The Abridged version:
- Michael Marler, aka “Road Trip Mike,” has traveled to most A’s road games over the past three seasons.
- Marler has put nearly 100,000 miles on the RV he got just over two years ago.
- Marler credits the A’s with helping him during a time of health struggles and depression, and says his loyalty to the team will take him to Las Vegas when the team moves in 2028.
The late August series in Kansas City was punishing, with the Royals sweeping the A’s all four games, effectively sealing another disappointing season for the team temporarily based in West Sacramento.
But for Michael Marler, aka “Road Trip Mike,” there was no time to wallow in the plight of another losing streak — it was on to Houston.
“Those were some rough days,” Marler, 60, said on his cellphone while driving through Oklahoma in his 18-foot 2024 Dodge Ram Thor Rize the day after the Kansas City sweep. He had about nine hours to go before reaching Houston and a series with the Astros, and while Marler often travels with friends he calls The Renegades, he was alone for this 12-hour stretch on his never-ending road adventure.
Traveling the country to watch baseball games is the dream of fans everywhere. And Marler, a Sacramento native and Encina High School grad, was on an unbelievable run, catching the A’s on the road for all 81 games the 2024 and 2025 seasons, with the streak intact in 2026 going into late August.
Sadly, all streaks must come to an end, and the Kansas City/Houston/Las Vegas stretch was the death blow. Engine trouble in Vegas, where he moved Sept. 1, landed his RV in the shop. Then, with the A’s out of playoff contention, he took the opportunity to watch his other favorite team — Notre Dame — at Green Bay’s Lambeau Field on Sept. 6, when the A’s were playing in Seattle.
“Well, the van did put a temporary halt on things, and I had to pick up a flight to get here,” Marler said, explaining his hectic schedule, while back at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento at an Aug. 26 game against Minnesota, before he flew to Milwaukee.
A never-ending vacation
Marler attended the game in Sacramento with two frequent travel buddies and lifelong A’s fans, Stockton’s Jack Lima and Hayward’s Bill Thomas, who he met in Philadelphia four years ago.
“Me and Billy used to go on a lot of road trips before we actually met Mike,” Lima said. “I would always see (Mike) down by the dugout wearing a (former A’s player) Chad Pinder jersey.”
Whether it’s traveling the country, going to MLB and minor league stadiums, or moving through Sutter Health Park where everyone seems to know him, Marler has turned retirement into one never-ending vacation. He followed the team from Oakland to Sacramento, and soon to Las Vegas where the A’s are scheduled to begin play in 2028.
Marler, on his second RV, has visited all 30 MLB parks (Pittsburgh’s PNC Park is his favorite), putting almost 100,000 miles on the latest model he got just over two years ago.
“Sometimes when the team comes home, I don’t come home,” Marler said, estimating he attends about two-thirds of A’s home games, but often detours to go to A’s minor league games. He’s enjoyed seeing current players like Lawrence Butler, Henry Bolte and Jacob Wilson come up through the system.
He considers MLB executives and countless A’s players and their families, coaches and announcers (who regularly call him out on broadcasts), as friends, and says he talks with Butler’s father, Larry, who lives in Atlanta, several times a week by phone.
“He’s like best friends with my father now,” Butler tells the camera in a “Story About Road Trip Mike” short video, which Marler hopes will help land a documentary series.
“Yeah, they kind of became close,” Butler, who made his A’s debut in 2023, said before a home game Sept. 12 against Seattle. “Mike likes to go around to all the families and introduce himself. Him and my dad just kind of clicked, and it’s been a friendship ever since. It’s always good to have supporters, especially ones that you can get to know.”
Butler calls Marler “probably our biggest super fan” and before most games, Marler stands along the fence, greeting A’s players walking to the dugout, with just about every one of them stopping to talk. He also regularly visits Sutter Health Park’s A’s bullpen to see his friend, bullpen catcher Dustin Hughes.
Loyalty to his favorite team
A disabled Air Force veteran who served in Desert Storm in Kuwait, Marler injured his knee during training after he returned to the U.S. He’s been an A’s fan since attending games at the Oakland Coliseum in the early 1970s. He played some baseball in high school, before eventually working as a high school and college umpire.
He dates his urge to travel the country in his RV to 2018, when he was working as a manager for the Postal Service in West Sacramento. Deciding he could invest his 27 years of federal service funds in the stock market and retire, he started following the Oakland A’s on occasion to out-of-town locations.
Marler discovered that the Oakland team store wasn’t giving veteran discounts, like many other teams did. When Marler found out, he said, “No, we can’t do that,” setting up an appointment with A’s management. Soon after, the A’s’ store was giving out 15% discounts to veterans. A friend mentioned there were other MLB teams without discounts, so Marler said he’s worked since then getting those MLB teams to follow.
The “Road Trip Mike” moniker actually started with those visits, where he got to know MLB officials throughout the country, eventually obtaining a pass that gets him into any MLB park. After a chance meeting with Houston Astros owner Jim Crane, he started going on stadium tours there and at other ballparks, providing “outsider” feedback to team officials.
“I said to myself, ‘Man, I want to see the A’s in every ballpark,’ and I’ve been doing it ever since,” said Marler, who started with around 60 road games a year before getting to all 81 in 2024 and 2025.
Getting better alongside the A’s
Marler said he stayed 278 nights in his RV last year, and 231 in 2024, following the A’s, their minor league teams and Notre Dame’s football team. His vehicle is equipped with a shower, microwave and cooktop, refrigerator and sleeper bunks, and all the A’s game-worn jerseys he needs for any occasion. He has made friends all over the country who open their homes to him when he’s in town, or allow him to park at their hotel on the road.
Several teams allow him to stay overnight in their stadium lots, he said.
“The toughest trip I’ve had in the last two years was going from New York to Tampa in 17-and-a-half hours,” he said. “They didn’t have a day off in between, so I had to bust my hump to make the game on time.”
Marler is loyal to the A’s wherever they reside for a good reason — he credits them with saving his life. In early 2013, the weight of the diminutive Marler had ballooned to over 250 pounds and he ended up having 6-way heart bypass surgery.
“I was struggling with massive depression during the recovery because I couldn’t do things physically and be the outgoing person I normally am,” he said. “Then I would watch the A’s on TV, and they were struggling. Then all of a sudden, during my recovery, they started playing well, and they won the division and went into the playoffs.”
Marler said since the A’s kept fighting, he did too.
“Because of my will to fight and to keep pushing with them, I got better,” he said. “I felt stronger mentally and physically, and I was able to do therapy. Yeah, they saved my life.”
One season left in West Sacramento
The A’s still have the 2027 season left in West Sacramento before moving to Las Vegas, but Marler is convinced MLB players and owners won’t be signing a new collective bargaining agreement by the Dec. 1 deadline, which would result in a lockout that could stretch into the 2027 season.
He’s so convinced that he sold his Land Park home of nine years and is already leasing a three-bedroom townhouse about halfway between the scheduled new stadium on the Las Vegas Strip and the current home of the Aviators, the A’s Triple A team (the minor leagues would still play even if there’s a MLB lockout).
And if owners and players do settle and the MLB plays in 2027?
“I will drive my van up to Sacramento and stay,” he said. “I have places, friends that open their doors to me across the country. The A’s fans community across the nation is really phenomenal.”
Marler said that healthwise, he’s been feeling stronger than ever and his adventures took him to the A’s final road trip of the season, to Tampa Bay and Cleveland.
“I’m very blessed,” he said. “There will come a time when I’ll probably sit down and put it on paper when I stop. But I don’t see that happening tomorrow.”
