EVANSVILLE -- From the time he attended his first major league baseball game at old Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis at age 10 in 1959, Jim Shaffer was hooked.
There’s the inviting smell of hot dogs. The sound of vendors hawking their product, the chattering of the fans. Your heroes playing on the green grass below. The gigantic cathedrals hosting it all.
Through the years, Shaffer has taken tons of fans to ballparks all over the country. In fact, the 1966 Reitz High School graduate has attended games at all 30 current MLB parks 23 other stadiums no longer in use. He's been to every spring training site, except the two newest ones in Florida.
There’s the ivy growing on the outfield wall at Wrigley Field. The Gateway Arch looming behind center field at Busch Stadium. The Green Monster at Fenway Park. The monuments, a testament to greatness, behind center field at Yankee Stadium, which include Evansville native Don Mattingly.
“It’s just the atmosphere,” Shaffer said. “I don’t care who is playing.”
Shaffer doesn’t care that the pace of the game is leisurely, a throwback to an earlier era.
“I’m an old fogey,” said Shaffer, who graduated from the University of Evansville in 1974. “I don’t care if a game is three or four hours. It wouldn’t bother me.”
However, Shaffer isn’t as crazy as Ben Blatt and Eric Brewster, who drove to 30 MLB games in 30 different parks in 30 days, the basis for their 2014 book, “I Don’t Care If We Never Get Back.” He’s taken a little more time.
Among his favorite memories were witnessing Pete Rose’s 4,192th hit and Steve Carlton’s 300th win. Rose’s single off San Diego’s Eric Show broke Ty Cobb’s all-time record, on Sept. 11, 1985 at Riverfront Stadium. Carlton’s 300th victory came against the St. Louis Cardinals on Sept. 23, 1983 at Busch Stadium, the ballpark where he had broken into the majors two decades earlier. Carlton became the 16th pitcher in MLB history to win 300.
“I went to World Series in 1996 and saw Greg Maddux throw a shutout in Game 2,” Shaffer said.
Maddux blanked the host Yankees for eight innings in a 4-0 win, but New York rallied to defeat the Atlanta Braves, 4 games to 2. Ironically, the Yankees won the Series the year after Mattingly retired.
Especially since the cookie-cutter multi-purpose stadiums of the 1970s became a thing of the past, most every MLB ballpark is unique in its own way. Camden Yards in Baltimore blended retro with modern amenities in 1992, starting a wonderful craze all over the country.
Formerly a West Side Nut Club youth coach for 41 years, Shaffer loved taking youth teams to various MLB parks. He's even taken infield at the "Field of Dreams" movie site, in Dyersville, Iowa.
“I wanted to go to all of these places,” said Shaffer, who developed “Shaffer Tours” in 1989 until ending them three years ago. “I know what it takes: a bus driver and where to go and what to do. If it wasn’t a bus, we took a van. I would get a schedule as soon as I could. It used to be in January. I would look and see what teams are playing together.”
As part of "Shaffer Tours," he once took a group to 10 different MLB ballparks in a relatively short span in the early 1990s. All aboard…Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Toronto, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Chicago and New York, course, have two teams.
“Sometimes we would go to two games in one day," he said. "After the game, we would make it to the next city. One year we saw a game at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field in the same day."
One of Marvin Gray's chauffeurs
Somebody had to take Marvin to the game and Shaffer thought “why not me?”
If you have been around Evansville sports for any length of time, you are aware of Marvin, a "super fan" who had his own chair at Bosse Field for Otters’ games for years. Sadly, he passed away at age 75 on July 27, 2016.
As his health deteriorated, Marvin’s days of walking out to the University of Southern Indiana for Eagles’ basketball games were long gone. Shaffer was among his chauffeurs.
“I started taking him, especially after he was in a wheelchair,” Shaffer said. “He couldn’t walk to places. He couldn’t walk to USI. That’s what Marvin likes to do – go to games.”
In addition to escorting Marvin around, Shaffer had a nine-room baseball museum, called "Baseballville" on First Avenue in the early 2000s. He had a Tommy John room, a Yogi Berra library and Abbott and Costello talking stand. You remember “Who’s on first?” – don’t you? Maybe you’re too young.
Rent for the building proved too much for Shaffer, who had to disband "Baseballville." But his love of the game remains unabated.
Contact Gordon Engelhardt at gordon.engelhardt@courierpress.com or on Twitter @EngGordon
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