – fans, people from the Captains…you name them, they dropped by to gawk and give a few words of encouragement.  The game was only in the 3rd inning when John crossed the halfway mark.  “Holy crap, he’s really going to pull this off,” I couldn’t help thinking to myself.  I’ve watched this man down two dinners at a restaurant before (no joke, ordered two entrees and ate them both) and I’ve also seen him cook himself a second dinner after we got home from eating at a restaurant.  If anyone could do it, I had faith that he may be able to.

By the 4th inning though, John was already declaring himself finished.  I kept trying to give him a pep talk (along with everyone around us), pointing out that he still had nearly five innings in which to eat the sandwich.  Unfortunately, John said he’d taken this as far as it could go.

More than halfway done, but you can see that he's truly miserable.

I suggested that maybe he stand up and walk around a little; it just didn’t seem good to sit there with your stomach full of a giant fish sandwich.  In the end he decided to just sit still and watch the rest of the game.  By the 8th inning, you started to see some action on the field.

Cold and cranky in a Skipper hat. His night ended badly, but the Captains' did not!

The Lansing Lugnuts (Toronto Blue Jays affiliate) managed to scrape a run in the top of the 8th inning to go up 1-0.  The damage was almost greater, but the Captains left fielder, Todd Hanklins, made a great throw to nail Chris Hawkins at the plate.  The Captains managed to tie the game in the bottom of the 9th with a little bit of help from the Lugnuts infield.  With runners on second and third, Lansing chose to intentionally walk Francisco Lindor to load the bases and set up the force play with one out.  The next batter, Jordan Smith, hit a ground ball to the shortstop that looked like a game-ending double play.  The relay throw from second pulled Lansing first baseman K.C. Hobson off the bag and Smith was safe at first.  They weren’t able to plate an extra run, so the game went to extra innings tied 1-1.

You may wonder if this extra bit of game gave my husband another opportunity to finish the sandwich.  Alas, it did not.  In fact, around the 8th or the 9th inning he decided to go sleep in the car rather than watch the end of the game.  Was it kind of mean of me to make him sleep in the car while I watched the end of the game?  Perhaps.  Did I want to miss the end of a great game?  No, I did not.

Fortunately he did not have to sleep in the car for long.  The Captains managed to dance out of trouble when Lansing threatened during extra innings.  In the bottom of the 11th, the Captains again loaded the bases with only one out.  Once again, Francisco Lindor came to the plate; this time there was no place to put him.  With a 3-1 count he hit a sharp liner to left.  The left fielder was playing extremely shallow and the liner hung up just a bit; it was caught and too close for the runner on 3rd to tag and score.  The next batter up was Jordan Smith, and again he benefited from less than perfect infield defense.  He hit a grounder to first that looked like it could be an inning-ending double play.  Hobson went home this time and the catcher couldn’t hang onto the low throw – Zach MacPhee was safe at home, and the Captains won 2-1.

We took the rest of the sandwich home, although John vowed never to eat another fish sandwich again as long as he lives.  He did mention that the sandwich was quite tasty before the whole thing just went too far.  Everyone at the stadium said that this was the furthest they’ve ever seen anyone get with the sandwich so far in this young season.

Compared to what he started with (that whole tray was full) this is pretty good.

I guess it is up to me to finish what is left of it, although there is another member of our family that seemed quite interested in the leftovers as well.

She loves tuna fish too.

Many thanks to the Lake County Captains for a fun night.  All of the stadium employees were super cool and friendly, and we had a really good time!