The Great Ohio Ballpark Tour with Scott and Brett

As poor unemployed college graduates (well, soon for Scott), we don’t typically have the money to go on a big spring break tour or to travel during the summer. With me being from Ohio and Scott being a new resident of Maine, we know that our chances to go to baseball games are limited. We often go to Indians games in the fall and spring, grabbing a pair of district tickets and enjoying a free drink in the standing room section of “The Corner.” When we discussed how Standing Room Only would be different from other blogs and what our goals were, we both said that the fan experience was something we felt was forgotten. That night, we decided that we needed to go on a trip.

Now with a limited budget we knew this would be difficult. The College of Wooster seemed to always take money from our bank accounts right when we wanted to go watch a game. With Scott graduating in May, we knew we needed to act fast.

Thankfully the baseball gods were watching over us, and what started as a game or two turned into a week-long affair. For each park, we picked standing room (wow its almost like we planned it this way) or a bleacher seat if we couldn’t find a standing room ticket. Our idea was to give you the fan experience from both major and minor league parks around Ohio.

Here is the schedule:

• May 16: Toledo Mudhens (10:35 a.m.) and Cleveland Indians (6:10 p.m.)
• May 17: Akron Rubber Ducks (10:35 a.m.)
• May 18: Columbus Clippers (11:05 a.m.)
• May 19: Lake County Captains (6:30 p.m.)
• May 20: Dayton Dragons (7:00 p.m.)
• May 21: Cincinnati Reds (1:10 p.m.)

This trip is going to serve two purposes: for us, it’s our last baseball trip for a while, and for you, our devoted readers, it’s a chance to experience how great baseball in Ohio is. We will give you a tour of each ballpark, show you the best deals, and sample some of the local ballpark food and drink. We will give you the run down of the action from each game, follow the top prospects for the Indians, Tigers, and Reds and see how many oddities we can catch on camera.

Over the next seven weeks, we will do a preview of each park that we are visiting. We give you a brief history of each park, talk about any renovations or cool events going on this year, where the best seats are, and what foods and drinks you absolutely need to have. These previews will help you get a sense of what parks are in Ohio and the communities they are in.

Tune in next week when we give you a taste of Fifth Third Field, home of the Toledo Mudhens, and help you plan your visit there. Until then, we will be saving you a spot on the drink rail.