2021 Thomas Porky McDonald. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-6655-2880-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-2879-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021911880

Published by AuthorHouse 07/15/2021

Other books by Thomas Porky McDonald:

An Irishman’s Tribute to the Negro Leagues

Over the Shoulder and Plant on One:

An Irishman’s Tribute to Willie Mays

Where the Angels Bow to the Grass: A Boy’s Memoir

The Air That September

Hit Sign, Win Suit: An Irishman’s Tribute to Ebbets Field

Series Endings: A Whimsical Look at the Final Plays

of Baseball’s Fall Classic, 1903-2003

At a Loss to Eternity:

Baseball Teams of Note That Didn’t Win it All

Never These Men: One Man’s Look at Baseball’s

Creatively Cultured Characters

Does the Toy Cannon Fire Still at Night?

the skipper’s scrapbook

Poet in the Grandstand: An Enlightened Tour of Ballparks

And the Places Where They Live: 1990-2010

Other books by Thomas Porky McDonald

(continued):

A Walk in the City: An Incomplete Tour

On the Tour: More City Walks

An Irishman’s Tribute to the Negro Leagues (Second Edition)

Poetry Collections

Ground Pork: Poems 1989-1994

Downtown Revival: Poems 1994-1997

Closer to Rona: Poems 1997-1999

Diamond Reflections: Baseball Pieces For Real Fans

Dem Poems: The Brooklyn Collection

Still Chuckin’: Poems 1999-2002

In the Cameo Shade: Poems 2002-2005

Vespers at Sunset: Poems 2005-2007

And These Thy Gifts: Poems 2007-2009

After the Dream: Poems 2009-2011

Porkwalk: The Queens Collection

Short Stories

Paradise Oval...and other Tallman Tales

Once is a Place

Through so many tales,

revamped and retold,

the constant has been

what never gets old.

Oh, once is a place

I’ve been many times;

It often led to my survival;

Back home, at the base;

Down to nickels and dimes;

There’s always a chance for revival.

Each one tempers faith

to fly yet again;

The mundane, odd reps

defer until then.

See, once is a place;

I gravitate so;

This whether I am so inclined;

If life is a race,

the lane that I know

lights up in my wandering mind.

The disparate lives;

The wild situations;

They’ve pooled, to form memories;

Spurred new revelations.

When searching for grace,

emotions are countered

by some things you just have to see;

‘Cause once is a place

I’ve often encountered

and will once again, hopefully.

To:

Jaclyn Lawler

&

Alex Marquez

Who collectively

afforded me the opportunity

to share the West with family.

And to:

Adam Boneker

Who contributed mightily

to the tour of the 48 (make that 46, so far),

as my designated driver, trusted confidant

and fellow ballpark wanderer.

Table of Contents

Introduction – Chasing States

(41) Atlanta, 2011 – Crime Scene

(42) St. Louis/Kansas City, 2011 – Crossing Missouri

(43) Toronto, 2012 – Hotel View

(44) Detroit/Cleveland, 2012 – The Rock and Roll Trip

Western Interlude #1 – Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, Monument Valley, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park

(45) Cincinnati, 2013 – Completing Adam’s Tour

(46) Baltimore, 2013 – Poe’s Place, following All-Stars

(47) Memphis, 2013 – The King’s House

(48) Norfolk, 2014 – For Mom and Dad

(49) Birmingham, 2014 – A Church, A Hotel and Rickwood Field

(50) Boston, 2014 – Day Trip

(51) Block Island, 2014 – Vows on the Beach

(52) Oklahoma City, 2014 – A Most Relevant Memorial

(53) Fort Worth, 2014 – Thanksgiving Road Trip

(54) Omaha/ Council Bluffs, 2015 – Two on a Bridge

(55) Charlotte, 2015 – The New South

Western Interlude #2 – Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, Little Big Horn, Yellowstone Park, Grand Teton National Park, Jackson Hole

(56) Cincinnati, 2016 – Hometown Justice

(57) Portland, 2016 – A Game from the Past

(58) Charleston, 2017 – Toast in Exile

(59) Columbia, 2017 – Solitary Walks

(60) Baltimore, 2017 – Cultured

(61) Raleigh-Durham, 2017 – An Odyssey Shared

(62) Louisville/Cincinnati/Indianapolis, 2018 – Altered States

(63) Jackson, 2018 – Town of Pearl

(64) Pittsburgh, 2018 – Lessons Learned

(65) Lenexa/Kansas City, 2018 – Uncle Buck

(66) Port St. Lucie, 2018 – Family Affair

(67) Fort Worth, 2019 – Stage Mom

(68) Watertown, 2019 – In the Town Where I Was Born…

(69) Albuquerque, 2019 – Mariachis & Cancellations

(70) Little Rock, 2019 – Crusader Connection

(71) Springfield/Nashua/Manchester/Burlington, 2019 – A Ride in the Country

(72) Lawrenceville/Gwinnett/Cobb County, 2019 – A Deluge of Friendship

(73) Brooklyn, 2019 – Who’s a Cyclone?

