Major League Baseball Roadtrip

I'm planning a road trip to all 30 major league parks and trying to figure out the shortest route I can take to hit them all.

Here's what I have so far:
Denver
Minneapolis
Milwaukee
Chicago
Kansas City
St. Louis
Cinncinati
Pittsburg
Cleveland
Detroit
Toronto
Boston
New York
Baltimore
Philadelphia
Washington DC
Atlanta
Miami
Tampa Bay
Houston
Dallas
Phoenix
San Diego
Anaheim
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Oakland
Seattle

The total mileage is 9,744. Any ideas how to make it shorter? I would prefer to start and/or end in Boston, but this will make the trip considerably longer.

A helicopter might make it shorter... Just kidding. I would get a copy of Chris Epting's Roadside Baseball for some routing ideas.

I think that this is about as short as I can get it: ~11,000 miles (measured to city centers)

Boston
New York
Philadelphia
Baltimore
Washington DC
Miami
Tampa Bay
Atlanta
Houston
Dallas
Phoenix
San Diego
Anaheim
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Oakland
Seattle
Denver
Kansas City
Minneapolis
Milwaukee
Chicago
St. Louis
Cinncinati
Detroit
Toronto
Cleveland
Pittsburgh
Boston

Edit: I think I misread that you want to start AND end in Boston. OK, if you make it a one-way trip, you can make it considerably shorter. Let me try that.

OK I got it shortened:

Denver
Kansas City
Minneapolis
Milwaukee
Chicago
St. Louis
Cinncinati
Detroit
Toronto
Cleveland
Pittsburgh
Boston
New York
Philadelphia
Baltimore
Washington DC
Miami
Tampa Bay
Atlanta
Houston
Dallas
Phoenix
San Diego
Anaheim
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Oakland
Seattle

That is 1,300 miles shorter than my previous try, but it ends up equalling what you already figured (9,700).

Quote:

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That is 1,300 miles shorter than my previous try, but it ends up equalling what you already figured (9,700).

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Wow, this process boggles my mind. How long did it take you to work out the mileage and route?

Mark

FredBow,
MS Streets and Trips has an "optimizing" feature -- given enough time (it's a laborious process, seemingly), it will attempt to find the shortest, most efficient route. It came very close to what Boston Wrangler already found -- with a couple of slight variations. If starting and ending in Boston is important to you, I'd suggest that a 1,200 mile difference really isn't very much! For that route, Streets and Trips figured 11,796 miles -- Boston Wrangler figured 11,000 so that saves a few miles -- I'd go with that routing as I doubt you'll do much better. Bob

Keep in mind, shorter doesn't mean less time in this case. It'd be great if you could see a game in Minneapolis one night, Milwaukee the next, and spend the next two in Chicago (as an example), however it's almost certain that one (if not more) of those teams will be on the road during the time you'll want to be there.

You also need to keep in mind day/night game issues. A saturday game in Cincinatti followed by a sunday in pittsburgh sounds fine, unless its a night game in Cinci... getting done at 10 p.m., followed by a 4 hour drive, and a day game at the next afternoon. It can be done, but you won't get much sleep or have all that much fun.

Baseball trips are a blast, but they are by their nature, very inefficent in terms of mileage. My Suggestion, prioritize areas that are more remote (Seattle and Colorado in particular), find times where relatively close teams are at home at the same time (Houston and the Rangers) be willing to backtrack in areas where there are lots of parks in relatively close proximity (Boston to D.C., Detroit-Toronto-Cleveland-Pittsburgh-Cinci), and give yourself a few days off to have fun and avoid ballpark burnout!

I'd love to visit all the MLB ballparks... just make sure you throw beer at the Yank's outfielders, and cheer for the Red Sox!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Moderator Bob

FredBow,
MS Streets and Trips has an "optimizing" feature -- given enough time (it's a laborious process, seemingly), it will attempt to find the shortest, most efficient route.

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Your parenthetical comment there may be more significant than you know. This is actually a famous problem in computer science known as the "travelling salesman problem." It turns out that many problems can be reduced to this one, or problems very similar to it, so an algorithm for solving it has many applications beyond simply finding the shortest route covering a number of cities.

It is widely believed--but not proven--that any program which finds an exact solution to the traveling salesman problem requires what computer scientists call "exponential time."

(That is, the time required to find the solution doubles each time you add some fixed number of cities. If you have a program that takes twice as long to find a solution for 40 cities as it does for 30 (say, 10 minutes compared to 5 minutes), and twice again as long to find a solution for 50 (20 minutes) as it does for 40, and still twice more to find a solution for 60 (40 minutes) as it does for 50, that is a program that takes exponential time. If you had a different program that let you add more cities before you doubled the running time, but was still a fixed number you had to add to double the time--say, 30 cities takes 5 minutes, 50 cities takes 10 minutes, 70 cities takes 20 minutes, 90 cities takes 40 minutes--that's a better program, but it's still one which takes exponential time.)

If any algorithm is found which could solve the travelling salesman problem in less than exponential time, it would have wide-ranging implications in computer science, because it would mean that a large number of problems which are also widely thought to require exponential time would not.

A brute-force approach--calculate the length of every possible route among the cities, and see which is the shortest--becomes impractical even around 20 or so cities. There are better algorithms out there, but all known algorithms which find the exact solution still take exponential time. One case of a 15112-city problem, solved in 2001, required 22.6 years worth of processor time.

