Constructive Summer

Regular readers of Chris Sabo’s Goggles probably already know that I live in Chicago (I haven’t lived in Cincinnati since 2000). Late last year, the company I work for was looking for a new copywriter (thankfully, not to replace me). So, being the writer-extraordinaire that I am, I was asked to participate in the interview process.

After combing through the stack of résumés, it was clear that the most qualified candidate was the girl from Cincinnati, who just happened to be a huge Reds fan. No favoritism here whatsoever.

Sam Ujvary (don’t you dare call her Samantha) grew up in Delhi, went to Oak Hills High School, then to Ohio University, eventually moving to Chicago in the summer of 2011.

Despite the fact that she had never heard of Chris Sabo’s Goggles (for shame!), we hired her anyway. Mostly because one of the first things she did in her interview was offer to show me a picture of the Cincinnati Reds pumpkin she had just carved for Halloween.

I believe her exact words were, “Do you want to see my pumpkin?”

Two months later, our shared cubical wall is adorned with various Reds items, including Sean Casey, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Joey Votto bobbleheads. The Cubs fans in the office love us.

Did I mention that she went to all 30 MLB ballparks in the summer of 2009?

Since Sam sits five-feet from me at work, I decided to talk to her about her experience doing what most of us can only dream to do.

You’re barely old enough to remember the Reds winning the World Series in 1990—which makes me feel really old—but do you remember when you started to root-root-root for the Redlegs?

When I was young, I went through a phase where I was my father’s shadow. He has three daughters, and we were all a little tomboyish, but for some reason, I stuck with the idea of loving the Reds. I can’t be certain when exactly, but I remember watching the movie Major League, and wanting so badly for there to be a movie about my hometown baseball team.

Do you have any favorite Reds memories?

My first Big Red Smokey. I’ll never forget it.

When I was home from college one summer, I was working for a temp agency who knew my love of baseball and hired me to dress up as the Quidam character from Cirque Du Soleil to deliver the first pitch at a game. Unfortunately, the character is a headless clown, so I was only able to escort someone to the mound for the delivery. I played the role flawlessly.

When did you come up with the idea to visit all 30 of the MLB ballparks?

I was taking my victory lap in college (fifth year), had just applied to the Peace Corps, and was trying to put off finding a “real” job until after I heard back. My close friend, Matt, had also just applied, so he was on board with putting our adult lives on hold and spending our last possible summer being irresponsible college grads.

Travelling from city to city is challenging enough, so I imagine the MLB schedule complicated things even more. How difficult was it to plan this trip?

Planning the schedule took about a month. I had to log onto each team’s website to copy their schedule, and coordinate and cross-reference with special events and housing availability—it was a beautiful mess. I came up with two routes. We chose which cities we wanted to stay in longer and the final route was chosen based solely upon where I wanted to be on my birthday.
Once we were in San Diego, our very good friend, Elle, flew out to meet us, and traveled with us for a few weeks. Since her trip start and end date was tentative, we had to arrange it so we had tickets together– since we had purchased some of the tickets before the trip began.

Did any of the ballparks recognize your journey (on the JumboTron, PA announcement, etc.)?

Our first stop was The Jake in Cleveland. We were with about 40 people who had posters with our info on it, so we were on the JumboTron for the first game.
As a graduation present from my mother, she tirelessly communicated with someone from Great American Ballpark, resulting in the opportunity for me and Matt to deliver the game ball at our stop in Cincinnati.
Thirty stadiums and we were never on the Kiss Cam. *Sigh of relief*

What was your favorite ballpark?

What a silly question: Great American Ball Park—duh.

I can’t choose just one, so I’ve given myself a top 5 (keep in mind these are different than top 5 favorite cities):

1. Coors Field
2. Safeco Field
3. Camden Yards
4. Miller Park
5. Great American Ball Park

Okay, what were your favorite cities?

I don’t know if I can choose just five cities. There were cities I liked seeing, cities I liked going out in, and cities that gave me the best hangovers I’ve ever had (if there is such a thing as an oxymoronic “best hangover”). Everyone really tried to make their city the best city we were in.

What was your least favorite ballpark?

Any dome. Playing baseball inside is sacrilegious.

Did you run into any problems that risked messing up your schedule?

There were two issues we ran into immediately, but one worked out in our favor. We were leaving Boston at 11am to make a 7pm game at Yankee Stadium. Once we were on the road, my sister called to inform me the game was in fact at 1pm. We were already late. To make matters worse, we were sitting in traffic in the rain, waiting for our car to turn into the DeLorean to fly us the rest of the way there. We showed up around 7:30 to find the rain delay had just ended. Lucky, right? So was the fact that no one wanted to wait 6 hours for the game, so it was first come, first served. We were able to snag seats 10 rows up from the first base line.

The second problem didn’t end in our favor. My car broke down in Nowheresville, PA when we were on our way to DC to see the Nationals. 4 hours and $300 later, we made it to our Nation’s capital for the last couple of innings.

We didn’t know anyone in Seattle to stay with, which could have potentially put the kibosh on our trip. A cousin of a family friend offered her home to us for 2 days. Her family pulled some strings to get us a tour of Safeco Field, her children baked us cookies, and they provided us with old sleeping bags for our trip to Yellowstone the next day.

Oh, and the Cubs game which was initially on a rain delay was canceled. But only Matt counts that as a stroke of bad luck, as I had already seen a game at Wrigley—also I was ok with going home, due to a late night the previous night which led to a severe case of dehydration.

Any suggestions for someone interested in visiting all of the MLB ballparks?

Do it. It’s the baseball fan’s equivalent to traveling Europe.

Plan it out, expect delays and set-backs, and tell people. Word was out about our trip, and everyone wanted to be part of it. We had friends/family in every city who were more than happy to offer us a place to stay, and all too eager to be our tour guides. Everyone wanted us to write that they lived in the best city.

Give credit where credit is due to anyone who helps you. We sent postcards from future stadiums to thank our gracious hosts.

Make sure you go with someone you won’t want to kill after being in the car with them for 11 hours at a time. After over 13,000 miles, Matt and I are as close as we’ve ever been.

You can read about Sam’s travels at America’s Favorite Roadtrip (just start at February and work your way up), or you can follow her on Twitter @SaLouUjv.