Another Year, Another Ballpark Tour, Another…Country???

Life gets in the way sometimes.

That’s what Brett and I have to keep reminding ourselves as we think back to that unseasonably warm evening two years ago, at the corner bench in Just Another F***ing Brewery (no, literally, that’s the name of the brewery), when Brett turned to me and, offhandedly, said we should start a baseball blog.

I said it’d be fun. He said we should do it. Then we had another round. The night gets a little bit fuzzy after that, but a week later, we were writing about the World Baseball Classic, Andrew Miller’s arm slot, and a fantasy baseball argument that involved minor fisticuffs. Standing Room Only was born.

Two years later, our lives are very different. Brett is no longer student teaching–he’s teaching students at Harding High School, and coaching the JV baseball team. He also did the completely un-millennial thing and BOUGHT A HOUSE. I bounced around the country from Ohio to Maine to Connecticut to Los Angeles, then decided this whole America thing was overrated and moved across the Atlantic to London to get my master’s of science in history. (I know, it’s a weird concept).

As you can tell from the radio silence on the blog, our lives have been very busy of late. We’ve still been watching baseball–though I must confess, with the time zone, I’ve watched far less of it than I’d like. Brett still complains nightly about Jose Ramirez forgetting how to play baseball. I still wonder who the hell is even healthy in the Tigers rotation. We both still enjoy laughing at the dumpster fire that is the New York Mets. But, in our hectic schedules, we often haven’t found the time to share our opinions with you.

I’d like to say that will change. I’d like to say that you can expect articles at least weekly informing you, educating you, and, hopefully, making you laugh about our interest in the game of baseball. But, in life as in baseball, nothing is ever guaranteed. Our lives remain busy. I have a dissertation to finish and a job to find (if anyone has any suggestions I’m all ears). Brett has a house to remodel and a new curriculum to develop for his incoming students. As we approach the All Star Break and the dog days of summer, it’s likely that our lives will get more chaotic, not less.

There is one thing we can promise you, however, something that remains the core mission of Standing Room Only. We enjoy sharing our baseball opinions with you, but that was never the main purpose of this blog. We developed it to share our mutual love of ballparks, beers, and baseball with our friends and, indeed, with each other, long after we left our alma mater. Each summer, we’ve done that through a ballpark tour of Major and Minor League stadiums somewhere in America. This summer is no different.

Okay, maybe it’s a little different.

This past weekend, Brett and I attended the first-ever Major League Baseball game played in Europe–and yes, at least until October 31, Britain is still in Europe! Over the next week we’ll be sharing our impressions, opinions, and anecdotes about baseball’s venture across the pond and Brett’s first visit to Old Albion.

Brett will be writing about how MLB turned London Stadium into a ballpark, and how that ballpark experience compared to the (many) other ballparks we’ve attended back in the states. He’ll also write a piece on baseball’s wider exposure in London, particularly their takeover of London Yards at the Truman Brewery for a weekend of events, fraternity, and–naturally–numerous pints of beer.

Meanwhile, I’ll consider the quality of the product on the field between the Red Sox and Yankees during two wildly entertaining yet unorthodox baseball games, and address the state of MLB’s international expansion as a whole with an eye towards future opportunities for growing the game.

After that? Who knows. But there’s always more baseball to be played, and always another pint to be poured. And wherever those two combine, there always seems to be Standing Room Only.