100 Miles of Baseball: Fifty Games, One Summer

by Dale Jacobs, Heidi L.M. Jacobs

From sandlots to major league stands, two fans set out to recapture their love of the game.

For most of their lives together Dale Jacobs and Heidi LM Jacobs couldn’t imagine a spring without baseball. Their season tickets renewal package always seemed to arrive on the bleakest day of winter, offering reassurance that sunnier times were around the corner. Baseball was woven into the fabric of their lives, connecting them not only to each other but also to their families and histories. But by 2017 it was obvious something was the allure of another Sunday watching their Detroit Tigers had devolved to obligation. Not entirely sure what they were missing, they did have an idea on where it might be in their own backyard. Drawing a radius of one hundred miles around their home in Windsor, Ontario, Dale and Heidi set a goal of seeing fifty games at all levels of competition over the following summer. From bleachers behind high schools, to manicured university turf, to the steep concrete stands of major league parks, 100 Miles of Baseball tells the story of how two fans rediscovered their love of the game—and with it their relationships and the region they call home.

Genres: Baseball, Nonfiction

353 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 16, 2021

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted more studies.

I just finished watching Mare of Easttown. Or the third season of True Detective, if you want to look at it that way. In Mare of Easttown, Mare is a detective in the small Pennsylvania town of Easttown, struggling through her own life's problems when a series of disappearances and murders shock her community. Mare seems to know everyone in Easttown, giving double-meaning to her name. And it defeats her even more to see the disappointment in everyone's life, whether it is from the things that happen to them or Mare's inability to help resolve the things that happen to them. Besides the action of the cases Mare takes on, there are themes of loss, loneliness, and motherhood that elevate the show into true prestige television. Give it a five-star rating on Goodwatches, if there is one.

This is what I wanted from 100 Miles of Baseball, by a professor and librarian at the University of Windsor. They're a married couple who decides to go to write a book about attending 50 baseball games within 100 miles of their home one summer. They make it as far as the Cleveland area, visiting an independent showcase in Lorain, a Frontier League game in Avon, the Indians downtown, and a Class A minor league game in Lake County, just east of Cleveland. They see a lot of college level and high school ball in the summer of 2018, plenty of them in places I've barely even heard of.

Oh, I didn't need it to be Mare of Easttown. That would be ridiculous to want that. But the Jacobses basically tell you what they saw. They don't show you. They don't get into many stories about the people or places they visit. They don't get into much history of the areas they visit. And they don't get into many themes about why people want to play in many of these game, much less watch them. There is a little bit of soul searching amongst themselves as to why they are doing this. Is it just something to do? Just something to pass time? Does it bring the couple closer together? Does it make either of them like baseball more or less? Explore those themes, add in spice with some stories about the games or people or places that you saw, and you have a more compelling book.

Maybe that stuff is in their somewhere. But after reading about their first three weekend trips, I found the book becoming repetitive. So I skipped ahead to the Cleveland-area chapter, which is more than halfway through. More of the same. Then I skipped to the end and didn't find any grand conclusions. So I don't think I'm missing much.

Congrats to the Jacobs. They wrote a book about traveling to a bunch of baseball games. I haven't so I'm jealous. I just wanted there to be more to it.

[Devon · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's so incredible to see the Jacobs' journey throughout their summer with their shared love of baseball and how it changes them in unique ways. I was very lucky to work as a research assistant for this book, and while I had to wait a while to read the book to avoid having research flashbacks to looking up temperatures and how to spell certain players' names, I'm so glad to have been involved in such a spectacular book!

[Randall · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is very little on offer here. Occasionally you get some reporting of baseball events for teams and players to which you have no connection. There's a lot of navel-gazong about what they are meant to get out of "the project" but it's not very insightful and becomes repetitive. In fairness, I'm active in baseball, so some of the observations also just seem sort of trite. I am a little shocked I even finished it.

[Michael Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy this book, finding myself gravitating toward moments and ahas that the couple shared about their love for baseball and the finer details, nuances of the game. I am not sure my wife would be on board seeing 50 games over a summer, but perhaps she will be game to experience 59 breweries over the summer of '21 as I work on my first book! :)

[Luke V · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry, couldn't finish this one. The alternating writing style (first one author, then the other, alternating every couple paragraphs) didn't work for me. And through the first 10-15 games I just never really understood why we were doing this.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some coworkers gave me this book as a parting gift when I moved to Windsor. I'm not a big sports fan, but even given that, this was a cute book. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of Windsor-Essex and environs, and the different vibes that come with different levels of baseball.

[Kim Conklin]

An engaging read for everyone, even non-baseball fans.

[Paul Sutter]

I have been a lover of baseball since my childhood, but as life would have I would only been to one professional game ever, and that was in Toronto to see the Blue Jays lose to Boston Red Sox. Baseball has been a sport where families can go watch a game and bond. Imagine going to fifty games during the summer season? That is what Dale and Heidi Jacobs did during the summer of 2018, long before the pandemic put the kibosh to attending games even of the minor league variety. What has been written in 100 MILES OF BASEBALL is the ultimate tribute to the sport, where the authors drove from one diamond to another and watched game after game. This was all within a 100 mile radius of their home in Windsor Ontario. They went to big parks and small parks, parks where there were barely two dozen people in the stands, but the enthusiasm for the teams were just as exuberant as one might find in the big leagues.
There were teams such as the Saginaw Sugar Beets, Port Lambton Pirates, St. Clair Green Giants, Lake Eric Crushers, West Side Wooly Mammoths, and Tillsonburg Old Socks, to name a few. They were amateur teams, college teams, and even had teams with players who aspired to get into the big leagues. Dale and Heidi were sometimes mistaken for talent scouts as they sat there taking notes. There was even a lady who when the writers explained their project said, “There’s baseball in Canada? I thought you all just played lacrosse.”
During the games they saw some big league caliber plays and minor league caliber plays, but the main thing was whether this was just a small-time competition, the players put their heart and soul into the games, as if their future depended on it. That summer of 2018 truly turned into their field of dreams, visiting various parks to watch fifty games, and coming away with an understanding of why the sport is so endearing to people of all ages. You feel as if you were there with them, smelling hot dogs and the vendor’s other delights. They truly hit this book right out of the park.