(74) Hartford, 2019 – Housing

(75) New Orleans, 2021 – Masks, sans Mardi Gras

(76) Cooperstown, 2021 – ’61 to 60

(77) Cleveland/Akron-Canton, 2021 – Plenty to Digest

Afterword by Adam Boneker

Appendix 1 – Poet in the Parks Poems

Appendix 2 – Games 2011-2021 – The Poet in the Parks Tour

Appendix 3 – Ballpark Register

Appendix 4 – States

Appendix 5 – Trips with Adam

Introduction

Chasing States

In the Summer of 1999, I found myself leaning against a lamppost in San Francisco, where I was to be going to Candlestick Park later that evening, to catch the old yard before it closed down as a baseball field at the end of the season. By then, I had been traveling around the country for a decade, seeing ballparks in many cities, just as a personal rite of passage. But as I leaned on that pole near Market Street in the busy San Francisco afternoon, it dawned on me that going to all these ballparks, a number of which were about to be demolished, would make a great book. Poet in the Grandstand was born that day and for the next 11 years, I pieced together what I hoped would be a most unique trip around the Majors, not as a gimmick (going to all MLB parks in one season with a corporate sponsor or for charity had become a new phenomenon by then), but just as an old fan seeing them totally at random, however long it took.

Originally, I went everywhere alone, but by 2004, my friend Adam Boneker would join me often, to serve as "my driver" and great road companion. Since I did not have a driver’s license, Adam’s entrance into the journey made things much easier in tricky places like California or Texas, where a vehicle is fairly necessary. By 2010, the book was completed and I published it to great response from my little part of the world. As has happened to me on a number of occasions, the completion of a book led me to question What’s next? and after going over all the places that I had been to in my life, mostly while collecting Major League ballparks for my personal resume, I realized that I had been to 21 states, Washington, D.C. and two prominent Canadian cities, Montreal and Toronto, by the time Poet in the Grandstand was published.

In August 2012, I planned an escorted Western bus tour with my niece, Jaclyn and her son, Alex. We went to the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Lake Powell, Sedona, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park and other stopovers along the way. It was the trip of a lifetime and it also served to add Utah and Nevada to the list of states that I had been to. About then, I realized that a sequel to Poet in the Grandstand (of sorts), could be had, incorporating Minor League ballparks and another western trip a few years down the line. This hybrid volume, Poet in the Parks, would be a continuation of the first book, but with its own personal touch, that of the National Parks scene added into the mix. In 2015, Jac and Alex joined me as we headed West once more, again with our very organized tour company, Caravan Tours. This time, we saw Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial, the Little Big Horn battlefield, Yellowstone Park and Grand Teton National Park, as well as a number of diverse towns, like Billings, Montana and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And so, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho were added to my checklist, which by now also included Virginia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Iowa and North Carolina, all visited in the name of rummaging through the bush leagues. I had also been to Tennessee, where my sister Patti and I visited Elvis Presley’s home, Graceland, as well as a number of memorable Memphis sites, Sun Records, the Stax Records Museum, the Memphis Rock and Soul Museum, the Lorraine Motel (where Martin Luther King was assassinated) and the legendary Beale Street, where music filled the air.

In addition, I had added Rhode Island to the list in August 2014, when Adam married his third wife, Kelly. They were wed in a very scenic place called Block Island, where I was given the honor of writing a wedding poem for them and delivering it during the first beach ceremony that I had ever been to. By the time that Jac, Alex and I returned home from our second Western jaunt, the outline for Poet in the Parks was in place. All that was left was scheduling a few states to go to from year to year, as I wanted this book to be a mirror of Poet in the Grandstand, meaning I was going to do it slowly, in a methodical way. This would seem to prove a bit more challenging than PITG, after I retired from my job at New York City Transit in July 2016. A day past 31 years at Transit, changing times and attitudes made my decision to leave 6½ years before full retirement fairly easy. But the reality was that from 2017 and 2023 (when I would begin receiving Social Security checks), I would be operating with less money than I had become used to, not a substantial amount, but enough to make me more careful. Actually, the decrease in funds made the decision to spread my trips out over a few years more necessary.

