Introduction
It's one of those pipe dreams that many dedicated baseball fans have probably had at one time or another. Somehow, I got up the nerve to make it happen. The admittedly self-indulgent pages that follow document my journey. This site was conceived as a way for my family, friends and co-workers to follow my progress and for me to record my memories. If anyone else out there enjoys it, or it contributes however slightly to someone else deciding to say "to heck with it" and following a dream, that's just icing on the cake.
I'll never know how long the concept was bouncing around in my subconscious, but the first thoughts I had about actually doing it started sometime near the tail end of the '97 baseball season. By the time the team schedules for the '98 season came out in January, I was raring to find out just how feasible it would be to see a game in each of the 30 Major League Baseball stadiums in a reasonable amount of time without getting on an airplane. With this being an expansion year, I figured to be one of the very first to accomplish the feat with 30 instead of the previous 28 teams. The final baseball itinerary for my trip fell into place amazingly quickly, mostly by luck I believe, since my later attempts to duplicate the schedule in the same 2-month time frame during other parts of the season were unsuccessful.
Leisurely planning the details of the trip over the next several months was one of the best parts of the experience for me. Using a software package called Map 'n' Go, I plotted all the ballpark stops and then began inserting all the places and people that I wanted to visit in between the games. With the computer providing nearly instantaneous route and distance recalculations, the endless "what-iffing" was a lot of fun. At some point, I broke the news of my trip to my boss at work. He took it in stride, as I knew he would, even though it ended up being a rather inopportune time for me to disappear for two months. Thanks to Rick and all the guys for covering for me while I was gone!
As my June 11th departure date approached and the final itinerary took shape, my sense of anticipation was growing on a daily basis. Would my plans be foiled by a bunch of rain-outs? Would driving an average of over 300 miles every day for two months become a tiresome grind instead of carefree fun? At last, with the appointed day at hand, I packed an air mattress and all the rest of my gear into my '95 Isuzu Rodeo, said my final good-byes, and hit the road.
If you care to venture further, you'll find here a day-by-day travelogue, notes on each game and plenty of cheesy photos that I took along the way with my digital camera. I hope some of the fun I had can rub off vicariously.
-Andy