Like many bike commuters, I'm an avid baseball fan. (Cursed by ancestral heritage to be a Red Sox fan.) Major League Baseball's spring training season starts in less than six weeks. The Red Sox, for example, open on March 1 with some split squad games in Ft. Myers, Florida.
Baseball is a great sport for bicycle commuters. For one thing, baseball occurs during the warm spring and summer months, when bicycling activity is at its peak. And every game is broadcast on radio, offering entertainment for the long bicycle commute home, provided you have a good portable radio. If there isn't a game on, baseball-loving bike commuters might also listen to a podcast on their Ipod, such as ESPN's Baseball Today with Allen Schwarz or Corn, Gordon & Flanagan on the Red Sox.
And for some fortunate bicycling baseball fans, there may even be a stadium within easy riding distance. Some professional baseball franchises, such as those in San Francisco and Sacramento, even offer secure bicycle parking.
When I was executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition, I wrote an article on bike parking at stadiums for the organization's newsletter, hoping to encourage baseball franchises in the state to offer better transportation alternatives for their fans, including bicycles.
Let's play ball! Oh boy, I can hardly wait! Go Sox!
Image: Paul Dorn, on a bike outing near Davis, California, standing behind wife's mixte frame.
Visit: Baseball, Apple Pie, and Bicycling?, article published in CalBike Advocate.
Visit: Paul Dorn's Bike Commuting Tips Site
Friday, January 19, 2007
Spring training draws near
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2 comments:
I don't think I would've pegged you for a Sox fan.
We don't have major league baseball in Columbus, but we do have major league soccer with a similarly-dated season. I've ridden to the stadium for a couple of games, and it's fairly obvious that they never expected this. I had to chain my bike to the fence around the stadium (behind some bushes, so that was nice from the standpoint of removing the bike from the public view).
Does anyone have any ideas for broaching the subject of bike-parking at such a place to the stadium's owners (in this case, the Columbus Crew)?
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