What follows is the continuation of one man’s journey through the United States, taken over three decades, touching a fourth, with the final eleven years included in this volume. The appendices in the back of the book are again a vital part of the work to me. The first three, Poems, Games and the Ballpark Register, are updated, but otherwise exactly the same as they were in Poet in the Grandstand. All of the poems are listed under the years and places where they were written. For the games, I have picked up the list from PITG, first rehashing the summary of all 102 games that I went to in the Poet in the Grandstand, tour, before adding every game that I went to for this book, beginning the list with game number 103. The Ballpark Register is the entire one, first in PITG, with the new ones visited in the years covered in this book added in, including the sites of demolished parks that I had never seen in person. The early part of this book contains a few more trips that I made with Adam, to fulfill a promise. When PITG was finished, I promised Adam that I would go back to all the new parks that I had been to without him, so that he could see them, too. In 3 seasons (2011-2013), we went to Atlanta, St. Louis, Kansas City, Toronto, Detroit, Cleveland and Cincinnati. All of these trips were interesting in their own way, just as our earlier ones had been. I could not have hand-picked a better person to go on the road with for over a decade, spanning two books. I also made return trips to MLB cities I had been to before, for one reason or another. Adam’s return in the last few years of the tour was an added boost. Some non-baseball-related trips would help round out this somewhat disparate volume. The fourth appendix in this book is States, which is just what it sounds like, a list of the first time that I went to each state. In the states list, there is a definitive line drawn between the years leading up to the completion of the Poet in the Grandstand Tour and the beginning of the Poet in the Parks Tour, something I had also done with the ballparks list. I added a fifth and final appendix to list all the trips that Adam and I have taken together.

This book should be done by the end of the 2020 season, depending on how things go from here on out*. As I have in the past, I am writing this introduction well before the book is done, with the hopes of not having to alter it much when the book is complete. As always, I make my decisions as to where to go impulsively, so I can’t say for sure exactly how this book will look in the end, though I am confident that it will properly complement Poet in the Grandstand, a piece of work that I am very proud of. I do urge everyone out there to keep hitting the road and finding new adventures. Personally, no matter how this finishes, I’ll have to get to Alaska and Hawaii, to complete the circumnavigation of the 50 United States.

T.P. McDonald, 1/7/17, Astoria, NY

*The World Pandemic of 2020-2021 contributed to my inability to complete my 48 conjoined states before I finished this book in 2021. I plan on getting to North Dakota and Oregon, as well as Hawaii and Alaska, in a future volume.

(41)

Atlanta

2011

Crime Scene

(41)

Atlanta, 2011

Crime Scene

My series of return trips to parks that I had been to (in order to get Adam to these venues that he’d yet to see) began in Atlanta in late April, 2011, where coincidentally or not, his sister Erin lived. She would join us for one game, along with her daughter, Alexandria, who is the same age as Adam’s daughter, Dakota, both 10 in 2011. I had last seen Erin and Alexandria on my first trip with Adam, to Philadelphia in 2004. So that was a nice little sidelight to this jaunt. It’s always good to see family and/or friends while on the road. This was my third trip to Atlanta and the first since 2004, when I first went to Turner Field. Much of what I saw was the same, yet certainly improved. We did get there a little later than planned, when our flight stayed on the ground for an hour, waiting in line to depart LaGuardia Airport. That only sticks out because I had been fairly fortunate by then, in that I had had very few issues with air travel, considering how often I had flown through the years. To compound this lost hour, the prime area downtown hotel that Adam got us mistakenly gave us a single room, so we had to get a roll-out bed brought in to give us out usual accommodations. As always, Adam and I just went with it and things became fine, once we unpacked, took a breath and hit the streets.

From our central vantage point, which included a statue of former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young on the corner in front of our hotel, we did the Atlanta thing and went to the World of Coca-Cola, the centerpiece of tourism in Downtown Atlanta. I have to say that the enormity of the place this time around was impressive. When I first saw the World of Coca-Cola in1996, it was a nice little museum dedicated to the famous soft drink that had always been based in Atlanta. But now, 15 years later, the museum had grown to what I’d call epic proportions. The guided tour was expansive and the crowd of school children and others visiting that day was huge. What was once a kind of breeze on through site had become a full-fledged event. And to be honest, it was pretty cool. I loved all the great Coca-Cola memorabilia on hand: the old Coke vending machines from roadside gas stations, the many ads featuring the Coke polar bear and Santa Claus and the Coke vehicles among them. And of course, the wonderful tasting area, where you could try 60 some-odd versions of Coke products, as mixed in places all over the world. The stop at the World of Coca Cola stabilized our day and set us up nicely for that night’s Braves-Cardinals game.

Turner Field was continuously evolving and by 2011, the fabulous Cartoon Network village was in place for small children, beyond the centerfield fence and alongside the large food court. Outside the park, recently retired and soon to be Hall of Famers, Greg Maddux (31) and Tom Glavine (47) had seen their numbers added to the list of Braves retired numbers, with the obligatory large numbers placed on the grounds. (They would also be on the façade of the park inside.) The statues of Brave legends Hank Aaron, Warren Spahn and Phil Niekro, along with Georgia icon Ty Cobb, still gave me a thrill and walking down into the parking lot, which once housed Fulton County Stadium, and going back to the spot where Aaron’s 715th landed 37 years earlier was still emotional. I think I can attest to the fact that Adam’s thoughts and feelings at seeing these treasures for the first time were much like mine. The place was jumping and I recalled how much I liked this area and the ballpark itself. I felt this way even after we had seen a pair of unrelated, but to me, equally disturbing things, while on our 5-minute walk from downtown to the ballpark.

