He Knew He Was Right

Ok, here it is. The list of my first visits to each MLB venue... Year Date Home team Stadium 1975 Mets/Yankees Shea* 1985 Yankees Yankee* 1991 5/28 Orioles Memorial Stadium 6/22 Red Sox Fenway 9/9 Cardinals Busch 9/10 Royals Kansas City 9/13 Brewers Milwaukee County 9/14 Cubs Wrigley 1993 5/17 Giants Candlestick 5/28 A’s Oakland 7/17 Orioles Camden Yards* 8/28,29 Indians Cleveland (old) 9/17 Twins HHH Metrodome 1994 7/21 Blue Jays Skydome 1996 9/13 Rangers The Ballpark at Arlington 1997 9/1 Phillies Veterans 1999 5/28 Indians Jacobs Field 5/29 Tigers Tiger 7/23 Rockies Coors Field ...

And here I am in Comerica Park!! I guess it won't be official until the fifth inning, but HKHWR has done it! I am happy to say that I have seen a game in every current Major League ballpark. It took getting a ticket in roughly 43 different ballparks over 23 years, but I have indeed touched them all. There's a ton of great memories packed into this journey, so many interesting people met, wild game action seen, baseball history made, and dozens of new cities visited that are now more familiar— certainly more than dots on a map to me. My first game in Detroit was for their old ballpark, the classic Tiger Stadium, in 1999, the last year it was open. I actually got to Comerica five years ago, on a business trip, when the Tigers were out of town. Yeah, we got to test the speed guns (which clearly read about 20 MPH too slow based upon what it read off of my throws), hit in the batting cages, and enjoy "beverages" in the player's lounge. Some may have used that visi...

And here I am in The Great American Ball Park. Huh, I've started a ballpark full of these posts with "And here I am in blah, blah, blah..." The name of this place, though, makes me want to say "And here I am at the...". But, I'm too close to the finish line to change my ways, regardless of what my ear says. I am here, though, which is all that counts. It's the penultimate one on this long journey, which wraps up tomorrow afternoon in Michigan. I attended a Bengals game at the old Riverfront Stadium back in 1991; it was the first game on that first Midwest trip, where I saw four baseball games and two football games over 10 days. I came back to Cincy for a Reds game in 2001, after some remodeling was done to the old cookie-cutter stadium, and it had been dubbed Cinergy Field. Now I am seeing the GABP. This season, I had hoped to see both the Reds and Bengals, or the Tigers and Lions, in one weekend, but the schedule gods did not comply. Instead, I ...