Come summer, baseball takes over many lives, including mine. What better way to enjoy the summer than by traveling to see baseball games at all 31 Major League ballparks, from Miami to Seattle? Yes, 31, not 30—this year you have to throw San Juan, Puerto Rico, into the mix; it’s the Montreal Expos’ second home in 2003.

One of the great things about baseball is that, though the rules are the same in every stadium, the playing fields differ. In the three other major spectator sports in the U.S. (hockey, basketball and football), the size and shape of the playing field are exactly the same at every venue, but in baseball you have uniqueness. To name a few examples:

• The 40-foot-high Green Monster in Fenway Park’s left field
• The ivy covering the outfield walls of Wrigley Field
• The hill in center field at Houston’s Minute Maid Park
• The thin, hitter-friendly air at high-elevation Coors’ Field
• The planes flying over Shea Stadium
• The short home run porches down the lines at Yankee Stadium

Watching baseball has been my main hobby since I first stepped foot into Shea as a seven-year-old boy in the summer of 1976 and saw Dave Kingman win the game for the Mets with a three-run homer. I have since gone to games by myself, with friends and strangers and have even arranged my business trips around baseball schedules, but my ultimate dream has been to see every stadium in one trip.

Making a trip like this happen does, however, take a lot of work. How I did it may save you some time, if you share my dream and would also like to live it.

My first step was to organize a spreadsheet into six geographic groups—east (seven teams), southeast (three teams), central (10 teams), south central (three teams), west (seven teams) and Puerto Rico (just those Expos)—and type in each team’s schedule. The goal was to try and see as many teams in each group in as few days as possible.

Then I studied a map of the US to determine travel times between cities, because I was not only at the mercy of schedules, but also of distances. This meant that I would travel to Kansas City, Chicago, St. Louis and back to Chicago (as the schedule allowed) over a four-day period, with extra days in some cities because there is no game in the region that day.

To encounter as few rainouts as possible, I arranged the trip in the summer, from June 14 through August 1. I felt that it might be either too cold or rainy in April and September. (Please see my entire itinerary at the end of this story.)

Most people simply don’t have the freedom to see every stadium in one trip. Therefore, you may want to plan a series of regional trips, breaking cities into the following groups:

• West Coast: San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Diego, and Phoenix (include Seattle and/or Denver if you’re adventurous)
• East Coast: Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York, Boston, Toronto, and Montreal
• Midwest: Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, St Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Detroit
• South: Arlington, Houston, Miami, Tampa, and Atlanta

I relied on Professor Pathfinder’s Baseball Travel Map, which maps the location of every baseball stadium and baseball museum in North America (including Major, Minor, Mexican and Independent leagues!). The best map for baseball nuts, it can be found at www.baseballmaps.com. Professor Pathfinder inspired me to include museums. Therefore, I am making stops at various museums, such as:

• The Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown (of course): 888/425-5633; www.baseballhalloffame.org.
• Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City: 816/221-1920; www.NLBM.com.
• The Louisville Slugger Museum in (of course) Louisville, KY: 502/588-7228; www.sluggermuseum.org.
• The Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa: 888/875-8404; www.fieldofdreamsmoviesite.com.
• The Roger Maris Museum in Fargo, N.D.: www.ndrogermaris.com
• Amateur Softball Museum in Oklahoma City (what the heck): 405/424-5266; www.softball.org/hall_of_fame.

Since I also play vintage base ball according to 1864 rules for the Gotham Base Ball Club of New York (www.1864gothams.com), I have done my share of research on baseball history. I have come across information on many now-abandoned ballparks, and will visit as many of those sites as possible. Some, such as the Houston Astrodome and Candlestick Park in San Francisco, are obvious because they are still being used for football, but finding the wall that still exists from Washington Park where the Dodgers played in Brooklyn before Ebbets Field is a little more interesting. The wall is now part of a Con Edison plant off Third Avenue and Fourth Street.

Although I arranged this trip around baseball, I didn’t want to miss other great things in this country. During my long drive from Minneapolis to Seattle, I plan to see Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone National Park. I am also stopping to see the Hoover Dam, the St. Louis Arch and family in Chicago and Tampa.

Where to stay in the towns where you don’t have a friend or relative willing to offer you a bed? Most people would choose by price or nearness to the stadium. You may want to contact a hotel chain to help with arranging lodgings in multiple cities during your trip. Wyndham Hotels & Resorts (800/WYN-DHAM; www.wyndham.com) were extremely supportive of my venture. They offered me complimentary lodging near Miami at The Wyndham Bonaventure Resort & Spa (954/349-5521) and are working with me on other arrangements.

To complete the last piece of the puzzle, I went to the AAA branch office in Jamaica for directions from city to city. Thanks to Errol Myrick, who spent a full day mapping out my TripTik routings, and Hildy Ismail, I have all the maps and tips that I need to make my dream trip happen!

Now I can’t wait! There’s something about seeing a baseball game in person that turns any adult into a little kid. The smell of the grass (providing, of course, that the stadium has grass!) and the crack of bat on ball bring back all those childhood memories of rushing to the park after school to play baseball on an open field, dreaming about making it to the big leagues. Most of us never make it all the way to The Show as players, but fortunately, they do sell tickets. Play ball!

Itinerary of a Dream: