Justin Hemminger has always wanted to see a game in all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums.

The Columbus resident never thought he could accomplish this in a single season.

And yet, that’s exactly the journey Hemminger has taken this year. He began the odyssey by visiting the home of the Cincinnati Reds on opening weekend, then visited a handful of Midwestern ballparks in April, May and June. Then, beginning in late June, he embarked on a more intense journey that involved flights and thousands of highway miles, with plans to visit his 30th and final ballpark (Yankees Stadium) in the days leading up to Labor Day weekend.

“I remember when I told people I was going to do this, they said, ‘That seems ambitious,’ which felt like a nice way of calling me crazy,” Hemminger said in a mid-August phone call from California, where he recently attended an Athletics game at the nearly deserted Oakland Coliseum. “I think I knew from the start that it was going to be difficult, but not impossible.”

Hemminger, who works for the Ohio Craft Brewers Association, thanked his employer for following through with the plan. A newly implemented sabbatical policy gave him the time off he needed to travel across the country over the past few months. In the period leading up to the trip, Hemminger said, he suffered from burnout at work. But even after six weeks, he could feel his stress levels decreasing.

“I haven’t checked my email in six weeks, so I’m just enjoying the feeling of not having the notification go off every few minutes,” Hemminger said, laughing. “But yeah, I probably won’t have a full idea of ​​what this (trip) meant and how it contributed to my health and well-being until I get back. Right now, I’m just living in the here and now and being more alert than usual to what’s going on around me. With the exception of the longer stretches where I’m in one place, I’m in a different environment every day, so you have to be awake and alert and keep your head on swivels to take it all in. … When you see things that are new, you have to take a moment to really appreciate them. I want to be able to look back on it later and say, ‘You know, I had this unique experience.’ Not, ‘I spent the whole trip looking to see where the nearest Chili’s is.'”

Sometimes Hemminger has taken a more leisurely pace, such as a Texas swing that allowed him to spend a night in line at Snow’s BBQ in Lexington, voted by critics among the best barbecue in the state. Texas monthly. Other sections of the route were more… intensiveThis included a solo trip that Hemminger was about to embark on at the time of our conversation and which would require him to drive from Oakland to Tampa Bay in just under a week – a distance of more than 2,800 miles.

“I basically have to drive an average of seven hours a day to make it to Tampa by Saturday,” said Hemminger, who has documented his exploits on his Substack. Stands and ‘Bleeds“There’s enough time planned so that I have the freedom to explore off-road if I want to. But it’s also going to be tedious.”

While there were occasional mishaps — a cracked windshield that needed to be repaired in Louisiana, as well as a rainout and a bout of Covid that forced him to rearrange his schedule — Hemminger said the trip was marked by small magical moments, especially as he explored new-to-him ballparks and the very different cities where these massive (mostly) outdoor playgrounds were built. With only a handful of stops left, including a visit to Fenway Park in Boston, Hemminger ranked the stadiums in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Baltimore as his three favorites, in no particular order.

On the other end of the spectrum, Hemminger said Globe Life Field, the home of the Texas Rangers in Arlington, left much to be desired. “The park itself is not bad,” he said of the stadium, which is located in a sleek, modern sports park miles from civilization, “but being so isolated from everything is kind of depressing.”

Along the way, he’s checked off a handful of items on his bucket list (a visit to Russian River Brewing in Santa Rosa, California), made unexpected discoveries (the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore), and made connections with baseball fans of all stripes from coast to coast.

“I’m generally more of an introvert, but on this trip I tried to talk to people a little bit more, whether I was standing in line at the gates or sitting in the stands,” said Hemminger, who remembers striking up a conversation at a Milwaukee tavern with a family whose daughter was telling about a trip to a Brewers-Pirates game where she held up a sign featuring former Milwaukee Brewers first baseman Rowdy Tellez, who now plays for Pittsburgh. “And the sign basically said, ‘I love you, Rowdy! You’re the best!’ And (Tellez) came over and posed for a picture and gave her a bat. And it was just wow. And it was great to hear those stories from other people about how they’re connected to the game and the community. … It was just great to share that experience with other people.”