ALEXANDRIA, VA-When Alexandria native Tommy Thompson announced to his colleagues at the Department of Justice Tax Division that he would be retiring at the end of 2022 after a lengthy career at the agency, several wondered aloud what he was going to do next. For Thompson, a lifelong baseball fan who previously owned season tickets to the Washington Nationals, the answer was both simple and audacious: he was going to visit all 30 current MLB stadiums. In one summer.
“It was always in the back of my head, and I certainly did want to get to every ballpark,” Thompson said. “But I decided to do it in one season. And you can’t do that if you’re working full time.”
Thompson’s baseball quest began in Tampa Bay in late March 2024, watching the Rays take on the Toronto Blue Jays. More than five months later, it ended on the opposite coast, watching the San Diego Padres defeat the Detroit Tigers at Petco Park in the bottom of the tenth inning. In between, in addition to visiting 28 MLB stadiums, Thompson visited the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, and even managed to include a College World Series baseball game in Fayetteville, Arkansas. And the fan of live music snuck in shows in Luckenbach, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee.
But the main goal was the 30 MLB stadiums. For a stadium visit to count toward his goal, Thompson decided that he needed to enter through the main gate, in time for the first pitch. And he needed to have a “unique experience” at each stadium. Those ultimately included petting stingrays at a Tampa Bay Rays game (stadium #1); visiting Monument Park at Yankee Stadium (stadium #6); tasting poutine at a Blue Jays game (stadium #9); parking at the Bob Uecker lot while watching the Milwaukee Brewers (stadium #17); seeing the 1985 and 2015 World Series trophies while watching the Kansas City Royals (stadium #21); and enjoying a classic Dodger Dog (stadium #26).
In one long stretch in the early summer, Thompson spent five consecutive weeks on the road, driving through multiple states (and one foreign country) and covering 8100 miles as he visited the home stadiums of the Red Sox, Blue Jays, Guardians, Pirates, Reds, Tigers, Cardinals, Twins, White Sox, Brewers, Cubs, Astros, Rangers, Royals, and Braves. He budgeted $50 for each game, and tried to sit along the first-base line in the lower or lodge levels.
For one-third of the games, Thompson was accompanied by a family member or friend. For those remaining games that Thompson attended alone, he said that neighboring fans marveled when they learned about his quest. “I mentioned what I was doing to some of the folks,” Thompson said. “And they got very enthusiastic about it. They thought it was an impossible thing to do.”
Lisa Ward, Thompson’s wife (and occasional stadium companion), chronicled his odyssey on a Facebook page aptly titled “Tommy’s 2024 MLB Stadium Tour.” In addition, Thompson’s DOJ colleagues gave him a retirement present in anticipation of his grand adventure: a map of the United States with the names and locations of each of the stadiums, along with mini-baseballs that could be applied once Thompson had visited that stadium. The completed map, with 30 carefully-inserted baseballs, now sits proudly in Thompson’s Old Town home, along with a collection of souvenir cups, representing Thompson’s secondary goal to sample a local craft beer at each stadium.
Although he was reticent to name his least favorite stadium, Thompson grimaced when recalling his visit to the home stadium of the Miami Marlins: “In an attempt to boost the attendance, they invited folks to bring their musical instruments to the games this year. So the seat that I got that night in Miami was in front of a bunch of guys with tubas, trombones, and a base drum, and it was annoying as hell,” said Thompson with a laugh. “But I knew that it wouldn’t happen anywhere else.”
Thompson’s quest is unlikely to be repeated again because this is the last year that the Athletics played in Oakland, before moving to Las Vegas (with an interim stop in Sacramento). Thomson, who had visited the Oakland stadium more than two decades ago while his brother went to school in California, attended one of the last home games, where the home team won in a walk off.
That was one of three walk offs that Thompson witnessed, including at Petco Park, the final stadium on his quest (where he took a picture in front of the stadium holding the Zebra). Asked about his favorite stadium memories, he quickly mentioned a day game at Wrigley Field, a Friday night in Seattle when the roof was open, and a twilight game at Dodger Stadium. Thompson said that, out of all the parks he visited, “[t]he California parks honestly were all wonderful.” He mused “that might have a lot to do with the idea that I was getting to the end, and I should cherish this a little more.”
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