As we were walking the narrow trail on the streets that wound around and toward the former Olympic Stadium, a young fellow in quite a hurry blasted right by us, nearly taking both Adam and me out as he came by. No sooner did the young man make a wide turn right and leave our sights and the sound of sirens filled the air. As the saying goes, "from out of nowhere," law enforcement vehicles came from all directions. As we made the turn and came into view of an intersection below, we saw about eight (8) police cars of all stripes, including local, state and even FBI. They were all double-parked in an oval almost, blocking off cross-traffic, going parallel to, yet not toward Turner Field. As we got to the bottom of the hill, we saw five officers holding down the kid who ran by us, on a roadside lawn that was made of straw. This guy must have done something really wrong, or it was a classic case of overkill. We just looked on in wonderment for a moment, before heading those final few blocks to the ballpark. Along the way, we saw a sign that resonated to me, particularly in this age of legalized scalping by StubHub and similar outlets.

The sign said, "It is unlawful to resell or offer to resell tickets for any price within 2,700 feet of Turner Field. Right, you can go online from your own home and buy tickets off websites like StubHub, or other so-called secondary" venue sites, pay well over the original price, with no repercussions, but get caught doing the same thing from a certain amount of feet from the venue and you will be fined or arrested. This type of a cosmetic legal system is why I laugh when people wave their flags and go on and on about how great America is, without ever stopping to point out the obvious hypocrisies and injustices that go on here, mostly decided by money or the lack of it. Do I think the United States is the greatest place to live in the world? Absolutely. But what makes it great is that we are allowed to call out the government or others in positions of authority for the many clearly hypocritical practices that they engage in. I see far too many people who wave their flag, yet never question the military and/or those who send young men and women into dangerous situations without proper cause. I also see many folks pound the Bible, then treat others like garbage, based on imagined human differences of race, creed or color. That no one seems to want to say anything about legal ticket scalping websites speaks loudly to how corruption is more or less ignored, which really irritates me.

We used our online bought tickets, each of which of course included nonsense extra fees (Convenience? Venue?) and watched a pair of games between St. Louis and Atlanta. The Cardinals would take each match, winning 5-3 in 11 innings on Friday night and 3-2 on Saturday afternoon. On Friday, I walked Adam though the Braves Hall of Fame, the Braves Chophouse and some interactive fan areas which I can’t recall existing back in 2004, though they might have, I guess. Despite homers by Atlanta outfielders Jason Heyward and Nate McLouth, the home crowd saw the visiting Birds tie the game at 3 in the ninth and win it on a two-run triple by St. Louis sparkplug Nick Punto in the 11th. On Saturday, the game that Erin and Alexandria joined us for, we sat in the centerfield bleachers and roasted in the 90+ degree heat, as the Braves saw an early 2-0 lead evaporate on Card third baseman David Freese’s two-run single in the eighth and catcher Bruce Laird’s RBI triple in the ninth. Braves’ closer Craig Kimbrel, who had blown the save on Friday night, took the loss for allowing the ninth inning run that was the difference on Saturday.

There was one funny moment at the park on Friday night, when a very young girl who was running a baseball cap stand asked me an odd question, after hearing me talk for about a minute or so. In an absolutely lovely Georgia drawl, the young belle thought to guess what my voice tones were exposing. She said, very politely, "Are you from Staten Island? Adam and I did a double take and laughed heartily. I had a little fun with the kid, feigning great insult. Pointing to my mouth, I fired back, This is what you think Staten Island sounds like?" I excused her for being so young, told her I was from Queens, so that she knew that she had at least gotten my New York leaning down properly and then emphatically suggested that she should never ask anyone again if they were from Staten Island. I explained that I cannot really define a Staten Island accent, though a Brooklyn/Queens one like mine, or a Bronx or Manhattan sound, were tangible. Lesson complete, off we went, but not before I bought a 1974 Braves cap, the type that The Hammer wore when he beat The Babe.

One other thing that struck me about that weekend at Turner Field was the man that was missing from the equation, Bobby Cox. The future Hall of Fame manager has retired following the 2010 season, with a record of 2,504-2,001, .556 in 29 seasons, which included a 2,149-1,709, .557 mark in 26 seasons with the Braves, including 14 straight Division Titles, 5 National League pennants and a World Championship in 1995. Cox was the otherwise calm leader of the Atlanta nine, who was also thrown out of more games (158 + 3 in the Post-Season) than any manager in history, topping the longtime mark held by the New York Giants’ legendary John McGraw. The emergence and growth of instant replay makes that record pretty safe. And even though you might occasionally see him on the field for an event, not having Cox in uniform represented a changing tide in Atlanta. (Cox was succeeded by Fredi Gonzalez, previously the manager of the Marlins, whose chastising of star player Hanley Ramirez for not hustling was seen as the reason why the Florida team fired him.)

