For my first post of 2017, it's tempting to reflect on how tough a year 2016 has been, both nationally and globally. Even in the less important baseball world, I'm still coming to terms with the Cubs being World Champions. However, for Erik and I personally, it was a fantastic year. We both got married, and we had an amazing Tour 2016 trip together to Montreal (I did end up getting stranded in Canada for 30-some hours, but we don't need to talk about that). I took incredible trips to Iceland and New Orleans with my wife and I became a proud first-time uncle. And 2017 is shaping up to be even better! It's with great anticipation that Erik and I count down the days until our big trip to the new Braves ballpark, which coincidentally should fall on the same weekend as the 10-year anniversary of The Tour.
Being that it is a milestone anniversary for us, we wanted to do this trip a little bigger and turn it into kind of a Southern League/ATL mini-roadtrip. The individual team schedules are still trickling in, but ideally I'd like it to be bookended with the SL ASG in Pensacola, and a couple of games at SunTrust Park in Atlanta. We'll just have to see how everything works out with our calendars. We originally wanted to make it to the Rickwood Classic in Birmingham as part of the trip, but the Braves unfortunately are not home around that time. The Brewers play in Atlanta at the end of June though, so that would be a nice consolation prize - for whatever reason, it rarely works out that we can see the Crew on one of our trips.
That's kind of it for 2017 on the ball front. I'd like to make it out to Wausau and Madison this year to see the renovations, and of course the new team in Fond du Lac, but other than that no real ball trips planned out of state. As of Opening Day on April 3rd, Erik and I will, for another brief moment in time, no longer have visited all 30 MLB stadiums, but we are excited to fill that void and rejoin the prestigious club yet again this summer.
touch with baseball when his childhood heroes Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, and Jim Gantner retired but the Great Home Run Chase of 1998 reignited his passion. As a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Erik became involved with the campus chapter of Habitat for Humanity. With this group Erik traveled to Portland, OR and Baltimore, MD to work on construction projects and help the group raise $25,000 to partially sponsor a house in Milwaukee. Also at UWM, Erik met Peter Nagel. The two attended their first Brewers game together during Opening Weekend 2003. Despite their failure to ignite the coals at their first tailgate, the two had a blast and were soon making weekly trips to the ballpark. Erik has gone on to several colleges and changed careers several times, and has moved all the way out to New Hampshire, but has always stayed true to his baseball roots by holding part-time stadium usher jobs. To this day he looks back fondly on his incredible cross-country journey.