I don’t know which I loved first, baseball or traveling. I discovered both in the mid-80s, when I was six or seven years old. And at that time attending a baseball game required travel. I recall making the 90-mile trip to St. Louis from our home in Springfield a few times before driving three hours up to Chicago for my first Cubs game at Wrigley Field in 1986.(We also went to Springfield Cardinals games, which was the Class A affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. Minor league games can be so much fun!)And almost as long as I’ve loved baseball and traveling, my dad and I have thought about a road trip in which we would visit a different major league park each day. When we first considered the idea there were 26 teams. Now there are 30.It’s easy to understand why we never followed through on our 30 parks in 30 days idea. Life responsibilities. Work. Lack of vacation time. Money. There are numerous obstacles to completing such an adventure.I like planning to travel almost as much as actually traveling, so a number of times over the years I’ve attempted to plan an itinerary for 30 parks in 30 days, even though we had no plans to act on it.In planning this awesomeness, I had to come up with a few ground rules.1. All travel is done by car. This is a road trip. 30 parks in 30 days. Flying is cheating. Part of the challenge and the fun is getting to every park in 30 days.2. You must stay at the game for nine innings, or four hours, whichever is longer. If, after four hours, it’s tied in the thirteenth inning, you can leave and still count the game.3. Watch a game in a different stadium each day. No repeats. No skipping days.But even if you come up with an itinerary and follow the rules, there’s no way to ensure success. It’s baseball and traveling…anything can happen.Any game that’s canceled or postponed ruins the trip and means that you can’t complete it. I’d continue the trip if that happened—because why not?—but it wouldn’t count for 30 parks in 30 days.So now that we have rules, we need to start building an itinerary. How the heck are we going to get to 30 parks in 28 cities in 30 days? There are numerous things to consider when planning the trip.First, it has to either begin or end in Seattle. The next-closest city to Seattle is 800 miles away. If you don’t begin in Seattle that means you’ll have to drive 800 miles on consecutive days. That can wear out a traveler, and a baseball fan.Second, the rest of the west is spread out, too. The two baseball cities closest to Denver are 600 and 800 miles away. Phoenix is somewhat close to San Diego and L.A., but it’s 750 miles away from San Francisco. L.A. and San Francisco aren’t very close to each other. (Chicago and Cleveland are closer to each other.)Third, what to do about Florida? Atlanta’s somewhat close, so that helps. But assuming you go from Atlanta, all the way down to Miami, and then back up to Tampa, where the hell do you go after that?Fourth, games aren’t scheduled with your trip in mind. You haven’t experienced frustration until you’ve planned 25 days of the trip, and then discover there are only five games on day 26, and three of them are in cities you’ve already been to, and the other two are a thousand miles away. Start over.With patience, persistence, and planning, it’s usually possible to find an itinerary that works. I’ve done it a few times And this year might be the best one yet.Take a look.
Are you up to it?Before you decide, let me point out a few things.The first couple of weeks aren’t bad. Detroit to New York is a long day. But then there’s two days in New York. Boston to Toronto to Chicago are the toughest back-to-back days in the first half.But things get real tough after the game in Philadelphia. It’s a 6:05 game, followed by an 11.6-hour drive to Atlanta, where there’s a 12:35 game the next day, only 15 hours after the likely ending time of the previous game. And then it’s a 10-hour drive to Miami.A short drive to Tampa for a 6:10 pm game, followed by a horrendous 14.6-hour drive to Houston, and a game that starts at 1:10, only 16 hours after the previous game likely ended! Thankfully, that’s followed by a short 4-hour drive to Arlington for a game the following day.After the Rangers game three long days take you to Kansas City, Denver and Phoenix, before heading to California for a few days, and then finishing with a long drive up to Seattle.The itinerary isn’t perfect. It goes midwest-east-midwest-east-south-west. It would have been nice to fit Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia in the initial eastern swing, along with Chicago, St. Louis and Cincinnati in the initial midwest swing, but the schedule wouldn’t allow it.So there you have it. One way to do 30 parks in 30 days during the 2017 Major League Baseball season. I won’t do it this year, but if you do it, drop me a line and let me know how my plan worked!Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? You should subscribe to my blog and we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.
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