Between games, we had visited Underground Atlanta early Saturday, which was old hat to me, but still a pretty cool collection of seemingly ever-changing stores and carts located beneath the city in the famous downtown area mall. We walked around the city and went by the Hard Rock Café, as we usually did when we ran across one in any city. Though it was only April, it was very hot and I recall bouncing back to the hotel a few times to suck up some air conditioning. Then the funniest moment of the weekend occurred, on our way to Saturday’s game.

When we passed the area where we had seen the young man being besieged and arrested by a horde of police a day before, the spot where he was thrown down was still clearly noticeable. Adam had an inspiration to lie down on the outline of the kid in the splintered timber cut-out. It was silly, but clever, so I got a shot of him lying there just to cement the memory, if you will. That trip marked the first time that I had ever seen a criminal taken down live on the road, right in front of me and this "crime scene," or actually just an arrest site, was both disturbing and a bit surreal. Actually, the real crime scene was just a short walk from where Adam took his crook’s pose, at the site of Turner Field.

All of the new ballparks are full of outside entertainment beyond that day’s game, including shopping, so much so that some people have come to call them mallparks. But the ones that represent the history of baseball, the team and the area still are the best to me, no matter what else is on site. Toward that end, Turner Field measures up quite well. Maybe not to the level of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis or Detroit, but still a strong contributor to the fabric of the area it represents. There is even a wall inside the park dedicated to its predecessor, Fulton County Stadium (1966-1996), the first Major League park in Atlanta’s history, which, again, stood right next door. Looking at that timeline, 31 seasons seemed like a relatively short lifetime for a park that meant so much to the locals and to ballpark wanderers like me. Little did I know that when Adam and I left Turner Field on the afternoon of April 30, 2011, it would be the last time that I would see a game there.

In 2015, the Atlanta Braves announced that they would be moving out of Turner Field at the start of the 2017 season. This move was deemed necessary, despite the fact that Turner was a great park, still thriving and only 20-years old. The gist of the move was presented as the Braves organization wanting to have control of all their assets. The City of Atlanta owned Turner Field and somehow the Braves could not, or would not, work something out to stay in Turner Field, which was astonishing to me. The team would re-locate to a place called Cobb County in the 2017 season.

Adam might have settled into the scene of the arrest, but Turner Field, which lasted only 20 years, was the true scene of the crime in Atlanta, for my money.

Livin’ an Hour Behind

You might be amused or angered,

with all of the things you will find;

When for the odd whim of a controller,

you’re livin’ an hour behind.

The hotel’s really got one bed;

Not a boon for a party of two;

So, you’ll just have to wedge another one in

and push some more linens on through.

The schools and the tourists line up,

to try out the 60th flavor;

And goofy-eyed barkers will not allocate

yet one personal moment to savor.

Arriving in practice, the road shirts compete,

despite that they’re all exactly the same;

Eventually, you’ll pony up, just as they close

the team’s museum and Hall of Fame.

Though Monday through Thursday may be quite mundane,

on Friday, ‘tis sometimes a grind;

Oh, I’d gladly offer you an extra sixty,

when you’re livin’ an hour behind.

Since Bobby’s Not Around

(A More Subtle Sadness South)

It looks the same and feels it;

So friendly, warm and sound;

But I know that it is different

since Bobby’s not around.

The new guy’s good, he stood up tall

and was canned in the face of money;

Though, when you can’t tell players to hustle,

well, that is none too funny.

He may be in an office,

somewhere amidst the grounds;

But on the field and in the stands,

an alternate vibe abounds.

And they might just win another flag,

to line-up with the rest;

Or become Wild, like he did once:

the last year that he was the best.

When Sherman passed on through these parts,

he took it to the ground;

Now, there’s a more subtle sadness South,

since Bobby’s not around.

Always a Traveler

Comes a time when you’re always a traveler;

Never at home with the when and the where;

This for those with a memory, not fleeting,

with a wish – for a moment – to be there.

Though most comfortable in any setting,

and in fact, still someone to look to,

there’s a disconnect right on the surface,

unlike any a true believer knew.

Friends made as an adult can be fabulous;

(I must have mentioned Theresa before);

But the Shadows of the schoolyard define you

and remain there, no matter what’s in store.

While your focus and enthusiasm continue,

your heart is often out and about;

It’s not living in the past if you mention

that today couldn’t have come on without.

