Who Says Baseball and Travel Don’t Mix? Not Us!

Many popular vacation spots also offer baseball

See if this sounds familiar:

You are a baseball fanatic, your “significant other” is practically allergic to baseball, and you both have vacation time coming up.

You are jonesing for a full taste of America’s pastime, right down to the foamy head of your ice–cold beer spilling in your lap. Your travel companion wants to add a visa stamp or two to your passports.

You can almost hear the argument already, right? The kind of argument guaranteed to leave at least one and maybe even both of you in a surly mood the entire trip.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

The truth is that baseball is no longer strictly America’s game, and when it comes to vacationing, that’s a good thing. Why? Because of a lot of the world’s best vacation destinations also happen to have minor–league baseball teams playing there.

Vancouver, British Columbia — beautiful anytime of year but especially gorgeous in summer — has a Class A club affiliated with the Oakland A’s.

Feeling tropical? There’s the Hawaii Fall League, featuring young prospects from major–league teams in the mainland United States as well as Japan.

Hawaii a bit pricey? Head for the Caribbean.

Every baseball fan knows how big the Dominican Republic is on baseball, but there also are plenty of all–inclusive seaside resorts, where your meals are included in the cost of your stay, within an easy drive of the capital city, Santo Domingo.

If you can ignore the political noise between the White House and Hugo Chavez, you can find similar settings in Venezuela, where the locals are almost as baseball–crazed as the Dominicans.

Venezuela has one other possible incentive for you bachelors: This country wins international beauty pageants with such regularity that women from other nations go there to see how it’s done. It’s as if they have some sort of assembly line for cranking out ridiculously beautiful women.

(NOTE: If a spouse or girlfriend is making this trip with you, you might want to de–emphasize that particular selling point. Just sayin’…).

Similar vacation options can be found in Panama and Nicaragua, and even places you might not associate with baseball, like the Netherland Antilles.

If you live in a country not bound by legal artifacts from the Cold War era, you can find Canadian travel companies that organize baseball tours to Cuba.

Feel like going even farther afield? How about Japan or South Korea — or better yet, both? The two are close enough to make a package very practical, and both Tokyo and Seoul are fascinating travel stops in their own right. On the return leg home, stop in Hong Kong for some fascinating sightseeing and some serious shopping.

You could skip the baseball here if you want, but yes, the Chinese are getting into the game, as well.

Feeling a litle more Eurocentric? No worries. If you want to combine your beaches and baseball in a place where you can read all the street signs, Australia is an option, also.

Nor is that all. You can find organized leagues throughout most of Western Europe, including in the United Kingdom and France. They even have their own annual championship tournament for the continent.

There are plenty of travel companies out there that specialize in baseball tours, either of the prep–packaged variety or customized just for you. We&rsquove listed a few of them to help get you started, as well as the “BSB TRAVEL LINKS” at the top of this page and on the homepage.

(NOTE: These sites are presented strictly for your convenience. We neither endorse nor take commissions from anyone.)

If you can forego summer and save your major trip of the year for the fall or winter months, you can even save some bucks, and who ever objects to that?

So with a little planning and a bit of salesmanship, both of you can come home from your vacation with smiles and great memories. So dust off those passports and talk to your travel agent!