Robert Santelli - The Baseball Fans Bucket List: 162 Things You Must Do, See, Get, and Experience Before You Die

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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

Baseball fansand there are many millions of us in America, and beyondlove lists. Lists are like line-ups. They can bring order to the game and can provide clarity to what unfolds on the baseball diamond. They can also provide plenty of ammunition for baseball talk and playful arguments in the bar, at the Sunday barbecue, and, of course, at the ballpark. Its an irresistible part of baseball culture to rank the top hitters of all time, the most dominating pitchers, the finest films, the best ballparks, the biggest heroes, the worst flops, and so on.

You can probably think of a lot of different baseball lists. One of the most important and certainly most personal is the baseball bucket list. Thats the list of all the things we wantor, for some of us, absolutely needto do, to see, to read, to watch, to own, and to experience, baseball-wise, before we kick the bucket. Both the term and the concept grew popular in 2008 after the Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman film,The Bucket List, hit movie theaters across the country. In the film, Nicholson and Freeman play a couple of aging men who are trying to finish the things on their bucket lists before its too late. Its a good filmfunny and touching and wise. It made a lot of people think about completing the items on their own bucket list, or if they didnt have such a list, to start making one.

I had one, which had to do with baseball, and I convinced my second daughter, Jenna, who is almost as big a fan of the game as I am, to create a baseball fan bucket list of her own. There was no need to wait until you were older to start one, I assured her. Put one together now and let it grow as your love of the game grows. Jenna took my advice; she jotted down the baseball things she wanted to do in her life and the ballparks she wanted to visit. I helped her with the baseball books I thought she should read. She already knew the films and the museums she wanted to see. When it was done, Jenna and I realized that what she had drawn up was a road map to a life-long pursuit of baseball joy.

When Jenna was a student at Oregon State University, the Beavers went to the NCAA College World Series three times, winning the national championship in 2006 and 2007. It was a remarkable feat for any school to win two NCAA baseball titles in a row, but it was especially sweet for OSU, a university that had won only one other NCAA championshipin cross countryduring its entire history of collegiate athletic competition.

When the Beaver baseball team went to the College World Series in 07, Jenna and I decided to go, too. Since attending the College World Series at some point was on both of our baseball fan bucket lists, why not, we thought, go when OSU would be defending its title? Jenna got the tickets, and we had a great time together, father and daughter sharing a common baseball love and cheering on the Beavers to victory in one of the great College World Series of all time. We both felt a wonderful sense of satisfaction when together, we checked off that we had been to the College World Series, the premier event in college baseball, and that our team had won.

While in Omaha, perennial home of the College World Series, Jenna and I met other people who were on a similar baseball mission. I dont recall exactly when it hit us to create a universal baseball fan bucket list and to blend our own personal lists with the things we believed that all baseball fans should have on theirs. But Im glad it happened. Visiting Wrigley Field, finally reading Roger KahnsThe Boys of Summer, seeing a game in every major league ballpark and completing dozens of the other items on my bucket list have been some of the most rewarding things Ive done as a baseball fan. The idea behindThe Baseball Fans Bucket Listwas to share such fun and enjoyment with fellow baseball fans as well as the knowledge Jenna and I have accumulated during our baseball journeys.

Ill be honest: I havent completed all the items included inThe Baseball Fans Bucket List, and certainly Jenna, with much of her baseball life in front of her, has a long way to go before shes done them all. But Ive gotten through many, actually most of them, thanks to this book, and its my goal that before I round the bases for the final time, my baseball fan bucket list is finished, too.

Why create and complete a baseball fan bucket list? Mostly because it keeps you connected to the game, along with its history and traditions and how and why it came to be the national pastime. Baseball is a special game to Americans. Most of us are introduced to it at an early age and, if were lucky, it stays with us until we kick the bucket. As a fan, I follow other sports, but baseball is in my heart and soul. It commands a lot of my leisure time, and its a reflection of who I am. I still play, though my legs arent what they used to be and my bat speed gets worse by the year. But, perhaps like you, I cant imagine living without baseball.

People ask me what team I root for when they learn of my baseball passion. Fact is, I grew up a Yankees fan, having been born and raised in New Jersey during the golden age of baseball in the 1950s and early 60s. Mickey Mantle was the player I worshipped the most, hence my love of chasing down fly balls in center field as a young ballplayer. But in my travels I became partial to small market teams, especially the Cleveland Indians. I moved with my family from New Jersey to Cleveland in 1995 to be the first Director of Education at the brand new Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. The Cleveland Indians clincher for me was living in the city during the Tribes mid-90s glory years and experiencing my first couple of World Series and my first All-Star game.

Some of my fondest baseball memories are of sitting at then-Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) with my wife, Cindy, and our three kids cheering on Jim Thome, Omar Vizquel, Manny Ramirez, Orel Hershiser and the other Indians in their quest to win a world championship for the city that hadnt enjoyed one since 1948. Unfortunately, it wasnt meant to be, and it broke every Cleveland Indians fans heart to see the team come up short in 1995, and then again in 1997. But my baseball memories from those years are rich and enduring, and it was in Cleveland that I put together my original baseball fan bucket list. Ive been checking off items on it ever since.

I know a lot of baseball fans. Many of us are incurable romantics. Were myth lovers, traditionalists, preservationists, nostalgia nuts, and self-professed keepers of baseballs eternal flame. We make pilgrimages to hallowed ballparks like Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago as if they were sacred places of worship, and to most baseball fans, they are. We go on road trips, crisscrossing the country to watch ballgames in Seattle, Detroit, Oakland, and Kansas City to soak up the local baseball excitement and to say weve been to this ballpark and to that one. In March, we head to Florida or Arizona for the annual ritual of spring training, where every fans faith in his or her favorite team is restored, and we leave thinking that maybe, just maybe, this will be the year they win it all.

Theres a lot more that goes with being a true baseball fan. Over 300,000 of us visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in out-of-the-way Cooperstown, New York each year. Opening Day is practically an American holiday for baseball fans, and we turn out for it in droves to Major League Baseball parks. We coach Little League baseball and watch our sons play high school baseball. We read the latest baseball books and see the latest baseball movies. Despite the recent steroids scandal, the obscene salaries, and the soaring ticket prices, attendance at major league and minor league games is greater than ever because baseball is more popular than ever.

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