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Baseball Book Review: My Ballpark Summer: What Taking Myself Out To The Ballgame Taught Me – By Alicia Barnhart
Chuck Booth (Lead Analyst/Website Owner): Follow @chuckbooth3024
Follow The MLB Reports On Twitter Follow @mlbreports
I don’t read many baseball books, heck, I have written more books in the last 6 years (3), than I have actually read (2). This book I finished awhile back and is subject of today’s Book Review.
The book is called “My Ball Park Summer: What Taking Myself Out To The Ballgame Taught Me.” It is authored by Alicia Barnhart. You can follow her brilliant blog at http://www.ballparksonabudget.com
I first met Alicia online earlier this year and was impressed at her knowledge of the baseball parks. After a few brief discussions, and following her on twitter Follow @alicia_barnhart , I realized she ventured to all 30 MLB Parks during the summer of 2012. Coincidentally, this is the same year I broke my own record for ‘attending all 30 MLB Parks” in 23 days.
Miss Barnhart is among a small percentage of ballpark chasers that have actually seen all 30 parks in one year, and she is the only woman that I have ever seen to do them all by herself in one baseball campaign.
Why I was drawn to buying her book, is that I wrote a book “The Fastest Thirty Ballgames” in chronicling my previous record trips (2008 and 2009) for 30 MLB Park tours in 2011.
Again, Alicia is part of a small percentage of people that have compiled a book based on her baseball journey to all of the baseball stadiums.
I purchased the E-Book format from Amazon (In the Kindle Reader). The cost was $3, which itself lends to her motto of “Ballparks On A Budget”, and I started to read about her baseball quest. It was such an intriguing read, I never finished reading it until I ran out of pages on my computer screen. Read the rest of this entry
ATR (Ask The Reports) Returns For One Day Here: June 25th, 2014
Home Of Sully Baseball + #WOB, #SullyMetrics, Baseball Analysis (Audio + Written, Roster Trees, Salaries, Org. Depth Charts, Historical Series for All 30 Clubs + State Of The Unions + Wicked Daily Content,) + tyhe best coverage on the 2014 MLB schedule in the world. We are not your average “Cookie Cutter” Website. Also our motto is “THE TRUTH STINGS LIKE A CATCUS!”
By Chuck Booth (Lead Baseball Analyst/Website Owner): Follow @chuckbooth3024
Follow MLB Reports Follow @mlbreports
As our website has increasingly adapted to changes both suggested by our readers and writers, we are forever changing our content on our little space carved out on the interwebs.
So for a little bit of nostalgia, I add an installment of a previous segment we once had, called ATR (Ask The Reports).
Q: I noticed you pulled down the HR leaderboard pages and placed them on a website called www.30mlbteamsreports.com, is this the same ownership of that site?
CB: Absolutely, I purchased the domain www.30mlbteamsreports.com to help control some of the amount of stuff we post at http://www.mlbreports.com. In some cases, we will post some of our work on both websites from now on. Read the rest of this entry
Confessions Of A BallPark Chaser: 2014 + The Real Price To See All 30 MLB Parks In A Month
The MLB Reports is going to step up our coverage of talking about the ballparks. We are part of the biggest fraternity of balllpark experts, all lending creative information to help out others. Stay tuned for future posts. But all you really have to do is to see all of our links of interest on the left hand side of our home page, to click on all of these aforementioned sites.
By Chuck Booth (Lead Baseball Analyst/Website Owner): Follow @chuckbooth3024
Follow MLB Reports On Twitter Follow @mlbreports
There is nothing that revs my adrenaline more than knowing I am going to chase a ballpark this year.
In 2013, between running this website, and juggling my work, I only went to 2 games in MLB Parks.
Nicely I made the opener at Dodger Stadium, and then captured a late season game in Safeco.
After breaking my own World Record for witnessing 30 MLB Games (All Parks in 23 days – every pitch) in 2012, I was left with my worst total in a decade last year.
