Friends Embark on Baseball Odyssey : Trip: Four college students plan to drive to 28 major league parks in 28 days. First stop is tonight in Seattle, last one is San Francisco.

It is Tuesday afternoon and their coolers are out, their grocery bags are topped off and two of the most popular words in any scientific survey of college students are on their lips.

Road trip.

It is summer, 1993, and four friends are about an hour away from putting into action a plan hatched in a Princeton dormitory room last winter. Together, they will drive-- drive --to 28 major league baseball stadiums in 28 days. Because of major league expansion, these guys will tell you, it is a feat that has never been accomplished.

“My high school coach is completely envious,” said Mike Casagranda, a junior at Princeton who is from Anaheim Hills.

Said Brent de Riszner of Fullerton, a sophomore at Dartmouth: “You just mention it . . . I’ve had a shoe salesman going crazy.”

The white rental van parked outside of Chris Looney’s house was rented and picked up Monday and, when they got it, they got their first setback. No stereo.

Bummer.

So they plugged a boom box into the cigarette lighter. It looks right at home with the two lawn chairs set up in the back--they removed the van seat to make more room--and the picture of a barefooted Franciscan monk jumping on a trampoline.

Ah, Brother Maurice.

The photo is taped beneath the rear-view mirror for inspiration.

“Yeah, Bro Mo,” Casagranda said. “He sent us a letter and a picture when he heard about us. He said he had done a trip similar to this about 20 years ago. Wasn’t the most important thing he said, ‘Watch yourself in Detroit’?

De Riszner: “Chicago, too.”

This is going to be some trip.

They were about an hour away from hopping into that van, cranking up the tunes and rolling away. First destination: Seattle’s Kingdome, Thursday night. Then, they will be in Anaheim for the Angels-Minnesota game on Friday. The journey will end in San Francisco Aug. 25.

The trip will cover nearly 20,000 miles and will take about a month. A rainout could throw the whole thing into the rough.

“In New England, we have a little bit of leeway,” said Mark Johns, a junior at Princeton from Springfield, Va. “But if we run into a rainout in Miami, we’re dead.

“But even if we do get rained out, we’ll still see 28 stadiums in 28 days. We’ll still get to tour the stadiums and see the sights.”

If you figure it takes a rocket scientist to plan an expedition like this, you’re on track. Johns, who charted the trip, is a math and physics major. He plotted each team’s home dates on graph paper, highlighted the home dates and “messed around with it.”

He worked from west to east, figuring the best way would be to make the toughest drives in the beginning of the trip, before the novelty had worn off.

The most difficult leg, they figure, will be from Oakland to Denver--an estimated distance of 1,255 miles, which they will make overnight on July 31. The Texas at Oakland game on July 31 is during the day, but so is the San Francisco at Colorado game on Aug. 1. Plus, they lose an hour when they enter Mountain Daylight Time.

“That’s the one where we have to keep up the highest average speed,” Johns said. “Around 60 (m.p.h.)”

The longest portion, though, is actually on the way back, when they must drive 1,541 miles from Houston to Los Angeles between games on Aug. 22 and 23.

Although Johns and Looney came up with the idea for the trip last winter, it didn’t become a reality until a sport-drink company offered to kick in $5,000 after hearing an interview with Johns on a New York radio station.

“10-K (a sports drink) is pretty good stuff,” said de Riszner, grinning.

Once that deal was done, the four attempted to drum up other sponsors--to help finance their trip and to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

The San Francisco Giants have agreed to donate $2,800--$100 per game--to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, according to Looney, and have written letters to the other 27 major league teams urging them to match it. The four hope to raise about $70,000 for Make-A-Wish.

Several teams have donated tickets, while Looney and friends have scored other tickets the time-honored way: through friends and friends of friends.

In San Francisco, they will be in the owners’ box. In Baltimore, Oriole President Larry Lucchino--a Princeton graduate--came through.

They are having friends meet them at several games, with the largest contingents figuring to be in Anaheim, where they expect about 15 or 20 family and friends to meet them, and in Philadelphia, where they expect the same number of their college chums.

For Looney, also a junior at Princeton, Philadelphia figures to be a highlight for that reason.

“Not because of the team or the city or the stadium, but I’ll be able to see friends I haven’t seen in a while,” Looney said.

Johns and de Riszner say they are looking forward to Boston’s Fenway Park.

“Just because that and Yankee Stadium have the most history,” he said. “New Comiskey Park (in Chicago) and Camden Yards (in Baltimore) are beautiful new parks, but I like the history of it all.”

Guess what de Riszner is majoring in at Dartmouth? It’s not pop culture.

As for Casagranda. . . .

“Well, for some reason, Milwaukee sounds like a great time,” he said. “From everything I’ve heard, it will be a good time. And it’s a Sunday day game, so we’ll do some tailgating.”

Looney and de Riszner are Angel fans, Casagranda likes the Dodgers and Johns, the Virginian, grew up with the Orioles.

“At most of these games, we’re going to be more interested in the out-of-town scoreboard,” Johns admitted.

Other than the stadiums, there will not be much time for sightseeing, although they think they might have a chance to see the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown as they swing through New York.

They also think they will get some things accomplished along the way. Johns said he hopes to read “The Brothers Karamazov”--a 1,200-page book--and Looney will attempt to study for the LSAT.

As long as they avoid engine trouble and are able to cross the flooded Mississippi River, they figure it will be smooth sailing.

But they know they will face several minor inconveniences.

Like laundry.

“We’ll try to stop wherever we can and hopefully do it at people’s houses,” Casagranda said. “We know somebody in most of the cities.

“Other than that, we’re probably going to be pretty dirty. Maybe we can jump in a lake once in a while.”

Otherwise, music seems to be the major obstacle.

“I’m listening almost exclusively to Bob Dylan now,” Johns said. “They weren’t too happy about that.”

And Looney doesn’t seem to appreciate Casagranda’s and de Riszner’s tastes, either.

“They listen to that alternative rock crap,” Looney said. “That makes me sick.”

But if the walls of the rental van start to close in during the four-week jaunt, these friends say it won’t lead to a catastrophe.

“If we get tired of each other, we can always kill somebody off,” de Riszner said cheerfully.

Casagranda, nodding his head toward the Padre-Cub game on television, agreed.

“Yeah,” he said. “That would be a good cost-cutting measure.”

Around the Horn

Five Ivy League students, including Chris Looney of Fullerton, will travel a total 17,339 miles in an attempt to watch games in each of the 28 major league stadiums in 28 days. They begin with tonight’s game at the Seattle Kingdome.