Troy

On Capital Ideas

Joseph L. Bruno Stadium, 2013

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Staten Island Yankees (NY Yankees) vs.
Tri-City ValleyCats (Houston Astros)
Joseph L. Bruno Stadium
NY-Penn League (Short Season A)
Troy, NY
7:00 PM


Outside the Game:
It only dawned on me on Friday that I was going to two state capitals in as many weekends: Harrisburg the week before, and now Albany. I could make a month of it and go to the Trenton Thunder again, but I had new parks to hit. Technically, the team this week was in Troy, NY, but I had to pass through Albany to get there, so as far as I'm concerned, it counted.

I was, at least, finally off of I-78 for a week. The agenda this time would take me up 2/87. Starting off, my TomTom took me on state roads instead of 95 for the first part of the trip, which was annoying, but once I got on 287, it was all one road for most of the rest of the trip. There was some moderate construction congestion where 287 turned to 87, but beside that, it was mostly an exercise in trying to keep up with the speed of traffic. 75 was for the slow lane, it seemed. For a bit of road, the slow lane was going about 85, and we were getting passed as if we were standing still by people on the left. Needless to say, even with the delay, I made great time. The drive through downtown Albany was more pleasant than I expected. There is a lot of nice architecture there, at least. I didn't walk around, so who knows what it is like with boots on ground.

I eventually got to the park in Troy and was directed to a disused dorm lot to park my car. The lots right by the stadium were for season ticket holders only, but the outer lots were right on the streets out of the college, so it actually was better, from my perspective.

The Joe empties

After the game, I actually had to turn on the heater in my car. I will never understand weather in upstate. Once I got out to the main roads, it was again just a matter of trying to keep up with traffic, and there was no construction to delay me at all. While paying the toll for the NY Throughway, I had an odd moment of alignment. I was apparently driving up as the woman manning my booth was talking with the next booth over about the new Batman casting. She asked me what I thought about it, and I told her I only cared who was playing the villain. I told her about Bryan Cranston being cast as Luthor in the Batman/Superman film, and she hadn't heard this news yet, so now they had something else to talk about. That is being in the right place at the right time.

I got home in record time, parked, went back to the apartment, and passed out so that I would be up for Talking Baseball the next morning.


The Stadium & Fans:

Home plate to center field, Joseph L. Bruno Stadium

Joseph L. Bruno Stadium (also known as "The Joe") was a nice enough little place. However, it was named for a Republican NY State Senator who was convicted on a massive corruption probe. Though he won a dismissal of the original conviction, he will be tried again. None of this information is readily available at the stadium.

After the relatively complex AA-parks of the last few weeks, I was looking forward to the comparative simplicity of a short-season A park. The stadium is located on the campus of a Troy community college and is part of a larger sports complex. There is a huge obstacle course/gym thing behind left field, and there are tennis courts beyond right field. There is only a small passage around behind the outfield, but if you are determined enough, you can, for example, pop your camera over the outfield wall to get some pictures. Not that I did.

Outside the main entrance is a M*A*S*H-like sign, pointing to all the closest MLB parks, Cooperstown, and the franchise's home office in Houston. The main entrance empties you out onto the concourse behind home plate. All the seating areas are below the concourse, which extends from the edge of left field to the edge of right field. Luxury and press boxes are above home plate, running from about first base to third base. Down the first base line are concessions, a covered Picnic Pavilion, and a picnic hill in right field itself. Down the third base line are concessions, a Tiki bar, the "Field of Dreams" picnic area, the Kids Zone (with a tribute to "Troy Baseball Legends"), and the "Top of the Hill Bar & Grill" in left field, behind the home bullpen.

There are a number of curiosities in the stands. There is a "hit the target, win a car" sign in right field, a giant inflatable Uncle Sam in left (the character of "Uncle Sam" is one of Troy's claims to fame), and a three-sided exhibit right by the entrance about bat manufacture (as upstate NY is where much of the lumber for baseball bats comes from). A number of special interest booths are also by the entrance. The big one this night was an Underground Railroad historical committee.

The big story of the evening was the fake mustache event. They were trying to get the crowd to break the Guinness World Record for the most people wearing fake mustaches, which was set in France earlier this year. They gave out fake mustaches to everyone in the crowd, and most of the staff, players, and even the mascot were wearing fake mustaches for the occasion. They took the count at the end of the second inning, and an unofficial count later in the game said they had achieved the goal. So this was now the second world record I've participated in at a ballgame. Whoo.

Even the players

The crowd was good and near sell-out, as far as I could tell. There were a large contingent of Staten Island Yankees fans on the first-base side. The crowd was loud and into the game, and especially so for some Hispanic fans, who loudly did the "Vamos Gatos" ("Let's Go Cats") chant that was sometimes put on the scoreboard. I don't think I've ever seen that anywhere before.

South Paw

The ValleyCat mascot SouthPaw was in charge of the between-inning entertainment. He also was the frequent tormentor of a couple in the season-ticket seats several rows back from me, whom he attacked with silly string on several occasions and then went on the dugout to act all innocent and cat-cute. Most of the events were your standard variety of minor-league fluff, but there were a few originals. There was catching Frisbees in pizza boxes and getting a blindfolded person to put a hat on their head that was attached to a fishing pole-- that was good for a laugh or two. The races were a little more elaborate than normal, as the condiment race had the participants in tiny cars running around the outfield, which was sort of novel, and the "character race" was between the "Tri-City Mayors," representing the actual three mayors of the tri-city area (Troy, Albany, and Schenectady).


