There were no plans for this. An itinerary was never drawn up, routes were never formulated, days off never needed. Well, in the beginning, anyway. At five years of age, playing Wiffle ball on the lawn with my father, hearing him tell me about the history, and realizing that all of that history took place a few miles from my house, the only seed that was planted that day was my love of the New York Yankees. With Shea Stadium not far from the house either, there were many times that my parents would take me there as well. I had no vested interest in the Mets, so the stadium didn’t mean that much to me. There are memories of early “road trips” to Shea, though, like seeing the Diamondbacks first ever trip into New York, which felt like a big deal to me at the time, and getting box seats through my dad’s job. The client who gave him the tickets would either gift him with fish or baseball tickets, so you can imagine which one I preferred. Even after my first real road trip, with my parents to Fenway Park to see the Yankees play their fierce rivals, the Boston Red Sox, the idea of traveling to baseball stadiums outside of the area hadn’t occurred to me. Sure, it was fun to go to Boston, talk to Yankee pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre from our seats near the Yankee bullpen in right field, see the Yankees beat the Red Sox on the road, and see a different stadium, but it seemed, at the time to be more of a small family outing on the way to Framingham, where, due to work constraints, my parents had spent their honeymoon and liked to return on occasion to relive the memories. Even though I don’t hold the Red Sox in high esteem, I appreciated Fenway Park. It was different than what I was used to, and I understood the history that had taken place in the shadow of the Green Monster, including Babe Ruth toeing the rubber and the glorious sight of Bucky Dent’s homer disappearing over the Green Monster. The historical appeal was, to me, different than that of what I had previously encountered. Still, though, the desire to see more ballparks hadn’t yet
fully blossomed. Perhaps it was in the back of my mind, a maybe in a proverbial maybe pile, an idea for a wish list, but it wasn’t an active consideration. That is, until 2001.
That year, I started dating a girl at college, and as things started to get more serious, we decided to take a vacation. Her ex-boyfriend had gone to college in Maryland, so she was familiar with Baltimore and conveyed to me how fun the Inner Harbor was. Since she was also a baseball fan, she agreed, without much convincing, to go to Oriole Park at Camden Yards, and, in fact, she may have been there with her previous beau. I don’t remember who the Orioles played that night or when the game was, but, suffice it to say, the impression the ballpark and the surrounding area made on my was more lasting than the actual game. Compared with the three aging venues that I had taken in prior to this trip, Camden Yards was a revelation. With its classic look and modern amenities, I was enraptured. To think that there could be other experiences like this broadened my horizons, but that fateful evening was still not the deciding factor in sending me down the path to my stadium sojourn. What really started my journey was a game later in the year at the building formerly known as the SkyDome. Having had such a good time at the Orioles’ home Yards, the same lady friend and I decided to visit a place that neither of us had been before, and, in this instance, that place was Toronto. As luck would have it, former Yankee hurler David Wells was making the start for the White Sox against another of his former teams, the Blue Jays, and, with both of us being Yankee fans, the lure of seeing Boomer, a new ballpark, and a new city proved to be an equation that worked out positively all the way around. We took in the Hard Rock Café, which, to me, was an amazing amenity to have inside of a stadium, watched the first of its kind retractable roof close above us, and saw an otherwise inconsequential game between two also rans. The city of Toronto was also a fantastic place to explore, from the Hockey Hall of Fame (in a mall, by the way, next to a Starbucks), to
the underground portions of the city, I just had a fun time visiting not only the ballpark, but the city that it was contained in, one that was completely new to me.
