Graduation Baseball Trip

by LantermanC on Mar 30, 2007 4:07 PM PDT

So I'm graduating in May from college in St. Louis. Anyways, 5 friends and I are making a baseball trip to experience some of the stadiums in the midwest. We're driving from St. Louis to Minnesota to watch the Twins, then we're going to Milwaukee to watch the Brewers, then off to Chicago to watch the Cubs and White Sox (2 games of one, can't remember which), then to Cleveland and Cincinnati for the Indians and Reds, and then back to St. Louis for the Cardinals. It ends on June 9th, and I wanted to go to Pittsburgh, Toronto, Detroit, and Kansas City too, but my friends weren't up for it.
Anyways, does anyone have any suggestions on things I should do? Someone suggest that on the way up to Minnesota, we stop by the Field of Dreams in Iowa. Is that worth it?
Any foods I should eat or things I should do at the stadiums? Also, should we buy the tickets now, or do you think we can just buy them at the stadium? Oh yeah, I plan on buying a t-shirt at every stop of a player and my list right now is: Mauer, Sheets, DLee, Iguchi, Hafner/Sizemore, Griffey, Pujols.
Thanks for your help and suggestions.

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Dude, it must be nice to have a ton of money...

i wish i could do that.

by basebliman on Mar 30, 2007 4:37 PM PDT reply actions

Roooooooadtrip

Yeah, I do the same thing with player t-shirts. Warning: at least in 2005, they actually ran out of Mauer shirts, and I had to buy one from a sporting goods store in the Mall of America.

Shame on you for not going to Pittsburgh. Even if the Pirates suck, PNC Park is fantastic and only 2 hours more from Cleveland.

If you are seeing the Cubs, you need to have bought tickets like two months ago unless you want single seats or are going on weekdays.

I may actually end up in the Chicago/Milwaukee area over Memorial Day Weekend actually... it's one of the baseball trips I'm thinking of this summer.

Oh yeah, and go see the Toledo Mud Hens :)

If you don't know about it already, check out the baseball-reference.com travel page for suggestions of places to go. There's also a neat Baseball Road Trip book that came out a few years ago. I have it, it's amusing if nothing else.

Marinerds - a different daily dose of baseblog.

by Deanna on Mar 30, 2007 4:38 PM PDT reply actions

Cubs Tix

You really have no choice. I'm pretty sure they sell out all of their tickets the day they make them available (which was a few weeks ago), so you'll just have to buy on the street. You'll be able to get seats together - probably not 6, but you won't have to settle for 6 singles. It will cost a lot though. Head near the stadium early and try to find fans selling extras before you settle for one of the licensed ticket brokers(you'll find plenty on Addison east of Clark, and on Clark south of Addison).

by david h on Mar 31, 2007 8:13 AM PDT up reply actions

Seconding Pittsburgh

I went to both Cleveland and Pittsburgh last summer and had way more fun in Pittsburgh. Cleveland was OK, but there's not much going on there besides the Jake and the R&R Hall of Fame - the downtown area's kinda dead and there's not much by way of good bars. There's an Alice Cooperstown, but the one in Phoenix is way better.

Anyway, Jacobs Field doesn't have a lot of distinctive food-type things, except for the stadium mustard - it's not the standard yellow glop, it's a spicier brown mustard that's really good. Other than that, it's pretty run of the mill.

Unless the Tribe are contending, tickets are pretty easy to come by - we bought tix day of game last year and got front row, third level, right above first base.

But seriously. Go to Pittsburgh. You won't regret it.

Nice Guys Finish Third - Hopelessly lost, but makin' good time.

by pdb on Mar 30, 2007 4:59 PM PDT reply actions

Pittsburgh

Damn, now I really want to go to Pittsburgh, but the days that we're in Ohio are June 5,6,7th and 8th, and Pittsburgh has home games on the 4th and doesn't start back up til the 12th. We have to stay in Chicago til the 4th to see the White Sox, because we have a kid from Chicago who loves the Sox (though 4 of us will be living in Chicago next year anyways). Oh well. I hope my first vacation of my working career will be (Boston, NY, NY, Philly, Baltimore, DC)
Anyways, I think I'd buy a Jason Bay jersey.. probably because there is no one else on the team, cept a bunch of decent young pitchers and
Laroche.

http://seattlesportmaniac.blogspot.com

by LantermanC on Mar 30, 2007 9:12 PM PDT up reply actions

yeah, well

I'm semi-pissed the Pirates aren't in town when I'm in Pittsburgh later in April for a college reunion, and neither are the Indians even. I don't know whether I'll want to drive 4 hours to Cincinnati to see the Phillies-Reds game, but my guess is no.

