Lynchburg Hillcats

 

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Outside of Lynchburg, there is the National D-Day Memorial.  For $7, we were able to go and view this very well kept, informational and moving memorial.  9 acres of plaques, flowers, statues and granite. Tomorrow being Memorial Day, they were setting up chairs for something.  It apparently has been around since 2001, and is very much in the middle of nowhere(Bedford VA).  We stopped in downtown Lynchburg, which calls itself “Hill City”.  Well named.  Lots of hills to climb up and down.  This was a Sunday afternoon at 1pm, but the downtown seemed very empty.  But it had a lot of potential, and a  lot of historic buildings.

The Hillcats’ stadium had free parking, and was nice brick on the outside, looking very much like the early 2000s minor league park that it is.  Or at least it was refurbished then.  Apparently it has been around since the 40s,  One of my favorite parts of this park was the general admission tickets.  There was a lawn area out the right field foul line, but 90% of the tickets were GA, including the seats right behind home plate!  One of the few ballparks where the screen goes all the way to the ground rather than a solid wall for the backstop. And the overhang of the press box was huge, so basically all of the seats behind home plate were in the shade!  Kind of reminded me of Damaschke Field in Oneonta.  There were some people sitting on the metal benches in the sun.  Not sure why.  Food was good, although they only had one permanent stand open.  But there was a small enough crowd that that wasn’t an issue.

Another wonderful mountain view, this time past left field. Although since the seating seemed lower than the ball field the mountain views were a little obstructed. In the guide book they handed out for free (thank you very much) they said they had installed  state of the art video screen in 2004. I think it was the state of the renaissance. Not that there’s a problem with that. I love Wrigley and the lack of the video screen. Nice dark green hat with Hillcats logo on it. The team store was nice with a very helpful attendant.

The game only lasted 2 hours and 8 minutes, due in part to the fact that the Hillcats pitcher pitched a five hit shut out. Tim Anderson went 0 for 4 with 2 errors for the Winston-Salem Dash.

Overall I really enjoyed this game experience. For a small stadium it really delivered. They didn’t try to do more than they needed too. I got to high-five their mascot, Southpaw. Good family friendly atmosphere that Lynchburg should be proud of.

Salem Red Sox

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Well, I have a new partner in my travels, Ms. Stephanie Gagnon. Thanks for indulging me, dear!  So Salem… Due to the Memorial Day weekend, I get a three day weekend!  We left early, since we didn’t know for sure where we were going to be camping that night.  Roanoke Mountain Campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway was our goal.  We got sidetracked by the Booker T. Washington National Monument, which was somewhat of a recreated farm where he was born into slavery.  Good little museum, worth a 13 mile jaunt off of the main road.  When we got to Roanoke Campground, apparently they have closed it.  National Park cutbacks I’m guessing.

Anyway, we find another campground and then head into Salem to the Red Sox.  This is a high-A level farm team for the Red Sox.  Going to the stadium was easy to find, and ample onsite and free parking!  A bit concrete looking from the outside, but it looks like a nice big stadium.  The tickets are higher priced by 2 bucks if you buy it on game day.  I think that is kind of lame, but I think that is starting to be more common in minor league parks.  The ticket windows seemed small as well, though there ended up being 8 cashiers.  The line was long, by moved along nicely. Only four ticket takers though. We got into the park and first noticed the mountains past the right field fence.  I am a sucker for mountains, and especially as a backdrop for a baseball game.  The stadium seemed quite clean, with nice blue fold up seats and ample leg room.  It looked huge, but the listed capacity was only 6400.  There are no lawn seats, all general admission is just the upper level seats.  The bull pens were located in a funny spot, rather hidden from half the spectators.  The food was good, I had a Midwest Twister Dawg, which was hot dog with barbecue sauce, wrapped in bacon with cheese on top.  As awesome as it sounds.  Except it too us an inning and a half to get it!  Their food selections, while tasty, did not have enough capacity to handle a crowd of 6100  The beer selection was not bad, and 6.25 for a craft draft, not abnormal for a ball game these days.  They had a really nice open are behind home plate, under the skyboxes.  It had a brick bar, and some tables you could sit at or stand at while still watching the game.  It made it feel nice and open when you entered the park.  The Team store was nice enough, but also another slow moving and long checkout line before the game. We went back in the fifth inning to get the hat, and they only have the 59fifty NewEra fitted hats that I don’t really like.  Bummer.  Basic hat, a red S in the Boston Red Sox font on blue back ground, red brim.

