My Year of Baseball has ended. I started out on this journey as a way to give Baseball as a sport more of a chance and to put Football out of my mind for 4 months. It worked in both regards. I attempted to keep score during each game to varying degrees of success which kept me much more involved in following the game play by play. It was fascinating to see a couple of the newer ball parks in contrast to the two oldest. It’s also interesting to see how each area/neighborhood around the park is setup. All the while I ignored the NFL Strike/Insane Free Agency.
Year of Baseball by the Numbers:
Being that it is Baseball, I kept my own stats throughout this experience. I’ve seen seventeen games in seven different stadiums with an average ticket price of $36. The most expensive game was Cubs – Yankees ($80) and the cheapest was the Sea Dogs – Mets minor league game ($9).* The farthest I traveled for a game was 918.9 miles (Coors Field), the shortest was 0.7 miles (Wrigley Field) and the average distance was 227.5 miles. The oldest ballpark I visited was Fenway Park in Boston at 99 years, the youngest was 2 year old Citi Field in New York. The average ballpark age was 48 years. On this odyssey I had a total of 49 beers (averaging a mere 3.3BPG*). The highest temperature game was the Boston – Mariners game at 100°F, by contrast the coldest was the third Cubs – Mets game at 42°F.
Here’s the complete list of games I attended:
Nationals – Mets in New York on April 8th
Cubs – Rockies in Denver on April 17th
Twins – White Sox in Chicago on May 3rd
Rangers – White Sox in Chicago on May 17th
Indians – White Sox in Chicago on May 19th
Dodgers – White Sox in Chicago on May 21st
Mets – Cubs in Chicago on May 24th
Mets – Cubs in Chicago on May 25th
Mets – Cubs in Chicago on May 26th
Tigers – White Sox in Chicago on June 4th
Mets – Pirates in Pittsburgh on June 11th
Yankees – Cubs in Chicago on June 18th
Mets – Sea Dogs in Portland on July 19th
Mariners – Red Sox in Boston on July 22nd
Red Sox – White Sox in Chicago on July 30th
Yankees – White Sox in Chicago on August 3rd
Yankees – White Sox in Chicago on August 4th
Throughout all 17 games Julie and I kept score with the Eephus League scorebook, always adapting our methodology and penmanship. At many times it made the game go faster and more enjoyable.
Side Notes:
* BPG = Beers Per Game
** The least expensive Major League game(s) were all four White Sox games in May ($14).
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*** With more than 3,868 miles traveled these are the stadiums I visited.
