Chasing baseball games across the country showed me a new side to the US

I bleed blue and orange now, but it wasn’t always so. In fact, I never thought much about baseball until I started dating my now-husband, Steve. And I certainly wasn’t planning vacations around Major League Baseball games.

No, I was trying to get to Croatia before it became too popular. I was orchestrating a budget-friendly island-hopping trip around Hawai’i. I was looking up the best local restaurants serving fish cakes and cou-cou for an upcoming week in Barbados.

But before long, Steve, an avid New York Mets fan, was inviting me to join him on his quest to catch a game at every single active MLB stadium. This meant long weekends in cities I’d never considered before—St. Louis, Missouri; Detroit, Michigan; Minneapolis, Minnesota—and others I had. Like, Boston, Chicago, Washington, DC.

Sure, I wanted to travel to Seattle to see the Space Needle and eat oysters at Pike Place Market. But hanging out at a bar outside the Mariners’ ballpark with a bunch of rabid Mets’ fans? That activity hadn’t quite made my list.

I hadn’t even stepped foot in Flushing, Queens, New York City before Steve and I started dating. But suddenly I was counting on two hands. But suddenly, I was counting on two hands the number of ballparks I’d been to around the US, plus the one lone stadium in Toronto, Canada.

Steve, a self-proclaimed “long-suffering Mets fan,” wasn’t content with me just tagging along. He wanted me to fall in love with the game—and with the Mets. So, knowing how much I loved to travel—with a specific skill on eating and drinking all the regional foods and beverages I could fit in my mouth—Steve took me to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Milwaukee. We ate cheese steaks, Old-Bay-seasoned everything, and beer and bratwurst, respectively.

As my love for the Mets grew, so did my appetite for exploring cities I once dismissed. The stadium became the excuse; the stories—and the people—were what I stayed for.

On our one-year dating anniversary in 2013, Steve suggested a trip to Chicago—and as a lover of big cities, I eagerly agreed. While he planned the perfect day in Wrigleyville, where the Cubs played at Wrigley Field, including pints at Murphy’s Bleachers, the quintessential pre-game hangout, I chatted up the hotel’s concierge to find out which speakeasy we should go to after the game.

Steve had splurged on seats a few rows behind home plate for our first game at the second-oldest MLB ballpark, so I remember the experience—and the helmet-sized nacho bowl—particularly well. But I also remember visiting the Shedd Aquarium and snagging cool vintage finds in Wicker Park. These off-the-cuff moments taught me more about a place than any guidebook.

In the summer of 2017, we embarked on a double-header. Flying from New York to Seattle to San Diego, I fell hard for Southern California’s beer culture, marveling at the smattering of craft beer stands behind the dugout. I watched part of the game, West Coast IPA in hand, from the grass berm, an area open to all ticket holders, making the increasingly out-of-reach ticket prices accessible to more fans.

In 2021, we traveled to Boston to see the Mets versus the Red Sox from the Green Monster—coveted seats that I did not appreciate enough at the time. I also did not appreciate the taunting from the Red Sox fans, but that’s a story for another time, and far too colorful to share here.

Despite the fun I was having traveling with Steve while he checked ballpark after ballpark off his list, it would be several years before I started suggesting baseball travel. But as my love for the Mets grew, so did my appetite for exploring cities I once dismissed. The stadium became the excuse; the stories—and the people—were what I stayed for.

In 2022, I set my sights on Houston. I’d heard the city’s food scene was among the best in the country, and I figured I could sell Steve on the trip if I timed it with a Mets-Astros game. Unsurprisingly, he was all in.

What surprised me was how much Houston opened up for me—not just through its food, but through a deeper sense of place. I spent time in the city’s Fourth Ward, exploring Freedmen’s Town, a post-Emancipation neighborhood recently recognized by the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. I hadn’t known about it before that trip, but the area’s history and decision to recognize it stuck with me.

As the list of stadiums grew, so did my own curiosity. It wasn’t just about the teams or the food anymore—it was the cities themselves.

In the spring of 2024, we found ourselves in Texas again, this time to see the Mets play the Texas Rangers in Arlington—but also to stuff ourselves with smoked meats and bracing sides of slaw and pickles. Our first stop after picking up the rental at the airport was BBQ joint Slow Bone not far from Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. It was quiet when we arrived, just after lunchtime, so we chatted to the pit master about what to order. “If you haven’t had our sausage, you have to try it.” He was right, of course. The jalapeño cheddar sausage, juicy and rich, had just the right amount of umami cheese to balance out the pepper flavor.

With a new puppy at home, we had just 36 hours in Chicago late last summer, but Steve and I squeezed in a game at Guaranteed Rate Park to watch the Mets play the White Sox. It was a beautiful day for a ballgame—blue skies, hot sun, cold beers, friendly fans. Steve was excited to see Garrett Crochet on the mound; the White Sox pitcher’s stats made him must-see baseball, and I was totally there for it. I might never know the full history of the game like Steve, or even be as up-to-speed on the new rookies on the field, but I loved learning about the season’s highly anticipated prospects. And I especially loved watching good pitchers throw unhittable 98-mile-per-hour fastballs across the middle of the plate. I was a convert.

With the Mets most recent tumultuous season, I realized I was now rooting for a team that breaks your heart and still pulls you around the country. It seems somewhere between airport beers and unexpected city detours, I found something I hadn’t expected: A new relationship to travel itself. And as the list of stadiums grew, so did my own curiosity. It wasn’t just about the teams or the food anymore—it was the cities themselves. Which is how we found ourselves planning a long weekend in San Francisco.

Though I’d visited the Bay area on multiple occasions, I’d never been to their baseball stadium, Oracle Park, home of the famous crab sandwich. Wanting to see a different side of the city, I booked us at Four Seasons at Embarcadero in the city’s evolving design-forward Financial District, an easy walk to the ballpark. Before the game on our last day in town, I wandered around Portrero Hill, stopping for coffee and a bite before heading to The Haight neighborhood, known both for its hippie legacy and current ‘cool’ factor, to check out the recently opened Counterculture Museum.

At dinner at Italian restaurant Flour + Water in the city’s Latino-heritage The Mission neighborhood, Steve and I exchanged friendly banter with the couple sitting next to us. They recommended all of the pastas and the peach sorbet, before bemoaning their team’s loss to the Mets the day before. “Go Giants,” they said amiably on their way out. To which our only reply could be a gentle nod and a friendly rejoinder: “Let’s Go Mets.”

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