BONDING OVER BASEBALL: Years-long tour of all MLB stadiums proves to be a home run for father-son

By RUSS BROWN

On a sunny summer day in Louisville in 2011 Gabe Arnold Sr. and his namesake, Gabe Arnold II, loaded their gear into the car and hit the road; baseball caps pulled low against the golden glow of the early light. This wasn't just an ordinary trip -- it was a celebration of years spent sharing the love of a game, a chance to reconnect, and a gift neither would forget. It's also a perfect story for the month of June that contains Father's Day.

The sentimental and meaningful journey would ultimately cover an estimated 26,000 miles  miles by planes, trains and automobiles over nine seasons in 12 years to visit all 30 major league baseball parks in the U.S. and Toronto, Canada, 28 cities in 18 states. They actually saw 34 games because they watched two at parks in Boston, New York (Yankees), Chicago (Cubs) and St. Louis. They witnessed 9-11 ceremonies in stadiums in Los Angeles and Minneapolis, which was especially moving for the elder Arnold, who was a U.S. Army veteran.

"That was really neat," Gabe said. "Because Pops loves the American flag, and they honored all the police officers and first responders in the military."

The annual trips were divided into clusters based on their proximity and ease of travel, such as Baltimore, Washington D.C., Philadelphia and Pittsburgh; or San Diego, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Calif. and Phoenix.

"We were just there to see the home team," Gabe said. "We didn't care who they were playing."

However, the pilgrimage wasn't limited to baseball stadiums. Not by a longshot. Along the way, the duo also saw the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, numerous other national and state parks, monuments and landmarks along with multiple breweries, some of the oldest bars in the country, and an untold number of additional attractions.

 It was a father-son bond made stronger with every mile traveled. The trips would have taken several years less, but they were interrupted three times -- by Gabe II's new job, Hurricane Harvey, and the 2020 COVID pandemic.

"Some of the older cities have a lot of history, like New York, Baltimore, Boston, DC," Gabe said. "So besides baseball, we'd always try to spend a day or two in each place to get a little flavor for the city. Tourism stuff; let's go here, let's go there. We covered a lot of ground everywhere we went. Every trip had its own thing I really loved about it and the games were always fun. What a great way to spend time with your father and see the country."

Some of the more colorful places they discovered were Fred's Not Here restaurant and Steam Whistle Brewery in Toronto; White Horse Saloon in New York; the Harley Davidson Museum in Milwaukee; Pike Place Chowder in Seattle; and Cat's Eye Pub and The Horse You Came In On Saloon in Baltimore.

They enjoyed the famous Cheers bar in Boston, the Space Needle and the original Starbucks in Seattle; the Presidio National Park Site, Golden Gate Bridge and Mount Tamalpais State Park in San Francisco; and the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston. Of course, no baseball sojourn would have been complete without stops at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. and the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa.

"We saw lots of cornfields," Gabe's dad quipped of the Iowa portion. "Every place we went was so different," he added. "And our little side trips were just wonderful. We stayed in mostly nice hotels and the traveling wasn't too bad."

Given the potential for problems of one kind or another, it's somewhat amazing that they were able to avoid any serious complications. "Everything went smoothly. There were no issues," Gabe said. "And everyone we came in contact with was so nice and helpful."

The elder Arnold, a former computer security expert who is now 86 and living in the St. Petersburg, Fla. area, was 71 when the adventure began, 83 when it ended. Neither he nor his son can recall specific details about the origin of the trip, just the reasoning behind it.

"Pops and I started talking about our baseball trips because of our mutual love of baseball and so we could spend some time together," said Gabe II, who put together all the itineraries and handled all the reservations.

"At first, we just sort of joked about it," the senior Arnold said. "After a few years, I said, 'Well, what are we gonna do about that baseball trip Gabe? If we don't start now, we'll never finish. I'm getting older and if I'm gonna get all of them and enjoy them we've got to do it.' So he started scheduling them, thank God, because I wouldn't have gone through all that trouble. He did a great job."

 "The hardest part about planning the trips was trying to coordinate the schedule, trying to figure out, say, when are (the teams) home in both Boston and New York?," Gabe noted.

Every year, like clockwork, father and son would hit the road, longing for a return to the roar of the crowd, the crack of the bat and an introduction to new places and experiences.

Season One featured stops in Cleveland's Progressive Field before the Indians became the Guardians in 2022, Toronto's Rogers' Center, the Detroit Tigers' Comerica Park, and Cincinnati Reds' Great American Ballpark. The end of the adventure came in 2022 with games in Kansas City (Kauffman Stadium) and Minneapolis (Target Field).

“Pops” said his favorite parks were Fenway -- "it hasn't changed very much, it's almost the same as it always was" -- Dodger Stadium, and Atlanta's Truist Park. Gabe also mentioned Fenway and Dodger Stadium, along with Wrigley Field (Chicago Cubs) and Oracle Park (San Francisco Giants).

However, their best experience and most memorable overall was Dodger Stadium where a chance meeting with the "Mayor of Dodger Stadium" on the Dodger Express bus to the park resulted in being invited onto the field before the game, free tickets, complimentary food and t-shirts, and an introduction to former Dodger star Ron Cey.

 "It was all completely unplanned, unexpected," Gabe said. "It just happened. My dad was really excited to meet Ron Cey."

Gabe, a mortgage broker, said he and his dad had grown apart -- or at least weren't as close as they once were -- after his father's divorce from his mother and subsequent move to Florida, plus his own five-year work stint in New York City. But the stadium tour changed that.

"I didn't see much of my dad after he moved away, so this was a way for us to bond again over something we both love," Gabe said. "We had a great time together. It was like, man, why did we wait so long to do this? He has bad back issues now that have slowed him down, so I'm really glad we got it done when we did."

"I've done some other things with my son that were special," the elder Arnold said. "But doing the bonding thing with baseball trips made it even better. I never thought it would be that good when we started, truly. What memories I have."

There just might be another baseball trip in the Arnolds' future, albeit considerably shorter. That's because since they visited The Ballpark, the Texas Rangers' stadium in Arlington, Tex. in 2018 the team has moved into the new Globe Life Field.