Ultimate Baseball
Road Trip Blog

April 25, 2011 - A recent article named 5 of MLB's baseball stadiums as the most iconic stadiums to visit: Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, Camden Yards, AT&T Park, and Citi Field. The article by Fox News outlines the reasons for why you should visit each of the ballparks from the atmosphere, food selection, and unique features like the ivy-covered walls at Wrigley, the Green Monstah at Fenway, and views from the parks in Baltimore and San Francisco.

If you haven't made it to these parks, we would like to invite you to join us on one of our premier sports travel packages this year. We'll not only get you to the ballparks, but we also include several other extras like great seats, great hotels, player appearances, baseball stadium tours, and other trip specific features.

Check out the tour vacations at www.BigLeagueTours.com and book your package today!

January 2, 2009 - A favorite one of our MLB Tours each year is our Big Apple Tour. This premier sports travel package includes two games at Yankee Stadium and one game at Citi Field. We'll stay in the heart of midtown Manhattan where you'll be close to Times Square, Fifth Avenue, and Central Park and so many restaurants, shops and sites.

This tour will provide you with two great chances to enjoy games at Yankee Stadium as the Yankees host the Blue Jays in an AL East division rivalry. The times for the games haven't been posted yet but we're sure that we'll either be entertained with fireworks for the 4th of July at Yankee Stadium or we'll be able to enjoy the festivities in the world's greatest city.

The next day we'll take a stadium tour and explore the city before we head out to Citi Field to see the Reds take on the Mets in their new home. If you haven't been to Citi Field yet, you should make the trip. It's a fantastic improvement over the old Shea Stadium. The design did a great job to incorporate old stadium features with up-to-date comforts.

To see more about this and other tour vacations being offered by Big League Tours, visit our website now to get all the details.

December 17, 2009 - East Coast 1 is the granddaddy of our baseball vacation packages. The tour package includes 6 games in 6 different baseball stadiums, a free day to explore New York City, a day at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, a player appearance, and baseball stadium tours at some of baseball's most hallowed halls.

We'll begin in Baltimore, making the hotel there our home base for a few days. We'll have a kickoff reception at the hotel on Saturday night. On Sunday morning, we'll head to Nationals Park for an afternoon game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Nationals. Monday, we'll drive up to Philadelphia to see the Padres and Phillies. Tuesday, we'll take a stadium tour of Orioles Park and see the Yankees and Orioles play.

On Wednesday, we'll board the motor coach and head up to New York City, our home base for the next three nights. We'll go to Citi Field to see the Mets host the Padres. Thursday, you'll have the day on your own to shop 5th Avenue, take escorted tours of the city's sites, or to stroll through Central Park.

Friday we'll tour Yankee Stadium and see the Yankees play the Astros. Saturday we'll trek up to Cooperstown for the day at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. We'll grab dinner in Cooperstown and then head to Boston. Sunday, we'll take in the Phillies and Red Sox and, if the schedule allows, we'll take a stadium tour of Fenway Park.

The hotel is provided Sunday night after the Red Sox game as part of the package. You also have the option of coming into Baltimore early or staying later in Boston so let us customize your sports vacations for you.

This premier sports travel package promises to be a great time. For more details on this baseball tour and our other MLB Tours, visit BigLeagueTours.com.

December 16, 2009 - As interesting as it is to visit the historic ballparks throughout the big leagues, it's always exciting to check out a new baseball stadium. 2009 offered us two new parks in New York City with Citi Field and Yankee Stadium. 2010 will bring us an open air ballpark in a town that's grown accustomed to a dome.

We'll begin our tour in Minneapolis for a game at the new Target Field. From Minneapolis, we'll head to Milwaukee for a game at Miller Park and some tailgating with the great Brewers fans who really know how to party. After we've had our fill of sausages, we'll head to Chicago for some Windy City baseball.

Once there, we'll head to Wrigley Field to see the classic rivalry of the Cardinals and Cubs. You'll then have a free day to explore the city - take in a museum, shop till you drop, or hang out at your favorite places to eat (cheeburger cheeburger, anyone?). We'll wrap up this trip by visiting US Cellular to see Josh Hamilton and his Rangers take on the White Sox.

To see more about this and other MLB Tours being offered by Big League Tours, visit our website now to get all the details.

ESPN's John Bancroft posted an article recently about the home runs that have been occuring at Yankee Stadium. Here's the opening of the article:

The Bronx Bombers are back in full force.

The Yankees have been hitting home runs at a record-setting pace at their new ballpark … and they'd have been on pace for more if they hadn't run up against Craig Stammen and the upstart Nationals during their most recent homestand. Through 35 games at the new Yankee Stadium, the Yankees have swatted 66 homers, putting them on pace for 153, four more than the record 149 hit by the 1996 Rockies at Coors Field. The Yankees and their opponents, meanwhile, have combined for 119 homers at Yankee Stadium, putting the park on pace for 250, the sixth-most hit at one ballpark in a single season in baseball history.

