It is refreshing to see a front page story about bicycling in the local newspaper that doesn’t invoke the “bikes vs. cars” debate in the headline.
The story is about Darren O’Donnell’s amazing venture to travel by bicycle to all 30 major league baseball parks this season and watch a game.
Like many in Bellingham, Washington, O’Donnell is a bicycling enthusiast. He’s also a baseball fan. In fact, he’s looking for a front office job in baseball and figured this would be a great way to introduce himself to management.
Half-way
O’Donnell is about halfway through his cross-country trek by bicycle, visiting the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Florida Marlins after meandering the western US. [Follow Darren at his Baseball Biking Tour Facebook page.]
Next he’ll head north to Atlanta, then Cincinnati and Cleveland, before catching the East Coast teams, Toronto, then ending up in the Midwest in St. Louis.
So far, he’s got about 5,500 miles under his bike tires, with about another 5,000 miles to go. He figures the trip will take him 170 days.
Job
As for the reasoning behind his bicycle tour, O’Donnell told the Seattle Times:
clubs and work my way into a front-office position. I would love
to do statistical analysis for a team. Or really just working in the
front office at any level. I just think it would be awesome to get paid
to watch baseball.”
His father is sending out letters to the different baseball teams in advance of his arrival. They don’t seek an interview or job, just to meet the bicyclist when he arrives.
It would be nice if they could come up with a free ticket, as well. The average price is $26.91 this year; Boston is the highest at $53.38 and Pittsburgh the lowest at $15.30.
Other baseball bike tours
This sounds like a great summer bike tour for O’Donnell, and he might want to chart his course for others who might want to follow his route to the different ballparks in coming years.
As strange as this journey may seem, O’Donnell is not the first. Last year, Romano Scaturro of Cornville, Arizona, rode his bicycle to every major league ball park to attend a game.
Scaturro’s 10,000-mile bicycle tour was primarily a fund-raiser. O’Donnell also is raising awareness for food co-ops and food banks.
Opportunity
An economics and accounting major out of Western Washington University, O’Donnell told the Seattle Times that maybe he’d like to do statistical analysis for a team.
That might work, but if I were a team owner, I’d hire him for publicity and marketing. A quick check at Google news shows more than 30 publications have picked up his story.
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