Baseball
Our first ever trip to the States was in May 1993. Jan had a work trip to a conference in San Francisco so she added on a few days annual leave at the beginning of it and I travelled with her. One of the social events that had been arranged for all the delegates was to go to a ball game in Oakland. I managed to wangle a ticket as well and we went along to an evening game on 28th against the Toronto Blue Jays. I was fascinated to find out what it would be like but hadn’t done any research into the rules, which star players we might see, or anything like that, so it did all pass me by in a bit of a blur. Our second trip was in 1995, to New York, but that was in the October, after the regular season had ended, so there was no chance of seeing a live game.
Now, fast forward to the year 2000. We made plans to visit Chicago with our great friends Jan and John. I quite fancied taking in a game and they were happy to go along with it, at which point I really did do some research. I needed to pick a team to root for; at the time I knew it could be anybody but the Yankees – everybody hates the Yankees. Chicago has two major league teams and, after discovering a bit about both of them and seeing how they matched with my own likes/dislikes/characteristics/tendencies, I plumped for the White Sox. The South Siders. The Good Guys. What made it perfect was that they had a home series scheduled for the time we were thinking of travelling, against the Yankees. From that point on I was completely hooked and have been a huge fan ever since.
My excuse for the terrible stance is that this thing was set up for kids and I had to crouch.
28/05/1993 Toronto Blue Jays 2 @ Oakland Athletics 3, Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.
23/05/2000 New York Yankees 2 @ Chicago White Sox 8, Comiskey Park II.
22/09/2003 Baltimore Orioles 5 @ Boston Red Sox 7, Fenway Park.
30/08/2009 Kansas City Royals 3 @ Seattle Mariners 0, Safeco Field.
15/08/2012 Chicago White Sox 9 @ Toronto Blue Jays 5, Rogers Centre.
01/07/2013 Arizona Diamondbacks 4 @ New York Mets 5, Citifield.
23/08/2018 Philadelphia Phillies 2 @ Washington Nationals 0, National Park.
30/06/2019 New York Yankees 12 @ Boston Red Sox 8, London Stadium.
24/06/2023 Chicago Cubs 9 @ St Louis Cardinals 1, London Stadium.
Arizona Diamondbacks @ New York Mets, 1st July 2013.
