How Far Do You Travel for Baseball

ClevelandDad,
You learn to adjust your new lifestyle away from the field!
You live by gametracker and satelitte radio via yahoo.
You spend a lot of time on the HSBBW because you know others are in the same situation.
Once in a while you get to catch a game on TV.
You don't freakout when they don't call you everyday.
You learn to keep track of their debit card withdrwals.
You choose your weekend visits wisely, it becomes expensive after a while.
You know that a new phase in your son's life has begun, and if he is happy, you are happy, whether he is an hour away or 12.

ClevelandDad- Yep, we go. After all those years at the lower levels, it's just a given. Baseball has allowed our son (and us) to travel to places that would not have been on the normal vacation list. Normal vacation?-What's that? Yes, the WHOLE family sacrifices, for thier players. Get used to being broke, it's expensive. The employer thing- better to be self employed or a big brown nose! Baseball won't be forever, so ENJOY EVERY MINUTE while it lasts! By the way, along your journey, you will have met the best people around!

For those of us are not only NOT self employed, it is a whole lot tougher.

We try to plan our vacation time around things like spring break trips to Florida (or whereeve they go) and post season tournaments. (and then panic when the schedule changes). That uses up a big chunk of our time, but hey, who's gonna complain about spending a week in Florida every year?

Then whenever they play on the weekend we drive up to all of those as well. The weekday games we mostly miss. Our son was great about calling after EVERY game. Plus the schools put the box scores on the web page.

This past year I used vacation time for the spring trip, and several post season tournaments. Then the big problem arrived. My replacement was to be out of state for her daughters wedding the same week as the NAIA world series. My first reaction was heartbreaking.

Fortunately my boss thought it was important enough for me to go to Idaho that he helped me find and arrange another replacement from another town. (The school wasn't too happy about taking my youngest son out of school for a week - but hey, in the end it was his best report card ever)>

It does take a chunk of cash. Big time. And the mileage on my car is outrageous. But, this is way too much fun to miss out on.

For us, college wasn't a problem as son was only 30 miles away. We also traveled to all of his "away" series except for 2 over the course of 3 years.

However, pro ball is different, tho, since as a pitcher he starts every 5th game, not every Friday or Saturday. When he was far away (Yakima and South Bend) we would schedule trips so we could include 2 starts, and had the opportunity to catch a home start and an away start ... fun to see the other fields and towns. Now, even tho he is only 1 1/2 hours away (unfortunately it means driving in L A traffic), we get to his home starts and away starts, but do not go to the other games in Lancaster because it means 3 hours of travel time, usually on a week day. Some of their "away" games now are a mere 30 minutes from our home so we try to go to some of those games even when he is not pitching. It makes it a lot easier since he is a starter and not a reliever (tho he needs to get somethings straightened out or he may get relegated to the bench ... )

Fun Topic

Our son went 400 miles away to college. Tough on us! We try to get to lots of the weekend games...leaving our home at noon on Friday, we arrive just about in time for first pitch Friday night. Sundays are a long day...leaving the field around 5:00pm and arriving at home around 1:00am! When we're not there, we listen to broadcasts at home via computer ... the neighbors do wonder what is going on

In addition to the distance, our son is a relief pitcher...so we never know... and obviously we've missed lots of his innings!

First summer he was sent off to Fairbanks, Alaska to throw for the Goldpanners! Now... that is only 3604 miles away! We didn't make it to any games, but the Goldpanners have pannervision (webcam) a wonderful invention! The Goldpanner coaches saw the true talent in our son and he was a starter, so being part of their rotation made scheduling easier on us!

This summer our son is only 135 miles away! It's great! Not only is it only 2&1/2 hours away...but the games are broadcast on AM Radio! Now...we can barely, and I mean barely receive that signal at our house. And as the evening progresses, the signal gets weaker and weaker. Hubby and I have been known to pop in the car and go driving around trying to pick up a better signal on our car radio!

This week the summer team is traveling to Cuba! We will miss those games...and no broadcasts. The announcer has said that he will tape the Cuba games and play them on the radio show while the team is traveling to Wichita, Kansas for the NBC series!