I wanted to change that in 2014. Unfortunately I wont be chasing any records this upcoming year, but I will potentially be going on a historic run in 2015.
I will get to that in a minute. This year I do plan on seeing 20 games at Safeco Field. It is important for me to see games live in person, so I forked out $750 yesterday to do just that.
I bought a 17 game flex plan for the Mariners, and it involves an array of games from April to September.
While it will trounce my records ever for a ballpark in one year, there are no plans for attending a game in any other ballpark on the road this season.
Now that we have talked about, let’s chat about my plans for 2015.
The MLB BallPark Pass-Port Is An Absolute Must Purchase For Those Planning To See All 30 Stadiums!
The Ballpark Pass-Port is quickly becoming the favorite item among Ballpark Chasers, to chronicle their life goal to see all 30 Major League Parks (Costs $59.95). You are able to receive the stamps kit for a small additional price of $8.95. At around $73 USD all combined – with Shipping and Handling. it will contain one of the biggest memento’s ever for a Ballpark Chaser’s best bucket list wish ever. Not only that, but the price of shipping is the same all around North America. There is not too many entities that do that for Canadians – and $4 Shipping in America is a bargain! Even if you just go to a few games per year, it will be there for you as a keepsake vault forever.
By Chuck Booth (Lead Baseball Analyst and Website Owner) Follow @mlbreports
I have done some crazy ballpark road trips over the last 5 years.
For those that haven’t read any of my previous posts, or know the story, maybe because you are at our site for the 1st time, please head to https://mlbreports.com/gwr-tracker-1/ .
In those pages, I list all of my World Record Attempt Chases. I have chronicled my streaks each time, with a book binder of evidence, filled with loose leaf paper, complete with signatures from parks officials for validation towards Guinness Book Of World Record Chases.
You see when I go to a ballpark for one of these said trips, I need to stay for the complete game, 1st to last pitch. I also need for a staffer at each park, or verified witness, to sign that I was present for what I said I was.
What I have handed into the fine folks at Guinness World Record each time after, was ample evidence to be the record holder, however I was blown away by what I could do now using the BallPark Pass-Port Book – when I learned of its uniqueness.
All 30 of the MLB Parks have stickers for their home parks, whether you want to stamp yourself in, or have a team official do it for you in any of the 30 cities, this is a great way to have the proper validation that you were indeed at the park. With the 2013 MLB Season ending soon, and 2014 MLB schedule being released in a week or so, this is a great gift idea for a ballpark fan at Christmas Upcoming!
The Traveling Salesman Problem: 30 MLB Stadiums In Record Time
The 30 MLB Park Road Trip has been mastered by about 25 people who have accomplished the feat in under a month. We are going to keep giving the extreme ballpark chasers some more food for thought here.
By Josh Robbins (Special Guest Writer And Co – Creator for The Factor12 Rating Pitching Metric.)
The Factor 12 (F12) is an analytic measurement utilizing league average performance to compare the value of all MLB pitchers on 60ft6in.com.
My grandfather was a traveling salesman for most of his working life. Frequently, he recalls stories about selling his wares in exotic places such as Keokuk, Iowa, Hannibal, Missouri, and Cairo, Illinois.
However, the real Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) asks this question: “Given a list of cities and the distances between each pair of cities, what is the shortest possible route that visits each city exactly once and returns to the origin city?”
Applying this computation to all 30 MLB stadiums is more complex given the nature of the regular season schedule. A handful of metropolitan cities host two clubs enabling for travel to occur in the same city more than once.
Without using a complex algorithm or formula based system, google maps will be utilized to determine the shortest distances between each city/stadium to determine the most logical route.
Extreme ballpark chasers are often left to the mercy of the schedule eliminating a perfect directional path.
After optimizing the mileage breakdown between stadiums, this is the shortest possible DRIVING route discovered:
30 Ballparks in 30 Days Documentary
MLB Reports 
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