The ball game was back and forth, with Salem tied 5-5 going into the ninth.  Potomac scored a run in the top of the ninth, making it 6-5 Lynchburg got a runner on, got him to third with one out.  I then made a comment to Stephanie that she should work on learning to tell if the ball was a homerun of the bat, without having to look out in the outfield at the rest of the play.   Right on cue, walkoff homerun!!!!  Salem wins, 7-6.  After the game, they were showing a movie on the scoreboard.  It was SUperhero night at the ballpark, so it was The Avengers.  The scoreboard was really small, and we didn’t really feel like staying.  It looked like only a few hundred were staying for the movie.

Overall, a nice experience

Baltimore Orioles

Back to the big leagues…  And back to Camden Yards.  The first retro stadium, and one I had taken a tour of a few years ago.  Gorgeous park.  Lots of food(bring lots of money) and the sausage tastes great.  $8 beers not tested. $10 parking, not bad for the bigs.  3 homeruns by the O’s won it 4-2.  This was a Sunday Night Baseball game against the Yankees.  The Yankees fans made plenty of noise as well.  Don’t like the lack of a on all the time line-score.  They had 2 beautiful screens in center, but if they wanted to show some video or animation, the line score disappeared.  Of course, I love seeing the warehouse past right field.  Makes me think of Ripken and his streak.  Sat upper deck 3rd base first 7 innings, then moved down behind home plate, no usher giving me a hard time.  I appreciate that.  Rich people shouldn’t have all the fun!  The fans were really into it, both because the O’s are doing well right now, and they don’t like the Yankees much.  Great time there, if you get a chance to go, take it!!

Bowie Baysox

I got there an hour early to take a relaxing tour, but they started playing instead!  Apparently they were going to be playing a doubleheader to makeup for the previous day’s rainout.  As is customary in minor leagues, that means two 7-inning games.  Average stadium, more the tan split face block instead of the red brick.  Lots of bench general admission seating.  Capacity ~10000.  There were maybe 1500 there on what began as a sunny summer day. In the bottom of the first, the Senators pitcher walked 3 people in a row to set up a nice grand slam!!  He didn’t even make it out of the first inning, Bowie up 6-0.  The Baysox pitcher went all 7, and threw a no-hitter!  I think this is the second one I saw, after a combo no-no I think at Greensboro, 4/24/12.  I tried to stay for the second game, but it started to rain, and I had still had to set up camp before the Orioles game that night.  Could have had a triple header!!  The chicken sausage with pepper and onions was great, and a craft beer, something with devil in the name of it.  Expensive though. 7.50 for the beer, 12 GA tickets, 6.50 for the sausage.  OK hat.  Kind of a ho-hum experience from the stadium though.  I could imagine if there were more fans it could be quite fun.  Free onsite parking though!

Tacoma Rainiers

 

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I came back a day early from my trip to Glacier NP, so I was able to scoot down to Tacoma for the Rainiers, the AAA affiliate of the Mariners.  I think it is good when the AAA affiliate is so close to the bigs geographically.  The ballpark is nice with the wood overhang and such, but it doesn’t seem at the AAA level.  Capacity is 9600, somehow, but it seems small, and doesn’t have tons of amenities.  The food and beer prices are at big league levels though.  Yikes.  Also the parking lot they feed you to is by the slowest ticket office ever in left field.  Seems weird.  Also a lot of steps to climb once you are in the park.  The game started, and Ryan Langerhans, who has big league experience, played bush league first base, dropping two pop flies to him, one of which opened up the inning for 4 runs.  Ergo, they lost 6-2.  Nice, simple hat.  Their alternate had a mountain on it, which seems even better.  But I don’t do alternates.  If you look carefully in some of the pictures, you can see mt Rainier in the background.  Impressive.

