Alright, Let's Lay Down a Few Ground Rules Here

So with some more free time on my hands and that visitors counter going to the extremely exciting number of 20, I figure I should explain some things before I head to bed.

Because I have already made roughly a quarter of my way through this long and difficult journey of mine, there is already a hefty amount of stuff that has been written. I will not put it all up here at once, however. I will spread it out from time to time, maybe once a week or so, to keep it all from coming out at once and to keep you coming back for more. As well, the chapters I have written are not always brief and concise. To those of you who know me, this is, I'm sure, not surprising at all. In fact, some chapters are fairly long -- the one of Shea Stadium because it is the stadium to which I am most attached for example -- and I will not be posting all of them.

The posts will get unwieldy and boring to say nothing of the damage that could be done to your eyes by reading the whole thing start to finish -- as if we don't already spend our entire days sitting in front of a computer screen.

For those particularly long chapters, I may post bits and pieces of them over time as they include multiple stories. Hopefully each of them will be fairly easily digestible. With that in mind, old stories from Shea Stadium and Yankee Stadium (I), two places I attended baseball games at for nearly 20 years, will probably pop up from time to time. Along that same vein, stories from Citi Field and Yankee Stadium (II) will begin to pop up as they happen. I'll leave the messy business of condensing them all into a book for a few decades down the line when I've got more patience for it.



Another thing, there will be multiple posts regarding future trips when they come around in advance of and during them. Some of this will just be informational, some of it will be in hopes that those of you in other cities might notice and choose to join me.

Next point. I know I'm hoping to spread these trips out over an extended period of time, but I'm also not made of money. Let's not be silly. Maximizing efficiency is the key, and generally I will follow my home teams in the process. It won't always line up perfectly, but generally I will try to see more than one team if possible on each trip. A recent weekend, which I did not make a trip for, saw the Devils visit the Minnesota Wild and the Giants visit the Minnesota Vikings on consecutive days. Flukes of the schedule like that are pure gold. I will be on the lookout for them.

Next. Some things that have been done and will be written about are going to be rude, distasteful, and once in a while illegal. Not by me really. I'm too straight an arrow for my own good and I'm pretty sure I never do anything too wrong -- much to my parents disappointment it seems. In the events when something illegal has happened, I will not be naming names. At least not until the statute of limitations has passed.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I am not objective.

Nope. Not one bit. Not even a little. Why did I bother getting into sports in the first place if I didn't have a team I rooted for? And with that in mind you ought to know that much of these trips will involve following the New York Giants, New York Mets, New Jersey Devils, New York Knicks, Northwestern University and, to a lesser extent, the Chicago Blackhawks.

I have my reasons, and I accept no arguments on this.

And if the city of Philadelphia is involved, I am likely to be less than open-minded.

With all that laid out, I think I'm good for now. And if some of you are still confused, well, it's 2:10 a.m. and I want to go to sleep. You'll have to figure it out for yourself.

The first story will be posted tomorrow when I wake up. Get excited.