Maybe life is a mystery for certain;

With each day, month and year an event;

If you’re always a traveler, remember,

the next stop offers time that’s well spent.

A True Inner City Street Kind

(No, I’m Not from Staten Island)

No, I’m not from Staten Island;

Oh, you must know what that means;

I’d advanced in Brooklyn for two decades

and was born and raised in Queens.

It’s not that I don’t like the country

and young Georgia cuties are sweet;

But if you think I take the ferry by day,

you’re the one ‘needs to take a seat.

And those from Manhattan, well honestly,

there are a few different types;

Way Uptown or Lower East Side are fine,

though other parts might spawn some gripes.

While searching for souvenirs, you just might find

a most odd and comical fork;

No, I’m not from Staten Island,

though, Yes, Darlin’, I’m from New York.

(42)

St. Louis/Kansas City

2011

Crossing Missouri

(42)

St. Louis/Kansas City, 2011

Crossing Missouri

When I was working on the final chapters of Poet in the Grandstand, one of the things that helped complete my tour came in the form of a few multi-city trips that Adam and I took together, where his comic role as "my driver" became quite useful. I mean, I would have finished all the Major League parks no matter how I had to, spending a lot more money on cabs, but having Adam along, as a friend to share the sites and as someone with a driver’s license who loved to drive, did make it all much easier. So I will always be grateful to him for helping me complete my goal. In 2005, we went to San Diego and Denver one week, with the PT Cruiser that we rented in Colorado only really needed to drive us to and from the airport from Downtown Denver. But in our 2007 trip to Texas (Houston to Arlington) and a subsequent 2008 jaunt to California (Los Angeles and Anaheim), our rental vehicles were quite necessary and useful, allowing us to spend the days between night games going to some great landmarks, like the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas and California’s Whiskey-a-Go-Go, Hollywood Bowl and Hollywood Boulevard. In planning to go back to parks that I had seen, but Adam had not, the multi-city angle made a lot of sense, so we decided on a pair of these. The first would see us crossing an entire state.

St. Louis stands on the eastern side of Missouri, while Kansas City is at the western end, slightly North of Old St. Loo. Two games in each city sounded real good to me, since I knew that there were some cool places to check out in the daytime in each area. So we headed out on a Thursday in early June of 2011 for what would be a most enjoyable Midwestern trip. When we arrived in St. Louis, I was very excited because when I had first gone to the new Busch Stadium in its inaugural season of 2006, while visiting an old friend from Transit, Lenny Horsford, only the large Stan Musial statue, which had been dedicated in the 1960’s at the previous park (also called Busch), was standing outside the new park for all to see. By 2011, the Cardinals, with their absolute respect for history, had made a walk around the park as much fun as going to a game inside. The Musial statue still stood in a central spot, in what most would consider the main entrance. But when you walked around the bend, near Clark Avenue, where the Cardinals Team Store stood, you encountered what I felt, for a baseball fan, Cardinals or otherwise, was a stunning display of historic significance. There on the sidewalk in front of where jerseys, caps and novelties could be had, stood ten (10) statues that celebrated St, Louis baseball. There were eight (8) Cardinal Hall of Famers, from all Eras: sculptures of Rogers Hornsby, Dizzy Dean, Red Schoendienst, Enos Slaughter, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Ozzie Smith and a second statue for "The Man Musial, spoke of the pride of this franchise. But what struck me was the wherewithal of the Cardinals organization to honor two other St. Louis teams that no longer existed, yet once held a special place in the hearts of parts of the St. Louis community. Hall of Famers George Sisler of the American League St. Louis Browns and James Cool Papa" Bell of the Negro League St. Louis Stars stood right in the midst of the Cardinal greats. It was as great a baseball tribute as I have seen anywhere. And there was more. Right around the bend from these statues, which were smaller in scale than the original massive Musial statue, there was an alcove dedicated to legendary Hall of Fame announcer Jack Buck, including a statue of him at the microphone calling a Cardinals game. All along the outside of the park, the Cardinals had also added bricks which celebrated winning teams and accomplishments. The new Busch, now complete, served up history at the highest level.

