Author: Jim Ellwanger

It’s a very baseball Christmas

Somehow people got the idea that I might want some baseball-related books for Christmas. Levi gave me The Hardball Times Baseball Annual, which certainly contains more “adjusted win shares” data than any other baseball book I’ve owned. My mother gave me For the Love of Baseball: An A-to-Z Primer for Baseball Fans of All Ages, the only downside being that they used Babe Ruth to illustrate “B” instead of “R.” And my father gave me a book consisting mainly of old photographs called Baseball in Tampa Bay, which has mercifully few pictures of the Devil Rays.

Original comments…

Levi: Jim–

I figured you probably wouldn’t be all that into the charts and graphs part of the book (Although check out the one that shows the Cardinals leading the pack in both runs scored and fewest runs allowed!), but I thought you’d enjoy:

1) The piece on looking back at 2004 from 2054

2) The piece where the guy speculates how baseball would be different if Eric Young had only gotten four more hits in 1991.

3) The fact that these guys put together a web site, were successful with it, and decided to turn it into a self-published book.

thatbob: I personally think it’s appropriate to illustrate “B” with The Babe, since it’s not his real first name. But it might be inappropraite to illustrate “B” with Babes Adams, Twombly, Borton, Danzig, or Dotel, because they’re not really important enough.

When I got the bleacher tickets for the Red Sox, I also registered for the opportunity to buy tickets atop the Green Monster. However, I got an e-mail tonight telling me that I was not among the chosen few. Maybe it’s a good thing, because I got an up-close look at the seats on one of the Pat Sajak shows, and they look potentially vertigo-inducing, being so high up and pretty much directly above that steep drop-off.

Me taking off my shirt to reveal “Kerry for President” would likely result in a lot of votes for Bush, or Nader, or Lyndon LaRouche, not to mention a constitutional amendment against taking one’s shirt off in public.

I’d kind of like to keep politics out of this in order to focus on the baseball, but then, I was the one who named the trip “baseball-related program activities,” wasn’t I?

Since it’s late March, it must be time for plenty of baseball programming, even on non-sports channels. Tonight on the Travel Channel was, I swear, “Pat Sajak’s American League Ballpark Tour,” followed immediately by “Pat Sajak’s National League Ballpark Tour.” Each one highlighted what somebody decided were the five most unique stadiums in each league, including two of the parks set for this trip, Fenway Park and PNC Park.

The other four NL parks: Dodger Stadium, Coors Field, SBC Park, and Wrigley Field; the other four AL parks were Kauffman Stadium, Safeco Field, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, and The Ballpark in Arlington. The SBC Park segments were taped last year, so Pat Sajak in his introductions had to point out several times that it was “formerly known as Pac Bell Park,” which is what everyone was calling it.

The best segment was the man who was redoing the 778 metal scoreboard number plates for Fenway Park, using paper stencils individually cut by hand, so that no two examples of the same number would look exactly the same.

Oh, by the way: it’s now 22 weeks until the first game on the itinerary.

The road trip: an introduction

What is it about “baseball” and “road trip” that seem to go together? The first “improved” roads in the United States (for bicyclists) go back to the beginnings of organized baseball. The Model T goes back to when the World Series was first getting started. Numbered U.S. highways go back to Babe Ruth’s home run record. The Interstate highway system goes back to Roger Maris’s home run record. The first oil embargo goes back to the Oakland A’s dynasty of the early 1970s. And certainly it’s no coincidence that, in 1998, Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs to match Interstate 70, which runs through St. Louis, while Sammy Sosa hit 66 home runs to match U.S. 66, which used to start (or end) in Chicago. (Unfortunately, Barry Bonds ruined everything by only hitting 73 in 2001, a number which has nothing to do with any highways in the Bay Area. If only he’d hit 80, or 101…but that would have required some serious steroid usage.)

Levi and I are doing a road trip this year. The basic plan: I will fly to Chicago to meet up with Levi. Then, since he doesn’t own a car, we will rent a vehicle. The “ground rules” for this trip are that it will involve a Red Sox home game (at Levi’s request), an Expos home game (could be their last season in Montreal), and a Pirates home game (I lived in Pittsburgh during what turned out to be the waning days of Three Rivers Stadium, and I want to see their new home).

