The pieces start to come together...

I'll admit, time is like starting pitching - it's at a premium lately.

The apartment's still stacked with boxes. We spent 10 minutes today looking for a screwdriver, only to find one in a plastic bag on the floor at our feet. I'm still learning names and faces at work.(I can tell you that Ichiro won the 2001 AL MVP, batting title, and a Gold Glove, but I can't remember the names of half of my new co-workers. Sad sad sad...)

But not to be lost in life's newest shuffle is the fact that I'm still a schemer. And that means I've been squeezing in every spare moment to put together the pieces for GABA 2010.

It's going to be a work in progress for some time. About 25 teams still haven't put out their 2010 schedules (c'mon, Florida State League!!), so some parts of the trip are still based on hoping certain teams will be home at certain times. Are you listening, Midland RockHounds?

I know this much - I've built a tentative plan for the toughest part of the trip. That would be the 27-team swing out West. That batch of games is absolutely crucial to making this trip work - you have to catch Colorado Springs and the Rockies (and probably Albuquerque) at home at the same time, 'cause it's not like you can just 'swing back' and pick one of those up later. And Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland (Oregon) are in the same boat - close to each other, but 5,000 light years away from anything else.

Point is, I've got the Western section of this trip tentatively planned. It would start around the first of July (with, of course, the Albuquerque-Colorado Springs-Denver run) and finish about a month later (San Diego and Phoenix the last two stops before the train barrels east, hopefully for Midland.) One of the crown jewels of the trip is buried deep beneath this West Coast swing - July 13th, the trip to Anaheim just happens to be for the All-Star Game. It's gonna take a helluva trip down from Seattle to get there in time, but anytime you can put MLB's biggest showcase in the middle of the Great American Baseball Adventure, you kinda don't have a choice.

I'll start posting parts of the GABA schedule as they get made. Next step is trying to start the trip in the Midwest, specifically to be at the new Target Field when the Twins play their first game there April 12th. This thing may start in Milwaukee (a nice tribute to the city that's kept my career alive), but that's still open to debate.

Anyway, it's all rambling from here. Just know that the pieces are slowly coming together, and I'll start showing you the completed sections as they get done.

Why all this excitement for a trip I won't be able to take? It's the challenge, the accomplishment of making this nearly impossible dream a reality. And then, maybe one day, putting one of these together and actually taking the trip.

For now, it's time to start putting together that Memphis-West Tenn-Nashville-Knoxville run...

The great reconnect...

Hello Wisconsin!

After a week of being separated from my stuff, wandering the Eastern US in search of good Mexican food, I have arrived in Milwaukee with two ideas dominating my thinking:

First, I've got to do a better job searching for that Mexican food. And second, this new life is pretty damn cool so far.

I can see Miller Park from the living room windows. My wife and I actually went to Miller Park a few hours after getting the keys to the new place. Brewers fans tailgate for September baseball games! Phenomenal. Our 9th MLB stadium this season gave us the well-expected (Jeff Suppan imploding) and the unexpected (Chorizo won the sausage race!), and left us wishing the season wasn't almost over.

That's the bad news. The good news is, since I have my beloved World Wide Web again, I'm downloading schedules like a teenage girl who just found the Jonas Brothers mother lode on Frostwire. It's like putting 1,000 jigsaw puzzle pieces on the floor - right now it just looks like a big mess. But before long, you'll see the picture clearly - a trip to every full-season major and minor league stadium in the 2010 season!

Of course, I won't be able to actually take the trip, since I'll be spending 2010 plotting my way into a sausage race.

But anyone else with the spare money and time is welcome to embark on GABA 2010! (Plus it'll be great practice in case we're in a position to take GABA 2011 or 2012...)

For now, pass the custard, will ya?

The great disconnect...

So this must be what it feels like to be Roy Oswalt, Rich Harden, Yovani Gallardo, or the hundred other starting pitchers in the same boat down the stretch in September.

Today is the day of The Great Disconnect. Movers are here, stuff is being loaded into the big truck, and in a matter of moments, they're going to realize that I'm hiding in the loft, banging out one final entry on the computer.

In a matter of seconds, I'm pulling the plug, and pulling over at a rest stop on the information superhighway.

See you all in Milwaukee late next week, and soon after, the baseball ramblings will begin again. For now, my kingdom for a 3G network!

MLB schedules are out!

Don't worry folks... I haven't forgotten about you or about the soon-to-be greatest baseball blog on earth. I also haven't forgotten how to type in hyperbole.

It turns out that uprooting your life and moving halfway across the country takes a lot of your time, energy, and did I mention time?

Late next week, we'll be in a new home in a new city, working a new job in a career for which my passion runs deeper than ever. It's exciting, but it's certainly time consuming.

But don't think I won't find time to talk baseball, and the 2010 GABA, once we get settled in the Midwest. You know I will... baseball's been my obsession long before I entered the workforce.

The email notices from MLB teams started pouring in yesterday - the 2010 MLB schedules are out! That's right, it's time to start thinking about Manny coming to Boston, or how to work the Cubs and White Sox into the same weekend (or better yet, the same day).

And if I hadn't been lucky enough to find a job in this economy, I'd be buried in schedules today, building the Greatest American Baseball Adventure ever - 150 games in a single season. Every MLB, AAA, AA, and full season A team on the continent!

So here's a compromise - in the coming weeks, once I can see above the stack of boxes again, I'll print all the schedules and start mapping out what would've been GABA 2010. And part of this blog next year will be following those 150 games. I won't be able to attend them, but we can still take a virtual GABA next year.