To think, if not for the Yankees and Nationals hitting a mere four home runs in their June 16-18 series, that full-season pace would swell to 291, only 12 behind the single-season record of 303 hit at Coors Field in 1999.

No wonder they call it "Coors Field East."

I know Yankee Stadium has taken a lot of criticism for the amount of home runs hit, the cost of the seats, and price of the stadium. However, as a baseball fan who has traveled around the country on many baseball road trips, it's my opinion that it's one of the best places to catch a baseball game. Sight lines are great (from the seats and the concourse). Traffic moves well throughout the ballpark. The seats are more comfortable than those at any other baseball stadium.

Big League Tours will be in New York City in a few weeks to check out the New Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, take a private tour of Yankee Stadium, and have a Big League Player Experience with Art Shamsky, member of the '69 Miracle Mets team. For more info, check out the details on our Big Apple Tour. Hope you can join us!

July 10, 2009 - This week's Sports Illustrated has an article about the '69 Miracle Mets team and prominently features Art Shamsky in the article. Art is appearing on our upcoming Big Apple Tourwhich features games at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field. Here's an excerpt from the article:

Maybe you were in New York that summer and fall, rooting for the Mets, the lovable (cue team jingle here) M-E-T-S Mets. You've been an optimist ever since. Of course you are. The club was a baseball comedy act from the year of its premature birth, 1962, right through 1968, losing an average of 105 games a season. And then came the surprise of '69. Elsewhere it was a horrible year, but New York witnessed a miracle: the Mets winning 100 games in the regular season, then beating the Baltimore Goliaths in the World Series. The miracle of Flushing Meadows, Queens.

Art Shamsky had no idea how lousy a year it had been. Not then. Shamsky, sharing duty with Ron Swoboda, patrolled Shea Stadium's rightfield, the first swath of green you'd see coming off the number 7 train. Shamsky was in his own little world that baseball season, 40 years ago, when Tom Seaver was a rising pitching god and Nolan Ryan a wild-armed reliever and spot starter and Jerry Grote, Texas badass, caught them both. Shamsky was a Jewish kid from suburban St. Louis, living in Manhattan, hearing kids (you?) scream Art Shamsky! as his big old Lincoln Continental entered the Shea Stadium players' lot, then going out after the game with the brothers—Cleon Jones, Tommie Agee—listening to jazz, wearing shades and long sideburns and striped pants, sipping house reds. It was many years later that he started making regular trips to the New York Public Library, in midtown, researching a book, twirling microfilm, making lists, catching up.

Good News, 1969: Man on the moon.

Bad News, 1969: Vietnam War, Manson murders, Hurricane Camille, the Chicago Seven trial, Chappaquiddick, inflation....

Shamsky is the unofficial class secretary of the '69 Mets, a regular when his teammates come together for parties, reunions, fantasy camps, golf tournaments, barbecues, card signings. Weddings. Funerals.

They gathered to bury Agee, centerfielder and leadoff hitter, in 2001. Agee—who'd almost single-handedly won Game 3 of the Series with a first-inning homer and for-the-ages catches on drives by Elrod Hendricks and Paul Blair—died of a heart attack, age 58, in his office on Second Avenue in midtown Manhattan, where he worked in the title search business. Shamsky was best man at Tommie's second wedding, in 1985, when he married Maxcine Green, a New York schoolteacher. O.K., not precisely best man. Best-man-on-deck, ready to pinch-hit if Cleon didn't show, and for the longest time that day it looked as if Cleon wouldn't show. But then he slipped in, cool as ever, saying, "Told you I'd get here." Rest in peace, Tommie.

The article is pretty interesting and points out how many young players were on that team that went on to have great careers. We're thrilled to have Art joining us in New York City on one of our upcoming baseball road trips. For a chance to meet Art Shamsky and other big league ball players, join us on any of our baseball tours for an unforgettable vacation.

April 4, 2009 - By now you've probably heard a lot about New York's two new baseball stadiums. But have you given much thought to what food they will offer? Frankly (no hot dog puns intended...), I hadn't much either. However, Florance Fabricant of the New York Times has recently outlined the food offerings at the New Yankee Stadium and Citi Field. Here's a sampling of what you can expect:

Steak sandwiches, lobster rolls, barbecue, beer and wine, heritage pork porchetta over kielbasa sauerkraut, crab cake with a cauliflower and tomato relish, soft tacos, pork carnitas, skirt steak or pumpkin seed and chicken mole, Mexican-style corn on the cob dusted with cheese and mayo, Kansas City ribs, pulled pork sandwiches, chicken wings, hamburgers, milkshake, fries, lobster rolls, fried local flounder sandwiches, blackened shrimp po’ boys, fried calamari, clam and corn chowder, fresh produce, knish, skinless and natural casing dogs, corn dogs on a stick, a Chicago dog, a New York City dog, smoked chicken bratwurst, natural hot dogs and corn dogs, Hebrew National hot dogs, a glatt kosher hot dog and, a smaller frank.