But the Pirates come to Seattle later this summer so it's all good.

I have a Jason Bay shirt. I also have a Jason Kendall shirt. And those are the only Pirates number shirts I have, after all these years. Stupid Pirates always trade away any players I like.

Marinerds - a different daily dose of baseblog.

by Deanna on Mar 30, 2007 11:42 PM PDT up reply actions

You can always try to catch a Bisons game

I don't know how far Buffalo is from Pitt but I don't think it's much farther than Cleveland.

Hot potato is an entirely different game when you're starving

by Mariner John on Mar 30, 2007 11:52 PM PDT up reply actions

Buffalo

is about 2.5 hours from Cleveland, and I imagine about the same from Pitt. I've done Cleveland to Buffalo way more times than I should have in my life, but I've never done the Cleveland to Pitt drive, but I'd think it's about the same.

by Corco on Mar 31, 2007 1:10 AM PDT up reply actions

My suggestion

is that you go ahead and post a diary at the blog for each of the teams you plan on seeing. They could give you a lot more help than us.

by Jeff Sullivan on Mar 30, 2007 5:02 PM PDT reply actions

I tried this for Cleveland

and got virtually no response. Your mileage may vary.

Nice Guys Finish Third - Hopelessly lost, but makin' good time.

by pdb on Mar 30, 2007 6:08 PM PDT up reply actions

You should try being less of an ass.

...

Good-natured ribbing doesn't go over well online.

by Jeff Sullivan on Mar 30, 2007 6:26 PM PDT up reply actions

We need some sort of a sarcasm icon

See about iconizing Jarrod Washburn's face.

by Gomez on Mar 30, 2007 10:43 PM PDT up reply actions

We already have a Washburn icon

by Robert on Mar 31, 2007 12:20 AM PDT up reply actions

That's a novel concept

I thought being an ass was the first tenet of online message posting.

You're right, it doesn't read as well as it would have spoken. Stupid print media.

Nice Guys Finish Third - Hopelessly lost, but makin' good time.

by pdb on Mar 31, 2007 10:03 AM PDT up reply actions

I would have done that

But I felt like that my questions weren't that important. And taking all the "Recent Diary" space seems kind of arrogant, like my vacation is the only thing worth discussing.
So anyone been to Field of Dreams? Is that worth going to?

http://seattlesportmaniac.blogspot.com

by LantermanC on Mar 30, 2007 9:13 PM PDT up reply actions

I did this last summer...

from Chicago to St. Louis/KC/Colorado and Arizona up to Seattle. You're guaranteed to have a blast.

As far as tickets go, we bought all ours ahead of time but would have been able to purchase them on gameday at the stadium everywhere we went. So I'd say it's really up to you... if you want to try and sit behind home plate at some places, I'd recommend getting tickets in advance. But if you don't mind sitting in the outfield or wherever, getting tickets on gameday should not be a problem for anywhere but Wrigley, and I'm sure you could get scalped tickets there.

by patsfan on Mar 30, 2007 11:19 PM PDT reply actions

Thanks for the advice

Some of my friends are real stingy, so I don't think we're going to get great seats. I hope not outfield seats, but I don't want to be an ass and sit in a different section from them. I'm kind of surprised we're doing this actually because besides my twin brother, I'm the only real baseball fan. One of the guys from Minnesota can only name Mauer and Santana from the Twins roster (not even Morneau or Nathan), but that's ok, because they're just doing it to have one last trip with each other before work.

http://seattlesportmaniac.blogspot.com

by LantermanC on Mar 31, 2007 7:30 AM PDT up reply actions