Adrian Gonzalez and Heath Bell Take the Long Road to St. Louis

There haven't been many reasons to smile for members of the San Diego Padres this season, but Heath Bell and Adrian Gonzalez could at least take solace in the fact that they were heading to St. Louis for Tuesday night's All-Star Game. It seems that the "Curse of the Swinging Friar" follows you wherever you go, however, as the two players had a devil of a time making it to Busch Stadium.

Their plane had a three-hour mechanical delay in Las Vegas, which meant they missed their connecting flight from Indianapolis. The next flight wouldn't have gotten them into St. Louis until Monday afternoon so the two players chose another, very un-millionaire-ballplayer, approach to finishing their trip.

They rented a minivan and hit the open road.

"We got in there and we were like, 'Who needs a stinkin' radio?' like 'Dumb and Dumber' so we started singing like they did and talking about movies," Bell said. "We would yell, 'Hey!' and the other person would say, 'What?' and then we'd go, 'No, look, hay. There's hay out there.'"

Nothing screams big-league All-Star like a Chrysler Town and Country with a sticker from Thrifty on the back window.

I'm not sure who booked their trip, but a quick perusal of Orbitz shows that it shouldn't have taken two connections to get the players from San Francisco, where the Padres wrapped up the first half, to St. Louis. At least they got a good story out of their travails, wheras most of us would have been curled up in a fetal position trying to catch five minutes of sleep by the United counter trying to get a flight out before we lost our jobs.

Gonzalez is taking part in Monday's Home Run Derby, and if he wasn't already an underdog, the long night will probably make him an even less likely champion. Padres batting practice pitcher Ray Krohn was also part of the traveling party, which means that he may be less consistent than Gonzalez might like when his turn to swing the bat comes up.