I’ve attended a lot of baseball games in a bunch of stadiums, major and minor league, and I was thinking the other day about the different ways I’ve gotten there. That includes cars, trains, buses, bicycle, and (in a few cases, when staying in nearby hotels) on foot.
My favorite summer outdoor activity, though, is kayaking, and I ALMOST paddled to a game once. There was a minor league game going on at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown NY, and I thought about trying to kayak to the game–there’s a lakefront park, and the stadium is just a few blocks away. But finding a put-in point that wasn’t most of the way across the lake proved troublesome, and though I don’t have any objection to paddling that distance in theory I didn’t really have time to do it in practice. (It was a day trip, and a 2.5 hour one-way drive minimum.) So I wound up parking at the north end of the lake and biking in. Which was fun, though I’d used that method of travel before.
But I would still like to be able to paddle to some ballpark. Here would be the “rules” (because you gotta have rules for this kind of thing):
*Pro ball only. Nothing against college games or high school or whatever, but we have to have some standards 
*The put-in point should probably within ~3 miles from the ballpark. Any further and time becomes an issue. OTOH, paddling across a 20-yard-wide river seems a little pointless, so a “reasonable” distance (I’ll know it when I see it) would be good.
*The takeout point would have to be within an easy walk of the ballpark. It doesn’t have to be on the stadium’s property, but it defeats the purpose if I have to take a bus after that or hike halfway across the county.
*I’m strictly a recreational kayaker, so no major waterfalls, big rapids, seven-foot ocean swells, tsunamis, that kind of thing.
We’ll ignore geography for right now and pretend I can get anywhere.
Off the top of my head, I can think of a handful of ballparks I’ve visited that might be possibilities. Lelacheur Park in Lowell, Mass–the Merrimack River, which looks very navigable, flows right behind it. Harrisburg, PA–the ballpark is on an island in the Susquehanna. For these, though, I don’t know about opportunities for putting in and taking out. The park in Staten Island, NY, is right on the waterfront, but I must say the idea of weaving in and out of ferryboats and container ships doesn’t strongly appeal.
Other possibilities? I know there are kayakers in McCovey Cove in San Francisco–do they launch from the stadium parking lot, or is there somewhere else they get there from, and if so can they take out by the ballpark? Are there other major league stadiums that are right on easily navigable waterways, or close enough? How about minor league parks? Is Trenton’s park close enough to the Delaware River to matter? Any of the parks in towns along the Mississippi? Elsewhere?
Any suggestions, inside info, personal experience, etc., would be much appreciated. The logistics may prove impossible, what with real life and everything, but it’s something I sure would enjoy doing if I could figure out a reasonable way to manage it! Thanks for any suggestions.