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