Tag Archives: dan lindsey

Rating the Best Baseball Ballparks.

Here’s a great read courtesy of Dan Lindsey’s “Diamond Baseball Tours” Facebook page and reprinted from the New York Times “Five Thirty Eight” Column by Nate Silver.  My home park is AT&T in San Francisco and it’s without a doubt one of the very best.  

“Classic Primanti Bros Sandwich” includes salad and french fries piled inside”

However, I can understand the PNC Pittsburgh #1 ranking.  I was there in 2010 and the first clue was the accessible parking.  We were on a tour bus and the bus parked less than a 5 minute walk away from the main entrance.  Ordinary tour buses dropped us off and then we walked a marathon to get back to the bus, if we could even find it!   Second great thing about the park was the food.  “Primanti Bros.” may sound familiar.   They’re on a “100 Things To Do Before you die” list.  It’s a beautiful park with friendly staff. 

“Fenway’s Wooden Scoreboard”

The #2 Ranking to Boston’s Fenway Park is also understandable.  I’ve been there twice and both times it was an emotional experience.  Probably the park’s history, and I don’t know why, but the “Sweet Caroline” and “MTA” songs that were played both times brought the house down with everyone singing at the top of their lungs.  I can’t explain it ~ neither song has anything to do with baseball.  It’s just one of those things.   It’s an old and beautiful wooden park with a lot of class and truly devoted fans, where they still post the daily baseball scores on a wooden board by hand. 

So it was easy to acquiesce those two parks to my beloved AT&T.  Good read and a great job Nate Silver, bringing us right up to the 2012 playoffs.  

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Attention Baseball Fans! Win an All Expense Paid Baseball Trip!

I just received an email from Dan Lindsey, owner of Diamond Baseball Tours, announcing their first (hopefully annual) contest just in time for the World Series!   As GFBB readers know,  I blogged daily on my 7 day baseball tour this summer, writing on every game and each ballpark we visited, and tours of Mickey Mantle’s Restaurant and Cooperstown Hall of Fame in New York.  You can read the daily blogs from my June and July Posts.  It was a great experience and I’d recommend it to anyone.  Click here http://diamondbaseballtours.com/ to find out Dan’s “World Series Prediction Contest”.   Good luck and hope you win!   GFBB

Baseball Tour! * 7 Games in 7 days! * 7 Days to Go!

Woo Hoo!  Dragging out the luggage today getting ready for my baseball trip in exactly one week .   The plane actually leaves on Thursday night and we’ll arrive early, very early, in Boston Friday morning and take a transfer to Baltimore.   I’ve been fortunate to have  traveled to some really great places these past 10 years.   I’ve been on cruises to the Eastern & Western Caribbean, the Mexican Riviera and the Mediterranean.   Toured England, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain and Monaco.  But the God’s truth is my very favorite vacation was the baseball tour I took in 2004 with my grandson, Jake, who was 13 at the time.   I knew back then I wanted to take this trip again.   So here it is, 6 years later, and this is the same tour I took in 2004.    There’s  lots of  baseball tours out there but  I’d recommend Dan Lindsey’s Diamond Baseball Tours to anyone.  They’re great!   Also, they have different tours and my goal is to take them all!   But this time I’m taking the same tour so I can share the experience with my spouse, sister and brother-in-law who are joining me .    Here’s the schedule and I’ll share experiences daily as they happen.  At least thats the plan……

  • Saturday June 26  Washington @ Baltimore
  • Sunday June 27 Minnesota @ New York Mets
  • Monday June 28  Baseball Hall of Fame @ Cooperstown
  • Tuesday June 29 Seattle @ New York Yankees
  • Wednesday June 30 Tampa @ Boston
  • Thursday July 1 Philadelphia @ Pittsburg
  • Friday July 2 Cincinnati @ Chicago Cubs 

 So this week I’m cleaning the house so the babysitter won’t think I’m a slob (baby is a  Pomeranian),  buying last minute necessities like coffee filters, espresso,  miniature bottles of everything (minimize problems with TSA),  batteries for camera, laptop (whew. major investment!) suncreen and items to be determined.   We’ll talk again in a few days!   This is gonna be fun…….I wish you could all go with me!   No, really!!