Wow! Here it is the time we have dreamed about for the last few decades, retirement and preparing to visit all the Major League Baseball Parks in one season. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Shannon Bray retired educator, mother, grandmother and baseball enthusiast. My husband of 11 years, Jim, is also recently retired, a fantastic dad and grandpa, and certainly an extreme baseball enthusiast. The interesting thing is that while we are both baseball enthusiast we definitely do not root for the same team. I was born a San Francisco Giants fan attending all weekend home games with my family in the 1960's. I witnessed some of the greatest players of all time such as; Juan Marichal, Willie McCovey, Willie Mays, Gaylord Perry, Will Clark and Orlando Cepeda to name a few. On the other hand Jim grew up in a home where the Los Angeles Dodgers were the team of choice. Needless to say this brings a little bit of friendly rivalry to our marriage; not to worry our marriage vows included respecting each other's teams.
I guess I should start with what has taken months and months of planning. First we had to decide how we were going to visit all the MLB Parks in one season. Would we fly from city to city, would we join one of those tour groups, would we drive and stay in hotels along the way, or would we buy an RV and camp from city to city along our journey. We decided on the latter and began looking into recreational vehicles. This took a great amount of research before we decided upon buying a fifth wheel and a new truck by which to pull it. Because of COVID new trucks were difficult to find and RVs seemed to also be a hot commodity. Now the worry was will we be able to have what we need to make our MLB Park tour in 2023. As fate would have it, a new 2022 Ford F250 Diesel became available with all the features we wanted in October. Additionally, the very same weekend in October our daughter, Brittany who lives in Fallon, Nevada with her husband Steven called to tell us about a new listing of a fifth wheel that had become available in their area. When we looked at the listing we were amazed to see it was the exact fifth wheel that had been on our wish list. Shortly thereafter, we became the proud owners of a 35 foot 2015 Solitude by Grand Design fifth wheel. Because the RV is used and a new experience for us, we have had to take a few short trips to ensure it is ready and we are ready for our long journey ahead.
Now that we have the means of transportation the next step was to somehow sequence a road trip together that makes sense and is also realistic with regard to driving from park to park. First step, print all the 2023 MLB schedules noting all the home games. Then we had to decide where to begin our trip. We live in San Clemente, California and plan to start our trip in April. Thinking about the weather we decided to begin our trip across the south, travel up the east coast and then across the north. Next I created a spreadsheet of all MLB parks in the order of when we will visit. Once the dates for each MLB park were established I began the enormous task of making reservations at RV park sites along the way. Additionally, I wrote letters to all MLB Park Guest Relations to inquire about any special hospitalities or tours that would be available for our visit.
As Jim and I have shared our upcoming MLB Park Tour with family and friends we have been met with tremendous support and excitement. Some of our friends and family even plan to fly and join us for a game or two. So many of our family and friends want to follow us along this journey so I decided to create this blog for those who are interested in following along. To keep it interesting Jim has decided to join this blog by writing about the food at each of the baseball parks, namely the HOT DOGS! Those of you who know Jim know that he is a "Hot Dog Connoisseur." This adds another layer of excitement as we embark upon this lifetime FIELDS OF DREAMS. It would be a HOME RUN if you would follow our journey which begins April 6, 2023.
Kindly,
Jim & Shannon Bray