You know, it’s funny, my irritation for the lack of any statues outside of my home park, Citi Field, only grew as I saw what other franchises did to celebrate their history. Through the 1990’s and into the 21st Century, almost every Major League team had commissioned at least one statue to celebrate a transcendent player in team’s history, to stand outside their home park. Whenever I crossed paths with one (or more) of these while on the road, I could sense the pride in the local fans. As a Met fan, I was embarrassed by the lack of acknowledgement of team history that management had shown. Anyone with a tangential sense of history knows that a Tom Seaver statue should be standing outside Citi Field, by himself, or maybe pitching to a Gary Carter statue, while a Mike Piazza statue hits, much like they have in the front of Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, where Joe Nuxhall pitches to Ernie Lombardi, with Frank Robinson hitting and Ted Kluszewski on deck. As a New Yorker, I even get irritated at the Yankees, who also have nothing outside their new park. Where are the Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle statues that so obviously belong in front of the new Yankee Stadium? Sure, in their team museum inside the park, they have the World Series Perfect Game battery of Don Larsen and Yogi Berra in statue form, but really, you can commission a Don Larsen statue but not numbers, 3, 4, 5 or 7, four of the greatest players in baseball history. But as my childhood friend and noted Yankee fan Ricky Rizzo points out, the Yankees have had Monument Park for decades, which is their fabulous and unique personal history tribute area. So maybe they don’t have to also have statues. Still, seeing the twelve (12) statues that drape the outside of the new Busch Stadium invigorated me, but then got me even more mad at my team’s ineptness, when it came to acknowledging that we had seen great players in orange and blue, too. And if that hadn’t done it for me, upon going back to our hotel, which stood across the street from the Scottrade Center, home of the NHL St. Louis Blues, we found three (3) other statues, of Blues icons Bernie Federko, Al MacInnis and Brett Hull. That’s right, the hockey team in St. Louis had three statues. What are they, rich in St. Louis? Or just incredibly cheap or clueless in Queens?

After circumnavigating the new Busch, Adam and I headed for one of the great tourist stops anywhere, the Gateway Arch, located on the shores of the mighty Mississippi River. I had been there before, but as it was Adam’s first time, we methodically went through the wonderful Gateway to the West documentary, the fabulous Museum of Westward Expansion and (of course) the ride in a crowded 5-person egg to the top of the Gateway Arch, which gives one an incredible view of the city below. After picking out a few items at the one of the most impressive gift shops that I have encountered, we headed back to the hotel for a pre-game rest. The next 30 hours or so, leading up to our early Saturday morning drive to Kansas City, was as whirlwind a time as any the two of us had shared. And that’s saying a lot.

That night’s game between the Cardinals and the defending World Champion San Francisco Giants was a wild one. While walking around the inside of the park, we encountered even more history, in the form of retired names, numbers and images on the left field wall, the 10 World Championship seasons banners and again, the retired numbers, around the two scoreboards. Also, beneath the stands were all three sections of the scoreboard from the previous Busch, showing the final results from all games played on the final day of that yard’s existence. Thoroughly impressed, we settled into our seats just off home plate, to the first base side. Our seats were actually only accessible through the "Redbird Club," a small lounge whose walls were lined with enlarged Cardinal baseball cards. The Redbird Club was a totally modern convenience; it had tables, chairs, a bar, a number of TV screens and an ATM machine, with a connecting door that led to the seats, a pretty cool little twist. Behind a 3-4, 3-home run, 6-RBI performance by first baseman Aubrey Huff, the Giants won a 12-7 slugfest, which also featured a three-run shot and 4-RBI by San Francisco second baseman Freddy Sanchez and a grand slam and 6-RBI by Cardinal centerfielder Colby Rasmus. Both starters got the decisions, though each team used four pitchers. Despite being wild, Giants’ lefty Jonathan Sanchez (5.1 IP, 3 ER, 4 H, 6 BB, 1 K) bested St. Louis righty Lance Lynn (5.1 IP, 5 ER, 4 H, 5 K). It was one of the most entertaining games we had seen over the years and the first time we ever saw a player hit three homers in a game, which Huff accomplished with his third 2-run shot of the night in the ninth inning off lefty Redbird reliever Brian Tallet.

The next morning we hit town. Our first stop was the Union Station Mall. The one-time railyard that was the hub for train traffic between the Eastern part of the country and the fledgling West, Union Station was now a huge mall, though amongst the retail shops, food establishments and a representative Hard Rock Café, there was a great museum which tracked the history of the legendary Union Station, where once, around Midnight, Cardinal fans had met the team train arriving from Chicago, where earlier that day, Stan Musial had collected his 3,000th hit as a pinch-hitter at Wrigley Field. As the returning hero looked out at the huge crowd and noticed so many young people, legend has it that the mischievous Stan the Man told all the kids to "Take tomorrow off from school," a suggestion that many St. Louis schoolchildren took literally, though no one was charged with truancy.

From Union Station, we headed for the Anheuser Busch Brewery and the Budweiser Museum and tour, which was a lot of fun. I have said many times that I stopped drinking at age 28, which is true and that the only beers that I have had since then were on the night of June 14, 1994, when the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup and I wandered into a local pub and had two 7-ounce Bud nips. I was so used to telling this story that I kept doing so after 2011, when I had actually had ½ a glass of Bud Light at the tasting center on the Budweiser Tour. Since it was fresh out of the main brewery and with Adam egging me on, I figured Why not? but I could not finish the beer. Though it was okay, I really had no taste for beer anymore, so I let Adam finish the brew. Still, the Budweiser Tour was fascinating and I would recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in the St. Louis area. It was sort of a hybrid between two other tours that I had taken, the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta and the Guinness Tour in Dublin Ireland. There was plenty of iconic advertising, like in Atlanta and a look at how the beer was brewed, similar in Dublin.

