Tag / Boston University

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Ballpark Tour: Braves

With the offseason well underway, we continue our tour of all of the different baseball stadiums I’ve been to over the years. This week, we head to the suburbs of Atlanta to take a look at the latest home of the Atlanta Braves.  So, without further ado, let’s take a deeper look at my one game history with Truist Park.

Stadium Name: Truist Park

Years in Service: 2017 – Present

Visits: 1

In November of 2013, the Braves announced that they would be leaving their longtime home of Turner Field for a new stadium, opening in 2017.  Originally known as SunTrust Park, the stadium hosted its first regular season game on April 14, as the Braves battled the Padres.  The name changed to Truist Park in 2020 following a merger between SunTrust Banks and BB&T.

I made my first and only visit to Truist Park in 2021 while driving home from a trip to Florida.  The Braves were scheduled to battle the Yankees that night, so I decided to make an early stop on the drive home to take in another stadium.  My hotel claimed to be within walking distance of the stadium, which it was but they forgot to mention that it was all uphill.  After I managed to drag myself to the park, I headed to the upper deck, which were the only seats still available.  After snagging a couple souvenir cups, I left the game a little early for the hike back to the hotel.  Thankfully, that trip was all downhill.

Stadium Name: Braves Field

Years in Service: 1915 – 1952

Visits: 0 (or a handful, depending on your point of view)

From 1876 until 1952, the Braves made their home in Boston.  When they moved west to Milwaukee prior to the 1953 season, the stadium was purchased by Boston University.  The pavilion grandstand at the end of the right field line was retained as the seating core of a football, soccer, field hockey, and track-and-field stadium, as was the outer wall.  The stadium’s ticket office was converted into the school’s police station. The rest of the stadium structure was replaced by dormitories covering the former main grandstand; and the Case Physical Education Center, which houses Walter Brown Arena, home of the synchronized skating team.

Now known as Nickerson Field, I’ve made a few visits while in Boston to visit Angelina over the years and to see her skate at Walter Brown Arena.

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Ballpark Tour: Red Sox

With the offseason underway, we continue our tour of all of the different baseball stadiums I’ve been to over the years. This week, we look at the Boston Red Sox, owners of the oldest stadium in Major League Baseball. So, without further ado, let’s take a deeper look at my one game history with Fenway Park.

Stadium Name: Fenway Park

Years in Service: 1912 – Present

Visits: 1

In 1911, Red Sox owner John I. Taylor purchased the land bordered by Brookline Avenue, Jersey Street, Van Ness Street and Lansdowne Street and developed it into a larger baseball stadium, which he named after the Fenway neighborhood where it was located.  The first game was played April 20, 1912, as the Red Sox defeated the New York Highlanders, who would become the Yankees the following year, 7-6 in 11 innings.

I attended my first (and, so far, only) game at Fenway Park in August of 2017, cashing in my birthday gift from the year before.  The hope was that Angelina would be moving into Boston University around that time, but her gap year put a kibosh on that.  The ballpark was… a little underwhelming.  From the outside, you could barely tell that it was a stadium.  Michael even asked where it was as we were standing outside it.

The game went about as you would expect.  With James Shields on the mound, the White Sox did not put up much of a fight.  We were sitting down the left field line, with a good view of the Green Monster.  The seats, which may or may not date back to the stadium’s opening in 1912, were not really designed for people well over 6 feet tall, so there was a lot of uncomfortable shifting as Danny and my knees were smooshed into the seats in front of us.

I would have added an additional game or two in 2020, as the plan was to take Michael to Boston for his birthday and enjoy the monster seats, but a little global pandemic got in that way of that.  Now that Angelina is done with school and working full time in Boston, there is still an opportunity to increase my number of visits in the years to come.

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2023 Calendar

Now that Christmas has come and gone, we can unveil the cover to this year’s calendar gift, given annually to my mom and sister, and made up of pictures I have taken throughout the year.  It is getting harder and harder to get enough pictures to flesh out the calendar, especially with Angelina spending more and more time in Boston and Michael being homebound for the most part.  Danny, on the other hand, is an embarrassment of riches, between his different band activities.  As in year’s past. the calendar was produced by the good folks at Shutterfly and we will unveil each month’s photo(s) on the first day of the month throughout 2023.

This year’s cover features Angelina, Danny, and Michael masked up outside of Agganis Arena on the BU campus from our visit this summer for Angelina’s graduation.

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Travelling The 50 States – Michigan

Over my 48 years, I’ve done my fair share of travelling across these United States.  I thought it would be an interesting experiment go look back at those trips to each of the 31 states I have visited (62% isn’t bad, is it?) and see if, and when, I may be returning.  Working in alphabetical order, we continue today with the 26th state to be added to the Union: Michigan

State: Michigan
Joined the Union: 1837
Visits: 5

Despite its proximity, The Mitten has been an infrequent place for me to visit.  Nearly all of my visits can be attributed to one of two things: baseball and ice skating.  The one outlier came during the COVID lockdown, when travel options were limited.

My first trip to Michigan came in 1999 in an effort to see a game during the final season of Tiger Stadium.  Along with my mom and my sister, we took the quick flight and then took a bus into Windsor for a pre-game meal, the first time any of us had left the country.  After some slight difficulties getting back across the border, we headed to the game, where rookie Kip Wells made his major league debut for the White Sox and picked up the victory against the Tigers.  We flew back home the following day.

Nearly a decade later, I returned to Detroit in 2010 for a Labor Day weekend clash between the White Sox and the Tigers.  This time, I booked a hotel in Windsor, so I drove from Chicago to Canada, checking in to the hotel before catching a bus back across the border and to Comerica Park.  The next afternoon, I drove back and took in the afternoon tilt before driving home with two Tiger victories under my belt.

Six years later, the synchronized skating championships were held in Kalamazoo.  The family travelled north to see Angelina and her team compete.

In 2019, the family traveled to Ann Arbor, where BU was competing in a synchronized skating competition.

My most recent visit to Michigan came over Labor Day week in 2020.  With everything locked down thanks to the corona virus, I was looking for a chance to get away and found a nice Airbnb in Holland close to Lake Michigan.  Other than a couple of trips to the lakes (both Macatawa and Michigan) and a day spent in Saugatuck, I didn’t see much of the sites, as the rona was still very much a concern.

Will I return?  I imagine so.  Neither of the boys have been to Comerica yet, so a future visit is not out of the question.