The Slanch Report

John Salvo, 62, lives outside Milwaukee and has now seen 959 Major League games in 57 different stadiums. Among those games he’s seen 2 no-hitters, World Series games and a triple-play. He’ll also, after Friday’s Astros/Mets game at Citi Field, have seen every one of the possible 422 major league match-ups, home and away of teams in the same league.

“To say this is a compulsion would be accurate,” Salvo said. “I like to complete lists of things.”

I’ll say. He also has every ticket stub and every scorecard from this awesome journey. When not seeing live baseball, Salvo has other interests, for instance he has driven every mile on each Interstate highway that has two numbers, from I-10 to I-90 with everything in-between. The retired Racine School District payroll manager has also taken-off or landed in a plane in every state in the country and, being a bit of a history buff, he’s visited the 39 different Presidential burial sites.

Without the support of his wife of 41 years, Barb, Salvo probably would never have been able to do all the traveling and accomplishments.

“I’m happy for him,” she said, “He’s worked hard at it.”

At one point on his journey Salvo became slightly discouraged, in 2001 while taking in an Astros game in Houston he started questioning whether it was worth continuing, “I was getting a little tired of it,” he said, “But then I met Jim. That helped.”

Jim is Jim Waddell, a retired railroad worker who was trying to accomplish the same thing as Salvo. In a bit of cosmic magic, Waddell was seated directly in front of Salvo at the game. Overhearing Waddell talking about what he was trying, the two started talking and are now fast friends and have taken in over 70 games together. Waddell finally completed his goal last year after beginning in 1951.

After tomorrow night’s game one goal will be completed for Salvo, but he doesn’t plan on stopping. Baseball continues on after all; plus there’s all the interleague match-ups, and he’s only seen 53 of those.

[Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]