A lifelong baseball fan is living every fan’s dream, but unfortunately, it is under tragic circumstances.
Jonathan St. Clair is traveling to each of the 30 MLB stadiums in as many days to spread awareness about water safety, 12 years after losing his 21-month-old son, Jasper, to drowning.
While in the care of a trusted babysitter, Jasper, St. Clair’s firstborn, was taken to a home with an ungated pool and left unattended for only minutes. Doctors made every effort to save him for roughly a week, but Jasper unfortunately lost the battle.
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“He had not learned how to swim and had not been to any swim lessons yet. And so, we were very, very taken aback. How come we didn’t know how dangerous water was, or how come we couldn’t put kids in swim lessons earlier?” St. Clair told Fox News Digital in a recent interview.
The interview took place before the sixth game of his trip, a night game in Toronto, after he flew from Denver to watch the Colorado Rockies.
“So, all of those things have transpired, and we’ve learned a whole lot from the community at large. Since then, we have come across not just a family like ours, but hundreds of us who are out there. And really, this campaign, what I’m doing right now, incorporates all of those people. I’m working with organizations just like ours in all 30 cities. The idea is to be able to bring awareness in the water safety and drowning prevention community that it isn’t something that can just happen to someone else. It is something that can happen to you.”
Nothing will ever fix that unimaginable burden, but there has been a comfort level in meeting with families who share similar unfortunate experiences, well before this road trip was even a thought.
“I wouldn’t have been able to put one foot forward 12 years ago if it wasn’t for this group of families,” St. Clair said.
St. Clair is wearing a Wave Maker Tour life jacket to each game, which initially draws some looks from fellow fans. But when they also spot his MLB cap with all 30 team logos, it becomes easier to strike up a conversation.
“It’s fun to walk around town with a life vest on because everybody, they don’t know what to ask, and then somebody will ask, and it starts the conversation. Actually, it’s been fantastic,” St. Clair said.
And as for the hat?
“I feel very in touch with every team that I’m walking into because I’m not coming in as a certain fan. I’m coming in with a cause, and it’s been very well-received. It’s been so much fun.”
Already a week into his trip, one father offered up his first-class seat to St. Clair, and another gave him an extra ticket to watch batting practice from behind home plate.
St. Clair, a Los Angeles Dodgers fan from Washington, said he had already been to about 10 or 11 stadiums before this trip, and he knows each one he is yet to attend, his baby should be there.
“Well, I’m a huge baseball fan. I grew up loving baseball. I played baseball. I figured one thing about this sport specifically is it starts with really young kids, as young as 3 usually even start in Little League. My son didn’t get to play the game. I know that he definitely would have,” St. Clair said.
“I’ve always wanted to do all 30 baseball stadiums, but I had no concept of doing all of them in 30 days. And, of course, this last year we had a lot of drownings throughout the United States. One thing that I thought, I came up with this harebrained idea: Maybe if I do 30 ballparks in 30 days, we’ll get some recognition and get people talking about drowning prevention.”
After catching the Blue Jays lose to the Tampa Bay Rays at Rogers Centre, St. Clair took a flight to Detroit on Wednesday morning to drive to Cleveland for the Guardians’ game against the Minnesota Twins. He is driving back to Detroit to watch the Tigers face the Kansas City Royals.
The map is built out – and yes, St. Clair is petrified of rainouts, canceled flights, and just about anything that puts him on a detour of his 17 flights, six drives, four trains, one boat, and one bike (he was ecstatic when he remembered that Rogers Centre has a retractable roof during his rainy day in Canada).
But he likes to think the baseball gods, and his loved ones, are on his side.
“I think even though this whole campaign I’m doing is only 30 days, the bigger goal is after the 30 days, right? What has transpired? What information did we get out there? How much of an actual reach did we make? I’m really hoping that reach was big,” St. Clair said.
“I opened up my feed this morning, and five people in Ohio drowned in a river, and that is not what I want to see. I want to wake up in the morning — I know we’re never going to get it to zero — but the goal is to make people aware that if they’re in those rivers and things like that, wear a life jacket. So, we’re working on it one step at a time, and this is it. Thirty days; it’s a pretty tall feat.
“I was on the phone with my wife a couple of hours ago, and she’s like, ‘How are you holding up?’ And I was like, ‘I’m pretty tired today. I’ve got three hours on two flights.’ But it’s OK. I have got so many people behind me, and this isn’t just me. I’m not doing this by myself. I have hundreds of people behind me who have helped coordinate, who are at all of the stops in each place, and they’re making my experience at each stop a real experience, not just a layover flight, so to speak.”
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