He Knew He Was Right

With the Minor League baseball season wrapping up, I confidently state that I don't expect to visit any new ballparks this year. Well, there is that one ballpark down in…no, no; not this season. Looking back over this past spring and summer, I am happy with visiting a dozen new stadiums. Some ballparks were visited as fulfillment of wish-list objectives, while others were attended to round out itineraries for day trips, overnighters or as part of my grander summer vacation out west. As I mull over where I've been and what I still need to see, it seems that I'll most likely never visit every MiLB venue, but I'll note that my various wish lists and travel goals—ballpark, National Parks and otherwise—will allow me to eliminate some new ballparks each season from the proverbial to-do list. Perhaps I'll get to half of them, or maybe 100 of them, but all 160 seems doubtful. Just for the sake of parsing out my ballpark travel goals a bit and sharing some of my...

Now in my second but first full season with the 27 Outs Network, this was the first of two posts I wrote for them in 2016, which in turn was my third season focusing on MiLB travel. Unfortunately, my fourth and final post for them — a tie-in with the NPS Centennial — was written directly in their WordPress site and is gone. I still have a ski post to belt out, and my National Parks sites check-ins are growing so there will surely be something on that sooner than later. However, baseball season is rapidly approaching for some. In my latest for 27 Outs Baseball, I reflect on this, thinking about my last few MiLB adventures and what this new season seems to have in store for my ballpark gallivanting...Enjoy. 100 days away For us fans of the NY–Penn League and other short-season leagues, there is a very long off season to endure. Perhaps there's some relief in noting that we're now within 100 days of opening day. Sure, other leagues will be underway considerably sooner, but, if yo...

It's no secret to anybody who looks at my blog that I love baseball and travel. That said, I was happy to join the 27 Outs crew in 2015 shortly after returning from a ballpark venture down south in June of that year. Mostly helping with their editing, I wrote my first post for them that July. They did a lot to promote Minor League baseball, and I was thrilled to contribute with editing, the occasional article, and even some pictures. The site went down a few years after I joined, but here's the first of three posts I wrote for them, each slightly modified and with dead links removed. Make Minor League Baseball Part of Your Travel Itinerary If you live on either coast, I’ll guess Oklahoma City, Wichita, Omaha, Des Moines and Davenport don’t rank high on your list of must-see vacation spots. Most of us, after all, have limited resources and vacation time, and we’re all too often drawn to beaches, National Parks, mountains and a host of other places that become the focal points...

It's still early in the 2015 MiLB season, and I hope to get to a few more ballparks this summer, but I did return from a fun trip down south where I got to four ballgames, four new stadiums, four games in different states (I'm now at 30 states, plus DC) and games in two more leagues. I'll do a summary post at some point of the traveling like I did last year , but when I got back from this trip, I suddenly became curious about where my last three trips have taken me, and what games I've had the good fortune of seeing. I've said before that I'm not really trying to see all of the AAA teams, or all of the teams of a given league (I don't think), but it struck me that I have seen affiliates of teams from all over the country. I saw an A's single-A affiliate in Vermont last year, a Twins AA affiliate in Connecticut a few years ago and I saw an Angels affiliate in Arkansas on this most recent trip. It seemed suddenly like I've seen affiliates for more te...