Everett AquaSox

 

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Well, it has been awhile since a new park, but I was headed to Seattle as a waypoint to Glacier National Park(Amazing by the way).  I had been to Safeco Field to see the Mariners in ‘04, so I was able to get my Aunt Marge to come up 45min N to Everett, to see the AquaSox.  I have been eyeing this hat for a long time, and you can see why.  A tree frog on the front? Sweet.  Everett is a short season a league, so some of these kids got drafted like two weeks ago.  The stadium would have a wonderful view past centerfield, but with so much netting and power poles, etc. you lose a bit of the picturesque Cascade mountains in the background.  Too bad.  Their mascot, while a fun (and tall) tree frog, had a dirty uniform.  The cost of SS A-ball I guess.  A little chilly, with a bit of a sprinkle, and the game was highlighted by the manager getting tossed over a call at second base.  And he gave the umpires a run for their money!  It took the home plate umpire to come out to get him off the field.  They still lost 3-1.

Detroit Tigers

 

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And for the grand finale… A Tigers game at the new(for me) CoMerica Park.  I had been to the old Tigers stadium, maybe 12-15 yrs ago.  Comerica is another HOK designed stadium with the green seats, lots of brick and open concourse behind the first level of seats.  The Tigers were playing the Twins, who were challenging them for first place, so the game was a sellout, so we had to get standing room only seats. As luck would have it, that meant that we got to stand behind the first bowl of box seats, first base side, and in the shade.  As annoying as it was to have to stand it was a good view.  Another open outfield, showcasing the Detroit Skyline.  Not too great right now and not in the day, but it would be nice to be lit up at night, and maybe if some of the buildings were occupied.  Another nice scoreboard, plenty of info, and secondary scoreboards were also available.  The one thing I did not like was the lack of the out of town scoreboard that would show all the scores at once.  They only had one that would show 4 scores at a time.  Another nice touch was the batters eye had some nice hedges and ivy-type backdrop, flanked on both sides by brick walls, where the retired numbers and famous names on them.

The game was good, the Tigers hit 4 homeruns, and Bonderman pitched a decent game, and the Tigers won 7-4.  There were some defensive gems here too.  A good experience in general, and it was great to have a sellout.  41461, a lot better than 61 fans we had last night.

Oakland County Cruisers

 

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I was able to start the day up north by going to the Cherry festival in Traverse City.  Anything you can think of involving cherries, plus more was going on or being sold.  Also plenty of boats were out in the water, a beautiful day to do it, indeed.

It was a longer drive than the past few days, getting back down south.  But we arrived at Eastern Michigan for the Oakland County Cruisers game.  They were playing here because there stadium is still in the process of being built.  The stadium is much smaller, and it looks old.  It was built in 1971 apparently, but has a nice covered concourse, but with only bench seats.  At one point, I counted 62 people in the stands.  There were some kids playing in the grass too, but ticket sales couldn’t have topped 100.  There were no concessions at all, and a folding table was there souvenir stand.  No mascot either, but there was some entertainment.  The owners are not trying very hard right now.  Hopefully they will care once they have a stadium.  This field was also a field turf infield, but with real grass in the outfield, and a dirt mound.  All that said though, it was an interesting place to see a game.  A bit reminiscent of what I think games in days gone by would have been like.  The game itself was another pitching duel, and the game was tied by the Cruisers in the bottom of the eighth, 2-2.  Just like yesterday.  The away team was the Southern Illinois Miners.  Just like yesterday.  The game started to go into extra innings.  Uh-oh.  I wasn’t ready for another 16 inning game, especially sitting on those benches.  But in the bottom of the 11th, on a wild throw from the catcher to 3rd base, the Cruisers scored, sending us home victors!  So in the past two days we have seen 27 innings, the equivalent of 3 games in two.

Traverse City Beach Bums

 

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Awaking to a rainy morning, a bummer, but after sleeping a little more, reading a bit, and eating lunch, the skies cleared, and we were able to go out on the boat.  And I was bale to try my hand at water skiing.  After many failed attempts, I got back in the boat to warm up.  After some discussion about technique, I jumped back in and was able to get going for a few minutes, and when my arms got too tired of holding the rope, I dropped off.  One more run, and my body was too tired to keep going.  But it was a lot of fun and a new challenge.

