Charlie O’Reilly – Baseball Stadium Visitor Extraordinaire
- Meg Minard
- May 9, 2020
- 5 min read
Stadium Journey Special Correspondent, Meg Minard, talks with Charlie O’Reilly, baseball stadium and road tripper extraordinaire. Charlie has been on many excursions across the country visiting ballparks, driving highways and touring states and provinces in North America.
Charlie, you’ve been to A LOT of baseball stadiums throughout your life. How many have you visited (and seen a game) say, college level and up? Do you have a breakdown? MLB, MiLB, etc?
Through the 2019 season, I’ve seen games at 410 professional ballparks, including 51 where I’ve seen a Major League game. The breakdown gets a little fuzzy beyond that, because there are parks where I’ve seen both affiliated Minor League Baseball and independent ball. Then there are parks where I’ve seen both college and pro ball, but I can add 37 more parks where I only saw a college game, and 21 more where I’ve only seen college summer ball, which brings the total count to 468.
I know I’ve seen baseball at 564 total venues, so that means I’ve also seen the sport played at 96 youth fields (high school, Legion, Little League etc.).
Wow, not many fans can say that! What is your favorite stadium and why?
That’s a loaded question, especially given how many parks I’ve seen.
Among the MLB stadiums, Fenway and Wrigley are sort of in their own category. They’re must-see venues, but they’re not exactly comfortable anymore. I’m partial to parks with a view, so I really love San Francisco and Pittsburgh. Baltimore has really held up well, too, after starting the trend away from cookie-cutter parks and returning to making every ballpark unique.
In the minors, I love Salt Lake, again because it has a great view. But I can’t leave out Brooklyn and Hudson Valley because they have a different vibe. Hudson Valley is unspectacular as a ballpark (although it’s pretty), but they subscribe to the Fun Is Good theme and take it to the max. And Brooklyn scores points because it has something you won’t find anywhere else: Brooklynites. Another park that works really well is Fort Wayne, which might be the nicest MiLB park in the Midwest.
Speaking of Fun Is Good, Saint Paul in the independent leagues has the same owner as Hudson Valley, and not only do they carry that through, they also built a ballpark that works on every level.
What other sports catch your fancy?
At one time, I was a football fan, but I’ve lost interest in the sport over the last ten years or so. I do like hockey. While I’m not nearly into it as much as I am into baseball, I have made a few road trips to see hockey arenas, both major and minor. I was really impressed with the place where the Florida Panthers play, in Sunrise north of Miami, when I was down there a couple months ago.
I’m not a huge fan of the NBA, but I do enjoy college basketball. When I lived in New Jersey, I did gig work with a number of college teams (and with the NBA Nets before they moved to Brooklyn), doing various tasks like keeping the official scorebook, running the clock, or doing the public address (the in-house announcer who introduces the starting lineups and then tells you who scored or who committed a foul). I relocated to Florida a bit over a year ago, and I haven’t gotten back into that.
What are two of your most memorable games?
Saturday, September 4, 1993. I had plans to go to the Scranton ballpark for the first time, an evening game. I figured I could go watch the Yankees first, but it was raining in the morning and I didn’t want to get caught up in rain delays for fear of missing the first pitch in Moosic. So I parked in Fort Lee, on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge, and waited for the pre-game show to come on the radio. When John Sterling said, “They’re pulling the tarp off the field and we’re looking to start on time,” I shot across the bridge, found a parking space, bought a ticket, and ran into the Stadium.
Two hours 33 minutes later, I had my first, and still only, MLB no-hitter (Jim Abbott). (And I made it to Pennsylvania with time to spare.)
Saturday, October 31, 2015. It was just under three hours before the first pitch in Flushing Meadow when I pulled the trigger on an overpriced secondary market ticket for that evening’s game, Game 4 of the World Series between the Mets and the Royals. I put some warm clothes on, grabbed my scoresheet, and headed to the yard via mass transit (my usual way of getting to a game in New York).
I was sitting in my favorite part of the ballpark, in the upper deck directly behind the plate – section 515, to be specific. Alas, the home team lost the game, Kansas City won it 5-3. Still, it was an unforgettable experience, attending a game of the Fall Classic in person.
Honorable mention: Wednesday, April 26, 2006. I went down to a minor league game in Lakewood, N.J. The BlueClaws were playing Hagerstown, and a kid I knew was a reliever for the Suns. They wound up suspending the game because of a local curfew after 6 hours 3 minutes, 7-7 end of 17.
They finished it a week and a half later, and I wasn’t there, but Lakewood scratched out a run in the bottom of the 22nd to win, 8-7. It was the longest game ever in the South Atlantic League by innings or by time (7:47).
Have you ever (or have ever had any thoughts) about traveling internationally for sports?
I actually have attended one overseas sporting event. When I visited friends in Zurich in October 1999, they took me to a hockey game. I do regret not having taken in a Bundesliga match in Frankfurt after discovering that they were home the night before I was flying back to New Jersey.
I went to Puerto Rico once, for baseball (the Marlins beat up on the Expos in 2003), and I want to get back to check out their winter league, but Puerto Rico is considered part of the US, so that really doesn’t count.
At some point in my life, I would like to go to Japan to visit, at the very least, their major baseball league. I also have distant cousins in Australia whom I’d love to visit, and I could check out their winter league (it’s summer there, of course). If relations thaw again, I would be interested in a trip to Cuba, especially if I could see a game at the park where the old Havana Sugar Kings of the International League used to play.
Charlie, thanks so much for sharing a small portion of your sports history with us!
Follow Charlie on Facebook at Charlie’s Big Baseball Parks Page and visit his website Charlie’s Ballparks.
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