Hello Everybody:

It’s September. The pilgrimage is over. I’m back in Winnipeg.

But wait. The last blog entry only took us to Denver. That was only the beginning of August. Where’s the last month?

It’s true. I am behind. I’ve been behind for almost four weeks now. And I’m sorry. I never meant for it to happen that way.

I started off the trip well and kept the blog up for almost two months. It wasn’t a vacation. I had a mission and the mission was the blog. No matter where I was or what I was doing, I always made time to add a post every couple of days. And upload pictures and the occasional video.

I was new to all of this. Never had a blog before. Learned as I went - with lots of help from webmaster Dario.

And the thing that kept me going: all of you - my readers. It’s weird for me. I’ve never had readers before. I’ve never had people who were following me, checking up every couple of days (or sometimes even every single day, I’m told) to see how the trip was going.

It’s incredibly flattering and overwhelming.

All I can say is thank you. You made keeping the blog fun and your comments inspired me to keep writing.

But then I got behind during the Week of Death when Internet connections were scarce and so was time. Then I hit Phoenix (where my Aunt and Uncle live)…and then LA (where I have a whole whack of cousins)…and then San Francisco (more cousins). All of a sudden the trip became a vacation.

Mini-family reunions, dinners, desserts, hanging out by the pool. For two months I was on a mission. By the time I started the West Coast Swing I had succumbed to the temptation of palm trees and beaches. I started to relax. And I got lazy with the blog.

But enough excuses. It’s not good enough. After two months of loyalty, you deserved better. You deserved the same commitment from me as you had shown me.

And I know in August I let you down. And it’s not for lack of material. I missed out on telling you about the Almost-Perfect Game in Phoenix, Manny Being Manny in LA (as well as a certain beach ball incident at Dodger Stadium), an intense pre-drinking session in Anaheim with a father-and-son duo who will not soon be forgotten, the Bay Area (and another Canadian on the same pilgrimage…what?), Seattle with my cousins driving down from Vancouver, and, of course, the finale: finally making it to the elusive Cincinnati.

So now what do we do?

Over the next couple of days (starting with this afternoon), I will be posting again - just like in the beginning.

I want to share all the stories from the West Coast.

I want to talk about Cincinnati and what it felt like to be done.

I want to share a few more radio spots from the last month of the trip.

And I want to wrap everything up. Some rankings, some reflections, some neat statistics about the trip.

I guess I ran out of bloggin steam towards the end of my journey. But now I’ve found my second wind.

So thank you for the support. Thank you for the encouragement. The fact that the wall of comments was not just messages from my Mom - that really made me smile. And thank you to all of you who have given me a hard time over the last few days about giving up on the blog. I deserve it.

And you deserve the final chapters.

So let’s do it.

The August Recap begins later today.

Matthew

2 1/2 months…

30 Major League ballparks….

That’s the mission.

And now it’s finally underway.

First off, thanks for visiting the website. My good friend Dario Schor, the self-taught genius he is, designed the site as a surprise birthday present and now we all get to enjoy his hours of hard work.

If I had it my way, everyone I know would join me for at least a leg of the trip. I know that’s not possible, but thanks to the site, anyone who wants now has the opportunity to follow along as I try to fulfill this crazy childhood dream.

Please…look at the pictures…read the blog posts…leave comments…slide head first…spit as frequently as possible…and swing for the fences.

I’ll see you all in the clubhouse at the end of it all.

All the best,

Matthew

“You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.” ~Jim Bouton

“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” ~Rogers Hornsby

“With those who don’t give a damn about baseball, I can only sympathize. I do not resent them. I am even willing to concede that many of them are physically clean, good to their mothers and in favor of world peace. But while the game is on, I can’t think of anything to say to them.” ~Art Hill