A Port Orchard man's mission to see as much baseball as possible

There's a 38-year-old man in Port Orchard living his dream, which happened to include the actual Field of Dreams.

Danny Phipps just returned from Dyersville, Iowa, where he was working at and watching a baseball game between the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds played in a corn field and won by the Cubs, 4-2.

It was the second edition of a game between major league teams inspired by the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams” and set at the same field where Kevin Costner plays catch with his dad in the movieIt's also the second one Phipps has seen (he was at last year’s game, the first of its kind, when the White Sox beat the Yankees on Tim Anderson’s walk-off home run) and the first he had a hand in by helping set things up in the days leading to the August 11 matchup.

Immediately after the game, Phipps headed out for more adventures in his rental car. He had already seen the first minor league game played on Dyersville's Field of Dreams when Quad City River Bandits beat Cedar Rapids Kernels 7-2 two days before the Cubs and Reds played, and he wanted more.

This is not unusual for Phipps, who since 2014 made it his mission to visit every current MLB baseball parks. He's accomplished that goal, and now he is filling gaps by visiting minor league parks along with the occasional non-baseball event, driving thousands of miles with just the occasional nap.

Phipps’ mother, Rhonda Phipps, smiles when asked about her son's passion.

“I don’t know, it’s crazy,” she says, laughing. “I couldn’t drive all those hours he does. He’s always enjoyed baseball, so that is what he planned on doing. His planning and his agenda is so packed full. More than I would want to do.

“It really has been incredible in such a short period of time seeing all those stadiums. It is crazy. I got to hand it to him. He doesn’t mind driving in all that traffic.”

Yes, it is an amazing feat, and yes you might be dumbfounded by the time investment chasing baseball games around the country. But Phipps is an avid baseball fan, single, and when not burdened by work free to pick up to follow his passion. When I caught up with him after the Field of Dreams game he was on his way to Des Moines to see the AAA Iowa Cubs host the Louisville Bats in an International League game.

The next night he went to St. Paul, Minnesota, to watch the Saints play the Columbus Clippers, and next two days Phipps had what he called “free days” and visited Truman and Eisenhower libraries in Missouri and Kansas, and Amish country because he wanted to see how they lived.

On August 16 he watched Wichita Wind Surge, a AA club in Minnesota that plays in the Texas League, host the Tulsa Drillers, and for next two nights watched the St. Louis Cardinals host the Colorado Rockies at Busch Stadium. He failed to get a photo with Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols, who is playing his last season before retiring, but did see Pujols hit a pinch-hit grand slam for his 690th home run and hit two more the next night, putting him just four away from tying Alex Rodriguez for fourth place on the all-time list.

Phipps made the trip to Mitchell, South Dakota on August 19 to see the Corn Palace, and next day was in Cedar Rapids for baseball. Then on it was to Des Moines for the Iowa State Fair and a concert with Carrie Underwood. He left after the concert for a 25-hour drive (with four one-hour naps scheduled) to Port Orchard for his custodian work at Discovery High School and Explorer Academy with the South Kitsap School District.

Phipps, who liked his dad, Bill, has a commercial driver’s license, finds the time to travel working around the schedule of his many jobs — including odd jobs for people, part-time for the Port Orchard Church of Nazarene and on weekends delivering golf carts for Joe Perdue, owner-operator of Village Greens Golf Course.

"He’s a good person,” says his mother. “He’s always helpful. Whoever needs help. He actually takes my mother-in-law to the movies sometimes. A neighbor has a lot of animals and he watches them. He does what he can for other people. He’s a guy’s guy. He plays on a softball team.”

“I like to have stuff to do,” Phipps says. "I don’t like not having stuff to do. I always do as much as possible with the time I have. I only get a few days off so I have to go full out. I usually like to take spring break off and a couple weeks in the summer to visit baseball parks.”

Since 2016, Phipps has held season tickets to Mariners games. That’s the same year he went to his first Mariners’ spring training in Arizona and the year Ken Griffey Jr. was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown — yep, Phipps was there. He was also in Cooperstown for the 2019 induction of Edgar Martinez.

Phipps took advantage of Edgar’s induction and made trips to ballparks he had yet visited. He flew into Boston and went to Fenway Park, drove to Baltimore for an Orioles game at Camden Yards then to Philadelphia for a Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park and to New York for two games at Yankee Stadium.

After Edgar’s induction, Phipps drove to Toronto for a Blue Jays game at Rogers Centre, back down to New York to see the Mets at Citi Field and then on down to Washington D.C. to watch the Nationals play in Nationals Park, the last of 30 on Phipps’ to-see list.

Phipps’ regular transportation is a 2014 Chevy Silverado but he rents cars in Port Orchard to make these trips. He divided his visits around regions ballparks are in. Miami Marlins (Loan Depot Park) and Tampa Bay Rays (Tropicana Field) and Atlanta (Truist Park), for example, are in the southeast.

He flew into Miami in 2018 and drove to Tampa Bay, and did an all-nighter drive to Texas for a Rangers’ game, drove to Atlanta and back to Texas for a Houston Astros game.

“On those (kind of) trips I didn’t have time so I drove all the way through,” says Phipps. “I would stop at a truck stop and take a shower. I stop at Costco to buy snacks and stuff that last me the whole trip.”

He listens to country music on his car radio and often sleeps in his car after pulling up to a new stadium, waiting for it to open. People often laugh when he tells them how he makes these trips. He sometimes buys an inexpensive game ticket and during the game will move down to a better seat once the game gets underway.

The highest ticket prices are at Yankee Stadium and Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium. The best stadium food he found was in Miami, and the best view was watching the San Francisco Giants.

“You can’t beat the view of San Francisco, on the water like that,” says Phipps. “It is very nice. Miami is also very nice.”

He makes sure not to miss anything on these trips. Statue of Liberty was a must-visit as were Presidential libraries — Clinton, Lincoln and LBJ, both Bushes, Hoover and Mount Vernon (George Washington).

He was also able to see the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, even though it was supposed to be closed on Mondays. He drove by on a Monday and noticed it was open.

“I got lucky,” he says.

Since he achieved his bucket list goal of visiting all major league ballparks, Phipps now is concentrating on states that don’t have a MLB team but have minor league teams. That includes North Little Rock, Arkansas, where the Mariners’ AA team, the Arkansas Travelers, play in Dickey-Stephens Park.

“That was kind of neat to see,” says Phipps, adding the fans were great.

On that trip, Phipps visited the Atlanta Braves minor league team in Pearl, Mississippi (Mississippi Braves) and two teams in Oklahoma.

Last fall he flew down to Las Vegas and went to a Kevin Costner concert. Costner, who played Ray Kinsella in "Field of Dreams" so many years ago, usually closes his shows by bringing in a champagne bottle and sharing it with fans. Phipps lucked out again.

“He looked at me, gave me a glass to fill with champagne then handed me the bottle,” Phipps said. “The only thing I walked on the plane with was that bottle of champagne.”

Terry Mosher is a longtime sportswriter and writes regular columns for the Kitsap Sun on local sports personalities. Contact him at bigmosher@msn.com. 

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Terry Mosher: Port Orchard man major league baseball stadiums