Over the past few weeks, I have laid out my assessment of how I think this current MLB season will unfold. Come October we’ll see how I did. I’m sure between now and then there will be some major surprises. Players and/or teams that nobody saw, coming out of nowhere to storm the rest of the league. There will also be players and teams that were expected to do well and did a quick fade. Yes, I’m talking about you Seattle Mariners. But that’s one of the things that makes watching baseball so much fun. It’s a long season and anything can happen.
Before I finish with baseball, though, there were a few things I wanted to mention in passing. I have already attended one game this season. It was a Dodgers/Giants game at Chavez Ravine, AKA Dodger Stadium, earlier this month. The Dodgers give the Bay Area Boys a royal blue 9 – 1 spanking. Somehow a 9 – 1 score is so much better when the Giants are on the losing end. I’ve always said my two favorite teams in baseball are the Dodgers and whoever is playing the Giants. So, on that day it was both the Dodgers and the Dodgers. Next game I go to will be another game at Dodger Stadium against the Chicago Cubs in July. I’m going with a good friend who is from Chicago so it will be great to watch the game and talk smack. The Cubbies don’t have a very good team this year, but it should still be a fun game, if for no other reason than just the history between these two teams.
Later that month the real fun begins. Speaking of the Cubs, I plan on flying into Chicago on July 24th. That’s a Sunday. I’ve never been to Chicago and so, obviously, I’ve also never been to Wrigley Field. That’s one for the bucket list. Wrigley is the oldest park in the National League, second oldest behind Fenway, which I went to back in ’89. I have to think there would be rioting in the streets if anyone ever suggested they tear down Wrigley and replace it with a new stadium, but you never know. And if that were to happen, the price of game tickets for that last season would go through the roof. Since we’ve never been, the wife and I will do some sightseeing on Monday and then take in a Cubs game against the Pittsburgh Pirates Tuesday afternoon. Because, if you’re gonna go to Wrigley Field, you gotta go to a day game. Right??!! The game starts at 1:20 in the afternoon which means it should be over no later than 5:00 PM. O’Hare is only about 20 or 30 minutes away, so we’ll probably catch a flight around 8:00 o’clock that evening to Colorado Springs. I haven’t bought the tickets yet, so I have to work out logistics of that one. We’ll be visiting our friends Lucas and Lauren, who own Lone Duck Campground outside of Springs. The main purpose here, is to look at some potential properties to purchase as a 1031 exchange. A 1031 exchange can be a fairly complicated animal. There are certain rules you have to follow, and you must follow them exactly. So, when I do that, I’ll definitely be doing a blog about it. As a side jaunt, in addition to the property search, Lucas I will be driving to Denver, about two hours away, to watch the Colorado Rockies play the Los Angeles Dodgers at Coors Field. The wife does enjoy going to baseball games but two games in four days is a bit much, even for her. So, it will just be my pal Lucas and I taking in the game.