Up in Traverse City, we met up with my cousin and my aunt for the Beach Bums game.  This is a independent league team, same as Kalamazoo.  The stadium is kind of by itself in a field, easy to get to and see.  It was a unique one with the suite level not being the standard style, but rather the look of a beachfront cottage, with the concession stands built underneath.  Somewhat reminiscent of Frisco TX.  They had two mascots, teddy bears that were named Sunburn (the red one) and Suntan(the brown one).  The field itself was standard size and shape, but the craziest thing was the turf.  The grass was the green field turf which I don’t necessarily have a problem with, but the dirt was too!! And home plate and the pitchers mound were all field turf! Crazy!

Well the game started, somewhat of a pitching duel.  Some fine diving catches, and probably the best defensive play I’ve seen all week.  A diving stop of a grounder by the second baseman, who flipped the ball,just using his glove to a barehanded catch and throw by the shortstop to turn the double play.  Great play.  At the bottom of the eigth, the Bums were down 2-1 when we hit a home run to tie the game.  Everyone cheered.  Later they would regret it.  A fast moving game, 9 innings were done by 9:40.  But it was still tied.  It was also tied at 11:00 when we sung Take Me Out To The Ballgame for the second time.  After 16 innings, at about 11:45, the Southern Illinois Miners, won 3-2.  There were only a few hundred fans left at that point.  The Bums put on a fun show for 9 innings, but the cheerleaders got boring soon after.  But overall, a fun experience.

Great Lakes Loons

 

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After some great omelets this morning, off and running up to Higgins Lake.  We got a nap and a boat trip out of the afternoon, with rain early on.  Off to Midland, home of Dow Chemical and the Great Lakes Loons.  Funny enough, it is called Dow Diamond.  How creative. Round Rock (Dell Diamond), I am looking in your direction.  But the park was beautiful.  Another HOK design.  Had great lawn seating throughout the outfield, and a large space in right field, and it had a great row of adirondack chairs.  The concourse was very wide, with plenty of concessions for how few people the stadium holds at capacity (4500 ish?)  The team store also was spacious. And sold cool hats.  They had a picnic area down the left field line that reminded me of the GrandStand in Greensboro.  The field seemed like it had a lot of foul ground, and the way the dugouts were made you seem a bit further from the action.  But there was plenty of legroom, and that means a lot when I say that.  Not much of a view beyond the outfield fence, just a few trees in left and a chemical plant in right.  Great speaker system, had one posted every twenty feet all the way around the stadium(See Kalamazoo, not hard.)  It was ‘Polish Heritage Night’ at the ballpark, but they didn’t do as much for it as I had hoped.  The between inning entertainment was weak at best, but the fans that were there (~3012?) were into the game, and the stadium looked more full because it is smaller to begin with.The game itself, the Loons got out to an early lead, and ended up winning 8-0, and it probably should’ve been 15-0.  Also, the Loons pitcher threw a 3-hit complete game shutout, the first CG for the Loons franchise.

Lansing Lugnuts

 

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Well, I climbed Mt. Pisgah again today.  This one was a lot easier, a stairway right to the top! (and the top wasn’t above 6000’ either)  A nice view of the Holland Beach and lighthouse.  According to the Holland Tourism people, it is the most photographed lighthouse in Michigan.

The Gerald Ford Museum is in Grand Rapids, and has a wealth of information and stuff about his life and presidency, even as short as it was.  I had been to Clinton’s library a few weeks ago, and this was more of a traditional style museum.  Well done and well laid out, easy to navigate.  A good thing to see if you are ever in Grand Rapids.

With some time still to spare before the game, I decided to walk around the Michigan State campus. (If a shudder just went down your spine, I understand)  Driving into campus, East Lansing didn’t impress me, and I came into campus near the Breslin Center(basketball).  It seemed very sparse and somewhat boring.  I ended up parking at the football stadium and walking up to the Union and back.  There it got a bit more traditional campus looking, with the Red Cedar running through it.  Passable, but UM and Illinois are better, obviously.

