baseballmapper blog

It’s planning season. Cold winter days are for planning Baseball Roadtrips. We take great pride in having a free tool that helps others plan baseball trips. One of our favorite baseball roadtrip planners comes from X / Twitter: @MappingThePath. The planning and detail that goes into his trips, and the documentation of his trips is really incredible. Here’s a link to his 2024 trip. Planning a trip like this takes many tools, but we hope your process starts with the baseballmapper map. It shouldn’t end with our map though. There are other fantastic tools to use as well. Here’s some of the best Baseball Roadtrip planning tools out right now…

Man, 2023 has flown by in a flash. As the World Series is just about under way, I can’t help but feel that I missed out on so much baseball this season. I had to look back to do a recount, and somehow, we didn’t even make it to a dozen ballgames this year! Most of my regular stops, like the White Sox, Beloit Sky Carp, and Kenosha Kingfish, are typically places I frequent throughout the summer. However this year, I was fortunate to squeeze a single game in at each in the midst of a crazy family schedule.

In honor of the 2023 National Hat Day, we have decided to do a little comparison between our favorites, and the latest in AI technology.

If you aren’t familiar with ChatGPT, it is the latest chatbot release from OpenAI. This chatbot is incredibly capable, so much so, that referring to it as just a chatbot is underselling it. It’s capable of authoring completely new and distict essays. These essays are impressive enough that schools are banning it on the grounds that students are able to use it to cheat on school assignments. It can solve math problems, write computer code, and hold conversations. It also has some opinions. That’s what we are here to test…

When you drive around the country with the main focus of trying to take in baseball, one unintended consequence is that the entire trip takes on its own memory. It’s more than just a ballpark, what the score was, or a cool new hat you bought. Being that there is baseball literally everywhere, that just means being able to enjoy countless unique cities, local traditions, favorite restaurants, and significant landmarks. These are the major bonuses of baseball road trips in America.

Some of our favorite hats are small furry mammals. We call them rodents, but regardless of the scientific definition, they’ve invaded baseball and are taking over the hearts and minds of hat collectors everywhere. Give us some breadth here with the rodent description, we aren’t trying to be scientific here. As any minor league hat collector can attest to, these hats are conversation starters. Wear a rodent logo on your baseball hat, and you will find yourself talking baseball with complete strangers. It’s a great way to socialize these smaller leagues and teams to fans of baseball that may not know about how much baseball exists around us in America. When you are done with this article, find more great logos and baseball near you by clicking around our map of baseball.

We are already halfway through the month of March and instead of being able to watch Spring Training, we’re left waiting for the smoke to clear after the recent labor strife with the MLB and its players. And yet, teams from various other leagues around the country have gone out of their way in recent months to let fans know that there is NO issue with their seasons starting on time. The players will be in uniform, gates will be open, hot dogs and beers will be ready for consumption, and most importantly baseball will be played on their fields. It warms a guy’s heart to know that the minor, independent, and collegiate summer leagues have our back when the hope for baseball seems lost.

I think that if I had ever been a ball player, I would have found myself in the independent leagues. Of course, I’ll never know, but it is fun to speculate. It has to be so hard to make it as a pro. In fact, everything I’ve ever read shows that it’s damn near impossible. The odds are really against you. Something like only 10% of NCAA ball players ever get drafted by Major League Baseball (and that number could dwindle as the league has already begun to shrink the draft from 40 rounds to 20 in the last two years). But that’s the beauty of it, right? You don’t have to be a highly-touted recruit, or even get drafted by an MLB team, to love and play the game. Even as a fan, I’m incredibly passionate about baseball. I never want it to end. I get borderline depressed when it’s over. And that’s why I think I would have been a great indy ball player. These are athletes playing baseball strictly out of love and not really for the money in the paycheck. That’s frankly because we’re not talking about a whole lot of coin at this level. According to Indy Ball Island, players would be most fortunate to make around $3,000 a month at this level. Some independent ball players don’t even get a salary at all. So in these players’ cases, it really is about not wanting baseball to end.

Baseball Twitter is a beautiful place. Yes, I really mean that. I think most people would assume that it’s nothing but hate and venom spewed at teams, but that’s not really the case at all in my experience. It’s a diverse group of team super fans, former players and current ones, coaches, front office staff, ballpark chasers, collectors, artists, and other makers. In other words, it’s an eclectic group where you can easily find people who share a common interest. And who knows…maybe you can even make some friends.

When we heard the Savannah Bananas were doing a One City World Tour, we knew we had to go. The Savannah Bananas chose Hank Aaron Stadium in Mobile Alabama as the location to play two “Banana Ball” games. After securing the permission from family, clearing the calendar, we decided to make it a road trip. At just under 1,000 miles and 14.5 hours, it was a long one. Thanks to google location tracking, I had an up to the minute accounting of our trip.

Earlier in the year, the question was asked on Twitter by Benjamin Hill wondering if anybody could build a full meal from their own MiLB hats. That got us thinking: one of the major draws to baseball games for fans (and even non-fans) is the ballpark fare. Maybe not coincidentally, both main and alternate identities in MiLB (as well as other leagues) are often food items or food themed. Put a sandwich with a ball in “its” hand and people want it! There really is a TON to choose from. We thought it was worth listing a few of our favorites in one place right now…in case you wanted a food/drink themed hat of your own. Let’s start with the food!