Stadium Tour

When I started writing the “Foolish Trips” post two days ago, my intent was to write about a baseball-themed road trip.  Then nostalgia took over and the post was taken in a different direction.  Here, I will try again.

I like baseball a lot.  I guess one could say I love baseball, except that I probably don’t love it.  I don’t know if I love anything that is not a living being.  What do people mean when they say that they love something, like say Outback Bloomin’ Onion?  “I love Bloomin’ Onion!”  Does that just mean they like it a lot?  Would they have a hard time adjusting if it no longer existed?  Do they eat it often?   How much can you love it if you have the option of eating it every single day, but you only eat it every few months and yet say “I love Bloomin’ Onions!”  Or maybe no one like that exists.

I guess for most people, loving something like food or a TV show means they just like it a lot.  If that is the case, then I love baseball.  By no means am I a fanatic, and Major League Baseball hasn’t seen a dime from me in over 2 years, but I care about the sport, I care about the professional leagues, and even though I haven’t been to a game since 2008, I enjoy watching the game.  And as such a person, I always wanted to take a baseball stadium tour.  I am fortunate to be living in the northeast, where there are plenty of stadiums within a few hours’ drive at most.  If I lived in, say, Montana, closest major league stadiums would be in Minneapolis, Denver, and Seattle, and it’s probably not practical to see all 3 of those stadiums in one trip.

I’ve been interested in baseball stadiums almost as long as I’ve been interested in baseball, possibly because Topps baseball cards had pictures of the player’s home stadium on the back of each card in 1992, give or take a year.  I think I knew all 26 major league stadiums back then.  I probably can’t name all of them now because of all the new stadiums and corporate sponsored names, but I would certainly still like to visit all of them.  (This paragraph doesn’t fit here but not easy to edit on a Droid…)

I’ve been to all the stadiums in my vicinity, save for two new stadiums in New York, and the Washington Nationals stadium.  So, ideally, my road trip would begin in Washington DC, followed by Pittsburgh (already been once), Cincinnati, then drive up north to hit Cleveland, then the two stadiums in Chicago.  Would love to expand the trip here to Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and definitely St. Louis but they may be too far out of the way.  Regardless, my last stop in U.S. would be Detroit, after which I would spend the night at the hotel attached to the Skydome (or is it Rogers Centre?) in Toronto.  I would complete the trip with a stop at Cooperstown to visit the Hall of Fame.

I don’t know when I would be able to take this trip.  Maybe after our kids have grown and the Yankees move into the Steinbrenner Stadium, and the Mets play in Banco Popular Park.  But someday, I want to do this.

There is Only One October

The title references to the baseball postseason slogan from the past.  And it is also one of the distractions that I must overcome as I study for my exam, now only 13 days away.  Baseball postseason is scheduled right when I need to study the most, and the World Series Games 1 through 5 will be played right before my exam.  Even when I’m not studying with the game on mute, which I did a few times last year, I find myself checking the score every so often.  I would usually watch the 9th inning if it is a close game or a clinching game.  I wish I didn’t have this to deal with but, as with everything else, it is a distraction only if I let it be.  I hope I can put in as much work as I can… while not missing any October moments.

I am a Mets fan, and right when I started studying for my exam during the fall of 2007, Mets completely collapsed during the final two weeks of the season and missed the playoffs.  After reaching the National League Championship Series in 2006, it looked like they would be a contender for years to come, but they haven’t made the playoffs since.  The bright side of this is that if the Mets DID make the playoffs in 2007 and on, it would have been much harder for me to study, so I guess it worked out for me.