Going to Chase Field next week - Any advice on seats and food?

I really wanted to like Cleveland. Penny says she felt the same way.

Cleveland is one of our local teams, at least what we can call local (since we don't actually live in a city). We live in West Virginia, on the Ohio River. We're two-and-a-half hours from Pittsburgh and Cleveland, a little more than three from Cincinnati. We, therefore, call Cleveland accessible. So, it would be nice to love going to an Indians game.

Here are some other reasons we want to be Indians…

My baseball craving was only very slightly sated by an emergency trip to Daejeon to see the Hanwha Eagles on Saturday 15th April, but that trip was rushed. Very rushed. So I didn’t have time to have much of a wander around what looks to be a very nice stadium.

I made sure I had plenty of time for wandering when I headed into Jamsil Stadium in Seoul for a Saturday spring training game – KIA Tigers at LG Twins.  It’s a rather tedious and uncomfortable 2 hours on a very…

In honor of opening day, list how many stadiums you've been to, how many you're going to, how many are new, and how many defunct stadiums you've been to.

Been to: 15 stadiums

Going to this year: 19 stadiums (12 new)

Defunct: 9 stadiums

Yes, I'm going big chasing this year. 

So the plan as of now for this season is to make my annual Chicago trip to see the White Sox on June 18th vs. the Giants.  I had planned to make Minnesota my new park to visit, but I am now traveling to San Diego in July.  They were just building Petco when I was last there in 2002 so I visited Jack Murphy that year.  So on the 4th of July, I will be crossing Petco off my list for park #16.  Probably going to take the kids to Detroit late in July to see the White Sox.

Just discovered this site... looking forward to interacting with you all!  I'm a huge Mets fan living in the middle of Cardnals country in St. Louis... makes for some pretty interesting interactions with the fans here.

I have a blog about my experiences visiting the first 13 stadiums... check it out if you're so inclined. Looking forward to answering questions and interacting with everyone here!

Follow me…

I recommend Stubhub. First, Stubhub's pricing is all in. So the price you see includes all the fees. It's almost always cheaper than the prices the team is selling them for. And they don't list all their fees on their prices. Also, Stubhub gives you rewards points. So if you buy enough tickets to any game, you'll eventually earn a discount on later tickets. Buying Padre tickets from the team doesn't help you later to buy Dodger tickets for less. 

If you're like me, you're…

A week of vacation, my dad wanting to go to Fenway and a 1975 World Series rematch leads to this itenerary.

May 5 - Cooperstown, Toledo @ Pawtucket

May 6 and 7 - Reds and Red Sox

May 8 - Indianapolis @ Scranton-Wilkes Barre

May 9 - Fort Wayne @ Dayton

May 10 and 11 Rockies at Reds

The wife and I just finalized our 2014 ballpark trip.  We are flying from Kansas City and flying into Indianapolis.  We only have 4 nights from May 9th-13th.  From there, our itinerary is...



Day 1:  Drive from Indianapolis to Louisville.  Go to Churchill Downs for live horse racing.  Then, finish off the night by going to a Louisville Bats game.



Day 2:  Visit the Louisville Slugger museum/factory and take the tour.  From there, drive to Cincinnati and watch the Reds…

Curtis Granderson is a three-time American League All-Star and has signed a huge contract with the Mets that will pay him $60 million over the next four years.

Granderson played baseball for three years at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) from 2000 through 2002.  He had a monster year in 2002, hitting .483 (second in the nation) on 100 hits and scoring 76 runs, all still school season records.  He is also still the career leader for UIC in runs scored with 178 and 10th on the…

When you’re going to a game in a new city, you’ll most likely fly into the city. If you’re doing that, your big question is how do you get from the airport to the game. There are really only two choices, rent a car or take a subway/light rail. The bus is usually a very bad choice, as buses frequently stop and you might be doubling or tripling your travel time. Google maps says it’s a 30 minute drive from the Kansas City airport to Kauffman Stadium. With a bus transfer, it’s 1 hour 51…

There's an app called "At the Ballpark" from MLB. While it also gives you information about the stadium, the biggest thing is that it's like Four Square. It allows you to check in at the stadium and keeps track of every game you go to. I got it last season and my app says I've been to 9 ballparks and 12 games. I can tell you the scores of all the games and how many times I've seen each team. The Phillies are 0-5 in games I went to, while the Brewers and Dodgers are each 2-1. 

It's…

Our first Chaser trip planned for July. 

St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Kansas City.  Six stadiums in six days.  All traveling done by car leaving Dallas July 19th.  Has anyone taken this journey?  Any words or wisdom?  We are interested in doing all the stadium tours but don't want to waste money.  Any suggestions for taking the tours or not? 

Any input would be greatly appreciated :)

We decided back in 2005 that we would attempt to do all 30 by the time our son graduated high school.  Well, even though we have stuck to the plan, there were a couple of years when all we could get in was one new ball park.  So here we are at the start of the 2014 season and we have 16 down and 14 to go.  For the first time ever, we have tickets in hand for four new parks.  Detroit in April,  Oakland and SF in June and Philly in early August.  That will get us to 20 with just 4 years left. …

On Tuesday March 4, 2014 my wife and I left Cape Coral FL and headed to Clearwater to watch the Jays play and evening game with the Phillies.  While in the area I went to Dunedin to pick up a 2014 Training Camp pin.  I got to the Blue Jays store at 2:36 p.m. at the Florida Auto Exchange stadium.   The store was closed.  I saw staff inside counting their receipts and I pleaded to sell me a pin. I was wearing my blue jays hat, I informed them I had cash and I just drove 3 hours to get there.…

By the way for those Jay fans who have never been to Dunedin it is by far the worst Spring Training facility that I have seen to date.  It is truly minor league and the practice field area is old, tired and unkept.   It is an embarrassment.  Wake up Jays… build it and they will come.

I can only afford to make one baseball trip this season, and I am torn between going to Seattle on my birthday, to see my favorite team, the Mets play two games at Safeco, or see the Cubs play the Cardinals at Wrigley, and the Mets play the Brewers at Miller Park.

I've never been to either city before, and both trips will cost about the same.

The way I see it, is if I go to Seattle, I will be able to see my favorite team play on my birthday, in a city that they might not play in…

I'm going to Kansas City and St. Louis on the same trip in June. I'll arrive in Kansas City on Saturday morning for a Saturday afternoon game. Then I'll head to St. Louis for a Sunday afternoon game. The big problem for me is that there's only one airline that flies from Kansas City to St. Louis, Southwest. They only have one flight between the end of the Saturday game and the start of the Sunday game. It arrives in St. Louis at 12:25 PM, only 45 minutes before the first pitch. That could be…

Due to my wife starting a new job recently (and not having much vacation time) this years road trip, my 10th year taking one, will be different than years past. Normally we take a full week or two to travel. This year instead of one big trip, there will be several small trips. Sadly though, only two or three new ballparks will be visited. Nashville and Huntsville will definitely be visited at the end of June. I want to see both stadiums before the Sounds move into their new ballpark and…

As I’ve surfed ballpark related sites over the years I’ve seen a number of “rate the ballpark” sites, but in almost all cases, the criteria are completely subjective – they are one person’s (or a few people’s) opinion. I was curious on a grander scale, so I ran through Facebook Places and harvested and compiled their rankings from the 30 MLB stadium pages.

They’re rated there by the general public on a 1 to 5 star basis, but as about 70% of the responders use a default five stars, I…