By Bart Moss for the FCT

In Summer 2009, Derek Ergle and Chad Green set out on an adventure that is every baseball lover’s dream. They wanted to visit every Major League Baseball stadium in America and Canada.

Last month, nine years later, that dream became reality in the desert of Phoenix, Ariz., at Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks – where, ironically, they saw them play the Atlanta Braves.

“We saw our first game at Wrigley Field,” said Green, who is a teacher and girls basketball coach at Belgreen High School. “Thirty stadiums later we ended the adventure in Arizona. We visited every stadium and saw a lot of baseball games.”

The neatest part, Green said, was seeing so much of the country. “The Grand Canyon, the Redwood Forest, the Pacific Coast, Mount Rushmore, Niagara Falls, Philadelphia, Boston, D.C., and New York City. It was a baseball trip that was much more. We saw a lot of history.”

Ergle, a teacher at Russellville High School, said he is a big baseball fan and served as the trip planner and driver.

“I love baseball,” said Ergle. “We got to see some good games and great players. We saw a walkoff win by the Chicago White Sox over the New York Yankees in Chicago. We’ve gotten to see some extraordinary baseball players along the way too, players like Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez in New York and Albert Pujols in St. Louis. We saw former Mars Hill and UNA player Josh Willingham have a two-homerun game in Minnesota.

“It’s just been an all-around unforgettable experience.”

On one of the trips they visited the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. There, Ergle and Jimmy Green, Chad Green’s father, saw Hall of Famer Andre Dawson standing by himself. They went up and introduced themselves and had conversation with him.

“That will always stick out to me,” said Ergle. “It was really cool to be able to talk to someone like that. It was great opportunity.”

The first year they started visiting ballparks was in 2009, when they visited Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, and the stadiums of the Chicago White Sox, St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers.

In 2010 they visited the Cardinals stadium again and the stadiums of the Kansas City Royals, Texas Rangers, and Houston Astros.

In 2011 they did the Florida leg of the trip, to the Tampa Bay Rays and the Miami Marlins.

“As far as baseball goes, this was the worst,” said Green. “We saw a 15-inning game in Tampa, and I think the final score was 1-0. The only excitement there was a guy who had one too many to drink jumping onto the field and getting tackled by security. But Derek did get to pet an alligator in the Everglades, and we went to Key West.”

In 2012 they drove the East Coast, visiting the stadiums of the Washington Nationals, Baltimore Orioles, Philadelphia Phillies, New York Yankees, New York Mets and Boston Red Sox.

“This was some neat older stadiums,” said Green, “visiting Camden Yards (home of the Baltimore Orioles), Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and Fenway Stadium (home of the Boston Red Sox). I really liked the old charm of Fenway. Seeing the Green Monster was awesome.”

Fenway Park is the oldest baseball stadium in America, built in 1912. Wrigley Field in Chicago was built in 1914.

In 2013 they headed out West to visit the San Diego Padres, Los Angeles Dodgers and Anaheim Angels. In 2014, they went to the stadiums of the Minnesota Twins and Colorado Rockies and on the way back through took in some games of the college baseball World Series in Omaha, Neb.

“The College World Series was neat,” said Green. “It was different. You had all the fans from the different colleges there. It was a kid-friendly and more of a family-type atmosphere.”

In 2015 they hit middle America, traveling to the stadiums of the Cincinnati Reds, into Canada to the Toronto Blue Jays, the Detroit Tigers and Pittsburgh Pirates.

That was a rough trip for Ergle. After eating in Cincinnati, he noticed his eye getting a little puffy. On the drive to Toronto, Canada, his eye kept getting worse. By the time they got into the stadium, he couldn’t take it any longer.

“We had just got in the game, and I said I needed to get my eye looked at,” said Ergle. “I went to a clinic near the stadium. They didn’t want to treat me because I was an American. I went to an optometrist, who started to treat me but wouldn’t because I was American. They suggested I go to the emergency room.

“The ER said it would be in my best interest to go back to the U.S.”

Ergle said medical personnel finally agreed to see him “but wouldn’t touch me. The ER gave me a prescription of eye drops. I put them in, and they said I was going to have to pay a pretty hefty bill. I told them there was no way I could pay what they were asking. So, they politely asked me not to come back to Canada.”

In 2016 they went out West again, this time to the Seattle Mariners, San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s.

Finally, this year, the final leg of the journey, they revisited the San Diego Padres and visited the Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix.

“It was a great adventure,” said Ergle. “I would love to be able to do it again with my young son.”

Both Green and Ergle agreed that AT&T Park in San Francisco stood out as one of the more picturesque parks.
“It is hard to describe,” Ergle said. “It sits there on the San Francisco Bay, and the views are incredible. It was unlike any other stadium.”

But the best atmosphere was in a perhaps unlikely place.

“I think Chad and I would agree that the best atmosphere was in Milwaukee at the Brewers game,” said Ergle. “There was just something about the things they would do in between innings. It was fun.”

Green did agree. “I don’t want to go back because it can’t be as fun as it was the night we were there. It was like a college football game atmosphere.”

One doesn’t go to a baseball park without trying some of the great food offerings, of course. “I loved the Polish Dog at Yankee Stadium,” said Ergle. “It was delicious.”

Green found his preference in San Francisco. “I can’t remember what they call it, but they served soup, like clam chowder, in a hollowed out bread bowl. It was delicious.”

Ergle, who was in charge of the planning and driving, started scheduling games around old-timey eating places. He even tried some eating challenges along the way.

“I tried an ice cream challenge I saw on Man vs. Food. It was the Sanddock Sundae Challenge at Niagra Falls. Basically, they gave me a bucket of ice cream and a shovel.

“I almost finished it. My reward was a T-shirt and being sick for a couple days.”

People who travel always like to give recommendations to others, and Ergle and Green had their favorites.

“I loved Crown Candy in St. Louis,” said Ergle. “It was the best milkshake I’ve ever drank. And the Z-Man Sandwich at Oklahoma Joe’s in Kansas City was delicious.”

Green said the BLT at Crown Candy was hard to top with the milk shake on the side.