Take Me Out to the Ballgame (10,000 Times)

Stadium chasers have one thing in common besides their love of sports travel: they also love to count things. For many of us, it is the venue that matters, and there are over 30 members in Club 124, which involves seeing a home game for each of the 124 franchises in the NFL, NHL, NBA, and MLB. Others go for the 120 minor league teams (160 before contraction), 136 FBS football stadiums, or the 365 Division I basketball arenas.

Those in Europe enjoy groundhopping, mostly for soccer, and there are various objectives around the continent, with the most famous being the 92 Club for those who have seen a home match at the top 4 leagues in English soccer. In all those cases, the number is the goal, and it can only be achieved through meticulous planning, with time and money as obvious constraints.

Less common, but still found amongst our sports-travelling crew, is the enumeration of games attended. For most tourists, that number might be in the high triple digits or even one or two thousand. After all, we can’t spend nearly every day going to a game, can we? Well, there is an exceptional gentleman in New York City who is proving that you actually can.

His name is Michael “King Cougar” Casiano, and he is well known to both Stadium Journeyers and New York Mets fans. A lifelong resident of NYC, Mike has been a member of Club 124 since 2002 (when there were 121 franchises) and has been a Mets season-ticket holder since 2007. He is now 73 and retired, but he spent several years working the overnight shift as a mail sorter, which allowed him to attend both afternoon and evening games.

When the Mets were out of town, Mike would head to the Bronx to watch the Yankees, and on those rare occasions when there was no game in the Big Apple, he would travel to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, or Boston to feed his addiction.

Regular road trips to Chicago, plus seeing the Mets on the road around the country, kept things fresh. Minor league games have also provided Mike with plenty of opportunities to add to his professional baseball game count. Having done this for nearly 50 years and averaging about 200 games per season, Mike is now approaching 10,000 professional baseball games attended, a milestone that few others, if any, can claim.

Yes, you read that right. 10K. And they are all documented through ticket stubs (when those were given out) and hand-written score sheets. Mike’s first games were at a Yankee doubleheader at The House That Ruth Built back on May 26, 1963, and he followed that up four days later with a DH at the Polo Grounds for his first Mets games.

Even then, he did not start going regularly until 1977, when he reached 68 games, and he steadily increased from there. In 2013, he attended 266 professional baseball games, truly impressive when you consider the season is just over 180 days long. He has seen over 200 games in every full-length MLB season since 1995. Needless to say, Mike has never been married.

Naturally, Mike has seen plenty of baseball history in that time. Two perfect games, 13 no-hitters, six cycles, and 55 World Series games, with 12 of those the clincher. Perhaps the only rarity he has yet to witness is the four-homer game. He saw Darryl Strawberry launched 157 home runs, a number that will soon be surpassed by Aaron Judge, who sits at 155 right now. Of the 435 possible MLB matchups, Mike has seen 266 (61%). These sorts of statistics can be rattled off endlessly, and Mike has the help of a few friends who track his games and the associated stats for him.

Over the years, Mike has visited 66 Major League stadiums, including those ballparks in Japan, Australia, and England, when they held overseas series, and 132 minor league stadiums. He doesn’t limit his sports viewing to baseball; he has also attended 3,961 hockey, 2,215 basketball, and 467 football games, plus the occasional soccer and rugby match. The total as of this writing is 16,510, a number that increases daily. So

Whenever somebody accuses you of being a crazy sports fan, you can point to Mike and say, “Not really”.

During Mets home games, Mike can be found in Section 515, surrounded by friends, young and old. Whenever a Mets pitcher strikes out an opponent, Mike will scream “Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Struck Him Out!”, a call that has been picked up by the 7 Line Army, a group of Mets supporters, and can be heard when they attend Mets games on the road.

Mike will reach his milestone at Citi Field on April 25 when the Mets host the Rockies in a Saturday afternoon game. If you are in NYC on that day, consider dropping by Section 515 to congratulate him on a unique accomplishment in the world of sports travel.