New York City vs. the Second City

When planning a sports vacation many decisions need to be made. First and most important are the city to travel to and the sporting events taking place in that metropolitan area. This weekend the Ultimate Sports Wife and I had planned to fly to New York City to see Big Brown race for the Triple Crown at the Belmont Stakes, the US Men’s National Team host Argentina at the Meadowlands and watch the Yankees play in their last season at Yankee Stadium. (I must admit these were the sporting events on “my agenda.” Nicole may have had other priorities when visiting New York City.)

Two months ago, I wrote that I decided to book our airline tickets to New York on Southwest Airlines. The number one reason being that you can cancel the flight if you choose not to go. That decision is benefiting us now as we have decided not to travel to NYC for a myriad of reasons.

Of course, I already knew of the competing sporting events in Chicago for the weekend. The NHRA is in Joliet, IL, the Mexican Men’s National Team is playing Peru at Soldier Field on Sunday night and the White Sox are home. I would argue that the events in Chicago are fairly equal to the events in New York City (except for the Belmont Stakes vs. NHRA) for the following reasons:

1) The Belmont Stakes and NHRA only occur once per year in their respective cities. However, the Belmont Stakes should be a higher priority than the NHRA on anyone’s list because the Belmont Stakes occurs only one time per year and nowhere other than New York City. While the NHRA only visits Chicago once per year, they have 23 other events for the season.

2) An international “friendly” soccer game is equal to any other international “friendly” soccer game. One may prefer one team to another but, in the end, the games are the same.

3) Same goes for MLB. Although some regular season games have higher prestige, each game is still one game. One may argue going to a game at Yankee Stadium should have higher precedence than US Cellular Field, but that only applies if you have never been to Yankee Stadium. Otherwise a game is a game.

If you were considering a trip to New York City or Chicago this weekend, I would choose New York City because of my argument for the Belmont Stakes. Although I will not be going this year, I plan to go to the Belmont Stakes in the near future.

The Belmont Breeze

The Belmont Breeze is the official drink of the Belmont Stakes. However, planning the trip there is not so easy. As you may know, I am an avid Southwest Airlines customer for multiple reasons. The main one being – they do not charge change fees. No change fees is key for any sports fan trying to rank and file hundreds of possible sporting events to attend.

However, Southwest does not fly to three key sports cities – Minneapolis, Atlanta and New York City. Today I was trying to plan a trip to NYC. Southwest does fly into Long Island (ISP) but the airport is 50+ miles away from Manhattan and the train into town costs $10-13.50 depending on when you take it.

Also, adding to the puzzle is that the Ultimate Sports Wife teaches ice skating on Saturday mornings. Thus, she generally likes to fly out Saturday afternoon, so she can still teach.

Thus, I tried to determine the best way for the Ultimate Sports Wife and me to get to New York City. Here were the options:

1) The easiest route would be to fly to JFK. JFK is only 8 miles south of Belmont Park and about a 15 minute cab ride. Delta has a one-way non-stop flight from Chicago’s O’Hare (ORD) airport that arrives at 10:31 am into JFK for only $119.50. The only problem is getting back to JFK once the weekend is over.

2) Fly to New York’s LaGuardia (LGA) airport (also knowing Nicole would miss the Belmont Stakes and fly into LGA later Saturday evening). American Airlines flies non-stops from ORD to LGA (first one arriving at 10:35 am) but it would be more expensive to cab from LGA on Saturday morning before the race. The one way fare was $124.50.

3) Fly to ISP on Southwest. However, their flight did not arrive until 12:20 pm Saturday afternoon. While the Belmont Stakes post time is not until 6:30 pm ET, the first post is at noon. I was not sure how late I wanted to arrive.

After some discussion with Nicole, she decided she might skip skating on Saturday morning and fly in on Friday night. Thus, we decided to book Southwest into Long Island because we can always change our plans if she decides to teach Saturday morning. We booked the flight that arrives into ISP at 10:50 pm on June 6 for $97.50 one way.

As for race tickets, we are planning to buy general admission. It appears Belmont Park does not have an infield – meaning you can actually see part of the race rather than watching it on TV.