The drives are grueling. The days are long and very hot. The nights are endless and sometimes uncomfortable. Yet, the reward at the end of this road is incalculable.
I’m urging you, actually imploring you, to hit the road this summer and take a baseball road trip with your children, grandchildren or both. I’ve done it numerous times and collected adventures and memories along the way. Best of all, I forged an unbreakable bond with my son.
Our baseball trip adventures took almost a decade to complete.
We’ve been to every Major League Baseball park, about a dozen minor league parks and one in Italy. We’ve traveled by auto, airplane, train and boat to get to the parks.
It started with my wife justifiably cursing at me. I showed her the details of the first multi-ballpark trip I planned in 2002 that started in New York, with stops in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Binghamton (minor league game) before ending at Shea Stadium back in New York. My wife’s reaction! “You’ve made me plan every summer vacation for the last 15 years and never helped once, but this you can do,” she said with indignity that still makes me shutter. “I’m sorry. I won’t go,” I said ashamedly, “we don’t have the money anyway.” “Oh yes we do and you are going. End of discussion.”
We called her from every stadium just before the National Anthem to check in. I got teary-eyed at every “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” thinking of her sacrifice. But my son and I made the most of every minute. We listened to books on tape along the way. We collected mini bats and pins from every stadium and had a photo taken of us with the scoreboard in the background. All are on display in my den in Bermuda Isle. We visited state capitals, national parks, museums and major college campuses when there was time.
We met many colorful characters on the road like the grandfather sitting next to me in Pittsburgh who’d played college football against Johnny Unitas and Mike Ditka at the University of Cincinnati but who quit the baseball team after one training session because he knew he’d never beat out another left-hander for a starting pitcher’s spot. The other pitcher was Sandy Koufax.
Oh, the memories. I remember sitting in left field during batting practice in the Minneapolis ball park called the Homer Dome while home runs fell in every section except ours. We lamented never getting a ball in the stands and estimated we’d been to 100-120 games together. Soon we were in our third baseline seats. The 20 seats to our right were still empty. This was important because Toronto first baseman Lyle Overbay sliced Matt Garza’s pitch foul about 10 seats to my son’s right. It bounced twice and then right into his hands. The Holy Grail was ours! And I can still feel the hug that they showed on the huge stadium scoreboard.
So go and make memories like that this summer. And here I am to help. It took about an hour to research and design a super trip for this July right after the All-Star break. What I put together is a maximum see-it-all 17-day driving trip to 14 parks in the east and midwest. That’s almost half the MLB parks. Here’s your Triptik beginning Fri., July 15.
The calculations: 4,060 miles at 59 hours, 8 minutes in stadium-to-stadium distance and driving times, according to Google Maps. At 27 miles per gallon, you’d use 150 gallons of gasoline. If the summer price rises to an average $2.25, figure about $350 for fuel. Fifteen hotel rooms at $150 would come to $2,250. Fourteen tickets for three getting $30 seats would be $1,400. Total without food, souvenirs, etc. rounds out to a $4,000 trip for 2.5 weeks. Of course, you could add a game in Baltimore on Day 19 and continue to Atlanta, Tampa and Miami on the way home to Aberdeen.
My son and I recall the details of the trips, games and players frequently. It’s part of our shared experience. He met friends I reconnected with in St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Seattle and family in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. He saw where I went to college and had my first job. We argue about which was the best ballpark and the worst. The best ballpark food and the worst. And we enjoy the irony that when we finished our “cycle” of major parks in 2009 at Coors Field in Denver, the Rockies’ shortstop Troy Tulowitzki paid homage by getting for a “cycle” (single, double, triple and a home run in same game).
I’m not finished with baseball road trips either. My son and I will go to the new Miami park this season and I’d like to tour the Florida State League parks this summer and next. But the real treat will be when my grandsons are old enough to go on the road. Let the bonding begin.