From Anheuser Busch, we headed to the site of the former Sportsman’s Park, which was located on Grand Avenue, about a mile from the Downtown site of the stadiums that would follow it as the home of the Cardinals. In 2011, the site of Sportsman’s Park was a Boys and Girls Club, with a park across the street, where baseball and other sports were still played. A huge billboard adorned the side of the Club, citing many players who had once graced the field at Sportsman’s Park. The historian in me was energized by the 15 minutes or so that we walked around and took a few pictures. Beginning at Union Station and ending at Sportsman’s Park, with a look at the Budweiser Clydesdale horses in between, made for quite a day. But we did have another game to go to.

On Friday night, the Cardinals faced the Chicago Cubs. A three-run homer by St. Louis rightfielder Lance Berkman off Chicago’s righty starter and loser Ryan Dempster (5 IP, 6 ER, 8 H, 3 BB, 5 K) was all the offense that lefty Cardinal starter Jaime Garcia (8 IP, 1 ER, 4 H, 1 BB, 8 K) would need. A fifth inning two-run blast by the Cardinals’ signature star, Albert Pujols, helped shape the 6-1 St. Louis victory, which also capped off a great two days in St. Louis for Adam and I. By about 4 o’clock the next morning, we were headed across the Show Me state of Missouri, with Kansas City in our crosshairs.

The distance between St. Louis and Kansas City is 247.7 miles and if the Internet is to be believed, it should take one 3 hours and 39 minutes to go from one to the other. In any case, I can state plainly that Adam did it in about 3 hours, though I slept more than I looked at the speedometer. After I treated for breakfast (which is standard operating procedure when the other guy does all the driving, notably at the dawn’s early light), we headed for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the American Jazz Museum, two fabulous sites located adjacent to one another at 18th and Vine Streets, which in the 1920’s to the 60’s was the hot corner of Jazz music in the very happening town of Kansas City. Listening to the many classic tunes that could be cued up at the Jazz Museum and following the timeline of the Negro Leagues from room to room of the Baseball Museum made for a great morning, especially since the first time I had visited there in 2000, I was soaking wet, having been caught in a vicious thunderstorm while walking from my hotel to the museums, about 15 blocks away. And of course, this was Adam’s first time, so we could really share the supreme enjoyment of the field of bronze statues of Negro League greats that serve as the centerpiece of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. A few hours immersed in music and baseball bled into the afternoon, when we could check into our KC lodgings. Adam did a nice job on this place (generally he did the hotels and I got the planes), which was like a small apartment, with a bedroom and a living room with a sofa bed. In deference to age, Adam relinquished the bed to me and took the pull-out. We also had a working kitchen, with an oven, a microwave and a refrigerator, a fine set-up. But that area in the city was so quiet and almost uninhabited that we had to pick up all out groceries from a convenience store in a gas station around the corner.

At Kauffman Stadium on Saturday night, I was amazed at the renovations that had been made. I had visited the park (which opened in 1973) in 2000 and it was one of the prettiest yards that I had seen, with its fabulous fountains beyond the outfield walls and a general upbeat atmosphere in the almost egg-shaped stands, which, like my old home park, Shea Stadium, had very few seats in fair territory. To keep up with the times of new ballparks, the Royals had added an entire outfield pavilion and thoroughfare, including bleachers in front of and around the fountains. In the new space, they had added an entire children’s park and play area beyond the centerfield fence and a pretty huge Royals Hall of Fame that I would say was only surpassed as a team hall by the three-story history feast in Cincinnati’s Great American Ballpark. Beyond the fountains stood three statues depicting the only Royals that had their numbers retired thus far, Manager Dick Howser (10), second baseman Frank White (20) and the all-time face of the franchise, third baseman George Brett (5). Also out there was a statue that used to stand outside the ballpark, celebrating the once beloved Royals’ owners, Ewing and Muriel Kauffman.

George Brett was also prevalent in two ballpark establishments at Kauffman that celebrated moments of his career, the .390 Bar & Grill, which cited the year he batted that high, 1980 and the Pine Tar Pub, which recalled a very famous 1983 game played in Yankee Stadium, when Brett hit a home run with a bat ruled to have too much pine tar, which was later overruled by the league, further enhancing the tale of a great late 70’s-early 80’s Yankees-Royals rivalry. As I had been doing in our most recent trips, I wore a few throwback jerseys in Missouri that I had purchased for lowball prices from China. In St, Louis, I had worn a Bob Gibson Cardinals jersey the first night, making sure to take a