I started the blog a decade ago this month. The original idea was to document my year of not having a job. And then I got a job. I tried changing the name of the blog at one point, but that would have messed up any links to old blog posts so I just kept it the same.
Anyway, I had goals of getting to every Major League Baseball stadium and all 50 states. For a short time, I had been to every Major League Baseball Stadium. And then the Rangers got a new stadium so I still need to get to that one. But since I started the blog, I’ve seen Major League Baseball games in 32 different stadiums (two different stadiums for the Braves and Blue Jays).
I’ve now been to all 50 states. I had been to 21 states when I started the blog. I think I’ve been in all 50 since starting the blog. I was trying to think of how many I’ve made a point of visiting since starting the blog and I think the number is 47. The only time I’ve been in New Hampshire since 2012 was driving through it to get to and from Maine (I had made a point of going to New Hampshire and getting some clam chowder when I was in Massachusetts for John’s wedding in 2011). I probably haven’t actually set foot in Rhode Island since 2012, but I’ve definitely gone through it in a car or on a train or bus a few times (I was in Rhode Island to visit Providence when my brothers were looking at colleges, probably around 1995). And I spent a few nights in Virginia when my brother Sean was still living there, but I was only there to do stuff in Washington DC or Maryland (but Virginia is probably in the top 10 states where I’ve spent the most time in my life). At some point, I’d like to see some sports in those states. Virginia and New Hampshire have minor league baseball teams. A Notre Dame football game in Virginia would be another possibility, but we don’t play at Virginia Tech again until 2028 and we don’t play at Virginia again until 2031. Rhode Island doesn’t have a minor league team anymore. I guess my first choice for a sporting event in Rhode Island would be a Providence basketball game. Other options would be college baseball or summer league baseball (featuring college players).
Besides my travels around the country, I’ve also been to four other countries now. When I started the blog, I hadn’t left the country. But now I’ve been to Ireland, England, Canada, and Australia. I’ve seen sporting events in each of those countries (college football in Ireland and Australia, tennis in England, and baseball in Canada). I don’t know when I’ll leave the country again, but the next three countries I want to visit are Italy, Vatican City, and Poland. There won’t be any sports in the Vatican City but we’ll see about Italy and Poland. And France might have a history of being cheese-eating surrender monkeys for the last 200 years, but I would be interested in visiting Normandy and Lourdes at some point.
My idea for this post was pretty much to be the clip show of blog posts. I wanted to go through each year and highlight the best trip from each year (which sometimes had multiple stops and/or blog posts) and one other blog post. I’ll ignore the fact that calendar years are completely arbitrary and that my year starts in September with the start of college football and a new school year.
2012- Notre Dame in Ireland and my goodbye to Camp Alvernia after spending 13 summers working there.
2013- England (Day 1, Wimbledon, Days 3 and 4, Fourth of July, Canterbury) and Clayton Kershaw’s dominant Opening Day (this was part of a trip, but it would have been worthy of a blog post even if I didn’t go).
2014- Civil War road trip and Clayton Kershaw’s no-hitter
2015- Field of Dreams, Nebraska and the Dakotas, and Minnesota (that was five states in one trip) and Clayton Kershaw’s dominance on my father’s birthday
2016- Hawaii/Australia and my running diary of a game during Vin Scully’s last season (which included a great Vin Scully story)
2017- Driving from Denver to San Francisco with Tom and drinking the 50 states (I only had 13 posts in 2017 so there weren’t a lot to choose from)
2018- Arkansas/Notre Dame (that was the same trip) and winning the gold medal in curling
2019- Oakland/Alaska (Oakland is definitely only included because it was the same trip as Alaska) and some history and the Big East Tournament in New York City
2020- March for Life (this post was not specifically about the March for Life, but I mentioned it and it was the only trip I went on beyond Long Island all year) and the Dodgers win the World Series
2021- Louisville/Los Angeles (that was the same trip) and the Dark Knight trilogy
And looking back on old posts, I came across the All Jim Team. I’ve updated the team. The team originally only had nine pitchers. I’m going to 11. Even though Major League Baseball has gone to 26-man rosters, I’m staying at 25, because baseball should have just kept rosters at 25 (the only reason they expanded is because of how many pitchers they use and they use too many pitchers). Also, I had Clayton Kershaw as my third favorite player ever (behind Koufax at number 1 and Hershiser at number 2). Since then, he won his second and third Cy Young Awards, an MVP, and helped the Dodgers win the World Series in 2020 (and he deserved a World Series Championship in 2017 as well). Kershaw is clearly my favorite player ever now. So here’s my updated starting lineup:
Jackie Robinson 2B
Ken Griffey Jr. CF
Babe Ruth RF
Ted Williams LF
Lou Gehrig 1B
Roy Campanella C
Corey Seager SS
Justin Turner 3B
Clayton Kershaw P
Obviously we’re not using a designated hitter. You would definitely want to have a left-handed pitcher against us. And here’s the full 25-man roster:
Pitchers (11): Clayton Kershaw, Sandy Koufax, Walter Johnson, Orel Hershiser, Roy Halliday (the first five I mentioned are the starting pitchers on my team), Grover Cleveland Alexander, Johnny Podres, Don Drysdale, Jeff Samardzija, Mariano Rivera, Kenley Jansen
Catchers (2): Roy Campanella, Yogi Berra
Infielders (6): Jackie Robinson, Corey Seager, Derek Jeter, Lou Gehrig, Justin Turner, Keith Hernandez
Outfielders (6): Ted Williams, Ken Griffey Jr., Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, Duke Snider, Hank Aaron
Manager: Tommy Lasorda
So here were the changes from my original All Jim Team:
In: Jeff Samardzija, Kenley Jansen, Corey Seager, Justin Turner
Out: Joe Torre, Pee Wee Reese, Torii Hunter Sr., Tony Gwynn Sr.
