Introduction to Bill's Journal

Why I'm making this journey

August 1, 2002

Hello!  My name is Bill Verkuilen.  I am a 32-year-old professional engineer, from Minnetonka, Minnesota.  And this summer, barring a players’ strike, I will be visiting all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums.  In fact, as I write this, I’m in the middle of this quest.

Like most baseball fans, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do.  And something I had planned to do—over a lifetime.  But until a few years ago, it never really came under serious consideration to try to do it in a single season, other than the typical barroom discussions that many sports fans have after a few too many alcoholic beverages.

Then, in July of 2000, my employer made a major announcement regarding the product line with which I was working.  Production would be moving to Miami, Florida, over the subsequent year and a half.  Once that transfer was done, all people working on the line would be laid off, including me.  At first, this was bad news, but it increasingly became apparent that there were some definite benefits that were going to result from this.  For one, the transfer needed some engineering support in Miami, and I was offered a year-long assignment down there … meaning a chance to be in Florida, and the ability to have to deal with one less Minnesota winter in my lifetime.  Secondly, the severance package that was offered to the laid-off employees was very nice—enough so that I was going to be able to take several months off once the lay off occurred, if I so chose—without working or even worrying about job hunting.  And as it became more clear that the layoff would be occurring at the end of April 2002, I knew I would be taking the summer off.  At first, I thought it would be spent primarily on my recently acquired boat, on Lake Minnetonka.  (And believe me, a lot of time has indeed been spent in just that way!)  But I also started playing with the idea of touring some—possible all—major league stadiums.

Prior to 2002, I had visited eleven baseball stadiums, nine of which are still in use.   (The two that are now extinct are Milwaukee County Stadium and Met Stadium in Minnesota, which I’m told I was once at, although I was too young to remember it.)  One thought for the summer of 2002 was simply to add a handful more to that total, by making a trip or two.  Maybe see half a dozen more stadiums.  But with the time I was going to have off, that simply didn’t seem ambitious enough.  Next, I thought about trying to hit all the stadiums I had not yet visited, so I could say I had been to all of them.  I was set in my mind to do exactly that, but as I started working with the major league schedule, I realized that the effort and cost required to see all 30 this year was not going to be significantly more than what it would take to just see the ones I hadn’t yet visited.  So once the major league schedule came out, I started playing with it, to see what games I could link together into multi-stadium trips.  This is a lot trickier than it sounds!  Invariably, even trying to link four or five stadiums together results in one team or another being in the middle of a 13-game road trip right when you need them to have a home game.  But I managed to work out a number of small trips, whose schedules would get me to just over half the stadiums, and then one big run that would take me to 14 stadiums in a two-and-a-half week stretch.

Bill and his dad Marvin in Kansas City

Another issue, in my case, was finding a travel companion.  It’s pretty rare for someone to get the time off that I was getting, and have the financial ability to do what I was planning, AND have the baseball interest and desire to do it.  So convincing someone to do all 30 games with me was just not a possibility.  Instead, I talked to a few people interested in seeing some stadiums, and worked with their schedules to get them to some games with me.  Most importantly, I was able to work my schedule so that my dad could join me for several of the games.  I grew up on a central Wisconsin dairy farm, in the middle of nowhere.  And in part because of this, I wasn’t the stereotypical playing-stickball-and-peering-through-knotholes, living-and-breathing-baseball kid that often comes to mind when one thinks of the type of person to try to do something like this.  I wasn’t close enough to either Milwaukee or Minneapolis to see games regularly—I may have gotten to one game every other year, at most.  I also wasn’t able to gain a great appreciation of the game by watching it on TV.  Until the playoffs each year, the only games televised in the area I lived were NBC Games of the Week (during which I was usually busy planting corn or unloading hay wagons) and the All-Star game. And I played Little League baseball a couple years, but was basically the worst right fielder in baseball history.  But in general, I didn’t have a lot of direct exposure to the game.  

My primary exposure to baseball was through my dad.  I can’t even begin to count the number of nights I’d spend with my dad in the barn, doing the evening milking, listening to Bob Uecker’s call of the Brewers game. We’d discuss everything from the latest Jim Gantner-Robin Yount double play turn at second, to my dad’s memories of the Milwaukee Braves’ trips to the World Series, or of the incredible catches Andy Pafko would make for the Cubbies years ago.  (Andy, a Cubs walk-of-famer who also grew up as a Wisconsin farm boy, was and still is my dad’s favorite player of all time.)  A few years ago, I fulfilled my dad’s dream by taking him to his first game at Wrigley Field.  This year, he has accompanied me to my games in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Colorado, and currently plans to go to five games on my Eastern swing with me.

Want to do something like this yourself?  A few tips from my experience…

• Plan your trip for a year when the players have a contract.  OK, I realize that this really isn’t something you should plan your trip around, but the impending strike has been the biggest headache I’ve had to contend with.

• Pick a souvenir to collect at each game.  For me, it’s the fitted authentic game hats.  In general, I’m trying to get whatever cap the home team is wearing that night—be it the regular one or the alternate.  In each, I’m writing the date of the game in magic marker.  This is something I started a couple years ago, the first time I visit any stadium  (or at least the first time I visit it since I started the collection.).  A friend of mine, Bruce Gebby, started doing this several years ago, and told me about it.  I liked the idea enough to copy it.

• Try to sit in a variety of locations—including a couple games in some good, expensive seats.  It’s worth it to sit five rows straight behind home plate a couple times, and also to sit in the farthest reaches of the bleachers a couple times.  Some sources of tickets that I’ve found to be quite helpful are e-Bay and www.stubhub.com.  Also, some teams have their own websites to assist season ticket holders in re-selling their tickets.  Links to those sites can be found on the mlb.com website.

• Good deals can be found on tickets from scalpers, particularly an inning or two after the game has started.  But know your local scalping laws—in some areas, it’s illegal to sell OR BUY, and undercover officers patrol regularly for both.  (This one doesn’t help me that much on this trip, as it’s important to me to get through the gates at least an hour or two early to tour the stadium and watch batting practice.  But if you can work with the time constraints, the bargains are out there.)

• Great hotels can be found at quite low prices at priceline.com.  No, I have no stake in this company, I’m just a satisfied customer.  And for even better success on priceline, go to www.biddingfortravel.com.  This is a site that provides very valuable tips on getting even lower successful bids on priceline, and also provides a forum for visitors to post their winning bids, so others can know what prices have been successful for the various regions and hotel quality levels.

Well, enough with the preliminaries—it’s time to get back to singing the National Anthem and hearing PLAY BALL!

-- Bill Verkuilen  biggbill@hotmail.com 

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