Alternately, algorithms are known which give approximate solutions (that is, they can't guarantee that the route produced is the shortest route, but can guarantee that the route produced is no more than, say, 2% longer than the shortest route) in polynomial time (i.e., better than exponential time). The Wikipedia article on the problem notes that these approximation algorithms can find solutions for millions of cities in "a reasonable time."

So yes, finding the shortest route among a number of cities is a seemingly laborious process--and not just seemingly so to you and me, but to the brightest minds in computer science right now. If anyone discovered a process which was less laborious (took less than exponential time), it would be a very significant result in computer science. A proof that any process for finding the solution requires exponential time would also be quite significant.

Sorry for the digression into computer science, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to talk about what I find a fascinating problem!

Chuck,

That was far more explanation than I dreamed was possible. But still quite fascinating!

What do you do professionally?

Mark

Fascinating was the word I was going to use also! Thanks for the explanation. Bob

I wish I would have known all of that complex information about 15 years ago when my 7th grade math teacher assigned a similar problem. We were given a list of a dozen or so cities in the state and had to find the shortest route between all of them. I got an A on the assignment, but I never knew it was such a difficult problem!

Hi - I too am in the midst of a 30 ballpark roadtrip this summer - I've finished 9 and have 21 to go (I'm taking a planned one week break in SF this week before we start out on our 25 day, 20 park stretch - will finish the 30th park, SBC Park in SF, sometime in August - no hurry to end the trip!)

I'm in the process of moving from Philadelphia to San Francisco, so I kept Philly my hub for the northeast parks and spoked out to a handful of parks from there (Baltimore, Boston, NYY, NYM, Pitt, Philly, Washington) and i also flew saw the Marlins and D-Rays on a separate vacation trip to Florida a few weeks ago. In a week, I'm gonna start the last leg of the trip, hitting 20 parks in 25 days. (I will hit SBC Park, #30, in August).

In total, I'm looking at 11,000 miles of driving and about 9,000 miles of flying. Its certainly not the most efficient schedule in terms of driving time, but I hub/spoked from Philly cause i was already paying rent there, I minimized driving time between cities, I accomodated the schedules of 3 friends from grad school that are joining me for legs of the trip, and of course, worked within the constraints of my budget =) And the home/away schedules are very tough to work around.

I've got an Excel spreadsheet that I used to plan out my schedule (i pasted in schedules from all 30 teams by day... a lot easier than any other method I could find... ) Post your email address and I'll send it you (i cant attach it in this forum). One caveat - CONFIRM THE TIMINGS ON GAMES. I created this spreadsheet in March, and some of the night games have become day games, etc. due to TV scheduling, keeping contenders on TV, etc.

Enjoy the trip man! Its been a blast thus far. Thus far, Pittsburgh has been the biggest surprise, and watching the Nationals play was really fun - they play the game like it was meant to be played - run out every ground ball, etc.

Good luck with your trip - feel free to reply back here, I'll try to log in before I hit the road again. - Vip

PS. My schedule for the remaining games is as follows:

6/04 Seattle
6/06 Colorado
6/07 St. Louis
6/08 Milwaukee
6/09 Cincinnati
6/10 Chicago Cubs
6/13 Chicago WS
6/14 Detroit
6/15 Toronto
6/16 Cleveland
6/17 Minneapolis
6/18 Kansas City
6/19 Texas
6/20 Houston
6/22 Atlanta
6/24 Arizona
6/25 San Diego
6/26 Anaheim
6/27 Los Angeles
6/28 Oakland
TBD San Francisco

Vipur,

Thanks for the in-progress field report. We would love to hear more about the trip as you go. Pittsburgh is one of my favorite cities -- glad you enjoyed the discovery.

Although Chris' book Roadside Baseball is weighted towards historical information, you might find it a worthy companion on some of those 9000 flight miles!

Happy RoadTrippin'

Mark

Last night, I had the opportunity to witness the opening game for the Surprise Fightin' Falcons (against the Japan Samurai Bears) -- on the first day of play for the new Golden Baseball League.

Several years back, when the formation of the Arizona Diamondbacks was announced, one sad side note was that Phoenix's original "hometown" team had to leave -- the Phoenix Giants/later Firebirds. I love minor league ball -- it has a neighborhood feel to it that you just don't get in the big glitzy stadiums -- and you can actually afford to go. These young guys love to play ball, and it shows.

Last night's game was great -- there were some errors and slop here and there -- but all in all it was the same great ball game I used to see at Scottsdale Stadium when the Firebirds were playing. There were a couple of really fine double plays. My hot dog was HUGE (although the league's promise of cheaper ballpark food was empty rhetoric).

Anyway, I hope this ball league "makes it." They're a great family-friendly alternative to the major league games. I was reminded just why I loved baseball to begin with. Oh, and the home team WON! I think it is going to be a good summer. Bob

Golden Baseball League -

Awesome idea those guys have. Phenomenal that they have put together 8 teams, stadium agreements, and 90 game schedules in such a short time.

Dave Kaval (one of the co-founders) also happens to be a great guy - we used to work together. He's done the 30 ballpark tour and wrote a book about it (he and his buddy, Brad Null) - you can find their book on Amazon or B&N. Its a fun read.

And, I'd be lying to you if I told you his enthusiasm for baseball, and for the great roadtrip, wasn't a factor in my decision to do the 30 park trip.

Looking forward to someday roadtripping the Golden Baseball League!