Joey Mellows started Sunday morning in Denver, Colorado.
For two days he watched the Colorado Rockies take on the San Diego Padres at Coors Field.
His immediate plan was not quite set. Rumblings on Twitter had brought mentions of Omaha, Nebraska, and the College World Series.
If he rushed out the door, he could complete the 8-1/2 hour drive to eastern Nebraska just in time for first pitch between Mississippi State and Auburn.
“For an Englishman that is literally the length of my entire country,” Mellows, a Portsmouth, England native, said.
Arriving at the ballpark roughly 50 minutes before the first pitch, Mellows headed toward the outfield bleachers with his general admission ticket in-hand.
As Mellows, 34, headed up onto the concourse, the sight of a packed TD Ameritrade Park came into view.
Boozed up fans, beach balls and a vast array of maroon-and-white and orange-and-blue shirts littered the seats.
Just the latest stop on a journey that will span five countries, 162 games and countless miles on the road, the Baseball Brit, as he’s known on Twitter, had arrived in Omaha.
A more timely interest
Simply put, Mellows found the soccer games he wanted to watch started too early for his circumstances.
Having grown up a soccer fan, Mellows did his best to follow England’s professional teams when he took a job as a high school economics and geography teacher at Dulwich College in Seoul, South Korea.
But with the eight-hour time difference, the games were played in the dead of night in Asia. His fandom became unsustainable.
“My first year I tried to (watch),” he said. “But I was getting too tired.”
Suffering through a sports-centric identity crisis of sorts, Mellows turned to baseball by chance.
Joining his parents on vacation in Japan in April 2015, Mellows and his family went to see the ORIX Buffaloes take on the Chiba Lotte Marines in Osaka. Mellows was hooked.
“I just sat there transfixed,” he said. “I went back on my own the next night I found it so curious.”
Once home in South Korea, Mellows became further enthralled with the game. As the 10-team KBO League dominated airtime on South Korean TV stations, he adopted the Seoul-based LG Twins as his team.
“I started going to my local ballpark as many times as I could to try and understand this culture that was so important in Japan and so important in Korea,” Mellows said. “And eventually I fell in love with it.”
Channeling his pure affection for the sport, he conceived the idea of traveling to 162 games in a year — the same length as a full MLB season — to bring further awareness of the sport back to his native England.
“I just thought if I can do something crazy this year, like 162 baseball games, and I can learn more about baseball, and try and show people back home how fun baseball can be … I thought ‘This is the year to do that,'” Mellows said.
Given Dulwich had supported his housing for years, he piled his saved-up rent money and headed off to Japan for the MLB season opener between the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics in Tokyo March 20.
“I’ve been so sensible for so long, I don’t feel bad at all about what I’m doing,” he said. “It’s the adventure of a lifetime.”
A Mississippi souvenir
Of the 73 games that Mellows has taken in this season, one was played in Mississippi.
On May 8, he drove to Pearl for a 10:35 a.m. matchup between the Mississippi Braves and the Pensacola Blue Wahoos of Minor League Baseball’s Double-A division.
Having slept in his Jeep Cherokee outside of Memphis, Tennessee, the night before, he hit the road around 5 a.m. to make the game.
Thirty-nine games into his trip, the wear-and-tear of travel had begun taking its toll.
Mellows began questioning his decisions. Sleeping in a car, stopping at gas stations across America to use the restroom — the weary road had its fair share of drawbacks.
One such drawback earned him a souvenir from Mississippi he continues to keep very close.
Mellows even realized midway through the Braves game he had torn a hole in his trusted jeans. Fearing repercussions for his indecent outfit, he raced out of the ballpark about the sixth inning to a nearby Levi’s store to address the issue.
“I bought these jeans there,” Mellows said pointing to the denim pants he donned Tuesday night. “I literally walked in, found these, changed into them, asked (an employee) if I could wear these on the way out — which is super embarrassing — and then I dumped my old jeans in the bin and drove straight to Louisiana.
“So that’s my only time I’ve been in Mississippi,” he added.
So long to Omaha
Sitting at the Old Mattress Factory Bar and Grill in Omaha, Mellows orders a drink.
Polishing off a can of Miller Lite, he switches over to an Angry Orchard hard cider upon plopping down in a side booth.
The sounds of classic rock, early 2000s alternative music and the banter of college baseball fans engulf the room.
One table over, roughly eight Mississippi State-garbed patrons are enjoying themselves in lieu of a rainout that had postponed the Bulldogs’ scheduled tilt against Vanderbilt to today.
“Seeing a lot of stewards chasing around beach balls,” Mellows says of what he saw in the outfield bleachers at TD Ameritrade Park. “I’m out there normally with a beer, just soaking it all in.”
As the night winds down, Mellows begins a conversation in his head. It’s the same one he had in Denver three days prior — Where will he head to next?
He wanted to see MSU take on Vanderbilt, as the Commodores were one of two squads he had yet to see play in the CWS, before rain intervened.
Needing this week to return the Jeep Cherokee he had rented so many months and miles ago, he may opt to head to Philadelphia — his designated drop off spot — 19-1/2 hours away.
“The longest drive of my life was, I think, eight hours and 50 minutes,” Mellows says. “So I’m going to have to break that in consecutive days.”
It gets worse.
“And I won’t get to watch any baseball because I’ll be driving all the time,” he says.
Paying his check, Mellows begins walking toward the exit.
He says one day he will write a book about the experiences he has and will have. His Twitter account will serve as a virtual storybook in the meantime.
Seconds later he is out of sight. His next destination is still not clear. It doesn’t matter. He’s on the journey of a lifetime and he’s soaking up every second.
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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