The Lansing Lugnuts stadium is in downtown Lansing, a few minutes walk from the capitol building(which has a nice dome on top).  Unfortunately, it is oriented that the skyline is behind home plate, not past the outfield.  But the stadium has some nice unique touches.  The two outfield corners had tall walls and short dimensions due to having to fit between two roads.  Off one of the walls towards the lawn seats, there was a nice ivy covered wall.  The entertainment was good, but unfortunately the announced attendance was 2615 and they never got that loud.  Even for dollar hot dog day.  I wish there would have been more fans, I feel like Lansing would have a great experience.  It was cool that I had 9 people there!  Cousins, aunts, uncles, and new Australian cousin-in-law that hadn’t seen a full baseball game live before!  Enjoyable time indeed

West Michigan Whitecaps

 

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The beginning of the day was a trip down memory lane, with a stop in South Haven.  Sherman’s Dairy, the best ice cream I’ve ever had, and Conner and I had some blue moon.  Go figure.  We then ventured towards Van Buren SP, near where our grandparents cottage once was.  When we parked and hiked toward the beach through the woods, we ended up very close to the cottage, and Beth saw that the owner was there and talked us into a tour of the place.  It has gone from a simple cottage at the beach to a beach house with all the trimmings.  He has spent a lot of money making it what it is now.  The old shape and style can be seen in some parts, but it is no longer the place me and the cousins played in.

I’ve been looking forward to this game for a couple of years, since the last time I tried to go, but it was sold out due to a Tiger’s rehab assignment.  Easy to get to off the highway, but had to pay for parking.  The stadium has a new feel to it, but not the red brick and green seat type.  Being consistent with the Whitecap name, it feels a bit beachy(even being an hour away from the beach.)  Lots of light brick or siding and blues everywhere.  Great hat also.  The field itself is rather normal, no funny walls or anything, and actually a good sized foul territory.  A lot of general admission bench seats, with backs though. But if you go down to the box seats, they are foldable.  And if you sit in the three sections, right behind home, they are padded!  The game was fun, with good between innings game, two mascots and a announcer that was having some fun with the fans.

For the game itself, there was an early Whitecaps homerun, and a late comeback attempt, but they lost 6-5.

Kalamazoo Kings

 

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Pulling up to the Kalamazoo Kings stadium, it doesn’t look like much.  It is amongst some other city parks & rec fields.  Free parking though.  Walking up, there is a statue of Homer Stryker, who the field is named for.  The park has aluminum temporary looking grandstands, with mostly bench seats, although they do have backs.  There are some box seats with fold down seats.  The crowd was pretty good sized, and they got into in pretty well.  The speakers were terrible, only having speakers behind home plate.  They had giveaways throughout the game, cheap frisbees, tshirts and stuff thrown into the crowd.  It looked like there were a lot of diehard Kings fans.  Not bad for a independent team.  The Kings ended up winning 5-3.  Being 4th of July, there were fireworks after the game.  They allowed all the fans to sit in the outfield for the show, which was over the 3rd base grandstands.  The show started over 30 minutes after the game, which is too long.  But there was also a autograph line, which we had to wait on.  The fireworks were pretty good, about 20 minutes worth.  A slow pace, but good variation.

Another great part about this game was a lot of family was there.  My parents, two aunts, and uncle, and Beth and her family.  So this was Conner’s first live baseball game.  Being 5, he did get a bit antsy, and tired too as the game went on.  But It was fun to have everyone there.

Toledo Mudhens

 

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This morning, I went back into Pittsburgh to do a little sight seeing.  I went to the Heinz History Museum.  There was a good exhibit about George Washington, as well as some good Pittsburgh History, and the Western PA Sports Museum.  Good place, although a bit hard to find your way around at times.  And of course, a whole exhibit on the history of Heinz.

On my way to Toledo, I took a little side trip through downtown Cleveland.  Nice little place, has the Rock and Roll HOF right on the lake, next to Browns Stadium, and some museum or something.  Not far away are the Indians park, and where the Arena where the Cavs play.  I must say that I love the fact all these new stadiums tend to be built downtown.  Definitely better than in the middle of the suburbs.  They should be an integral part of the city.

