Kevin's 7-7-7 Trip

Hey, 6 1/2 years since my last post!  I'm dusting off this blog and temporarily re-purposing it.  No, I didn't stop going to new MLB stadiums.  There are four additional parks I've attended that I have not yet documented here:  New Yankee Stadium and Citi Field in New York, Minnesota's Target Field and Marlins Park in Miami.  Next week, I'll have another to add to that list:  SunTrust Park in Atlanta.  I'm not sure I will continue to follow the old format of thoroughly documenting my experiences at those stadiums since, in some cases, those visits were close to eight years ago.  But I will at least make sure I have a complete set of my photos, scorecards, programs and general info regarding the games I have attended in each MLB stadium.  But that will have to wait until later this summer.

Later this week, I am going on another baseball trip, but with a different twist.  While the primary purpose of the trip will be to go to a game at the Braves new park so I can once again say I've been to a game in every active MLB stadium, this trip will mostly consist of stops to see minor league games.  With the White Sox in the midst of a rebuilding process in which their minor league system is far more interesting to follow than the big league squad, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to go see all of the Sox full season minor league affiliates in person.  All are geographically centered around the Southeast part of the country, making it a pretty easy trip between each of them and Atlanta.

I decided I wanted to have somewhere to write about my thoughts on the Sox prospects who I will get to see up close on this trip.  So I'm going to use this space to write game recaps, share some photos and maybe even videos, and give my impressions of the prospects I see in each game.  Unlike the MLB stadium posts that precede this one, I'm not going to go into any sort of detail about the minor league parks.  I'm going to focus on the players, and to a lesser degree, the games.  While the Sox prospects will garner most of my attention, I may also pick a few of the top prospects on the opposing teams to write about as well.

I'm calling this the 7-7-7 trip because I am planning on attending seven baseball games in seven different cities over a span of seven days.  The trip itself will only include six games, but I'm also going to a Nats game on the day I return home, so I might as well count that too.  I won't be writing about that one though.

Here is the tentative schedule of games I plan on attending.  This could be altered later because of weather or a change in probable pitchers for the Sox affiliates.  I'm hoping to see as many of the Sox top starting pitching prospects as possible.

• Thursday, May 18 - Charlotte Knights (White Sox) @ Norfolk Tides (Orioles) - AAA
• Friday, May 19 - Carolina Mudcats (Brewers) @ Winston-Salem Dash (White Sox) - A+
• Saturday, May 20 - Washington Nationals @ Atlanta Braves - MLB
• Sunday, May 21 - Tennessee Smokies (Cubs) @ Birmingham Barons (White Sox) - AA
• Monday, May 22 - Greenville Drive (Red Sox) @ Kannapolis Intimidators (White Sox) - A
• Tuesday, May 23 - Syracuse Chiefs (Nationals) @ Charlotte Knights (White Sox) - AAA
• Wednesday, May 24 - Seattle Mariners @ Washington Nationals - MLB

Check back here throughout the week as I will be posting something after each of the minor league games.  I'll save the Atlanta recap until I get caught up on the previously mentioned MLB stadium visits that have not yet been documented.

Hopefully the Sox will wait at least another week before they start calling up their top prospects to Chicago!