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!