Introduction

#JuniorCircuit – A hashtag for adventures in 2022 that did not quite catch on.

Transactions Log

January 26th – True Blue LA selects the contract of Michael Elizondo

The difference in traveling to see the Dodgers in 2021 compared to 2022 was a stark contrast. Whereas in 2021, the Dodgers seemingly could not buy a victory when I was in attendance, in 2022, the Dodgers decimated their opponents on their way to a historic regular season and a now-infamous postseason. Even still, the goal of visiting all thirty Major League Stadiums grew ever closer.

The updated Wall of Progress. February 4, 2023.

Michael Elizondo/TrueBlueLA

Field research proceeded at a steady pace with 18 games attended last season. However, injuries and illness did reduce some of the planned schedule, reducing the number of new stadiums visited by two. These games in Philadelphia, Chicago (AL), and Washington will be made up in a later year.

Personal setbacks aside, the quality of play in 2022 improved dramatically. Put simply where it took ten games for me to see a victory outside of San Francisco in 2021, it took nine games before the Dodgers were defeated in my presence — to the Rockies, no less. Baseball!

Junior Circuit 2022 Games

Michael Elizondo / TrueBlueLA

While injuries and COVID sidelined me for a portion of the planned schedule, which was a shame, I missed out on some interesting Dodger baseball. But my health is the most important thing and sometimes things just do not go according to plan. If anything, I am pleased with how the schedule ultimately turned out. I am also grateful for the experience and the opportunity to write about and share my adventures with you all.

On this same theme of contrasts, whereas in 2021, I was able to purchase World Series tickets and held them for 24 hours before the Dodgers were eliminated, in 2022, I never had the opportunity to even buy them because of the failures of the One-Win Team.

To commemorate the arc of the 2022 adventures, I tried to take games with #JuniorCircuit, which did not catch on. To be fair, #SaveEli is really good and even I used it from time to time.

The New Meme

Long live the new meme: “No matter where you go, #ThereYouAre”

At some point before the season, I will remain true to my word and generate a title sequence that I will use throughout the season with the names of the current True Blue LA staff. But for now, I will continue my quixotic campaign to revive interest in a movie with a cult following from the 1980s, while most of the cast is still alive.

I now invite you to share in the inner working and living memoir of my adventures in Major League Baseball. Or as I told Eric when he offered me this gig; I realized that I had started to develop a guide, which is now a Guide, for Dodgers fans in these various cities that was just rattling around in my head.

Status Report: Current Status and Future Goals

As of my most recent birthday, January 22, 2023, I have been to eighteen of the current 30 major league ballparks. I have managed to go to sixteen of those stadiums in the past two seasons. I was taken aback by how much time I spent working on essays for the site, including travel. If anything my writing here is a labor of love.

As usual, this essay serves as the yearly introduction to the travelogue (“Guide”) and my travels thus far. Truthfully, I still don’t feel that you can get a full feel for a place in a single game unless that place is generally terrible.

The only National League city I have yet to visit is Philadelphia. I have been to every stadium in the NL Central and the NL West. While I have gone to quite a few games in the NL East (Atlanta in 2021, Miami for a single game in 2021, and Washington and New York in 2015), I do not feel that I have enough information to develop anything useful for any city apart from Atlanta.

At some point, I will generate a ranking essay covering each division. Last year, I generated an overall stadium ranking essay, and I suspect I will generate something similar later in the season.

As to the American League, I still have quite a ways to go with eleven stadiums remaining, including all of the AL East. Visiting all these stadiums will literally take years, but I look forward to it.

The completion date of the Guide is still on track for the next five years. However, there is a potentially interesting development on the horizon. The Dodgers are allegedly in talks to play in Paris, France in 2025. If that series happens, you better believe I will be there as I have not been to the City of Lights since the summer of 2016. But such a trip would likely be the entire budget for that year.

Also, as I have discussed elsewhere, I am a victim of my own success in efficiency. I currently live in the San Francisco Bay Area and I have visited every stadium west of the Mississippi, apart from the ones in Texas and Seattle. One does not simply fly into Toronto on a whim.

Ground Rules and Perspective to the Guide

My rules for generating a Guide entry are fairly simple:

I prefer to do at least three games in a given location, but I can live with two if that number is what the schedule allows. Only Dodger games that I have attended as a Staff Writer of True Blue LA (or on the original #SaveEli trips) can form the basis of a Guide entry.

