My Name is Drew, and I am currently finishing a Bachelors Degree in Historic Preservation at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA.
I have always loved baseball, going to games since before I can remember and playing from when I was 5 years old until my Junior Year of College on the Club Team. I still seek out games when I can, and look for other baseball related places to see when I go on trips. Baseball is something that has always given me joy, and I want to share that joy with the world.
I also love National Parks, and one in particular, Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park, gave me an idea. Hinchliffe Stadium, the former home of a few different Negro League teams, is there. What if I do research for school combining these two things?
I did a couple smaller class projects with this, and eventually that grew into an independent study where I looked at 13 Negro League Stadiums and how they are preserved and put it all in a StoryMap. I want to keep adding to this, so if you have any ideas to improve it, I would love to hear them.
I also found a lot of possible side tangents while working on that, so that is where this website comes in. The main thing is the Podcast, but I also want to have other resources for learning more. Diverse stories matter everywhere, and Baseball is no exception. I want to make these stories and places more accessible to a larger amount of people.
The Road Trips page is a work in progress that I thought would be fun, although I am not quite sure how to format it, any ideas there would be welcome too. I love Road Tripping, and finding baseball places, so I figured others would too. It seems cool to play around with figuring out. The picture at the top of this page is actually from one road trip to Pittsburgh, when me and my dad met Manny Sanguillen at a Pirates game. He was an important part of their success in the 1970s and was one of my dads favorite players growing up.
Aside from the Project, I am a Washington Nationals Fan, which recently has been tough, but 2019 is a constant reminder that things will get better for this team. They have a lot of exciting young players that I think will be great in the near future. The District of Champions will be back, and I can’t wait for it. I actually got to be at Game 4 of the NLCS in 2019, when they beat the Cardinals to win the Pennant. That was awesome, we need more of that in DC.
For my personal future, I aspire to work with the National Park Service as a Ranger. I have done some internships and seasonal work, mostly with Civil War Parks but also on the Blue Ridge Parkway, so time will tell where that leads.
I have been writing a blog for the Digital Knowledge Center at UMW with updates on this project this semester. If you want to read those to learn more about it, you can find them at this link under “Spring 2025 – Drew’s Baseball Podcast Posts”
While Graduation is coming in May 2025, I hope to be able to continue this more after I graduate. It has been fun, and so many people have shown me that they love that I am doing it and want to see more. I appreciate everyone’s support greatly and want to keep learning more.