About one-third of the way through their trip of a lifetime, the four high school graduates from Queen Anne, known as “The Ballpark Boys,” have left Toronto, Canada, after watching the Blue Jays play on Tuesday night, and are heading to the Big Apple.
In their quest to visit every major league ballpark in 54 days, the foursome are expected to reach lucky game number 13 tonight, Wednesday, June 29, and be sitting in Yankee Stadium to see the mighty Yanks take on the Millwaukee Brewers.
The boys appear to be holding up incredibly well so far. Not so for their 1999 Volkswagen Westfalia van, which has suffered bad tires, various aches and pains and plenty of shimmies along the way. The trip also got off to a bit of an inauspicious start on the morning of June 11, when they were given a speeding ticket not 20 miles outside of Seattle as they headed for Los Angeles.
Just a small bump on the road for this group that has been treated like royalty from Los Angeles to Chicago to Pittsburgh. Along the way, they’ve met a number of major league ballplayers, been given tours of the ballparks and have even found time to get some sleep.
But the trip has also opened their eyes to a lot about America they may not have actually realized. The following is one particularly poignant excerpt from a recent blog written by Travis Smith concerning the city of Detroit:
“Driving into the city we passed run-down shacks and empty stores on the side of the freeway. Thinking this was the “vacated” part everybody talked about, I kept my mind open for what the downtown had to offer…but the first skyscraper I saw was a deserted 40-story brick building with no windows. On the next block was an old stone tower with chunks missing from its side and chain-link fences surrounding the exterior. Detroit, Michigan, is a city made up of empty buildings…”
Travis goes on to write about his encounters with some of the people living in a particularly tragic neighborhood in Detroit. It’s engrossing reading, especially for parents imagining their own 18-year-olds facing the same situation.
At deadline, all four ballpark boys could not be reached for comment as they rolled across the Canadian landscape. For those interested in following the exploits of the Ballpark Boys, visit http://boysofsummer2011.com.
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