The perfect travel guide for baseball fans who want to see more of the great ballparks in America’s heartland, this handy guide gives you the tips for best lodging, great restaurants, and local attractions for the Major League and minor league cities and towns that dot the Midwest. With details about every ballpark from Major League Baseball to the Frontier League, this travel companion tells you the best places to sit, the best ballpark food to eat, and the best places to go around town when you are not at the ballpark. From taking in a AAA game with the Iowa Cubs in Des Moines and visiting the Field of Dreams to knowing how to best experience Target Field in the Twin Cities, Baseball Road Trips: The Midwest and Great Lakes is all you need to plan a dream baseball road trip. Timothy M. Mullin is a sports and travel writer and a commercial content producer. He lives in Chicago. Baseball Road Trips The Midwest and Great Lakes By Timothy M. Mullin Triumph Books Copyright © 2014 Timothy M. Mullin All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-60078-969-4 Contents Introduction, Chapter 1: Illinois, Chapter 2: Indiana, Chapter 3: Iowa, Chapter 4: Kentucky, Chapter 5: Michigan, Chapter 6: Minnesota, Chapter 7: Missouri, Chapter 8: Ohio, Chapter 9: Wisconsin, Photo Credits, CHAPTER 1 ILLINOIS * * * North Side, South Side, and the Countryside WRIGLEY FIELD Home of the Chicago Cubs * * * 1060 West Addison St., Chicago, IL, 60613 (773) 404-2827 / www.cubs.mlb.com / Another good web source in the area is www.lakeviewchamber.com if you are looking for information on businesses in and around Lakeview/Wrigleyville. For information on other areas of Chicago, try looking at www.tourismchicago.org. In 1914, eventual Chicago Cubs co-owner Charlie Weeghman built Weeghman Park to house his then–Federal League team, the Chicago Federals (aka the Chicago Whales). The Whales and the Federal League went the way of the dodo and folded in late 1916. This left Weeghman with a partially completed $250,000 ballpark on his hands and no tenant. In true Chicago fashion, where a vacuum exists a deal soon will take place to fill it. Weeghman put together a consortium of investors that included William Wrigley of chewing-gum fame and purchased the Chicago Cubs of the National League. The Cubs played at West Side Grounds and were more than happy to move to the shiny new ballpark built by Weeghman on a plot of land at the corner of Clark and Addison Streets. After all, West Side Grounds gave birth to the idiom "out of left field" — a reference to the Cook County Hospital's sanitarium beyond left field of West Side Grounds. West Side Grounds was also home to the burgeoning championship machine known as the Chicago Cubs. Between 1906 and 1910, the Cubs were perennial challengers for the World Series, with back-to-back success in 1907 and 1908 (yes, the Cubs were the first back-to-back winner of the World Series). Rather than reinvest in a dynasty, Cubs owner Charles Murphy took profits and let the grounds go into disrepair. The vaunted Cubs became "Murphy's Spuds" to the local media and the Cubs were cursed with the continuous mismanagement of Murphy. Weeghman, Wrigley, and the rest of the new owners couldn't have come along at a better time for Cubs fans. In 1918, William Wrigley bought out Weeghman and the other investors in the Cubs ownership. Wrigley felt as if he were the man to bring the Cubs back to the glory of the early part of the twentieth century. By 1920, the ballpark was renamed Cubs Park. On Opening Day of 1926, Cubs Park was renamed Wrigley Field. Just before the first pitch, William Wrigley signed the title documents on a cursed piece of land at home plate and the ghosts of every dead Cubs player in history poured out of nearby Graceland Cemetery and into the ballpark. Priests were performing exorcisms on the fans unfortunate enough to get caught up in the maelstrom, and the Cubs haven't won a World Series since. All kidding aside, no team is more vexed by a curse or curses in all professional sports. Believe in curses or not, the crutch of longstanding curses add to the flavor of Wrigley Field and will make you marvel at the loyalty of Cubs fans when you get to the ballpark. Visiting Wrigley Field is akin to visiting the packed church of a religion whose tenets were all disproven by science and logic. You will still find the faithful in the grandstands and bleachers of Wrigley Field because there is always next year. Not much has changed at Wrigley Field since Mr. Wrigley took over the note and name of the ballpark in 1926. The bleachers and classic scoreboard were built in 1937. The first home run hit by an opposing player was thrown back on the field 15 minutes later (all kidding aside, that didn't become a "tradition" until the late 20th century). Truth be told, the Wrigley Field we know today as a tough ticket wasn't a very tough ticket from 1926 to 1983. The teaser years of 1932, 1938,