Robert Edward "Bob" Wood (born February 20, 1959) is an American author, teacher and

activist Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate build ...

. As a 26-year-old high school history teacher from

Kalamazoo Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 73,598. It is the principal city of the Kalamazoo–Portage metropolitan are ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

, (though teaching in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...

at the time), he wrote the 1988 best selling book '' Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks''. In June 2008, the sports

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

, Baseball Musings, wrote a story commemorating the 20th anniversary of ''Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks''. Wood resides in Grand Haven, Michigan.

First book

During the summer of 1985, Wood visited each of the 26

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

stadiums A stadium (: stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage completely or partially surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit ...

. He graded the sites on eight criteria: layout and upkeep, the ball field, seating, the scoreboard, food, courtesy of employees, facilities and atmosphere. Giving grades from A+ to D, Wood concluded that the two best ball parks in the majors were

Dodger Stadium Dodger Stadium is a ballpark in the Elysian Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. It is the home of the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball (MLB). Opened in 1962, it was constructed in less than three years at a ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and

Royals Stadium Kauffman Stadium () (nicknamed "The K") is a ballpark located in Kansas City, Missouri, and the home of Major League Baseball's Kansas City Royals. It is next door to Arrowhead Stadium, home of National Football League's Kansas City Chiefs. B ...

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more t ...

. The worst, he decided, were Houston's

Astrodome The NRG Astrodome, formerly and also known as the Houston Astrodome or simply the Astrodome, was the world's first multi-purpose, domed sports stadium, located in Houston, Texas, United States. It seated around 50,000 fans, with a record atte ...

and

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Exhibition Stadium Canadian National Exhibition Stadium (commonly known as Exhibition Stadium or CNE Stadium and nicknamed The Ex) was a multi-purpose stadium in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on the grounds of Exhibition Place. Originally built for Canadian National ...

. The book was well known for its humor and Wood's tales from the road. Living on a teacher's salary, Wood sold his old

Ford Pinto The Ford Pinto is a subcompact car that was manufactured and marketed by Ford Motor Company in North America from 1970 until 1980. The Pinto was the first subcompact vehicle produced by Ford in North America. The Pinto was marketed in three bo ...

and bought a 1985

Toyota Tercel The is a subcompact car manufactured by Toyota from 1978 until 1999 across five generations, in five body configurations sized between the Toyota Corolla, Corolla and the Toyota Starlet, Starlet. Manufactured at the Takaoka plant in Toyota City ...

for the trip. In order to save money, he would often use

Kampgrounds of America KOA (short for Kampgrounds of America) is an American franchise of privately owned campgrounds. Having more than 500 locations across the United States and Canada, it is the world's largest system of privately owned campgrounds. It was founded ...

during the journey and wrote to every Major League team to ask for free tickets. Wood appeared on

Late Night with David Letterman ''Late Night with David Letterman'' is an American television talk show broadcast by NBC. The show is the first installment of the '' Late Night''. Hosted by David Letterman, it aired from February1, 1982 to June 25, 1993, and was replaced by ...

in promotion of the book on September 7, 1988.

Second book

His follow-up book in 1989 was ''Big Ten Country: A Journey Through One Football Season''. It focused on the

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

and towns in the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference, among others) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Fa ...

, but did not reach the critical nor commercial success of ''Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks''.

Career and activism

Wood, a 1980 graduate of

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...

, now teaches government, economics, and a course on

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

at Oakridge High School in

Muskegon Muskegon ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Muskegon County, Michigan, United States. Situated around a harbor of Lake Michigan, Muskegon is known for fishing, sailing regattas, and boating. It is the most populous city along Lake Michigan' ...

, Michigan. He also

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

s and maintains a

"The Buddha Said I am Awake", known as "The Buddha Blog", on the school's public website. Wood is highly involved with

leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politi ...

political activism and led a group of students, the "Super Dupers", in protesting the Democratic Party's use of

superdelegate In American politics, a superdelegate is a delegate to a presidential nominating convention who is seated automatically. In Democratic National Conventions, superdelegates—described in formal party rules as the party leaders and electe ...

s during the 2008 presidential election. A staunch proponent of aiding

Third World The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...

citizens with

microfinancing Microfinance consists of financial services targeting individuals and small businesses (SMEs) who lack access to conventional banking and related services. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients; saving ...

via Kiva Loans, Wood often states "Action Counts Today!"

References

Bibliography

* Wood, Bob (1988), '' Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks'',

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American education science company that provides educational content, software, and services for students and educators across various levels—from K-12 to higher education and professional settings. They produce textbooks, ...

. * Wood, Bob (1989), '' Big Ten Country: A Journey Through One Football Season'',

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...

External links

Bob Wood's blog

Baseball Musings story about 20th anniversary of ''Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wood, Bob 1957 births American bloggers American diarists Schoolteachers from Michigan American socialists Baseball writers Living people Michigan State University alumni Writers from Kalamazoo, Michigan People from Muskegon, Michigan People from Grand Haven, Michigan 21st-century American non-fiction writers Sportswriters from Michigan