HATFIELD — After several years of travel across the United States and Canada, Easthampton resident Gary LaPrade completed the circuit of Major League Baseball stadiums in 2005, having seen a ballgame in the home ballparks of all 30 teams.
For LaParade, excursions through Sports Travels and Tours starting in the mid-1990s allowed him to finish this accomplishment.
“Now we’ve been branching out and going on trips that include minor league baseball games,” said LaPrade, part of a group of about 30 regular travelers that he calls his second family. “Every year when we’re on one of these trips we talk about where we want to go the next year.”
Last year it was to the Pacific Northwest and in 2017 it was across Pennsylvania, while this year’s “Major/Minor: Northeast” trip will see people from across the country join him in his own backyard, with games at minor league parks throughout New England, concluding at Fenway Park in Boston. The trip will also take them to tourist attractions such as the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island and Yankee Candle.
Jay F. Smith, president of the Hatfield company whose headquarters are on Main Street, said he loves having regulars among the 2,500 or more people who take part in various trips.
“One woman described it as being a summer camp,” Smith said. “She told me it’s like seeing my friends again each year.”
Since October 1996, when Sports Travels and Tours was created, the company has created itineraries for sports fans, taking them from midseason baseball games to major sporting events such as the Super Bowl, Kentucky Derby, Daytona 500 and Masters golf tournament.
The company states its mission is “to make it hassle-free for groups and individuals to attend sporting events of a lifetime.”
“Going with a reputable company to make sure you are delivered what you are promised, as far as I’m concerned, is a key element of travel,” Smith said.
At the office, 10 full-time employees handle all aspects of the trips, from booking rooms in hotels near the stadium, setting up welcoming receptions for the travelers and making sure there is transportation, by bus or plane, between cities.
Smith said there is a reliability, and lack of stress, that customers get that they wouldn’t by traveling on their own, including making sure they have game tickets. “We get the best available seats at the cost we can spend,” Smith said.
Smith estimates that 60 percent of the company’s business is baseball related, in part because more people travel between March and September. For baseball fans, there are many pre-packaged programs, each lasting from three to 10 days.
The “Major/Minor: Northeast,” for example, costs $2,250 per person for a double room. The “Baseball in London” trip, two games between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, comes at a price of $2,395 per person for a double room, with a hotel in downtown, a subway pass and a pass to 100 attractions, a motor coach to the stadium and a river cruise with a retired umpire. The “East Coast Classic,” at a cost per person for a double room at $3,295, is a 10-day trip in June from Boston to Washington D.C., with a game in several cities.
For his baseball customers, the trips become a sort of pilgrimage to shrines for the sport.
“It’s like-minded people with a like-minded passion,” Smith said. “They range in age from 8 to 80, and all ages in between, and there are different demographics that join in.”
As an official license travel company of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, Smith can be responsible for bringing more than 1,000 people to the annual induction ceremony each July. It is there where people who have completed the Passport to Baseball, going to all big league stadiums, can have their own induction every four years, with 138 people achieving this.
Sports Travel and Tours also provides trips to every New England Patriots home NFL football game in Foxborough, with a reception at the stadium when people arrive. For big events, like the Kentucky Derby, the company offers two packages, one with a downtown hotel in Louisville, the other with a hotel on the outskirts, but both have distillery tours and a visit to a horse farm, supplementing the actual horse race.
Flexible independent travel packages are also provided by Sports Travel and Tours, with people dictating a bit more about what they want, including the dates, type of hotel and transportation they seek and the tickets they need. Smith said this could be done for the person heading to Chicago to see a Bulls NBA basketball game, a Blackhawks NHL hockey game and a Bears NFL football game, or the traveler who wants to see a Dallas Cowboys NFL football game and possibly a college football game, as well.
Smith said his company partners with Travel Alliance Partners in preparing for the London baseball games and the recent Major League Baseball games in Tokyo, with TAP identifying the hotel and attractions travelers should take in.
A dozen people, including Smith himself, went on that trip, which became historic when acclaimed Japanese baseball player Ichiro Suzuki announced his retirement and received a 15-minute ovation as he left the field for the final time.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
