map of the locations and routes.
About four hours later, around 9 p.m. on September 11th, I came running out of my office with a reasonable, pragmatic, executable version of a 2015 MLB trip that would take me to 30 ballparks in 30 days. Needless to say, post-planning beer was involved in that celebration.
After I found the initial pathway that was very sensible, I never even attempted to do it any other way because it simply made so much sense from a geographic standpoint. My initial intention was to drive most of the East Coast part of the tour. Somehow, the schedule almost fell together like it was some kind of divine intervention so I never looked for an alternate course.
I later found out that I made it harder on myself than I needed to…
* * *
I LIKE TO TRAVEL. I should definitely mention that.
If you know me or have followed my radio and public career since the 1990s, you know that I’ve been traveling around the world seeing sporting events and concerts for as long as I can remember. It’s my passion and my way of meeting new people, seeing new things and experiencing the world in the most meaningful I can imagine – by actually going out and seeing the world!
I’ve chased Cal Ripken through Beijing, China. I’ve watched NFL football in Japan. Jenn and I attended the 2006 World Cup in Germany. We’ve chased the Rolling Stones and U2 through Brazil and Argentina. We’ve barnstormed through Australia chasing Bruce Springsteen.
Travel is at the core of my happiness and my drive.
Before there were girls or rock and roll or journalism or any other interests in my life, there was baseball.
Baseball, as I wrote in my 2006 book, is my first love.
I’ve been taking “baseball trips” as long as Jay Buckley was running them. I’ve run my own trips, taking literally tens of thousands of Baltimore sports fans to Orioles, Ravens, Terps, Caps and Wizards games all over North America since 1995.
I didn’t even do the math until the journey was complete but I had seen a Major League Baseball game played in 44 different stadiums before this tour even began. I don’t have a lot of regrets but I’m bummed that I never saw a baseball game at Olympic Stadium in Montreal or Mile High Stadium in Denver. But virtually every other place short of San Juan was conquered during the first 45 years of my life.
Like the Johnny Cash song, “I’ve been everywhere, man…”
And like Willie Nelson, I was soon to be on the road again.
There were only three current MLB stadiums that I hadn’t experienced – all of them newish ballparks. The new Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Target Field in Minnesota and Marlins Park in Miami were the only virgin experiences on the trip. And even though I had been to Anaheim in 1991 to see Jim Abbott throw a one-hitter, I also considered the Angels’ crib a “new” stadium since it had been remodeled 15 years ago.
I’ve been going to ballparks and experiencing baseball my whole life.
In the summer of 1989, my buddy Russ Letra jumped in my Toyota Cressida and hit Comiskey Park, County Stadium, Tiger Stadium, Cleveland Municipal Stadium and Three Rivers Stadium in one rambling week with stops at Soldier Field for a Bears-Dolphins preseason game and an afternoon in Canton at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
On that beautiful day in 1991 in Anaheim, I completed a rare day-night AL/NL doubleheader by going up to Dodger Stadium to see the Pirates invade Chavez Ravine. I thought that was a pretty cool day. I’d also done games with the Phillies and Orioles in the same day on a handful of occasions.
When I first conceived the 30-30 tour concept, I envisioned it as mostly a “land journey” with a vehicle, a driver and lots of miles on the ground. I thought we’d drive the East Coast and fly on the West Coast and I laid the tour out strictly with that in mind.
In the spring, when it became clear that we weren’t going to get the corporate support for the charity that would be needed to do the tour with a driver and a vehicle – and that it would be far cheaper and faster and easier to fly – it was a game changer.
As a guy who has sold sponsorship and advertising for a living for a quarter of a century, I was kind of shocked to find that most national business are impossible to reach with ideas that aren’t some agency pitch.
At every big company I pitched, there was no legitimate department to hear my pitch. At any big consumer products group, in order to get through to headquarters you have to fill out a form online. Many of them had broken links and there was no way to even deliver the message.
I was very disappointed that Southwest Airlines blew me off. They did nothing to help.
And everyone in Baltimore kept telling me to go to Under Armour but trying to get any help or sponsorship from “the Great American brand” was one of the worst experiences of my sales career. A runaround and a waste of time. The treatment I get from an allegedly “local” company was abominable. If Kevin Plank knew how I was treated, he’d be ashamed. I feel like I should’ve worn Nike.
But, in the end, I did have a handful of amazing local sponsors step up to make the tour possible.
Without the great folks at Charles Nusinov & Sons, Planet Fitness, Buffalo Wild Wings and Continental Title, I wouldn’t have been able to do the tour. So if you see them around town, please thank them on behalf of me, Jenn and our friends at There Goes My Hero!
I also got massive help with some hotel rooms on the road via some friends with Marriott and Hyatt.
In my mind, the trip was never in jeopardy. I was willing to fund it personally because I thought it was important and it was calling to me. It was just a matter of the most feasible and sensible way to get to these ballparks while I continued to do radio everywhere on the road while still getting enough
