Quick post to note that, with this past week’s jaunt to Kansas City, the DuBois Baseball Tour is back up and running again. I added the KC card to the original post, but it feels irresponsible to not include cards for our mini-tour of SoCal parks in the immediate post-quarantine era, as well as these Padre fans’ yearly trips to Petco Park during the current Seidler-Melvin era Padre resurgence.
So this one will be a repository for everything we’ve done or will do since slurping down watery soft-serve at Chavez Ravine in May 2021. More than likely that also means stops at Spring Training, which (amazingly) we’ve not yet done. The bulletin-board USA image will be updated with each new location, including 2023, when our goal is to score a brown-and-gold SD pin to replace the blue-and-sand one from 2008.
As of 4/9/23, the cards are the seven shown below, but as we do more, I’ll add them:
Notes for the first four postcards (from Los Angeles, San Diego, and Anaheim in 2021) are here. The rest went something like this:
2022-04-15, San Diego. Jackie Robinson Day at Petco for Padres vs Braves. We saw the major league debut of Padre rookie MacKenzie Gore, who held Atlanta to a tie that the Padres’ bullpen and hitters couldn’t support.
2022-06-22, San Diego. A very sun-shiney Wednesday getaway day at Petco, as the Padres took apart Arizona to the tune of 10-4 behind Mike Clevinger and Nick Martinez. Several Diamondback homers but more Padre singles plus a Jorge Alfaro bomb.
2023-04-06, Kansas City. The DuBois Baseball Tour finally returned in 2023 after being stalled since 2016 and being cancelled in 2020. The tour’s second half began at our 16th visited stadium with a very windy Royals-Jays game, which Toronto won 3-0.
2023-04-15, San Diego. Jackie Robinson Day for our first home game at Petco this year. The Padres stomped Milwaukee 10-3, and Jake Cronenworth hit two home runs—something I haven’t seen in person since watching Shawn Green do it for LA back in the 2004 playoffs.
2023-04-16, San Diego. Padres dropped this game by one to the Brewers when SD’s offense couldn’t support Yu Darvish and the bullpen. Gray day for a 1-0 loss but we coped with soft-serve in our right-field “Crone Zone” seats.
2023-07-30, San Diego. Our fourth major league game of 2023 saw the Padres sweep the first-place Texas Rangers on Hall of Fame Weekend at Petco. Blake Snell shoved and Gary Sánchez hit two bombs, because I guess some guys just do that when we show up.
2024-03-26, San Diego. First game of ’24 (and the 20th year of Petco Park) saw us in cheap close seats for an exhibition/pre-season loss against Seattle (Michael King started). Does it count? Sure, why not.
2024-06-29, Boston. First of two we saw in a return to Fenway Park. This one was a 11-1 SD win with Michael King on the mound and our “Padre player hits two homers in a game” streak continuing (Manny Machado this time, including one over the Green Monster and out of the stadium).
2024-06-30, Boston. Threatened by weather, but we got a full game in here, with knuckler Matt Waldron starting for SD. Unfortunately the Padres lost, but they won the series and hung in there (so far) with a wild card spot.
2025-04-15, Arlington. A Rangers win over Mike Trout’s Angels on Jackie Robinson Day, for a trip 5 years in the making. We were due to visit in April 2020 and of course had to cancel for quarantine. This time, the open roof and pleasant spring weather added to a great overall vibe.