I added three players from the 2020 Dodgers and the best wide receiver from when I was a student at Notre Dame. I could have gone with more 2020 Dodgers, but I tried to limit it. Kenley Jansen is the Dodgers’ greatest relief pitcher ever. Corey Seager was NLCS and World Series MVP so that was an easy choice. I wish they had re-signed him, but it was hard to argue with not re-signing him since they have Trea Turner and the Rangers gave Seager a huge contract. And Justin Turner has been the heart and soul of the Dodgers for several years now. The hardest omission was Walker Buehler. If the World Series had gone seven games and he won Game 7 or if he had won the Cy Young last year, then he would have been on. Hopefully if I update this again in 10 years, he’ll be on the team. For now, we’re just going to put him on the 40-man roster, not the 25-man active roster. So here are the other 15 guys on the 40-man roster:
Walker Buehler, Julio Urias, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Jesse Orosco, John Franco, Fernando Valenzuela, Don Newcombe, Joe Torre, Pee Wee Reese, Torii Hunter Sr., Tony Gwynn Sr., Andre Ethier, A.J. Pollock, Chris Taylor, Kiké Hernandez
Hopefully the Dodgers will win the World Series this year and Walker Buehler will get promoted. There are several other players on the team that can get promoted or added to the roster if the Dodgers win the World Series. Let’s Go Dodgers!
And I also had an All-Jim Basketball Team. I limited it to players from my lifetime who were Hall of Farmers, future Hall of Famers, or players who should be in the Hall of Fame so it wasn’t just the 2007-2008 Celtics. I had Kevin Durant on the team so obviously this needs to be updated as well. I’m going to make a couple of exceptions to the Hall of Fame requirement because I need to make a change at point guard. Here’s the starting lineup:
PG- Marcus Smart
SG- Paul Pierce
SF- Larry Bird
PF- Kevin Garnett
C- Shaquille O’Neal
Bench: Ray Allen, Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, David Robinson, Robert Horry, Pat Connaughton
Coach: Monty Williams
So here were the changes:
In: Marcus Smart, Pat Connaughton
Out: Rajon Rondo, Kevin Durant
Paul Pierce played mostly forward, but he did play shooting guard early in his career. He had to be in the starting lineup but Larry Bird had to be in the starting lineup as well. Shaquille O’Neal and Robert Horry are on the team only for their non-Lakers years.
I had to replace two players. I’ll always love 2007-2008 Rajon Rondo, but he’s now played so much of his career not on the Celtics and he ended up winning a championship with the Lakers. I could have replaced him with any Celtics starting point guard since then who wasn’t Kyrie Irving. Isaiah Thomas gave everything he had to the Celtics. Kemba Walker was the anti-Kyrie Irving and people forget how good he was until he got hurt. The 2020 All Star Game was a classic All Star Game and Kemba Walker was playing when the game was on the line. But Marcus Smart gets the nod over Isaiah Thomas and Kemba Walker for winning Defensive Player of the Year this year. And Kevin Durant became one of the most dislikable players in the NBA as soon as he went to the Warriors. And then he left the Warriors and Durant and Kyrie Irving made the Nets into an even more detestable team than the Warriors were. So Durant gets replaced by my favorite Notre Dame basketball player ever and 2021 NBA Champion Pat Connaughton.
Jaylen Brown could definitely make this team someday. Jayson Tatum has a chance to be the best Celtic since Larry Bird, but he went to Duke so he has a lot of work to do to make up for that if he’s going to make the All Jim Team. It would be awesome for the Celtics to beat the Nets this year because the Nets have become my least favorite team in the league other than the Lakers. This season was a complete disaster for the Celtics and then it completely turned around. They have been awesome for the last few months and the Lakers were so terrible that they didn’t even make the play in tournament. And now the Celtics are two wins away from ending Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant’s season. If they do beat the Nets, anything could happen after that. My guess would be that the winner of Bucks-Celtics would end up winning the East, but that’s not guaranteed. The Suns have definitely been the best team in the NBA this year, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the Celtics beat them if they could get to the Finals. But for now, the Celtics need to finish off the Nets. Let’s Go Celtics!
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