GARY'S GLIMPSES: (Still) on the road

It’s been just over a year since I retired from the Observer, and I’m still seeking new adventures to write about … so here’s a “Gary’s Glimpses” I hope you enjoy.

A wise person once surmised, “You don’t stop moving when you get old, you get old when you stop moving.” True.

Maybe every 25 years, something great comes along for me.

In May 2000, I began what turned out to be a 24-year stint at the Observer, covering sports and much more.

Flash ahead 25 years, to June 2, 2025, which began a 3,700-mile, six-ballpark adventure with two buddies I met during my days in the City of Vision.

What a long, strange trip it turned out to be for Joe Grimando, Steve Dietzel and me! It was much more than sports, you’ll see, as we visited some very cool places and some historical sites.

BallgamesJune 3: Class AA Texas League game, Amarillo Sod Poodles at Tulsa. Game played after a tornado alert, heavy rain … and then a full sun and rainbow over ONEOK Field!

June 5: Kansas City Royals at St. Louis Cardinals. (Makeup of game postponed from June 4, which worked out great for us.)

June 6: Kansas City Royals at Chicago White Sox. (Nothing worse than Chicago traffic; we rode nearly three hours from Schaumburg to the game, which lasted 2:30!)

June 7: San Diego Padres at Milwaukee Brewers. (Couldn’t figure out why Manny Machado was booed every trip to the plate.)

June 10: New York Yankees at Kansas City Royals. (Last year Joe and I saw Shohei Ohtani hit a first-inning homer; in this game, Aaron Judge hit a first-inning bomb. We were happy. Steve’s Royals dropped to 0-3 at our games.)

June 12: San Francisco Giants at Colorado Rockies. (We’re among MLB elite — seeing the Rockies actually win a game, their 13th!)

Along the way, it was cool seeing some former Albuquerque Isotopes fulfilling their MLB dreams; we saw Nick Mears (Brewers), Ryan Vilade (Cardinals), and a whole bunch with the Rockies. And we got to see rising star Bobby Witt Jr. three times, and slugger Aaron Judge whack a 469-foot homer in KC.

Historical/cool sitesBinger, Oklahoma: Boyhood home of Johnny Bench; Johnny Bench Museum.

Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame and the Oklahoma National Memorial Museum, site of the horrific April 19, 1995, bombing that claimed 168 lives, including 19 children.

Tulsa: Greenwood Avenue and the site of the “Black Wall Street” atrocities there in 1921, when racial unrest caused 35 city blocks to go up in flames; 300 people died and 800 were injured. (It’s basically right outside the Drillers’ ballpark.)

Commerce, Oklahoma: Boyhood home of Mickey Mantle.

Chicago suburbs: Pullman Historical National Park.

Green Bay, Wisconsin: Lambeau Field, for a memorable tour.

Dyersville, Iowa: A planned detour took us to the Field of Dreams; we had brats for lunch in the Dugout Restaurant.

St. Joseph, Missouri: Pony Express National Museum, where the legendary mail carriers rode on horseback. The 19-month delivery service began April 3, 1860, when a lone rider left this site, carrying saddlebags more than 2,000 miles west to California.

Kansas City, Missouri.: Historic Union Station, opened in 1914, and serving a peak annual traffic of more than 670,000 passengers in 1945. A great stop for trainiacs, and I’m one of them.

Additional notesEven though we termed it a baseball trip, our museum stops outnumbered the actual ballgames; no problem.

Early in our adventure, we stopped at a huge Buck-ee’s in Amarillo. You thought Costco and Sam’s Club were cool? Check out a Buck-ee’s.

GPS on the car’s computer worked great; we dubbed our “gal” Betty, who provided directions. I brought along AAA maps, but was laughed at. (Old-school traveler.)

Who could have imagined bumper-to-bumper traffic for so many miles on the Chicago freeway? Not us, but we only missed a few pitches.

No surprise here: We’re already mulling a future adventure, likely to baseball stadiums on the East Coast.

We’re not ready to stop moving.

Here’s a brief

day-by-day accountJune 2: We’re on the road for a 600-mile leg, heading for a motel in Norman, Oklahoma, Along the highway to Norman, we pass through — after stopping in — Binger … the hometown of baseball hall-of-famer Johnny Bench. We enjoy a half-hour in the museum that bears his name.

June 3: Two phenomenal museum stops in Oklahoma City — the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame and the Oklahoma National Memorial and Museum, the site of the horrific bombing if the Murrah Building on April 19, 1995. (Powerful stuff.)

In Tulsa that afternoon, we’re in the Black Wall Street area, where ONEOK Field is, ready for our first ballgame, a Class AA contest. It’s never good when they put the tarp on the field before the first pitch, and even worse when you get a tornado alert. The weather cleared and we saw the game.

June 4: On the highway, heading to St. Louis, we detour to Commerce, Oklahoma, and check out Mickey Mantle’s boyhood home. (That’s Joe’s boyhood hero, but Steve and I greatly admire the guy!) Before we even get close to St. Louis, we hit torrential rain and even pull off the highway until it relents. Our ballgame that evening gets postponed.

June 4: We arrive near Busch Stadium and spend a couple hours in the Cardinals museum, highlighted by having an opportunity to hold a vintage, game-used Stan Musial bat! The Cardinals beat Kansas City in the ballgame.

June 5: We head toward Chicago and spend the first of two nights in Schaumburg.

June 5: We visit the Pullman Historical National Park. George Pullman is credited with starting the railroad passenger cars that made travel comfortable, and he had a huge community built where 20,000 people lived and worked. It’s an interesting story — look into it.

Later that day, former KRQE-TV sportscaster Doug Strickland picks us up at the hotel and drives us to Rate Field for the White Sox-Royals ballgame. I’ll never complain about traffic here again; the relatively short drive, which lasted about three hours, was longer than the game. Chicago beats KC.

June 6: On the road to Milwaukee for Game 4. We get Jackson Chourio jerseys, along with 24,997 other fans, and see rookie Chad Durbin homer off the first pitch in the bottom of the ninth!

June 7: We head to Green Bay. It’s a rainy day at Lambeau Field, but we don’t care. Our fun is inside, touring the Packers’ Hall of Fame. WOW! A great tour of this iconic football stadium.

June 8: On the road again, to St. Joseph, Missouri.