This year's Great Baseball Road Trip was planned with many factors in mind, including ease of travel, timing and the quirks of the schedule. Of the five home teams we are seeing a total of eight games -- White Sox, Cubs, Brewers, Beloit Snappers and Kane County Cougars -- we had been to all but the Kane County stadium previously. So this excursion was not about checking off different stadiums on a mythical "list." In fact, seeing all 30 MLB parks isn't even really a quest of ours, though we are in the low 20s by this point.

One of the greatest draws to this trip, strange as it might sound, was the chance to see a bunch of players who might not make an impact until, oh, 2015 or so. Specifically, it was a chance to see one such player: Twins prospect Miguel Sano, who just turned 19 and has been mashing at Beloit.

In watching two games so far -- with a third to come starting at 11 a.m. this morning before the second part of our day-night multi-city doubleheader takes us to Wrigley for Roy Halladay and the Phillies vs. the Cubs -- Sano's teammates have been the ones doing the box score damage. Tim Shibuya, not to be confused with the exclamation from the Vern Fonk commercials, fired a three-hit shutout in a 1-0 victory Tuesday. The righty was dominant from start to finish, showing good command of his fastball to go with a very nice breaking ball. JaDamion Williams drove in the only run, ripping an RBI single on a 3-0 pitch in his wheelhouse. On Wednesday, the Snappers trailed 2-0 late until Matthew Koch drilled a three-run homer. AJ Pettersen, a Minnetonka High and U of M product, added an insurance run with a solo homer later.

Sano didn't get a hit in either game so far. But we are still here to say this: He is the truth. He is legit. You don't need our scouting report to know this, but even in two hitless games we have been impressed not only with his plate patience and discipline but also the way he handles himself on the field. His hands look at least adequate, and he has a cannon for an arm at third base. He has shown the ability to work his way out of bad counts, and he just missed a couple of pitches Wednesday, settling for medium-deep fly balls instead. If you are in the Beloit area -- soon, because Sano will not be here forever -- Sano and the rest of the Snappers, who are on a five-game winning streak, offer a nice respite from the 11-26 parent club. (Good seats are available. Announced attendance last night: 460).

For those of you here for trip highlights, we will give you the short version from Wednesday: Golfed in the early afternoon at a 9-hole muni in Janesville. The course was in great shape, and for the first time in recorded history Rocket's work around the green was better than ours. Seriously, if you could have combined our driving and iron play with his putting, we might have been very close to par. That sentence will never be written again. We tried to go to an arcade afterward, but it was sorely lacking in any kind of reasonable games. We passed a place called Diamond Dave's Taco Company but we did not go in, which might prove to be a regret. Then again, we didn't want to get bogged down by the enormous menu. [FYI, most of the good Van Halen jokes have already been made on Twitter, but go ahead anyway]. We found a batting cage in Beloit (The Bat Cave), which proved to be an excellent way to sweat away the better part of an hour. It's $5 to hit all day, you guys. As long as you don't mind loading your own balls, you could take thousands of swings.

The natural hunger brought on by golf and the batting cage was eradicated by a real-life Wisconsin fish fry. True, it wasn't Friday, but The Butterfy in Beloit has all-you-can-eat fish on Wednesday AND Friday. They basically have three fish special options. Two of them involve a classier type of fish and the third is cheaper and is unlimited. Obviously, we chose the unlimited option. Our server brought out a huge plate of fish and fries for us and Rocket. After it was obliterated, she seemed somewhat surprised that we wanted more. Perhaps we will make The Butterfly rethink the fish special? Lest you think we'll come back bloated, we have managed to continue marathon training each of the past three days.

Your thoughts on Sano, Wisconsin supper club fish fry and marathon training on vacation in the comments, please.