Two games in four days! In two different cities yet! At this point you might well be saying yeah Konrad, that is a bit much. Well let me tell you something, if you think that’s too much, stop reading right now because you ain’t heard nothing yet. This is the plan for the end of the season. On Thursday afternoon, September 29th, I’ll be driving down to San Diego to watch the Padres host the Dodgers at Petco Park. The way these teams are going so far this season, and with only six more regular season games after that one, this could be a pivotal game to decide who is going to be the division champion and who is going to be a wild card. On Friday the 30th, I’ll be heading to Dodger Stadium to watch the Dodgers take on the Colorado Rockies. Another game that will probably be very important to the Dodgers although, by that time, pretty meaningless for the Rockies. The fun doesn’t stop there. Oh no! Saturday, October 1st will see me in Anaheim to watch the Angels take on the Texas Rangers. The way they’re playing in the early going this season, that could be a big game for the Angels as well. The next part is a bit tricky. After the Angel game I will probably drive down to Burbank and catch five or six hours sleep in a hotel. Then I’ll catch an early morning flight up to the Bay Area. It’s only a one-hour flight, so I can leave somewhere between 8:00 and 10:00 o’clock. That should give me enough time to get to a hotel, albeit before normal check in time. I can check my luggage with the bell captain and then Uber down to whatever they’re calling Giants stadium these days and catch the Giants and the Diamondbacks in an afternoon game. That gives me plenty of time to head over to Fisherman’s Wharf for some great San Francisco seafood for dinner. Next morning is Monday October 3rd. Of course, I’ve got one more game to attend to complete the cycle, but the Oakland A’s and Los Angeles Angels don’t get together until that evening, which gives me most of the day to do the tourist thing in San Fran. At one time San Francisco was probably my favorite city, but it has a lot of problems these days. It’s still a great city to visit if you know where to go and, more importantly, what areas to avoid. There is a lot to see and do. The A’s and the Angels get together that evening, which means I can have an early dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf again, before taking the BART over to Oakland. I can see I’m going completely off my diet on this trip. But it’s worth it. So that’s the plan. All five California baseball teams at their home park over five consecutive days. As great as that is, I once did all five teams on four consecutive days. I had the benefit of going to a rare Saturday afternoon game at Dodger Stadium and still having time to motor down the freeway to see the Angels play at Anaheim the same day. Probably one of the more unusual doubleheaders anyone will ever attend.
While I am doing all of this, I want to rate each stadium. I will rank them in order, 1 to 5, number 1 being the best of the five and number 5 being the worst. I’ll rank them for accessibility, price, food, ambience, and overall appearance. If there’s something else you think I should rank please let me know in the comments section. One other thing I want to do with each stadium is see what they offer in the way of healthy alternatives for the health-conscious fan. Since I am on this restricted diet I have to watch my sodium, which pretty much lets out peanuts and hot dogs. Go easy on the sugar due to my diabetes, so there goes the crackerjacks. Hot dogs, peanuts, and cracker jacks, the three staples of any baseball game. And no alcohol so there goes the beer, although I’m not much of a beer drinker anyway. And I really refuse to pay the prices they charge for a regular beer at most stadiums. The price of the food is bad enough as it is. At the game I attended earlier this month I had a regular size diet soda, a hot dog, and nachos that came with a souvenir batting helmet. That alone came to around $40. All that being said, I am going to have one hot dog at each game so I can compare them. I’ll probably order a hotdog, a soda, and something else. Maybe peanuts or Cracker Jack. I’ll purchase the same items at each stadium and see how they stack up against each other pricewise and tastewise. It ought to be a fun trip and I’m really looking forward to it.
OK, enough about baseball. I want to transition to a little teaser on a blog for next week. It’s about a property I currently have in escrow with my partner, Kevin Oliver. This is a deal that had more twists and turns than a Coney Island roller coaster. It was brought to my attention in 2014 by a fellow investor that I will call David. At the time, I was a novice investor, having only gotten into the game the previous year, 2013. David had gotten in at about the same time and we met at a local REIT. The point is, we were both pretty green. Initially I was only peripherally involved. David found the property, along with his girlfriend, and decided to rehab and flip it. They found a hard money lender that would loan them the $72,000 needed to make the purchase. The estimated ARV would put the price at about $150,000. David estimated he needed $30,000 to make the necessary upgrades. And he approached me about funding that portion of the deal. I had recently rolled over a pension into a self-managed portfolio, meaning I could do anything I wanted with the money. So, I loaned him $30,000 out of my pension at 10% plus a percentage of the profit, all deferred until the sale of the house. Things sort of went downhill from there. Until they didn’t! Suddenly things took a turn for the better before taking a turn for the worse, again. We fixed all that and then things got better before getting worse. As I believe I mentioned earlier, Coney—Island—Roller—coaster! All the details will be in next week’s blog and it will probably be split into two parts so I can give justice to the tale. I’m sure all of my real estate readers will find it very interesting as it is one of those deals where everything that could go wrong did but also a lot of things went right. And a lot of that is due to timing. But that’s for next week. Until then, as always, keep swinging for the fences.