I know it's sacrilege to talk about this while the 2009 season's still going on, but 2010 is right around the corner!

For the last couple of months (really, ever since the GABA idea kernels stared popping in my mind's microwave) I've wondered if this day would come.

And it has. For better (my career) or worse (the immediate GABA plans), the day is here.

Somehow, despite an economy that's stalled like the White Sox in the summer swelter, I have found a job. A job that takes me back to exactly what I want to do in life (sports). A job in a new town, a new adventure, and a new experience with incredibly friendly people.

A job that will put GABA 2010 on hold... for now.

While we were getting the word out about the Great American Baseball Adventure, someone on an MLB team's fan blog site wrote that I should go get a paying job and forget about the dream of seeing every major and minor league team in a single season. Well, one of two ain't bad. I'm heading to Milwaukee to cover the Brewers, Packers, Bucks, Badgers and a myriad of other sports. And yes, I'll be back to living life the traditional way - go to work, earn paycheck, spend paycheck, repeat. No more thoughts about how to pay for that hotel in July in some random town in California.

I've learned a lot of lessons in my three month separation from the profession I love. And one of the main lessons runs a bit counter-intuitive to traditional thinking... I've learned that this wild GABA idea is one of the greatest concepts I've ever been associated with. And the coast-to-coast support reinforces the point.

There's no question that I want to pull off this trip. 150 games in a single season, experiencing America in the trenches, night after night, living out the baseball dream one town at a time.

And I believe, at some point, we'll turn this GABA dream into a reality. But, for now, that dream will have to be placed on hold - I've been called back to the sports battlefront, this time in Milwaukee.

There's still work to be done after all. What an uplifting, exhilirating relief.

Of course, this blog will live on. To everyone who has supported the blog to this point, you'll still get nearly daily doses of random baseball nuggets from this insane baseball nut. (I do promise to get back to daily blogging once this all calms down.)

But for now... Hello Wisconsin!

Take out the trash day (better late than never)...

[Mock GABA 2009 update: we would've had a bonus Sunday, as the Trenton Thunder completed a suspended game from Saturday against New Britain, followed by Sunday's regularly scheduled full game. Bonus baseball! Monday's stop? Allentown, and the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. We'd be spending the day trying to find out exactly what an IronPig really is. Monday the 31st is Wall Calendar Night at the ballpark - just one week left in the minor league season!]

I swear I'm not falling down on the job. Well, I do have the balance of Gerald Ford, so I do trip and fall from time to time. It's just not captured by cameras coast-to-coast like Ford's were.

In this case, I'm talking about a dearth of blog entries of late. It's been a wild week, and the details will come soon enough, but in this economy, I still have to focus on Plan A (gainful employment) before Plan B (the 2010 GABA). There are many dreams to follow, and trust me... the GABA is anything but dead.

OK, quick reflection on the week that was:

- Suddenly, there's a horse running away with each of the three NL division races. You could write three teams on the NL playoff bracket in Cardinal red, Dodger blue, and Philly cheese sauce. (Suddenly, I want Tony Luke's. Bad. If I could click my heels and go back to the 2008 World Series, I'd run to Tony Luke's like Rocky in a training scene). The Rockies and Giants look like wild-card frontrunners, but neither team is all that complete. Which leads me to this... what if we just didn't have a wild card team in the NL this year? Phillies-Cardinals first round, and the Dodgers get a bye. I'm down... what do you think?

- I just got a call from the Big Apple. Seems they've slotted me into the 4th spot in the Mets rotation for the rest of the year. Considering I pitched my last competitive inning at age 14, the call was a shock. The bad news is, I think I injured my wrist putting the phone back in its charger. I'm out for the rest of the season.

- Speaking of injuries, rumors abound that Rich Harden may be heading to Minnesota after the Twins claimed him on waivers from the Cubs. The Twins hope Harden can show their other young pitchers how to spend extended time on the DL.

- Mark Reynolds has 40 homers. Carl Crawford and Jacoby Ellsbury have combined for 109 steals. And yet I find myself depending on Matt Diaz for those coveted last few runs and RBIs in fantasy this year. Matt Diaz and David DeJesus. Strange sport, this fantasy.

An open letter to a random Mets fan

Dear Mets fan:

Please, please take a step back from the ledge.

I totally understand. It's late August 2009, and your season of dreams has turned into a six-month long nightmare. One injury was enough to take, but to see a veritable All-Star team of Metropolitans take up the trainers tables all summer has been too much to bear.

Reyes. Beltran. Delgado. One by one, they've become the boys of suffer. And you've spent the sweltering summer months watching Jeff Francoeur hit into three outs in a split second.

And now, the one anchor on a ship otherwise lost at sea has been pulled up. Johan Santana isn't starting Tuesday night, and depending on who you believe, he either needs rest or surgery.

Yes, it sucks. Yes, you've had to watch the Bandbox Bombers muscle their way to the top of the standings, all while finding yourselves closer to the last-place Nats than the first-place Phillies.

I know the desire is there to step in front of the next plane taking off from LaGuardia.

Don't.

There comes a point where the injuries and bad luck just becomes laughable. And that's all you can do sometimes... just laugh it off.

Pirates and Royals fans have to laugh every year, just to keep from crying.

You'll have your boys back and healthy in 2010. There isn't any reason to stress for another second about an absolute lost cause in 2009.

Waive the white flag. Let Fernando Tatis play a whole bunch of second base if he has to between now and the first of October. See what kind of talent's down in Buffalo and Binghamton.

Maybe, just maybe, you're getting all your bad luck out of the way in one season. The Red Sox only wish they'd had that happen to them over that little 86-year stretch.