I’ve decided to go all in this year with the sport of Baseball.  Julie and I have a slate of games on the schedule that include several here in Chicago and a couple around the country.  We plan on hitting 6 different stadiums, three of which I’ve never been to, including the oldest ballpark left standing. We ended up getting a 7 pack of games for the White Sox since we knew we’d already being going to three Cubs games when the Mets are in town.  Opening Day at Citi Field and the Pirates game in June are the only specific ‘baseball trips’ we’ll take, the Red Sox and Rockies games are just sidetracks during other trips.

Here’s the list of games:
Mets – Nationals in New York on April 8th
Rockies – Cubs in Denver on April 17th
White Sox – Twins in Chicago on May 3rd
White Sox – Rangers in Chicago on May 17th
White Sox – Indians in Chicago on May 19th
White Sox – Dodgers in Chicago on May 21st
Cubs – Mets in Chicago on May 24th
Cubs – Mets in Chicago on May 25th
Cubs – Mets in Chicago on May 26th
White Sox – Tigers in Chicago on June 4th
Pirates – Mets in Pittsburgh on June 11th
Yankees – Cubs in Chicago on June 18th**
Sea Dogs – Mets in Portland on July 19th***
Red Sox – Mariners  in Boston on July 22nd
White Sox – Red Sox in Chicago on July 30th
White Sox – Yankees in Chicago on August 3rd****
White Sox – Yankees in Chicago on August 4th

That’s 15 games plus I’ll probably find my way to a few additional Cubs games by accident.  15 Baseball games.**  A record for me by far and something I never thought I’d do.  With the horrible experience that the year in football has been I must say I’m really looking forward to my Year of Baseball.*  I might even get the kindle version of the Baseball Field Guide: An In-Depth Illustrated Guide to the Complete Rules of Baseball so I can finally begin to understand the arbitrariness of the game.

Side Notes:
* The 2010-2011 College and Professional Football season is now behind me and I firmly believe it was the worst year of football in my lifetime. (I’m not just stating this because the Steelers lost the Super Bowl).  The off season began with the USC Trojan’s massive sanctions setting a new tone for the NCAA enforcement, the Ben Roethlisberger sexual assault claims, and headlines claiming Joe Paterno is on his death bed.  Once the season kicked off, it just kept getting worse: the insanity of the Cam Newton-SEC scandal to the ultimate betrayal to one’s alma mater by Terrelle Pryor in College Football. Then the hypocritical nature of NFL Commissioner Goodell issuing massive fines for formerly legal hits to the push for an 18 game season, the complete and utter media infatuation with Mike Vick, and the Jets nonstop trash talking for no reason.

This has been a resounding bad year for Football.

** I added the Yankees – Cubs game to the list after we pulled the trigger on the tickets.
*** I also added a minor league game to the list while I was in New England.
**** Julie won tickets to the Wednesday Yankee – White Sox game at Finley Dunn’s.