Sports

Ultimate Baseball Caper: Three Men, Five Years and 30 Stadiums

Author Todd Franiuk shared stories from his book about his five-year baseball stadium road trip during a stop on Thursday night at the Evergreen Park Library.

Chicago-area natives Todd Franiuk, Matthew Hart and Sofoklis "Nick" Nikiforos decided on a night drive to their alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to go on a major league baseball stadium tour that took them across the country in five years.

"It took maybe 12 minutes to decide that we were doing this," Franiuk said.

The three men visited all 30 major league baseball stadums and wrote their stories in A bLISTful Five Years: The Baseball Stadium Tour.

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Franiuk discussed the book and his experience in an event at the Evergreen Park Library on Thursday night. He recounted tales from his most-favorite and least-favorite stadiums to his grading system to funny stories like getting lost trying to find the way in to Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

During their tour, the three men--all die-hard Cub fans--wore their Cubs gear at the stadiums and tried to follow the Cubs as much as possible.

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When asked what they might do next, Franiuk said baseball venues and several new stadiums are on their list.

"We want to go to baseball venues," he said. "We visited the Field of Dreams in Iowa, but we also want to hit the Hall of Fame, the College World Series and the Little League World Series."

After spending next weekend in New York and making a stop at the new Yankee Stadium, the group still will need to visit Washington, Target Field in Minneapolis, Citi Field and SunLife Stadium in Miami (opening in 2012.)

Franiuk is single and lives in Elmwood Park where he works for a marketing firm.


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