He Knew He Was Right

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 ...

So, that quick overnighter to Miami this past weekend got my ballpark tour, phase B, underway. It brought me up to 41 ballparks and left me with two to go. It was a drizzly weekend down there, which led to the roof of Marlins Park being shut. That got me thinking about domes, and wondering how many of these 41 ballparks had lids. Since many of the domes are retractable, it became a trickier question, as I've seen some of them closed and some of them open. The quick answer is that I've been to eight domed ballparks, with all but two capped for at least part of the game. If knowing when a roof would be open or shut were possible, seeing a game with the ballpark in each configuration might be a goal. That didn't really strike me until Miami, since I really liked the look of the place from both outside and inside, and wanted to see it wide open. Anyway, as far as domes go, here's a quick rundown of what I both saw and missed. -First, I never made it to the Astrodome, ...

And here I am at Marlins Park. My stadium tour for 2013 gets underway in Florida! I met my first objective during the last weekend of last season, getting to my 29th and 30th teams' home ballparks. Since I started this adventure two decades ago, many teams have built new ballparks, however, meaning I can't yet say that I've seen them all. So, here I am, seeing another Marlins game. I saw them three years ago, when they were playing in a football stadium. Now they are in a ballpark, the newest one in the majors. A quick overnighter, it's still nice to be down this way. It really is a beautiful ballpark, different in appearance from many of the other new ones, including some of the domed ones I've seen in recent years, and there's nothing retro about it. Add to that some nice and reasonable food items, and I'm all set. The game itself? Well the starting pitching matchup didn't get me excited. The team neutral gear is of course on, tho, and now for the ...

Vermont has more breweries per person than any other state in the country. I think it's something about the water that makes their beers what they are and has so many fine breweries popping up from top to bottom of the state. I have a goal of visiting, well, as many as I can reasonably visit. It's a work in progress. The visits started in earnest last winter, with my buddy and I stopping at a number of them, a few more than once. Some breweries give better tours than others, plain and simple. Some are brew pubs with tasty menus, and some just offer beer tastes. Some answer questions down to rather fine detail of what is crafted there, and others are ridiculously tight lipped. Still, of the Vermont breweries I've visited, all were an enjoyable experience for one reason or another. With the ski season upon us, we headed up to Stowe this past weekend, which put us somewhat in driving distance of a bunch of them, especially since we were only doing a mild tasting and some ...

Remember those roller ski things I bought? The whole point of them was fitness, and being ready when ski season got here. Well, not too long ago, I figured I'd be sailing like this by now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbqiF0y6Occ&feature=colike . Yeah, I was going to be in great shape, better shape than I had been in any recent ski season, in fact. That's right, I was going to put more time in on the skinny skis this winter and be ready to glide, well, something approximating this: http://youtu.be/XDZTHQlc1N8 . Ok, maybe not nearly so well, but certainly be able to move effortlessly along the trail, up hills, around turns, and all that.  Instead, ski season is just about here, and I realize I don't quite have my ski legs ready. So, I'm frantically trying to get in shape. And, forget the roller skis, I'm getting ready for the season the old-fashioned way: http://youtu.be/qaeRaHNszws

So here I am at Arrowhead Stadium! This is my third new NFL venue this year, and quite likely the last. When the schedule comes out each year, there are the two-for-one MLB/NFL weekends I try to set up for September, the two-NFL-games-in-one-weekend craziness I likewise try to scheme, but there is also that one team or venue I always seem to have in my sights as the one I must see each autumn. That team this year was the Chiefs. For the past couple of years, I've looked at the schedule to see if I could get to Chiefs and Broncos games the same weekend, but there have been no such alignments of a Sunday game for one and an MNF game for the other with the road trip in between. This being the 50th anniversary of the Chiefs, however, had me ID them as the team to see this year. A bye week for the Giants opened this weekend a bit wider. Dirt cheap airfare clinched this for me. So, this makes 24 teams. Not bad. Not bad at all. I'm 3/4 of the way there now, and I feel fortunate ...