Keaton Belcher has been to all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums after his recent trip to Toronto. (Troy Steele Photo).
Keaton Belcher was such a high scoring player at Pendleton County High School that he was named the 2005 Northern Kentucky Player of the Year. He also played on three NCAA Tournament teams at Belmont University. He was also a successful high school basketball coach at Pendleton where one of his players was Dontaie Allen, who was named Mr. Basketball.
But it was baseball, not basketball, that was always Belcher’s first love and recently he completed his baseball bucket list — he has attended a game at every major league ballpark.
His final trip was to watch the Toronto Blue Jays and he happened to be there the same time UK beat Canada in Toronto in the GLBL Jam.
“My first trip was about eight years ago to Cleveland,” said Belcher. “I thought then it would be cool to go to all 30 stadiums. I always loved baseball. When I went to my first or second Cincinnati Reds game at Riverfront Stadium, I brought my glove and was so infatuated with how pretty it was that I forgot and left my glove under my seat at the stadium. But I loved being at the ballpark.”
He went to all six west coast stadiums in seven days in 2018. He says it is always “super easy” to get tickets to games.
He had long-time friend Troy Steele of Pendleton County with him on the recent trip to Toronto.
“We got to see Kentucky play really well and beat Canada by 25 points,” Belcher said. “Troy and I joked we got to see Reed Sheppard’s first start in a UK uniform and his first field goal at Kentucky.”
Belcher also visited the National Hockey League Hall of Fame while he was in Toronto.
“I have stopped coaching and I got into hockey. I have always been curious about the NHL and have gone to games in Columbus and Florida,” Belcher said. “I like the pace of the game. We even got our picture taken with the Stanley Cup while we were there.”
Once he got to the Toronto ballpark, his bucket list was complete. Steele even called the Toronto front office to tell them about Belcher’s feat and the Blue Jays sent a letter and key chain to him.
However, once he returned home to Dayton, Ky. — which is about three miles from Great American Ballpark — he got a letter from Bob Castellini, chief executive officer of the Cincinnati Reds — congratulating him on visiting all 30 major league stadiums.
“I tried to get a collector’s soft drink cup or scorecard from every stadium,” Belcher said. “Since I am a teacher, I had summers off which made it a lot easier to make these trips. Last summer I went to a game in Minnesota by myself. It was a 12:30 businessman’s special, so I flew back home that night. I was on a mission to get to that stadium and get back all in one day.”
He lists his top five stadiums, in order, as Boston, San Francisco, Chicago Cubs, Seattle and Cincinnati. His bottom five? He lists the Chicago White Sox, Oakland, Anaheim, Tampa and Detroit.
Belcher already has another baseball bucket list in mind. He wants to go to all 30 ballparks in 30 days in 2030.
“I am pretty good at setting goals and accomplishing them,” he said. “By 2030, Tampa Bay should have a new stadium and the A’s will be in Vegas. One of my favorite parts of something like this is figuring out the logistics of getting from one city to the next. My biggest fear for doing 30 stadiums in 30 days is the weather and if a game gets rained out. But I truly think it is possible and really want do to it.”
