I don’t like the saying that I have a bucket list because it brings the perception I will die soon. It still feels great to check something off of my goals of 2015 (better known as New Year’s resolutions). I am not where I am want to be career wise but I’m pleased that has not prevented me from exploring and living. With the baseball playoffs on the way I want to look back at the four new stadiums I visited this summer. There are 30 Major League Baseball teams and my long term life goal is to visit every team’s stadium by the time I my life ends. With the amount of times teams change stadiums I’m just hoping to visit every city and the current stadium that is currently standing.
I haven’t picked a specific age I would like to accomplish this by because it’s a bit hard working and visiting that many cities in one summer but I’m hoping to at least visit one stadium per year. The total amount of stadiums that I have visited is ten including: Petco Park (SD), AT&T Park (SF), Fenway Park (Boston), Wrigley Field (Chicago), Yankee Stadium, Citi Field (NY), National Park (Wash), Camden Yards (Balt.), Citizens Bank Park (Phil.) and US Cellular Field (Chicago). I have only traveled outside the country once if you don’t count Canada or Puerto Rico, I should have probably said the continent. Those visits were an eye opening experience, being able to enjoy and learn from a different culture, I went to Barcelona, Florence, Rome, Naples, Toulon and Monte Carlo. I have no idea when is the next time I will get the opportunity to go to a different continent but I like the idea of venturing to other cities and states in this country.
There is so much that this country offers and as a New Yorker sometimes we spend so much time loving this city and working that we let time pass by and don't explore all the interesting and unique things in this country. There’s a couple of things I’d like to do in this country such as: hiking and canyoneering that I would like to go in the Pacific Northwest, snowboarding in Colorado, scuba diving in Fort Lauderdale and head to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and also catching a Saints game down there as well. I visited a couple of new cities (DC and Baltimore) this summer and the weather was perfect for both games. Besides going to the baseball games it was fun being back to visit tourist locations that both cities had such as the Smithsonian, the Washington Monument and the Inner Harbor.
Summer of 2015 featured four new ballparks, I loved Camden Yards and Nationals Park. They each had a different kind of personality to them. I felt the same way about Citizen Bank Park and US Cellular Field but I didn’t have that same I can’t wait to come back here feeling. Of the four stadiums my favorite feature was walking by the outfield section of Camden Yards looking down and realizing they have baseballs all over the ground representing players who have hit home runs in this area.
As a baseball and Yankees fan it’s a displeasure for me to say that the new Yankee Stadium does not excite me as much. It may be the fact that I am a New Yorker and have access to going to a Yankee game whenever I want to compared to buying a bus or plane ticket to visit a new city/ballpark. It doesn’t offer much besides overpriced food/beer, history I already know and Monument Park. Baseball is a sport that can be a bore at times especially for non-baseball fans. For what I’ve noticed especially with Nationals Park, Camden Yards, Petco Park and AT&T Park is that they make their ballparks interactive for their fans. There are bars that fans can walk to and games kids can play. It’s hard to visit Monument Park during a live Yankees game and the museum is quite small and it is history that people can read about.
I sure hope I don’t sound like a typical millennial but I grew up watching baseball and I still find it a fun sport to watch and play. Every once in a while between innings it would be ideal to walk around the stadium and take a break from your seat especially if a parent is going to a game with his/her kids. Yankee Stadium doesn’t feel like a fun place to visit, the architecture is beautiful but I’ve noticed it’s a place to take clients during the summer since the Knicks and Rangers are on their off seasons. It fits the New York business atmosphere. I enjoyed going to the stadium and watching baseball in 2009, not because the Yankees won the World Series that year even though that helped but the different personalities that were on the team, Nick Swisher, AJ Burnett, pieing each other after walk offs. They were winning but they were fun to watch as well. Besides the negativity is sounds like I’m saying every ballpark I’ve visited has offered something unique that another one doesn’t: such as food that is famous from that city such as a Chicago dog at US Cellular and the amazing churros at Petco Park. There’s also the must see ivy of Wrigley, the green monster at Fenway, McCovey Cove in San Francisco, the list goes on.
Here’s hoping the bucket list of visiting ballparks continues to grow every season. Every time I go in to a new stadium it gives me that nostalgic feeling I had as kid when I went to my first baseball game.
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