I got to Toledo a bit early, so I decided to go to Ned Skelton Stadium, where the Mudhens used to play for a few pictures.  I ended up seeing a grounds crew guy watering the field, and he let me on the field to take a few pictures.  Apparently they still play some baseball there.  It still looked good.
Downtown was the new Mudhens stadium.  Another nice new one, and it had some cool quirks.  There was a short porch in RF they called the Roost, which I think they used old Tiger Stadium as that idea, and they had a building just past the RF fence also that looked old, and I believe had a restaurant.  The Toledo '”skyline” was out past the centerfield fence, but as the sun went down, it didn’t light up much.  Two big scoreboards, with good graphics and plenty of info, but oddly enough, couldn’t (or wouldn’t?) show video.  The place was packed, a sold out game almost.  But unfortunately, it didn’t seem like the crowd was very into the game.  They had some between innings games, but not much during gameplay to get the crowd involved, so it was a quiet 9500 people.  The Mudhens ended up losing 6-3. 
After the game, there were fireworks!  Unfortunately, we had to wait for probably 20 minutes at least for them to start, and there wasn’t much entertainment during that time.  And then when it started, it was pretty weak.  Only 3 1/2 minutes, and the fireworks were short.  As a neighboring fan said, “They were leftover from the Superbowl” (Where they would have to be shot in a dome, thus the low altitude.)

But in general, it was a nice park, and good to see a game in Toledo again.

Pittsburgh Pirates

 

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Well, after a little bit of paperwork for work, I hit the road at about 9:30, a little later than I had hoped.  I was not even 30 miles in when I got pulled over for speeding.  I had done a 4800 mile trip with no problems, and now the stupid Winston police are being buggers.  Argh.  But moving on, I got to travel through beautiful West Virginia, actually on a route I had never been.  US19N past Fayetteville, through Morgantown via I-79.  Once again, WV did not disappoint.  Beautiful country as always.

I made it to Raccoon SP in PA with just enough time to pitch my tent and head in to Pitt.  I still had to buy my ticket when I got there at 7:00.  Who knew traffic could be so bad going into Pittsburgh?  While I was waiting in line though, A man came up wanting to get rid of a ticket.  I asked how much, and he said $10, he had season tickets and he wasn’t going to be using both.  I only had $6 cash though, but that was good enough for him.  I saw that it was a $26 face value, and figured the seats might be OK.  They ended up being about 20 rows right behind home plate.  Absolutely great seats.

The park is pretty.  The great skyline backdrop with the yellow pedestrian Clemente bridge in the background.  It seems small, although it does seem, sitting in the bottom part, that the front row of the upper deck seems far back.  A couple complaints though.  The food service seemed very slow, and thus the long lines clogged up the concourse, making it hard to walk around.  But the chili cheese dog wasn’t bad for 5.50, and pierogis (apparently uncooked ravioli looking things) weren’t too bad either.  And if you looked hard enough, they had some good beer selection beyond the bud light junk on tap.  The game was close, a 3-2 win over the Phillies.  And since it was the Phillies, the stadium was probably 3/4 full (and 1/2 Phillie red) which I’m sure is a high for them this year.

Now that I am back at the campsite, I realize that this park is in the flight plan of the airport.  Too bad.

Yes! Michigan

What do they say about Americana?  Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet?  Well, I am going to live up to that phrase (except maybe cherry pie instead) next week.  I have another trip coming up, this time mostly in Michigan.

My schedule:

July 1 Pittsburgh Pirates

July 2 Toledo Mudhens

July 4 Kalamazoo Kings

July 5 West Michigan Whitecaps

July 6 Lansing Lugnuts

July 7 Great Lakes Loons

July 8 Traverse City Beach Bums

July 9 Oakland County Cruisers

July 10 Detroit Tigers

This will be fun, because I will be joined by family members along the way, some for multiple games.  See you soon!

