For Love of the Game

Darren O?Donnell is not the first cyclist to attempt riding to every Major League Baseball park in one season. For instance, back in June 2006 we ran a feature in Adventure Cyclist magazine titled ?30 Ballparks on a Bicycle? (pdf). In the story, Charlie Hamilton relates his experiences cycling a very zigzag route from Atlanta home to Boston, pedaling to all the parks while raising funds for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

To our knowledge, however, O?Donnell is the first individual to have his story picked up by ESPN?s Baseball Tonight, the daily tubular bible of America?s pastime. As reported by ESPN?S Jim Caple in July: ?The Tour de France starts next week, and ? the world?s top cyclists will ride more than 2,000 miles and climb over some of the highest, steepest roads in the Alps and Pyrenees. Which is nothing, compared to what Darren O?Donnell is doing. On his own personal Tour de Baseball, he?s already cycled nearly three times that far ? and he still has about 6,000 miles to pedal.

?The only way this could be a more grueling trip is if he were riding a tandem bike with Prince Fielder seated behind him,? Caple continued, referring to the 285-pound Milwaukee Brewers first baseman.

The 24-year-old O?Donnell, a car-free Western Washington University grad, began his quest by hitting the season opener at the Seattle Mariners? Safeco Field. When I last checked, he was on schedule to wrap it up in late September at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

?I?ve loved baseball for as long as I can remember,? he told Caple. ?And I?m fascinated by how different each stadium is, but how the game is the same.?

Thanks to a letter of introduction Darren and his dad, Jim, crafted and sent out to all 30 Major League clubs, the young cyclist has enjoyed a fair share of red-carpet treatment. For instance, he got to meet one of his father?s heroes, Hall of Famer Tony Perez, a former Cincinnati Red who?s currently a special assistant in the Florida Marlins organization.

?That was something else,? Jim O?Donnell said. ?It seems like something great happens everywhere [Darren] goes. We?re just extremely proud of him. He set his mind to do this, he planned it out, and now he?s getting it done. It?s fantastic.?


YouTube video from NewsChannel 5 WEWS-TV (ABC) Cleveland.

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BIKING WITHOUT BORDERS is posted every Monday by Michael McCoy, Adventure Cycling?s field editor, and highlights a little bit of this or a little bit of that ? just about anything, as long as it?s related to traveling by bicycle. Mac also compiles the organization's twice-monthly e-newsletter Bike Bits, which goes free-of-charge to more than 41,000 readers worldwide.

Source: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2011/08/for-love-of-game.html

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