A Fan Hits the Road

By H.G. REZA

July 18, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Even by major league standards Rea Wilson’s baseball odyssey was some road trip. The journey--to visit all 30 major league ballparks--had been her husband’s idea. But he died of cancer in 1993, three years after the Seal Beach couple began saving for their pilgrimage.

“After I lost Bob seven years ago I decided that if I was still alive in 2000, I’d do the trip myself,” said Wilson, who’s been a Dodger season ticket holder for 27 years. And, with one exception, she did: “Rea’s Baseball Trek 2000,” a tribute to her husband of 48 years and a celebration of the new millennium, began April 4 in Anaheim and ended June 30 in San Francisco.

Sure, it is a feat accomplished by other fans. But how many have driven 18,000 miles through two countries? At 77? Alone?

“She’s an amazing fan. This just shows what baseball can do to you,” said Frank Simio, vice president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. who met with Wilson on May 17.

She is something of a stubborn fan too. She had planned the trip for two months, downloading schedules from the Internet and e-mailing clubs (about half responded). At each park, she would appear hours before the game and find the folks in the media relations office. Once they had heard her tale, they would give her great seats for free, and in some cases, treat her like a queen.

Except in Cincinnati.

“Cincinnati was a bummer,” she said. “Something went wrong. I couldn’t even get in. But my husband and I have seen games at Riverfront Stadium. It’s a terrible place to watch baseball if you’re sitting in the outfield bleachers.”

Miffed at the Reds, and refusing to pay between $5 and $21 for a seat, she packed up and headed to St. Louis.

Crisscrossing the United States and Canada (which has parks in Montreal and Toronto) was a piece of cake, she said. Mostly, she stayed in motels and with friends and relatives. But some nights, she slept in the van. “I didn’t have any trouble,” Wilson said.

On the road, she listened to books on tape and made the first inning of every game. This meant that speed limits sometimes had to be broken. On June 15, for instance, Wilson, who’d bought a new Dodge van for the trip, saw a game in Minneapolis, then drove 700 miles the next day to make a game in Denver on June 17.

“I drove 75 mph, mostly,” she said with a chuckle. I never got a ticket and didn’t have any accidents.”

In most parks, Wilson had her photo taken with the home managers. (The Yankees, Red Sox, Reds, and Dodgers skippers were the only ones who did not meet with her.)

She hated Tampa Bay’s enclosed Tropicana Field and found San Francisco’s new Pac Bell Park just as windy and cold as the old Candlestick Park. She enjoyed baseball’s shrines--Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago.

“They’re like a sandlot, beautiful and pure,” she said.

And though she always thought Dodger Stadium was the most beautiful park of all, she’s now got a new favorite--the Detroit Tigers’ new home, Comerica Park.

“You can walk around the stadium on a catwalk, with statues of the Tigers’ Hall of Famers all around,” she said.

During her trip, she saw her favorite club twice, with the Dodgers winning one and losing one. That was difficult, she said, because she tried to root politely for the home team at each park.

Still, the front office of the Giants, historic rivals of the Dodgers, must have been able to spot a Dodgers fan anyhow. “That was the only team that gave me a seat in the bleachers,” said Wilson. “I was way up there. Everybody else gave me a seat behind home plate, close to the field.”

The cheap seat may be nice at the Giants’ new Pac Bell Park, but the seats behind the plate are nicer. Wilson said she “moved a couple of times” and ended up watching the game staring over the home plate umpire’s shoulder.

Some clubs allowed her on the field during batting practice, and the Braves’ Bobby Cox even took her in the clubhouse. “All of the managers I met were great. They all made time for me,” said Wilson. But Texas Rangers Manager Johnny Oates was her favorite.

“Johnny was the best,” she said. “A real gentleman. He came to me, took me by the arm and escorted me to the field. After we got our picture taken, he escorted me to the dugout, and said I could sit there while the players hit.”

Wilson is accustomed to being close to the field, if not on it. Her four seats are on the third base side, by the Dodgers’ dugout. “On the front rooow,” she said with her best Bob Uecker voice.

The season tickets cost $13,000 this year. The same seats cost about $275 the first year that she and her husband bought season tickets, Wilson said. Ticket prices have skyrocketed so much “to pay the overpaid players” that Wilson now splits the seats and their cost with three others, she said.

After visiting Shea Stadium and Yankee Stadium in New York on May 14 and 16, Wilson took an unscheduled side trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, en route to Toronto.

“I spent four hours there,” she said. “I was surprised that they have pictures of Pete Rose and some of his other stuff there.”

(Rose, former player and manager, is baseball’s all-time hit leader, with 4,256 hits. Had he not been banned from baseball for gambling, he would be a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame.)

While in Cooperstown, Simio, the hall’s vice president autographed the calendar she had all major league managers sign, and requested a copy of the journal that Wilson is putting together to commemorate her trip.

The journal will be included among the thousands of mementos that have recorded the history of America’s pastime since Abner Doubleday laid out the first diamond on a grass field more than 150 years ago.

“Imagine that,” she said. “Pete’s not in the Hall of Fame, but my journal will be.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Covering the Bases

Rea Wilson traveled 18,000 miles from April 4 to June 30 to visit every major league ballpark and the Hall of Fame, fulfilling a wish of her deceased husband. She received free tickets to every game, except in Cincinnati.

April

4-Anaheim

9-Oakland

14-Los Angeles

15-San Diego

17-Phoenix

21-Houston

23-Arlington, Tex.

25-Atlanta

May

2-Tampa Bay

5-Miami