So, while we're missing games, our son is traveling all over the country! Wouldn't trade it for the world!

I think that parents of kids at larger schools that have gametracker are very fortunate. Most do not have that privilege though. My son's school is only 4 - 4 1/2 hours away, so that's not too bad.

I plan on traveling a lot of the weekends, and will take off as much as possible to catch other games. I'm definately planning on being at his spring break trip in Florida in the spring.

I also think it's nice to build relationships with other player's parents. This way you can hear some of the stories and info from them when you can't be there, but they can. I know I have to miss son's first game this fall, but may very well send camcorder or camera with parents of another player that will be on same team. I'm trying to accept that I won't be at every game anymore. On that note, if you're in IL and want a baseball game to watch, PM me and I'll tell you where you need to go!!!!!!

Yes, lafmom brought up a great point. The parents who were able to attend every game (or amny) kept us informed and often sent pics through email.
They also were the first ones to make sure when they were in town, they included roommates in dinners, etc. A great support system for the boys and us!

Good topic! For our family most of our traveling has evolved around baseball for the past ten years. During the past three years it has been college which was about 370 miles from home. We attend all the home series with the exception of two over the past three years and attended the majority of the away series. We didn’t attend any of the mid week-games.
Before season starts the Auburn Diamond club would send out an email listing all the hotels where the team was staying during all the away series for the entire season. We would make reservations for the year for those away games we would attend. Most of the time we would get team rates but sometimes it was full fare. We didn’t travel to North Carolina, Clemson, USC, Florida, or Florida State other than the NCAA post season.
We did travel to all the LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss. Univ. of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, and Arkansas series.
The home game routine was duplicated each home week-end. Wife would take a vacation day on Friday, leave home at about 8:00 AM, arrive in Auburn about 3:00 PM, check in the extended stay motel, and arrive at ballpark in time for 4:00 game. As season progressed and the days got warmer, Friday's game times were moved to 7:00PM allowing us to leave home at 10:00AM.
Sunday games would usually start at 1:00PM and we would catch the son after the game, eat Zaxby’s chicken with him and we’d head back home around 5:30PM arriving home about 12:30AM. Last summer we spent 1 week in Cape Cod following him around mainly because we had never seen that historic part of the United States.
This summer we decided to stay home the three months he’s in short season “A”. He’s traveling around playing teams from Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, and Vermont while we take a break.
It’s really a huge sacrifice following them around while they play their games... but like 123KMom says... we wouldn’t trade it for the world.
We also met some great people during those years...many from the HSBBW (like lafmom and her son while we were in KY)
Fungo

I remember when I thought games on the other side of Dallas were far away. High school took us around the state. College games were mostly regional.

Pro seasons have reached the continental limit, as he has now spent seasons in the Northwest (Oregon) and in the Northeast (CT). Somehow we've been able to see him play in both places.

Earlier this month we went to Norwich, CT. A friend gave us some Southwest passes. We flew standby from Dallas, to Little Rock, Chicago, Hartford, and then rented a car to Norwich... 14 hours total. The return was Hartford, Baltimore, Austin, then Dallas. Whew!

Parents will do anything to see their kid play.

PS. Several years ago our older son was playing in Washington State at the same time our younger son was playing in Jupiter, FL. We stayed home.

I just realized that I didn't really address your question.

Of course we can't go to all of their games anymore. Thank goodness for the internet. We've listen to games since he was in college. Now that we have wireless I can even take the laptop to the kitchen or outside. Sometimes we watch TV with no sound and listen to the game. If we miss something, there's a live box score on minorleaguebaseball.com this year, which is very nice. I like it better than Gametracker.

The hardest times are listening when your son gets hurt. Last year ours had a bad outfield collision and was carted off on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance. I was frantic. The broadcasters we wonderful, though, and gave a play by play of everything that was happening.

Best news over the internet..."He's moving his legs."

I finally met them earlier this month and couldn't thank them enough for how they handled the situation.

