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How to Plan a Baseball Trip
Knowing Where
and When to Go
By Morris Eckhouse

Part of the planning process of any baseball trip involves knowing where and when baseball events are taking place. The Magical Baseball History Tour provides a comprehensive list of Baseball Events to help your travel planning.

Finding out when and where professional baseball teams are playing is not too difficult. Between annual guides (such as the Baseball America Directory) and team websites, regular season schedules are readily available. You can also find spring training schedules for the Major League Baseball teams at their websites. College baseball schedules can be found at the sites of the individual schools.

You can depend on some events to take place the same time each year. The Major League Baseball All-Star Game is always the second Tuesday in July and its Fan Fest begins the Friday before the game. The NCAA College Baseball championship tournament begins in early June and ends in late June with the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.

The inductions of the National Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, N.Y., are scheduled to take place annually on the final weekend of July all the way to the year 2010.

Many other baseball events require a little more investigation to find. With a little effort, and a little luck in scheduling, you can make a baseball trip more memorable by including a non-game baseball event as part of the schedule.

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Left to right: Mesa Amphitheatre in Mesa, Ariz., site of the 2006 Chicago Cubs Fan Fest; Pittsburgh's PNC Park, home for the 2006 Major League Baseball All-Star Game and Fan Fest; the Harold and Dorothy Seymour Medal presented at the 2006 Seymour Medal Conference in Cleveland.

Society for American Baseball Research: SABR has two annual events and numerous regional events throughout the country. Check the SABR website for dates of regional meetings. SABR's Negro Leagues Committee’s 2006 Jerry Malloy/Negro Leagues Baseball Research conference will be July 7-9 in Kansas City. The 2006 SABR Annual Convention will be held Thursday, June 29 to Sunday, July 2 at the Seattle Renaissance Hotel on Madison Street in downtown Seattle. The 2006 Seymour Medal Conference was held April 28-30 in Cleveland.

Other baseball conferences and gatherings

NINE: The 13th annual spring training conference presented by NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, was held March 16-19, 2006, in Tucson, Ariz. John Thorn, SABR's first publications director and co-founder of Total Baseball, was the keynote speaker.

Spitball/Casey Award: The 23rd annual Casey Awards Banquet took place February 27, 2005, in Covington, Ky., (across the Ohio River from downtown Cincinnati, Ohio). The event typically takes place in late winter/early spring. Visit Spitball Magazine to stay abreast of 2006 developments.

Cooperstown Symposium: The 17th Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture took place June 8-10, 2005, at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown, New York. Check the Hall of Fame website and then click on Research Library and Symposium for the latest details.

Museums: Baseball museums offer programming throughout the year. Some of the museums have induction events. As you zero in on potential destinations, check baseball museums in the area for a schedule of events.

Team fests: Many teams (the Cubs, Reds, Pirates and Orioles jump to mind) have annual baseball fests in advance of spring training. Check team website, or contact the teams directly, for more details.