After my experience in Toronto on that trip, I set off on a path to see as many stadiums as I could. While the relationship with my then-girlfriend petered out, but my love of exploring new baseball stadiums only grew over the ensuing years. I convinced my parents to travel with me to see Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh, making sure to see the Yankees in the first stop. After returning from the ballpark formerly known as Jacobs Field to the hotel, the woman at the front desk, who was from Egypt initially, started asking me to explain baseball to her, only for me to realize later that she might have been aiming for a different version of circling the bases. Like a botched hit and run, I missed the sign. I flew to Phoenix to see Barry Bonds face the Diamondbacks and then to Los Angeles, where I wandered into the ballpark and was the only person inside Dodger Stadium who didn’t work there, with the full blessing of the security guard, who encouraged me to take pictures, watch batting practice, and have a Dodger Dog. His only request was that I leave before the game started, have my ticket scanned, and reenter. It was a surreal experience, to be honest.
Upon relaying some of these stories to a coworker, she said that I should write a book about these stadium adventures. I had never even considered that before that point, but her suggestion opened me up to making that a reality. To fill a book, though, I needed more content, so I made it my mission to see as many Major League venues as possible, with seeing the Yankees play in as many as I could being a secondary goal.
In the course of my travels, I have recruited other friends to travel across the country and across the pond to London with me, traveled to Tokyo, Sydney, and Monterrey by myself, made new friends in various ballparks, including Yankee fans from Detroit and a Dodger fan
from Los Angeles, who I met in Chicago at a Bears game. (Long story.) Friends and I have taken long flights and made long drives, including a 19-hour jaunt from New York to Kansas City. Another long midwestern swing that saw us: see the Yankees at Wrigley Field; attend a Polish fest in the suburbs of Chicago; see the Yankees take on the Reds at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, where we also toured the fantastic Reds Museum; tour the Louisville Slugger factory (I did get a bat made with my signature on it, for the record); by pure happenstance see former All Star Dontrelle Willis attempting a comeback for the Reds as a Louisville Bat; and see the Pirates host the Orioles, where we were given a really nice commemorative stein in honor of the Pirates besting the Orioles in the 1971 World Series. We did all of that in a minivan, but there have been other adventures in motoring. A rental car broke down on a highway between Omaha and Kansas City, leaving me and a friend stranded for hours, and leaving me to fight with the rental car company when they declared the vehicle late a week later. Luckily, we had seen the game between the Royals and Tigers in Omaha, played in conjunction with the College World Series, earlier that night and gone to the game with our friend who had relocated from The Bronx to Omaha years earlier to get married.
Luckily, I have gotten a press pass to see the Little League Classic in Williamsport through my job, seen the last game the Expos played in Montreal and the first game the Nationals played as Washington’s new team (both home and away), saw the original Yankee Stadium close, saw Disney World host games, and, through another fork in the baseball paved literary road, have interviewed Willie Mays and have had my picture taken with Vin Scully in the press box for another project that I am working on that came about, in part, due to this first endeavor. I have seen a World Series game at Wrigley Field, almost saw the Yankees clinch the World Series in Philadelphia (that would have been awkward), been in George W. Bush’s suite in
Texas (probably wasn’t supposed to be in there, but I did a a picture of his baseball glove shaped couch), been chased out of a suite in Atlanta and sternly told not to touch the cookies (which was more for the group and not me in particular), acquired “Marlins Water” from a team employee after then didn’t have any souvenir soda cups, and have seen other events in baseball stadiums, like NFL games, NHL games, MLS games, concerts, boxing matches, and wrestling matches.
Sometimes, the journeys were designed with a specific goal in mind or to maximize time off or to see as many ballparks as could be fit into the schedule. Being at the 100th anniversary games at both Fenway Park and Wrigley Field were assuredly planned out ahead of time due to the correctly anticipated higher prices and limited availability. Other times, the special moments just sort of happened, like when the Dodgers threw a combined no-hitter in Mexico against the Padres. I was sitting with a group of Padre fans, but it was still a great moment to have witnessed in person. Seeing Mariano Rivera breaking the all-time saves record was a combination of both, since I was off on Mondays at the time and the game that the Yankees were to play that day was a makeup game, so I took a chance and witnessed history. Same story in Tampa when I happened to be in Florida for Game 162. Even though the Yankees lost, that was one of the greatest nights of baseball that I have ever witnessed. I also almost ended up with a Mark Teixeira grand slam ball that came bounding down the stairs towards me on my way to feed some rays in the appropriately named ray tank, until someone else dove on it.