Each city that I visit or have visited will have its own entry in this evolving Guide. So far, I have visited 16 different cities while working at True Blue LA, so, as of now, I will generate 16 different entries. Nine entries have been generated as of this essay.

There are certain sites that I have used in the past to plan, mostly Itinerant Fan (which I would still recommend for general information as I use it when doing the initial planning for an outing) and Ratemyseats. The Guide is from the perspective of an out-of-town Dodgers fan coming to town to visit for a game.

I will provide insight as to where you should stay, whether you need a rental car, whether you should bring friends, and where you should sit (depending on your budget and what type of ballpark fan you are). The Guide is not meant to supplant local knowledge or pretend that I know more than you do. I do not. I am now paid to share my experiences and adventures with you all.

I will likely update and standardize the Guide entries I have already put out. If you look at the 2022 version of this post, you will see that I have updated it with a chronological list of relevant Guide entries and field reports.

If you are new to this website, you likely have questions as to who the main players are in this production.

Who am I? Who (or what) is Adric?

My given name is Michael, but folks have taken to calling me “Eli,” which was my nickname when I was a commenter. If you need an introduction to its author, I refer to the blurb I wrote for Eric when he notified everyone I was getting this gig. It was all I could do to not spam every article from the offer and acceptance with all CAPS, posting that I’m technically a national baseball writer over and over.

It would have likely turned into happy gibberish, but still…gibberish. The only thing to add to what’s been written is that I enjoy the adventure of travel and anyone wishing to duplicate or join me on my adventures is free to do so provided they tell me prior to going. Moreover, I have provided you with the means to know where I am going.

Who Adric is:

Adric the Adipose is a stuffed animal made by my little sister as a good luck charm when I went to work in Cambodia in 2016. My younger brother remarked that I took too many selfies when I lived and worked in Washington DC the prior summer.

My sister and I are both fans of Doctor Who, so I thought it was a neat gift. I have literally taken Adric all around the world from Southeast Asia to the United Kingdom and to every Dodger game in 2021 and 2022, except the first game in Oakland during the 2021 season.

Adric gets posed at games or wherever I go, usually with incredibly dry humor, or when the mood hits because sometimes baseball has lulls.

Adric tries to start a stuffed animal revolt at the Harley-Davidson gift shop in Milwaukee on May 1, 2021.

Michael Elizondo/TrueBlueLA

The original joke with Adric, especially once I ended up in the United Kingdom during the summer of 2016, was to get Adric “home” to the now-defunct Doctor Who Museum in Cardiff, Wales. Did I succeed? You better believe it.

Adric and me at the Doctor Who Museum

Michael Elizondo/TrueBlueLA

Adric and a 1/1 Scale Lego Dalek

Michael Elizondo/TrueBlueLA

Acknowledgments

I am as moved today by writing here as first was when Eric offered me the job. I may only get a pittance…to be divided into 1/12th of a pittance monthly. Now, I am getting slightly more than a pittance — whenever the paperwork comes through.

If you told me that two years ago on my birthday while facing personal hardship and an unfulfilling job, in the span of that year, I would gain a measure of inner peace that had always eluded me, a much more rewarding job (both intellectually and financially) and that I would be physically present at 48 games of Dodger baseball over two seasons, I would scarcely believe it.

As to my own shenanigans, it’s not to the point where Brian Cox has threatened to pistol-whip me, but some days I do wonder. If it’s not clear yet, I suppose that this Guide will be one part Huell Howser, one part Andy Rooney, one part Ford Prefect, and one part George Motz. If you still don’t know who most, of all, of these people are, just roll with it – all be made clear, or at the very least, funny.

This new and intermittent feature, developing the Guide at True Blue LA is the culmination of my past and ongoing travels. The Guide will present photographs and videos that will serve as a guide, but not a hitchhiker’s guide because there are no large friendly letters instructing you not to panic. More importantly, I do not wish to be sued by the Estate of Douglas Adams or anyone else.

Conclusion

Please continue to join us on our adventures through the Major Leagues as I continue in the role of a Staff Writer / De Facto Traveling Correspondent for True Blue LA for this season, and health and good fortune willing, the seasons to come.

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