Culture Middlebury Sports

4 Guys, 30 Stadiums

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MiddBlog recently featured Damon Hathaway ’13.5, Craig Thompson ’13.5, Owen Witek ’13, and Jeff Hetzel ’14 for a unique extracurricular undertaking: the four Panthers set out to visit all 30 MLB stadiums over the course of 38 days.

The endeavor started this summer, but as of MiddBlog’s posting on August 31st the men had 8 games to go before the school year commences.

Here’s an excerpt from “The 30 in 38 Project,” a blog kept by the four travelers. Although I’m a Boston girl, I can respect the potency of the following experience:

August 6th, 2012 (New York)

“…For the first time ever, the Yankees invited fans onto the field beginning at 9:45am. As a lifelong Yankees fan, I tried hard to downplay the significance of this event; I told myself that the coolest thing we’d be able to do was grab some dirt from  the warning track, and maybe get to feel the grass and have an unprecedentedly close look at batting practice. That (minus the batting practice) was how it started.  

But then the players came. The first player out of the dugout was the legendary Mariano Rivera, appearing to his famous entry song, “Enter Sandman” by Metallica. Walking without a limp, he came right out towards where Ben and I had stationed ourselves by the right field foul pole. After Mariano, we saw Girardi, Teixeira, and even Andy Pettitte. C.C. Sabathia, Ichiro, Robinson Cano, Andruw Jones, and Derek Jeter all came out in a pack. By the time they arrived, I built up the courage to go for fist bumps. I pounded knuckles with Curtis Granderson and David Robertson. I think that Nick Swisher gave either a handshake, hug, autograph, or a wink to each and every person on the field, and he did so grinning ear to ear. 
 
The most surreal moment, however, was the two minute conversation I had with Raul Ibanez about our trip. I mentioned that we had just seen the Phillies, his former team, play last night in Philly, and that we would see the Yanks play again on Tuesday in Detroit…”
Every blog post ends with relevant stats about the road trip, and an evaluation of the stadium experience relying on factors such as fan atmosphere and food. The guys also elect a “Quote of the Day” such as this one from August, 8th in Detroit: “You still have to prove the objectivity of value” – Jeff, discussing with Craig the epistomological divide between Austrian economics and Keynesian economics
Sometimes, you just can’t turn it off.
 

 

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