It appears that even non-baseball fans have a reason to go to the games now - you can eat your way around the stadium! While we're known as baseball trip planners, you'll have to figure out the food stands on your own, at least for a while until we make our own way around the stadium!

If you are looking for help planning your baseball spring trip or if you are interested in taking one of our MLB Tours, we would love to make your baseball vacations the ultimate tour vacations they can be.

New Citi Field is set to open in April 2009 and many escorted tours have really started selling!

November 24, 2008 - Citi Field will be a great place for baseball fans to catch a game. There is a more intimate atmosphere with the seating angled towards the infield and set down lower. The Mets and Citi Field have comissioned a statue of Jackie Robinson for when guests first enter the stadium and named Jackie Robinson Rotunda. 

New Citi Field will be a great new addition to baseball stadiums in the United States. Check out what the new stadium will look like when it opens in 2009.

Don't forget to check out our website for all the baseball trips we are offereing to the east coast in '09!

October 7, 2008 - The local business paper, the Indianapolis Business Journal, featured Big League Tours in this week's edition. Some things they elude to and that you'll be hearing a lot from us about in the coming weeks and months are the new features that we're adding for 2009.

All 30 MLB Baseball Stadiums in 2009
With 20+ tours on our schedule, we're offering at least one trip to every Major League baseball stadium. We'll include behind-the-scenes stadium tours every chance we get.

Current Players Meeting Us On Tours
We've offered Big League Player Experiences on our package tours since we've started. That's where we have traditionally brought in former MLB players to tell baseball stories, get pictures with our guests, and sign autographs. This year, we're including some players still on the roster! It should be a real treat for our guests.

Opening Day at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium
Major League Baseball welcomes two new stadiums into its ranks this year and we're going to be there when they open. Why don't you join us on one of our baseball travel tours for these historic openings?

Stay tuned for trip details about our 2009 MLB Tours!

Baseball Stadium Memories at Shea Stadium


September 23, 2008 - At Big League Tours one of our favorite stops is heading out to Queens to see the Mets. Most people don't go to see the stadium per se, but rather to just plain and simple see a Mets game. In 2009, we will head out to Citi Field to see a beautiful ballpark and a great game.



Here are some great memories at Shea Stadium:

April 19, 1964: Al Jackson pitches a six-hitter in the Mets' 6-0 victory against the Pirates, their first victory in the new stadium.

Aug. 15, 1965: Shea rocks. Greeted by a shrill din produced by 55,600, mostly teenage girls, that made their performance impossible to hear, the Beatles change the music world again, presenting a concert on the largest stage ever.

Oct. 9, 1965: No. 7 Notre Dame beats unranked Army, 17-0, in Shea's first big-time college football.

Oct. 6, 1969: With Nolan Ryan pitching seven innings in relief, the Mets come from behind to beat the Braves to sweep the first National League Championship Series.



1969: “Miracle” Mets are considered one of the most improbable champions in baseball history. They trailed by 9.5 games in mid-August, yet won the division and the National League Championship Series before upsetting the Baltimore Orioles, who had won 109 games, in the World Series.



Aug. 6, 1970: Nine days before the first anniversary of Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin headline the Summer Festival of Peace.



Oct. 3, 1979: Pope John Paul II says mass at Shea after heavy rains threaten the event. The rain stops as the Popemobile enters the park.



May 6, 1983: With the Mets floundering in fifth place, Darryl Strawberry is promoted to the big leagues. He goes hitless with three strikeouts in four at-bats, walks twice and scores the decisive run in the Mets' 13-inning, 7-4 victory against the Reds.

1986: The New York Mets come back from a 3-2 series deficit to win Game 6 (Oct. 25) and Game 7 (Oct. 27) against the Boston Red Sox and clinch the World Series.

July 28, 1993: A ninth-inning double by Eddie Murray drives in the decisive runs in a 5-4 victory against the expansion Marlins that ends the record-setting losing streak of Anthony Young at 27 games. Young had allowed the Marlins to take the lead in the top of the ninth. The Mets bottom out with 103 losses, equaling the most ever by an established team in an expansion era, at the time.

April 15, 1998: Straw returns. With Yankee Stadium closed for repairs, the Yankees play the Angels at Shea. And their designated hitter, one Darryl Strawberry hits a home run, his 127th at the park, still the most ever

.

Sept. 21, 2001: Bagpipes and baseball. The Mets engage the Braves in the first professional sporting event in New York to follow the attacks on the World Trade Center. The emotional evening climaxes with a two-run home run by Piazza in the eighth inning that creates the final 3-2 score.

Let Big League Tours know what your favorite memories are of Shea Stadium. Whether it's one from when you were there or any other.