First yr was very hard on all of us. Over the past year Ive been to AZ 3x and Idaho once.
This year is much better because I can listen to the games on MiLB.and son calls after the games. There is a time difference of 2 hrs so I do get to bed late.
Like Txmom I've watched tv with out sound while listening to the game.
Txmom,Thank god your son is ok

During my son's HS years we were able to travel, for his baseball, to Illinois, Missouri, Arizona, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Rhode Island, Ontario, CAN, Ohio, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Tennessee, New York, and to beautiful Comerica Park.

Oh yeah, and to New Mexico for the Connie Mack World Series.

My wife and I get a lot of jet lag...but would never trade a second of it. We are in the Bay Area and ours went to college in TX, played summer ball in New England and has played pro ball in NY and is now a "Lansing Lugnut." So we do a lot of flying. Almost always 6am flights leaving on a Friday morning, meaning we are up at 3am and 7pm flights returning getting in around Sunday midnight PDT or 3am EDT.
On the other hand we have met such fabulous people through all of this. The Ayotte family in Lowell, Mass., Chuck Paiva and the wonderful people in Newport, RI, Charlie Wride, the NY/Penn league historian in Auburn NY and so many people and coaches in TX who have become friends and have been so good to our son.

For myself, I honestly believe the distance made me a better baseball parent and fan. Seeing 25% of his games intermittently through his seasons, I would get glimpses at how he learned for himself, with the support of his coaches, to manage the mental side of baseball and I really learned how much pressure player's have to perform at the collegiate level and beyond.
He has increased my passion for baseball watching as well as increasing my appreciation of the skills it takes to play the game. But the distance allowed this to happen so that my "passion" is with an understanding of the game, it's emphasis that you need to deal with failure to succeed, as well as the realization that sometimes you tip you hat to your opponent because they did their job just a little better than you did.. I now understand that my "passion" is his "job" and I am lucky enough to get a few chances to watch him "work." I have come to recognize that as my "privilege" and it is one I truly treasure.
This year has truly been a lot of fun for us because he has developed a great relationship with the media and is often quoted in game articles and player stories. If you are not there, it is terrific to read his comments in the next day article of the Journal.
One of life's real treasures for a parent occured at last Saturday night's game when we met the wife of one of his teammates. She shared that ours is her second favorite player(husband first of course), not only for what he does on the field but because he is one of the first out to sign autographs for kids and almost always one of the last to leave after the games. If there is a child with a pen, he will almost always stay until they have that autograph. In fact, as we hugged him to leave for the airport last night, we had to get in the middle of a group of about 10, 5-8 year olds to tell him we love him and get that cherished hug...until next time. As we walked up the stairs, he was still signing.

Well, we just traveled however many miles it is from Seoul Korea, where my job has taken me, to Waco TX (in a few days) for PG's South Underclass. That's, like, infinity miles. I just hope to find some good mesquite BBQ near our hotel.......

I'm glad this thread is here, cause it touches on a very timely topic at our home. My son is currently weighing offers from several major-conference D-1 schools in the southeast. Some are quite a distance away , while one is quite close. While the prospect of his parents being able to attend, view or listen to his games is likely not anywhere on his pro/con list, it is very near the top of mine. I would never influence his decision of schools based on my selfish desire to watch him play, so I'm looking for options.

What are the possibilities for game viewing/listening? What is gametracker? Do most large schools have web-casts of their baseball games? Does Sunshine broadcast many in-state games? Are there ACC or SEC game packages that can be bought through sattelite radio or dish networks?

We travel from Saudi Arabia to see our son play in Poland and now in the USA. We can only follow his games by reading the newspaper inserts on the internet. Either that or we come home on vacation to watch him play.

quote:

While the prospect of his parents being able to attend, view or listen to his games is likely not anywhere on his pro/con list,

FloridaHokie

Congratulations to your son. Florida exports oranges and athletes. Join the long distance club. Our sons satisfaction with his situation outweighs my desire to watch him play more often. Most major schools broadcast on the internet. We catch games when they come close enough and get to some big home series when we can. The games we get to are very special.

We used Gametracker once or twice when the school did not call the game on radio over the internet due to basketball conflicts.

I had well respected folks around the game tell me to force him to stay close by because he owed me that.

He don't owe me a thing.