Ballpark Bucket List: How To Fly To All 30 Major League Ballparks for Under $2.4K

Summary

The shortest tour of all ballparks involves just over 9,000 miles of flying, but would cost nearly $3,000 in airfare

The cheapest tour saves more than 20% on airfare while flying 60% more miles

Use Hopper’s interactive tool to pick the airport closest to you and start your tour!

Details

Have you dreamed of visiting every major league ballpark? With baseball season back in full swing, Hopper decided to find the shortest and cheapest circuits of all 30 major league stadiums.

We found the closest major airports to each park, and looked at the prices of flights connecting them. We calculated great circle distances, ignoring any intermediate stopovers.

Both the shortest and cheapest loops involve flying to 24 airports, but due to the idiosyncrasies of airline pricing, the cheapest loop takes you 60% further while saving about 20% on airfare.

Use our interactive tool to pick the airport closest to you and start your tour!

Shortest Tour of All 30 MLB parks

Figure 1: The shortest flying circuit of all ballparks: 9,004 miles at a cost of about $2,970.

The shortest flying route is summarized in the table below, and involves flying to 24 airports to visit all 30 stadiums. Airfare shows good deal one-way price from the previous city to the listed one (e.g. STL-MDW for $208). Distance is the corresponding flight distance in miles (e.g. YYZ-BOS is 445 miles).

Airport

City

Airfare

Distance (miles)

Stadium

MCI

Kansas City

$96

393

Kauffman Stadium

STL

St. Louis

$202

236

Busch Stadium

MDW

Chicago

$104

251

U.S. Cellular Field, Wrigley Field

MKE

Milwaukee

$162

81

Miller Park

DTW

Detroit

$149

237

Comerica Park

YYZ

Toronto

$148

214

Rogers Centre

BOS

Boston

$140

445

Fenway Park

EWR

Newark

$148

200

Citi Field, Citizens Bank Park, Yankee Stadium

BWI

Baltimore

$120

169

Nationals Park, Oriole Park at Camden Yards

PIT

Pittsburgh

$93

210

PNC Park

CLE

Cleveland

$208

106

Progressive Field

CVG

Cincinnati

$134

221

Great American Ball Park

ATL

Atlanta

$117

374

Turner Field

TPA

Tampa

$100

407

Tropicana Field

MIA

Miami

$91

205

Marlins Park

IAH

Houston

$158

963

Minute Maid Park

DAL

Dallas

$73

217

Globe Life Park in Arlington

DEN

Denver

$187

651

Coors Field

PHX

Phoenix

$68

602

Chase Field

SAN

San Diego

$94

304

Petco Park

LAX

Los Angeles

$116

109

Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Dodger Stadium

SFO

San Francisco

$58

338

ATT Park, O.co Coliseum

SEA

Seattle

$79

679

Safeco Field

MSP

Minneapolis

$120

1,395

Target Field

Cheapest Tour of All 30 MLB parks

Figure 2: The cheapest circuit, which at $2,367 is more than 20% cheaper, covers 14,154 miles, nearly 60% farther.

The cheapest flying route is summarized in the table below, and also involves flying to 24 airports to visit all 30 stadiums. However, the order of flights is different for cheapest route vs. shortest route.

Airport

City

Airfare

Distance (miles)

Stadium

PIT

Pittsburgh

$192

222

PNC Park

BOS

Boston

$67

494

Fenway Park

BWI

Baltimore

$62

369

Nationals Park, Oriole Park at Camden Yards

CLE

Cleveland

$93

313

Progressive Field

EWR

Newark

$79

403

Citi Field, Citizens Bank Park, Yankee Stadium

ATL

Atlanta

$67

745

Turner Field

TPA

Tampa

$100

406

Tropicana Field

MIA

Miami

$91

204

Marlins Park

DTW

Detroit

$125

1,147

Comerica Park

DEN

Denver

$63

1,119

Coors Field

MCI

Kansas City

$63

531

Kauffman Stadium

MKE

Milwaukee

$81

435

Miller Park

MSP

Minneapolis

$93

296

Target Field

MDW

Chicago

$69

348

U.S. Cellular Field, Wrigley Field

STL

St. Louis

$104

251

Busch Stadium

CVG

Cincinnati

$109

307

Great American Ball Park

IAH

Houston

$146

871

Minute Maid Park

DAL

Dallas

$72

216

Globe Life Park in Arlington

PHX

Phoenix

$145

877

Chase Field

LAX

Los Angeles

$69

369

Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Dodger Stadium

SFO

San Francisco

$58

337

ATT Park, O.co Coliseum

SEA

Seattle

$79

679

Safeco Field

SAN

San Diego

$103

1,051

Petco Park

YYZ

Toronto

$225

2,153

Rogers Centre

References

1.http://www.ballparkchasers.com/ Site dedicated to collecting ballparks

2.http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/ranking-baseballs-best-ballparks/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 Nice table of stadium rankings from yelp

3.http://www.rsvlts.com/2013/10/21/mlb-ballpark-yelp-ranking/ A list with pictures of all the ballparks and update rankings

Data and Methodology

The data presented in this analysis comes from Hopper’s combined feed of Global Distribution Service (GDS) data sources which includes about 10 million queries and 1 billion trips per day. Demand is represented as the number of queries not actual ticket purchases, and is calibrated across all GDS sources for each market. Lowest fare, or deal fare, is represented by the 10th percentile prices. For example if the 10th percentile price is $800 dollars it means that only 10% of trips are priced at or below this price.