Discovering Hardball Passport (@sportspassport)

1994 Score #656

I recently discovered the fantastic Hardball Passport website which promises baseball fans the ability to track every major and minor league baseball game attended in person - for free.  For an added price, the website allows the ability to download a sortable database of hitting and pitching statistics for every game you've attended.  This is the Passport+ feature and for a $19.49 fee (due annually), I decided the price was worth being able to track these personal statistics.

While compiling my personal baseball journey, several items stuck out and I thought I'd share them here:

• For fans who have logged their stadium visits within the database, I'm the current active leader in visits to both Citizens Bank Park (177) and Veterans Stadium (133).

• I'm missing a ton of Phillies games in my profile.  I've only entered those games for which I have definitive proof of my attendance or ticket stubs which means there are quite a few games from the '80s that I'm missing.  I only religiously saved ticket stubs beginning in the early '90s.

• My games per season chart shows that I attended zero games in 2000 and only 1 game in 1999.  This could be completely accurate, but I'll never know.  These years represent my personal "dark times" and there could have been  a trove of ticket stubs from 1999 and 2000 that were dumped in the garbage years ago.

• There are also some older minor league games I attended that I haven't recorded since these games aren't in the Hardball Passport database (yet).  I attended quite a few Winston-Salem Spirt/Warthogs and Durham Bulls games during my college years.

• Spring training games and the Phillies On-Deck series games aren't tracked.

• There aren't any surprises on my personal leaderboard.  Jimmy Rollins and Cole Hamels lead the way in most of the offensive and pitching categories in games I've attended.

• I've seen 22 Hall of Famers play.  I know I've seen more than ten games with Mike Schmidt, but I've only entered those games for which I had a ticket stub.

• I've seen seven players in 100 games or more - Rollins (224), Chase Utley (154), Pat Burrell (144), Ryan Howard (123), Bobby Abreu (122), Shane Victorino (102) and Carlos Ruiz (100).

• The pitchers I've seen the most are Ryan Madson (59 games), Rheal Cormier (49), Jose Mesa (35), Hamels (31), Brett Myers (28) and Brad Lidge (28).

• The non-Phillies player I've seen the most is Chipper Jones with 20 games.  Jones hit 4 home runs and .359 in the 20 games I've attended, cementing him in my memory as a Phillie Killer.

• I've visited 23 ballparks, and I need to visit 17 Major League ballparks to have visited all current Major League venues.

• The Phillies are 181-134 in games I've attended and that record is going to take a severe hit over the next few years.