If you’re a huge baseball fan who has always wanted to make the grueling 30-day trip to all 30 MLB stadiums without dealing with the planning process, then you’re in luck.
Slate writers Ben Blatt and Eric Brewster developed a map that does just that.
The premise is simple. You enter your home city into the map, pick a date to start and the algorithm that Blatt developed will plan a 30-day trip to every stadium. But there are rules, and those are not simple.
“The algorithm allows four hours for each game,” the map says. “A trip must allow a visit to a complete game at every ballpark in less than 30 days for it to be valid.
“The algorithm minimizes risky driving. In other words, the algorithm tries to avoid hard to complete drives, like an 11-hour drive scheduled in a 12-hour window, even if this would cut down on total miles travelled in the trip. Instead, the amount of breathing room allotted for the worst of the 29 legs of the trip is maximized.”
These rules are why Brewster warns that you should read the account of their trip when they completed it last season.
As Brewster said, Blatt’s algorithm doesn’t “account for us being human,” meaning you might end up sleeping in your car for less than a full night or showering in dirty motels like they did. It also doesn’t allow much stopping time, so if you want to leave the car and see something other than a baseball stadium, then you’ll need to plan your own trip.
Still, it’s a cool concept, and it will definitely appeal to all the hardcore baseball fans of the world.
Here’s a picture of what one trip starting at Fenway Park would look like. You can click here to try for yourself.
