Sports Then and Now

The Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore is one of many cool sports destinations for a sports themes vacation.

If you’re a devoted sports fan, there’s a good chance you grab every opportunity to watch your favorites on television, and with very few sports not getting airtime on one of the hundreds of channels available, that’s a lot of sport! Watching on TV is great, but how often do you get to see sports played live? There’s nothing quite like the atmosphere of a sporting arena, being able to see what goes down as it happens while you’re surrounded by thousands of other passionate devotees of your team or country.

The problem is it’s not a cheap day out in many cases, especially for the more popular sports, and it can be hard to justify spending hundreds of dollars on watching a ball game you could have stayed at home and watched for considerably less. One answer to the problem is to combine your love of sports with your annual vacation, or even a weekend away with the family. Everyone gets to enjoy the activities they’re interested in, and you get to breathe in the atmosphere of some of the most exciting and interesting sports grounds and sports-related tourist attractions, all as part of the cost of a vacation you’d have taken anyway.

Why you should take a sports-themed vacation

The chance to see and experience these places and events is something you’ll remember forever, so it’s worth making an effort to organize a few tours and attend a live event.

If you’re managing on a restricted budget, you obviously don’t want to overstretch yourself financially. However, there are still options out, therefore, you, as you can consider looking into personal loans for bad credit that can actually improve your credit ratings if you make sure the repayments are always made on time. It does you good to have memorable experiences, and may well be more rewarding than most other possessions and activities you spend your money on, so don’t let money stand in the way of living life to the full.

Baseball

Cooperstown, New York, is a must visit place for baseball fans, as you can tour The National Baseball Hall of Fame, and see where the game was invented at Doubleday Field. There’s also the Heroes of Baseball Wax Museum, where you can see eerily lifelike wax models of all your baseball heroes.

The movie Field of Dreams is a baseball-themed legend, and you can see what it feels like to play on the Iowa baseball diamond; a real treat for a family day out. Wrigley Park is a few hours to the east, where there are guided tours of one of the country’s most famous ballparks.

Louisville, Kentucky, may be best known for its horse racing and as being the birthplace of Muhammad Ali, but there are plenty of other sporting attractions, and baseball fans can watch a fascinating demonstration of bat-making as part of the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory.

Further north in Boston, is another legendary stadium. Take a tour around Fenway Park and get to the heart of what it feels like to play on this iconic ballpark.

Babe Ruth has to be one of the best-known names in baseball, and you can visit the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. If you’re more of a Ty Cobb fan, then his museum is a bit further south, in Royston, Atlanta. Read the rest of this entry →

Franklin Field

When most Americans relied on candles to see and washed clothes by hand, the first sports stadium was being laid brick by brick. Now there are more than 200 stadiums in the country, and some come with swimming pools and zip lines. Those interested in original sports stadiums should check out the 10 oldest stadiums still in use today in the United States:

1. Franklin Field

This stadium was built in 1895 for the first running of the track and field competition known as the Penn Relays. It holds the record for many firsts such as the nation’s first scoreboard, the first stadium to have an upper deck of seats and the first to broadcast a football game on the radio and on television. The National Collegiate Athletic Association recognizes Franklin Field as the oldest stadium still operating for football.

2. Harvard Stadium

This stadium was an architectural feat at the time of its construction in 1903. Led by former Civil Engineering professor Louis Johnson, the stadium’s design was the first vertical structure to use reinforced structural concrete. The material was previously only used in horizontal designs such as flooring. Many people were skeptical of the stadium’s design. It was believed that it wouldn’t hold the weight of the crowds or last through the cold New England winters. But the stadium still stands today and it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987. Read the rest of this entry →

Fenway Park is the oldest stadium used for Major League Baseball today.

Sports stadiums are the modern gladiator arenas. Rabid fans descend upon the booming bowl of seats to watch their favorite athletes perform out on the field. And modern stadiums have great influence over the way we experience the spectacle. Through innovative design, fan interaction concourses and a curated ballpark menu, stadiums have come to be a spectacle unto themselves. And you could learn all about these unique fan experiences with an online athletic administration master’s degree. Get a head start. Here are 5 facts about the most famous stadiums in the world.

1. Fenway Park

Fenway Park is the oldest stadium used in the major leagues. Built in 1912, the park is older than many West Coast states. But many people don’t know the Green Monster wasn’t designed that way. Leftfield used to have a large hill that tapered up to a smaller wall during the dead ball era. It was called Duffy’s cliff, named after the Red Sox leftfielder that roamed the area. When it was removed in 1933, the Green Monster emerged.

2. Roman Colosseum

There are many spectacular facts about planet Earth’s original massive stadium. The side of the Colosseum collapsed during an earthquake in 847, the West exit is known as the Gate of Death for the dead gladiators dragged through it, and the word Colosseum is always capitalized for the famous structure despite the fact that the word translates into “large arena for entertainment.” But the most amazing fact is that the wooden floor of the Colosseum would be removed and the open channels below would be filled with water for mock naval battles. Read the rest of this entry →

Have you ever wanted to watch a baseball highlight without going on MLB.com and trying to navigate their ridiculous video section? Well that might not be a problem any longer. Major League Baseball has finally lifted its ban of Major League clips on YouTube. As every other sports league was easily accessible worldwide, the tyranny of Bud Selig wouldn’t allow even a 30 second clip of an MLB game. Now MLB has finally joined the 21st century and has posted full game videos of classic games, and have eased their ban on others posting MLB videos.

One of the best full games MLB had posted thus far is the 1999 all-star game at Fenway Park.

Every Red Sox fan remembers this classic!! Ted Williams is comes out of Center field waving his hat to the crowd, and even the players are in awe of the greatest hitter that ever lived. The when the actually starts, Pedro Martinez strikes out 5 of the 6 batters he faces.

If you have 5 hours to kill, you can always watch game 5 of the 2004 ALCS

And you can even follow it up by watching the Red Sox win their first World Series in 86 years!

Although the MLB YouTube channel isn’t spectacular, its a start for the league. The NBA, NHL, and even European Football have been big commodities on YouTube, and people all over the world now have the opportunity to follow teams without paying with a limb for an MLB subscription

Marco Sturm etched his name in Boston Sports lore with his Winter Classic clincher.

The Winter Classic lived up to all the hype and then some. It truly was a spectacle and made hockey relevant in this country again. It was a needed shot in the arm for a sport that has been taking up the rear behind baseball, football, and basketball for years.

Personally, I was very excited just to WATCH this game. I watched the Winter Classics in Chicago and snowy Buffalo, but now it was in my backyard at Fenway Park.

I was down at Mohegan Sun and MGM at Foxwoods for New Years. My whole departure was planned around this game.

One of the cashiers at the MGM said to me after seeing my Bruins cap, “I hope you make it home before the game.”

Me too, but those one armed bandits put their magical spell even over the most die hard Bruins fan.

My girlfriend said, “It’s 11:30am.” I told her to give my version of the two hour warning, but I didn’t listen.

I was going to miss some of the game!

Read the rest of this entry →