A Baseball Sojourn, 1988
A vacation of nostalgia before it became nostalgic.
Hey, what are you doing between August 7 and 11? If you’re a kid in Georgia where I live—and if you’re a kid, you’re probably not reading this, let alone paying for it—then it’s back to school for you. Why the public school system sends their children back to the salt mines when summer is still torturing us up here on earth is anyone’s guess. (Actually, modern salt mines are cool, dry environments, so let’s look for another metaphor to describe a blazingly hot, muggy environment where there’s more water in the air than air. I know: Georgia. It’s all I can come up with. They don’t call my adopted hometown “Hotlanta” for nothing.)
Anyway, for those of you who don’t have classes to teach or carpools with which to clog up traffic, the Atlanta Braves website is offering an idea for an end-of-summer getaway. How would you like to go on a baseball vacation to four of their minor league towns and one big-league city, five games in five days? Neither would I. Stepping outside feels like you’re walking into a sauna…wearing a fur coat. And those games are all played outside.
I’m not making this about the weather because hellishly hot summers are here to stay and there’s not a lot I can do about it, short of moving to Maine. I can affect a cheerful disposition, wear shorts and a t-shirt every day, and bone up on new grilling recipes. But after three days of that, I’m back into my “I hate summer” disposition. Not that I won’t put up with certain meteorological pain if the reward is enticing enough. I’ve sat through a snowy Bears-Packers game during a Green Bay winter (albeit in the photo deck. But it was open to the elements, and I had to warm my hands over a space heater in the back of the room between plays.)
I’ve golfed in ridiculously hot weather and in rain, when I was forced to change gloves at the turn. And I’ve ridden my bike when I had to grip the handlebars extra tightly just to keep my sweaty hands from sliding off. But no matter how charming minor league baseball can be—and it is—I’m not sure I’d want to gas up for this intensely hot itinerary:
August 7, Columbus, Georgia: the Biloxi Shuckers vs. the Columbus Clingstones, 7:06 p.m. 93 degrees predicted for the heat of the day, “cooling down” into the 80’s by gametime. The game is played at Synovus Park, a three-hour drive from your next stop…
August 8, Rome, Georgia: the Rome Emperors vs. the Greensboro Grasshoppers, 6:45 p.m. Five of the Braves’ top prospects are playing there, so there’s that. It’ll be hot.
August 9, Lawrenceville, Georgia: the Gwinnett Stripers vs. the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, 4:05 p.m. Nothing like an afternoon game in the summer. This would be as close to seeing big-league players on this trip as you’d get except that the next day, August 10, you zip down I-85 and I-285 to see the Braves play the Mets at 7:10 p.m. Then it’s back to the bushes for you.
August 11, North Augusta, South Carolina: the Augusta Green Jackets vs. the Charleston River Dogs, 6:35 p.m. Warm conditions predicted.
There are no recommendations for places to stay on this journey from one small southeastern city to another; that’s up to you. But you do get to see future big leaguers in action before they hit the big-time. While I appreciate having the ability to say that I saw (insert Hall of Famer here) play when he was struggling to hit .250 for the Beloit Sky Carp or the Rocket City Trash Pandas or the Richmond Flying Squirrels (I’m not making up those names), I’d prefer to say I saw them when they’d already reached “The Show.” I like saying that in 1962 I saw Willie Mays in his prime, and that he hit a home run the very first time I saw him bat in person. I have no recollection of that at-bat, but thanks to Baseball Reference, I know that Willie had two hits that game and that Billy O’Dell pitched a complete game and hit a single to drive in two runs.
Anyway, I’m all in on baseball vacations. I wouldn’t dissuade you from hopping around the southeast or wherever you live to visit minor league ballparks and see the stars of the future. The small parks are charming and worth visiting, if even for one game. The seats are cheaper, the parking is more convenient, and there aren’t many bad seats in a park that small. It really is a great idea and sounds like a fun adventure. I just prefer, if I’m going to go to all that trouble, to make my baseball vacation one of the major league variety. In fact, I did that very thing in 1988.
Producer Rodney Triplett and I were working for one of TBS’ baseball post-game shows and thought it would be fun to take viewers on a baseball vacation, and even more fun to take one ourselves. Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Chicago made up our ambitious itinerary. Naturally, having made that trek along the north coast so many years ago, none of the ballparks we visited have withstood the inevitable ravages of time and the desire on the part of team owners to have the latest and greatest in playgrounds.
We didn’t stay for the entire nine innings of each game, of course; we had a lot of late-night driving to do. But we attempted to get the unique flavor of what each ancient park had to offer. And now, after all these years, I can say, with some misplaced pride, that I saw Municipal Stadium, Tiger Stadium, County Stadium, and Comiskey Park before their descendants were built and then named after the highest bidders.
So, come along and see what baseball parks looked like before luxury boxes, protective netting, pitch clocks, launch angles along with pitch speeds and every other conceivable stat on scoreboards the size of a small European country.
And if you get inspired and do decide to brave the heat of a late summer in Georgia, head to Columbus this Friday. You won’t regret it. Make sure you AC is working.
And now, click here and let's go back to 1988!
Postscript: John Adams, the super fan banging the drum in Cleveland, really did have a following despite—or because of—the constant banging. So much so that his death three years ago rated an obituary in the national press from USA Today to the New York Times. This video piece from 19 News in Cleveland is worth a look, too.
Further postscript: As I recall, getting the 82-year-old gentleman in Chicago to lip sync my closing standup while I said the words off camera, was a job in itself. It required a few takes, if memory serves. Oh, and I literally gave him the shirt off my back and naturally, we let him keep it. What I did for a shirt the rest of the night is anyone’s guess.
Got any ideas for a baseball vacation of your own? I’d love to hear them.
Your stories always put a smile on my face. Hope your book readership is growing. I could hardly put it down, except when I was laughing out loud. 😂👏👏😎✌️