The Great Baseball Trip of 1992

Been thinking about the great baseball trip of 1992 that my friend Eric and I took, starting 32 years ago today. Previously posted, here is an epilogue recapping the trip...

What a trip it was! Looking back over the entire trip, it really is amazing the things we experienced (links included below). Over the course of those two weeks in June of 1992, we saw...

13 FUTURE HALL OF FAMERS IN ACTION:

• Goose Gossage
• Paul Molitor
• Robin Yount
• Wade Boggs (3x)
• Dave Winfield (who hit a home run for us)
• Eddie Murray
• Cal Ripken (who hit a home run for us)
• Jack Morris (who pitched like every bit the ace he was) 
• Harold Baines
• Lee Smith
• Manager Joe Torre
• Manager Tony Larussa
• Manager Sparky Anderson
• Unfortunately, we also had some crazy bad luck when it came to seeing Hall of Famers. In our leadoff game, we missed out on seeing the greatest leadoff hitter ever, because Rickey Henderson was injured. We also missed out on a trio of Hall of Fame middle infielders, because Ozzie Smith, Alan Trammell, and Roberto Alomar were all out with injuries when we saw their teams play, as was the Indians' young third baseman, Jim Thome.  

OTHER STARS:

• Jose Canseco
• Mark McGwire
• Albert Belle
• Lou Whitaker
• Cecil Fielder
• Roger Clemens (saw 2x)
• Joe Carter
• Don Mattingly (saw 3x)

We saw a Major League record set one night and celebrated the next, as Jeff Reardon became MLB's all-time saves king.

Phil Plantier became a favorite of mine by hitting clutch home runs for us on back-to-back days.

Having seen our favorite team, the Cardinals, play countless games at Busch Stadium, for once we got to watch them play on the road.

We visited the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, and Mickey Mantle's Restaurant, and heard a funny story dealing with a famous baseball moment.

We went to the top of the Empire State Building to take in the breathtaking New York skyline, we beheld the amazing natural beauty of Niagara Falls, and we went sailing on Lake Michigan.

We saw a softball game, played a little wiffle ball, and played A LOT of Strat-o-Matic Baseball!

We of course got to see seven ballgames in six ballparks, three of which no longer exist.

• County Stadium...A's 6 - Brewers 1
• Tiger Stadium...Indians 4 - Tigers 2 (11 innings)
• Skydome...Blue Jays 4 - Red Sox 0
• Fenway Park...Red Sox 1 - Yankees 0
• Fenway Park...Red Sox 4 - Yankees 3 (10 innings)
• Shea Stadium...Cardinals 8 - Mets 3
• Oriole Park at Camden Yards...Orioles 10 - Yankees 7

I caught a souvenir ball in batting practice.

Through it all, we logged over 3,700 miles, and Eric and I got to create shared memories that will forever seal our friendship.

Click here to see an index of posts in this series.

Click here to return to the first post in this series.

Happy 99th, Grandma!

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love baseball in general and the Cardinals in particular. This love was inherited from my mom who, in turn, inherited it from her mom, my grandmother, who would have turned 99 today. 

A card-carrying member of The Knothole Gang as a teenager, she grew up riding the streetcar to Sportsman’s Park for a dime each way. Her mom would give her a quarter, and she’d spend the extra nickel on a snow cone one game, and then a scorecard at the next one. On occasion, she would get autographs from the players after the game, some of which I now have in my possession, including those of Hall of Famers Johnny Mize and Enos Slaughter.

Pages from Grandma's autograph book

Back in 2002, I bought tickets to a game for her 77th birthday. As we watched at old Busch Stadium, she mentioned to me how much she enjoyed watching Fernando Viña play. The reason she gave? “The way he plays, he reminds me of Pepper Martin” (who played for “The Gas House Gang” Cardinals teams in the 1930s.

Another favorite story about her was the time a few years later when we went to my parents’ house for Easter dinner. I was surprised by her absence, and asked why Grandma (81 at the time) wasn’t there. Mom replied, “Oh, she went to the Cardinals game instead.” Albert Pujols hit three home runs that day, showing once more how wise grandma was! She died in late March of 2018, and we held her funeral service a few days later. After the committal and a luncheon, we came back to the house, turned on the television, and watched the Cardinals game. It was, after all, opening day of the baseball season!

Grandma and her friend Fredbird, on the Cardinal Cruise in 2004