Ultimate Baseball
Road Trip Blog

Topics: Marlins, Rays, Braves

April 9, 2011 - You've gotta love Opening Day/Night at any baseball stadium. It's a time to celebrate the franchise's past, especially its most recent accomplishments. It's the start of a new baseball season and signifies new beginnings and opportunities for players, fans and teams. And the atmosphere is electric as fans are so happy to be attending the first game of baseball in their home town.

Last night was no different in Atlanta. The ceremonies included the unveiling of their 2010 Pennant in center field for clinching a wild card playoff berth. It also featured former skipper, Bobby Cox, throwing out the ceremonial first pitch to his successor, Fredi Gonzalez. Ol' number six got a huge (and very fitting) ovation at Turner Field when he was announced and walked onto the mound.

We also witnessed a piece of history. Chipper joins lined a base hit to left field for his 2,500th hit of his career. That was great to see for a player who has been around so long, made huge contributions, and has meant so much to this team. Here's a photo of the historic hit taken from our seats. (We like to throw those in for free on our MLB road trips whenever we can!!) Here's the Braves wrap-up of the game.

The final game of the first of our baseball tours is this afternoon with the Phillies and Braves again.

Topics: stadium tours, Opening day, Atlanta, Braves, Turner Field, baseball tours, baseball stadiums, MLB tours, MLB road trips, Baseball

April 8, 2011 - On the first of our baseball spring trips, we ventured up to Buckhead, a northern suburb of Atlanta, to visit the original Flip Burger Boutique. Flip Burger is the creation of Richard Blais, the most recent winner of Bravo's Top Chef (see my earlier blog).

The first thing you notice when walking in is that the "flip" theme is carried throughout the restaurant. You can see this in the picture to the left where the booths have an upside down set of seats and tables above the booth as part of the fixtures.

While this location was described as the more family oriented of the two locations and the other location as more electric, more for a younger crowd, the original location was plenty electric with club style music playing and flat panel tv's playing music videos.

The food didn't disappoint us. The burgers lived up to the billing of a "boutique." They were inventive creations with on top of very tasty beef burgers. I personally had the mushroom and swiss burger with carmelized onions, horseradish mayo, and swiss cheese foam (which elicited the question from one person of, "what the flip is that?!").

My daughter and I decided to split some of the sides so that we could try a few different things. We ordered the fried pickles with buttermilk sriracha (which were amazing) and a portion of the candycane beet salad. The beet salad had lots of interesting flavors combined with it including licorice and goat cheese. It was a light complement to our burgers and (fried) pickles.

If you watched Richard on Top Chef at all, you've probably seen him use liquid nitrogen when making milk shakes. They use that method at Flip and make some really interesting shakes. We had two, the Cap'n Crunch shake and the Applie Pie shake. Easily the Cap'n Crunch was the better of the two.

Tonight, our MLB road trip takes us to the Opening night game between the Braves and Phillies at Turner Field. We're excited to see the match up between Cliff Lee and Tim Hudson.

If you are interested in joining us on one of our small group tours and experience great baseball with a lot of fun extras like Flip Burger Boutique, check out our 2011 offerings and sign up today!

Topics: Opening day, Atlanta, Braves, Phillies, group tours, MLB road trips, Baseball

February 2, 2011 - The first of our baseball road trips in 2011 will begin with two days at Augusta National, taking in a practice round and a competitive round of The Masters Tournament. Our guests will be able to walk the hallowed grounds with their favorite pro-golfers in search of the illusive green jacket.

After a free day in Atlanta (can you say golf anyone?), we'll enjoy a couple of baseball games including the Opening Day ceremonies for the Braves as they kick off their first weekend homestand of the year against their Eastern Division rivals, the Philadelphia Phillies.

Friday's game is an evening game and Saturday's game is in the afternoon. That's a great way to see Turner Field at different times of the day. We'll have the evening free in Atlanta with plenty of time for dining or entertainment in this great southern city.

By now, you've come to know Big League Tours as the premier provider of baseball vacation packages. Check out all our 2011 tour vacations to see which one suits you the best.

Topics: Opening day, Atlanta, Braves, Turner Field, baseball road trips, Phillies, baseball vacation package, big league tours

Topics: Washington D.C., San Francisco, Atlanta, Braves, sports travel and tours, baseball tours, big league tours

Topics: Atlanta, Braves, Turner Field, group tours, Reds

Topics: stadium tours, Atlanta, Braves, Turner Field, baseball tours, MLB tours, Reds