Baseball Road Trip

[Eric A. Syversen]

My buddy and I are planning a two week road trip to see as many games as we can in as many different cities as we can. I'm in Baltimore, he's in Chicago. We're not seeing any games in those cities, as we've already been to those parks. We'd like to go west, as neither of us have been further west than Denver. We'd like to see SafeCo in Seattle, PacBell in San Fran, MinuteMaid in Houston and anything else is gravy. Anyone have any ideas about good parks, prices, routes, etc...We only have two weeks and I'm driving myself batty trying to figure it out.

[PNW Judy]

Well, if you want to pack as many games in as possible, you sure picked an area with the least amount of ballparks to explore. No matter as you'll still see beautiful country on your trip.

Safeco prices generally start at about $15/ticket. You can walk around the ballpark and watch the game from just about anywhere. All seats provide great views. So I would just get the cheapest tickets and walk around and explore the park while watching the game.

As for routes, unless you want to spend more time meandering around the country, I think I-90 from Chicago to Seattle, I-5 to San Francisco, LA, and San Diego, then I-40 & I-45 to Dallas and Houston should work best. But if you take I-80 for part of the way west you can dip into Colorado for Coors Field, too.

If you really want to explore many different ballparks, you will find many more parks, with fewer road miles in between, on the east coast. Have you done all those yet?

BTW, one of my dreams when I have the time someday is to do an spring-fall roadtrip hitting a ballgame in every ballpark in the country, with a sidetrip into Cooperstown to boot. I used to have a website to a guy's site who did this one summer but lost it in a computer crash. Very cool.

Enjoy!

[S]

Safeco is a beautiful field, but the other poster is correct - you're going to spend a lot of time driving and not much time enjoying the game.

Why not concentrate on the area between you and him? Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, NYC, Boston... I think you could visit all those fields easily in two weeks. Perhaps Milwaukee and St. Louis if you want to push it.

Your first order of business should be a study of the baseball schedules for this season. You can adjust your departure date to maximize how many games you see.

One you get a feel for what you'll be able to see, you'll be able to concentrate on your route and travel plan.


Good luck and safe driving, and though they'll need a miracle...

LET'S GO METS


AB

[Chaz]

My buddies and I will be doing our third ballpark roady this summer.

We start with a list of 3 or 4 primary ballparks that we definitely want to visit, and a couple of secondary parks that we put on the itinerary if we can make them fit.

I then get a blank calendar and start noting home games. It's usually a bit of a puzzle, but usually I can get all the primary and a secondary ballpark or two into a 7 to 10 day itinerary.

2002 Field of Dreams, Wrigley, PNC, The Jake, Camden Yards
2003 Fenway, Cooperstown, Toronto, Comerica, Comiskey, Busch, and Kauffman
2004 Yankee Stadium, Citizen's Bank, PNC, Great American, Wrigley, Field of Dreams, Miller

A decent roady targeting Safeco, SBC, Oakland, Dodger Stadium, Anaheim, Petco, and The Bob would not be too driving intensive.

[Mark Sedenquist]

Eric,

I just published a review of Chris Epting's new book "Roadside Baseball." It has some really cool "finds" in it and you might want to check it out. The review is online