But we’re also going to see as many other games as possible in a short period of time. Thus, once the preliminary schedules came out, I went through the schedules of the possible teams involved, drawing lines on graph paper to show when each team would be home (dates on the X axis, teams on the Y axis), and managed to come up with four potential itineraries to present to Levi. And they are…

Itinerary #1 (9 games in 10 days, 15 different teams)


Saturday May 22     Astros at Reds (night)
Sunday May 23       Brewers at Pirates (day)
Monday May 24       Angels at Blue Jays (night)
Tuesday May 25      Braves at Expos (night)
Wednesday May 26    A's at Red Sox (night)
Thursday May 27     (DAY OFF)
Friday May 28       Braves at Phillies (night)
Saturday May 29     A's at Indians (night)
Sunday May 30       Orioles at Tigers (day)
Monday May 31       Astros at Cubs (probably day)

Itinerary #2 (10 games in 10 days, 15 different teams)


Saturday July 17    Brewers at Cubs (probably day)
Sunday July 18      Yankees at Tigers (day)
Monday July 19      Expos at Pirates (night)
Tuesday July 20     Marlins at Mets (night)
Wednesday July 21   Blue Jays at Yankees (night)
Thursday July 22    Twins at Red Sox (day)
Friday July 23      Marlins at Expos (night)
Saturday July 24    Devil Rays at Blue Jays (late day)
Sunday July 25      Royals at Indians (probably day)
Monday July 26      Cubs at Brewers (night)

Itinerary #3 (9 games in 9 days, 12 different teams)


Sunday August 22    Pirates at Cardinals (day)
Monday August 23    White Sox at Tigers (night)
Tuesday August 24   Red Sox at Blue Jays (night)
Wednesday August 25 Dodgers at Expos (night)
Thursday August 26  Tigers at Red Sox (night)
Friday August 27    Brewers at Phillies (night)
Saturday August 28  Cardinals at Pirates (night)
Sunday August 29    White Sox at Indians (probably day)
Monday August 30    Pirates at Brewers (night)

Itinerary #4 (9 or 10 games in 9 or 10 days, 16 or 18 different teams)


Monday August 30    Astros at Reds (night)
Tuesday August 31   Mariners at Blue Jays (night)
Wednesday Sept. 1   Cubs at Expos (night)
Thursday Sept. 2    Angels at Red Sox (night)
Friday Sept. 3      Orioles at Yankees (night)
Saturday Sept. 4    Mets at Phillies (night)
Sunday Sept. 5      Frederick Keys at Wilmington Blue Rocks
Monday Sept. 6      Twins at Orioles (probably day)
                       OR Brewers at Pirates (late day)
Tuesday Sept. 7     Brewers at Pirates (night)
                       OR Royals at Tigers (night)
Wednesday Sept. 8   Royals at Tigers (night)

And so now, the ball is in Levi’s court (whoops, wrong sport there with that metaphor) to pick one of these. Since his favorite team is the Cardinals, I’ve got a feeling he’ll go for #3, but maybe he’ll surprise me. Obviously, it partly depends on the amount of vacation time involved, and #1 and #4 both include holidays while #2 and #3 do not. I actually have reasons for liking all four of these itineraries, so I don’t really care which one eventually gets chosen.

Just as long as Levi hurries up and picks, since tickets for some teams go on sale in February (except for the Yankees, which are already on sale).

Original comments…

thatbob:“I actually have reasons for liking all four of these itineraries.”

I wish you would share those reasons.

Whetting Levi's appetite again

Here’s 50% of the items that came in the mail today (in the most nondescript envelope ever, with an indication that it contained “your requested dated material”)…

Yes, it’s vertical, which I had previously thought was an orientation reserved for football and hockey season tickets. (Bleacher section 36 is in dead center field, if anyone’s curious. Looking forward to seeing Johnny Damon’s back!)

The Phillies don't think different

Actually, as it turns out, that error message is the modern equivalent of “your telephone is not compatible with the Bell System,” or something like that. I thought the problem was that the Phillies’ web site was too busy, but the problem seems to have been that their ticketing process was incompatible with Macintosh web browsers. Everything worked perfectly on my PC at work, so we now have 12th-row upper-deck seats to see the Phillies vs. Brewers at the new Citizens Bank Park.