Baseball tour

When a friend from California asked me if I would be interested in visiting a bunch of ballparks with him, I hesitated for only a moment. 

“Heck yeah, let’s do it!”

We researched possibilities and agreed that a seven-day trip this month to six Major League Baseball parks and the Hall of Fame organized by Jay Buckley Baseball Tours was the best way to go. Even better, our wives agreed to join us on this adventure.

The trip began with my first official guided tour of my hometown, New York City, before our bus headed to The Bronx for a Sunday night game between the Yankees and arch rival Boston Red Sox at a very loud and packed Yankee Stadium. We followed the game winners to Boston and, after a tour of the historic Massachusetts city, went to ancient but charming Fenway Park to see the home team lose to the Tampa Bay Rays on a foggy night.

We spent the following afternoon in Cooperstown, the upstate New York village that is home to the National  Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. It was my fifth visit to the site, each one of which has been more interesting than the previous. (I look forward to returning for a sixth visit one day.)

During the next three days we visited Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia for a Phillies-Chicago Cubs afternoon game — the only time all week we saw the home team win — Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore for an Orioles-Detroit Tigers night game, and Nationals Park in Washington DC for a Nationals-Miami Marlins night game that was interrupted by rain.

We had time in Baltimore to see Babe Ruth’s birthplace, Edgar Allan Poe’s house and one of his gravesites. A non-baseball highlight of the trip for me was visiting the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington. We also got to eat at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia.

The tour came full circle in New York with a game between the Mets and Tampa Bay Rays in Flushing, Queens. Rain delayed the start of the afternoon game but did not dampen the enthusiasm of fans at Citi Field, which some people on the tour considered the best ballpark we visited during the week. I agree, but admit I may be biased! 

Six times during the week, I stretched during the seventh inning and sang “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” a song composed in 1908 by a couple of New York songwriters who supposedly weren’t baseball fans and didn’t attend their first game until many, many years later. I’ve been happy to attend over a hundred Major League Baseball games during my lifetime already, and look forward to visiting more ballparks in the future.

To see my pictures from Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, Citizens Bank Park, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Nationals Park, Citi Field, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, check out my Instagram posts.

Remembering a first, and last

One of the most thoughtful things my mother did for me was take me to my first major league baseball game.  It was on August 14, 1965, right around the time of her birthday.

She realized that summer that her two school-age sons had discovered the joys of the American pastime.  My brother Lou and I had started collecting baseball cards, watching games on TV, and playing ball with friends in the neighborhood.  My mother had acquired an interest in baseball while being raised in Cuba, and was pleased to see her kids doing the same growing up in New York.

The Yankees were hosting the Kansas City Athletics that afternoon. Our family's loyalties were divided between the Mets and Yankees, but the fact the reigning American League champions were hosting a bat giveaway at Yankee Stadium on a Saturday afternoon convinced my mom it was a great opportunity to take me, my brother and Uncle John to live major league baseball.

Until that point, my only images of baseball stadiums were in newspapers, magazines, television and baseball cards -- only the latter in color.  You can imagine how awestruck 9-year-old Charlito was ascending the subway station stairs to see The House That Ruth Built in all its splendor in front of him. I was given my first baseball bat, a wooden Hillerich & Bradsby Tom Tresh model, as I passed the turnstile.  We found our cheap seats far away from the infield, and I still remember the home run by Roger Repoz, Whitey Ford's good pitching, and the Yankees winning in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Life was never quite the same afterwards. My mother remarried less than two years later, our family moved in late 1967 to Bloomfield, New Jersey, where she raised my younger brother and sister and usually found herself too busy or tired to enjoy live major league baseball.  All the while, however, my passion for baseball continued to burn.

In the summer of 2011, with all her kids long grown up and out of the house, my mother surprised us by expressing enthusiasm with the idea of taking a ferry from the Jersey shore to Citi Field to watch the Mets.  Our family pounced at the prospect of accompanying her to another major league baseball game.

She enjoyed the ferry ride immensely, marveling at the view of the city from New York Harbor and the East River.  After the ferry docked at the marina by Citi Field, my wife, dad and father-in-law made our way with her way slowly by foot to the new Mets ballpark.  Unlike my first time at a major league game, I don't remember any particulars from these nine innings.  I do recall my mother enjoyed the game from our upper deck seats, and our family accompanied her back to the ferry afterwards for the ride back to the Jersey shore.  The day exhausted her, but for months afterwards she kept telling us what a great time she had and how she looked forward to doing it again.

It wasn't to be.  My mother passed away the following winter after complications from heart surgery.

Today, on her birthday, I'm remembering fondly the day she took me to my first major league baseball game.  I'm also thinking of that late summer day two years ago when I was with her for her last, and wishing she was still with us.