Kane County Cougars

This is another one from a long time ago.  In the suburbs of Chicago, we watched the Cubs. (Or if you were odd, the White Sox)  But in 1991, we got the Kane County Cougars to give the suburbs a low cost family outing.  It has been a long time since I have been there, and I believe that they have done some rather extensive renovations since then.  I do have a hat though!  Our church would have outings to the games every so often, and I remember once going with my friend Matt Blanton.  I remember that there was no overhang over the concourse, and lots of metal bench seats.  Also, they had a pitcher that was named Matt Anderson, and we waited to get his autograph.  Who knows where that is now.

A long, long, time ago

Well, upon request, I will write a few posts about past minor league parks that I have attended.  According to my spreadsheet, I have gone to 52 parks.  One of the first was in Appleton, WI.  My family was on a camping trip through Wisconsin, so I somehow persuaded them to go to an Appleton Foxes game.  None of us can remember what year it was, but I think somewhere between 87-91.  I don’t really remember much, other than their logo, posted on a sign in the stands to watch out for flying baseballs.  A game never to be replicated, since the Fox Cities area in WI has a new stadium and different franchise in the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers

The next one I can recall was the Toledo Mudhens.  Located not too far from Saline, my grandpa took me, two of my cousins, and an uncle to a game.  I remember it being exciting, because we were able to sit first row behind the 3rd base dugout.  I also remember a foul ground ball going in front of us on the field, and either my uncle or my grandpa saying, “That’s probably as close to catching a foul ball as you’ll ever get.” I’ve got 2 now, although I didn’t really ‘catch’ either. The Mudhens have also gotten a new stadium(which I will see in a couple of weeks).  This also happened probably early 90’s, since my cousin David was there, and I bet he was more than 5?  Carsons, any memories of this one?

Epic, Extraordinary – by the numbers

 

4619 Miles(Averaging 271/Day once I left home)

21 Ballparks

20 New hats

20 games

19 days

0 Speeding Tickets, 0 Pillows

540 Pictures

15 campsites (2 near floods)

11 States

10 National Park System sites

Countless miles hiked

1 Epic and Extraordinary road trip

23 days until the next one- Michigan, here I come!

Greenville Drive

 

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Well, after a good game last night, Russ gave me some tips on where to hike between his place and Greenville, tonight’s game.  So I got to go to the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.  And boy, was it hard to get to.  You had a few options. A) park at a state park and walk 8.5 miles (one way) B)Drive up some unlabeled and seriously unpaved roads in the middle of nowhere, then hike 1 mile.  I chose option B, and took a wrong turn a couple of times, but I found the parking lot.  Then I hiked north on the AT instead of south.  I got 1.6 mi in to the first shelter when I turned around. I finally made it to the trailhead, a small vista over the mountains, with two plaques inlaid into the stone.  Nothing big, fancy, or very informative.  But really cool.  Maybe I should hike the whole thing.  But that’s another blog.

Then i went off to find Brasstown Bald, the highest point in GA.  Speaking of some crazy roads, definitely some nice winding roads to get there.  At least these were paved.  You could drive to within .6 miles of the peak, which was a steep but paved hike, up to a nice 360 observation deck, with views of TN, NC, GA. I’m not sure you could see SC. Then to Greenville- according to my calculations, it would be close for me getting there on time.

Well, it was close, and I missed the top of the first.  But I really enjoyed this game.  A beautiful stadium.  It is the low-A affiliate for the Red Sox, and this field was built like Fenway, with the same dimensions in the outfield.  It had the Pesky Pole, the Green Monster, the bullpens in right-center, and the weird jog out in center, with the 420ft. corner.  There were offices and/or apartments past leftfield, with people on the rooftops and balconies.  The crowd was large, and into the game.  Concessions were affordable, and there was a parking shuttle to a parking lot two blocks away, that was free.(not sure if the shuttle cost anything, I walked).  The lawn areas were pretty full of people.  A great park, and the Drive won.

So this was the last game of the trip.  I’ve had a great time, and seen so many things.  That said, I am going to be happy to be at home.  When the last out was made, a fly ball to RF, I actually felt a tinge of sadness.  But hey-  In three weeks, I get to do this again-  in the beautiful state of Michigan!  I am going to write a couple of summary blogs about this trip, then tune in July 1 for the next installment!!