Ultimately, I even added visiting the sites of former stadiums to my growing list, from crouching behind the marker for home plate where the Polo Grounds once stood to seeing the Jets and Brett Favre play (and lose to) the 49ers at Candlestick Park to seeing the remnants of what was Tiger Stadium, half demolished and standing forlorn in Corktown, much like Corktown
itself, to being told by schoolkids that they were going to call the police on me for taking pictures of their school, named for Jackie Robinson, across the street from where Jackie worked and which, after the Dodgers decamped for Los Angeles, was converted to a housing complex: Ebbets Field. The former venues were interesting novelties and fun to see, there wasn’t much I could add to my retelling of my travels, since the buildings no longer stood or were not used for their original purpose. Still, though, if I hadn’t taken on this mission of sorts, I don’t know how likely it would be that I would have taken trips to see them.
Have I spent too much money on this obsession? Yes. Do I have any number of stadium giveaways that I don’t have the slightest idea what to do with? Yes. Would I trade any of it or do any of it differently? No. That’s why I do this: the stories, the journey itself. That’s why, during the COVID-19 lockdown, I constructed a baseball standings board, with old cereal boxes as shelves and ice cream helmets that I have obtained in my visits to the various stadiums, to reflect the current state of baseball races, currently frozen in a reflection of the final 2019 outlook thanks to a global pandemic. That’s why I look at the schedule as soon as it comes out and plan the ways that I will use my time off to see a new stadium, time my excursions to a Yankee road trip, coordinate with the group of various friends who accompany me on many of these trips, and, yes, look at team giveaway days. The trips aren’t confined to just the stadiums. I love to explore the cities that the ballparks are in and see everything there is to see, like going up in the CN Tower and watching batting practice from the glass floor, going to Pike Place Market and seeing the fish mongers toss their wares to and fro, having sushi in the Ginza district, experimenting unsuccessfully with Vegemite in Australia and salted beef in the United Kingdom, watching games from the bleachers and the apartments at Wrigley Field, atop the Green Monster at Fenway Park on Patriot’s Day (which also turned out to be the day of the
horrific marathon bombing), not even having a ticket, but still seeing the game in Toronto by way of the hotel adjacent to the Rogers Centre, going in the pool in Miami during the World Baseball Classic, and being interviewed by the radio station that I work for while in San Juan during an islandwide blackout.
There are so many more stories and photos that I could share, so many people that I have encountered, and so many experiences that I have had since I started this quixotic quest. Before the global pandemic known as COVID-19 hit, I had attended regular or postseason MLB games in 46 venues, across six countries and one US territory and seen the Yankees in 36. If and when travel restrictions are lifted, I will not be hesitant: I will be back at stadiums. Assuming I’m still above ground, I plan on being at the 100th anniversary of Dodger Stadium in 2062. I want to see a World Series game at Yankee Stadium, which is something that I’m oddly ashamed that I haven’t done yet. I want to see a resolution for the stadium situations in Tampa and Oakland because, yes, it would be good for those cities, but also because a new stadium or a relocation to a new city would give me more places to go and more stadiums to see. It’s what I do. It’s who I am, to a certain degree, at this point.
After having had these experiences and retained these memories, I am extremely grateful and fortunate that I was able to make it happen. However, if not for the game of baseball, an ex-girlfriend, and a coworker, I would likely not have done some of the things that I have done, seen some of the sights that I have seen, or lived the life that I have lived. Baseball is the key to it all. I might have traveled with other girlfriends had I not gone to Baltimore in 2001, but there’s no guarantee that it would have played out the same. To me, baseball is what opened the doors to adventure and the passport that allowed me to explore the world.
-John McLaughlin
What stadiums are included in this endeavor? In the words of my friend Russ, “Let’s learn.”
johnpmclaughlin 