At the Game with Oogie:

Double-play burger and brine potatoes

There were a lot of scorekeeping events for this one. When I went to copy the lineup into my scorebook, there were one or two old guys there, which you expect, but there was actually a kid there filling out his scorecard as well. I can't remember the last time that I saw a kid working a scorecard. It was nice to see. An older gentleman came up as I was finishing, and even though it looked like walking was an effort for him, he stood there and wrote in the lineups. We talked a little bit about the previous day's game and the Little League World Series, and this guy was obviously a baseball lifer, and perhaps a look into my future in 30 or so years. I wish him all the best in the world.

As a single ticket, I can often sneak into getting a seat in the area behind the home dugout. There is usually one seat in what is almost always the season ticket-holder area, because few people come alone to games. I let my anti-social nature work for me. In front of me was a lady who had the seat behind the dugout right by the entrance stairs for the players. She knew all them by name and was on a first-name basis with all the staff. She was working on her own scorecard, as well. It was all a little Bull Durham, though I in no way wish to cast aspersions onto her character.

Next to me was a couple about my age, maybe a little older. When I first got to my seat, the husband was there by himself, and he was filling out a scorecard. He told me no one ever usually sits in my seat, and we had that conversation. But then his wife showed up and was sitting right next to me. It was her scorecard that he was holding, and things got a little weird. We were clearly copies of the other in different genders. She was sitting there, with a camera around her neck, with her scorecard, as was I. We were both lefties, for Pete's sake. It got to be a little disconcerting, because we would both raise our cameras to take pictures of the same thing, and almost synchronized, we'd hunch over the scorecards after a play to write it down. I'm not sure there is any moral to this or not, but man, it was weird.

I got dinner at the "Godfather" stand in right field, which served some selections from Lupo's in Binghamton, including a chicken spiede. I bought some spiede marinade in the merch store, but I had a "double play" burger (a 1/2 lb. burger topped with pulled pork) with a side order of brined potatoes, because how could you not?

For the event

Everyone around me had coats, which made me question their sanity for most of the game. It was in the 80s for the first half of the game. But when the sun went down, it was I who was the crazy one. The temperature dropped thirty degrees easily. The woman next to me got hot chocolate at one point. I just buttoned up my shirt and toughed it out. But this was almost as bad as the temperature swing in San Francisco when I was there.


The Game:

First pitch, Yankees vs. ValleyCats

This was the first close game I'd seen in a while, and it was also the first to pretty much go how you'd expect based on the two teams playing (the first-place ValleyCats, and the last-place SI Yankees).

To form, the SI Yankees went in order in the first. Picking off where last night ended (where in the previous game, the ValleyCats got nine singles in a row), the ValleyCats started with four straight singles that got two runs in and lead to a first-inning visit to the mound. The batter of the third single got nailed trying for second after the relay throw went wide, and the fifth batter grounded the runner in front of him into a fielder's choice. There was another single after that, but a stinging line-out to short ended the inning with the ValleyCats up, 2-0.

The Yankees again went in order in the second, and the ValleyCats cooled off and only had a single to show for their half. The Yankees broke up the no-hitter in with a single in the top of the third, but that was about it for the inning. The ValleyCats got the first batter on base with an error, but had nothing else in the bottom of the inning. The Yankees showed some life in the top of the fourth with back-to-back singles to start the inning, before a pop-out to short ended the streak. A short single loaded the bases, but a hard grounder to third led to a double-play to end the half. The ValleyCats started the bottom of the fourth with a triple, and he came in on a fielder's choice, but that was it, leaving it 3-0 ValleyCats at the end of four.

The first Yankees batter in the fifth got plunked, and it was the start of a sad rally, of sorts. The next Yankee singled, and the grounder to third by the next batter got booted to load the bases. A one-out walk brought the run home, but the pitcher rallied for two strike outs to end it 3-1, ValleyCats. The ValleyCats started their half with a walk (gone to second on a passed ball) and then a one-out walk, followed by a wild pitch that moved the runners to second and third. However, the last two batters struck out with no one across.

The sixth started with back-to-back singles for the SI Yankees, but then three straight outs. The ValleyCats, meanwhile, began with a double that was sacrificed to third and brought in on a one-out single to right. Two more outs left nothing else across, with the ValleyCat lead now at 4-1. In the seventh, a two-out double was followed by a triple to bring the first Yankees runner home. The triple was stranded at third with a ground out, but the ValleyCat lead was now 4-2. The ValleyCats only mustered a walk in the bottom of the frame.

The Yankees went in order in the eighth, and the ValleyCats got a one-out base-runner thanks to a shortstop error. He was replaced with a pinch runner, who nearly immediately got picked off first before a strikeout ended the inning. Facing the ValleyCats closer, the SI Yankees went in order in the ninth, leaving it a 4-2 ValleyCats victory.


The Scorecard:

Yankees vs. ValleyCats, 08/24/13. ValleyCats win, 4-2.

It is pretty hard to fail with a free give-away, but the ValleyCats managed to do just that. The pamphlet-sized program with the scorecard in the center was a free giveaway at the entrance to the stadium. For the most part, it was average-enough affair, with the stand minor-league program contents, and the scorecard as the centerfold.

But the scorecard was printed on glossy magazine paper that made it nearly impossible to write on with pencils. And it was magazine printing on cheap paper, so that the scorecard itself smudged easily and was able to be erased while making corrections. They conveniently put in a "Notes" area instead of ads, but they then put the notes section with a smudge-able, erasable grey background that made it impossible to use. To top this all off, the lineups were not included with the scorecard, but had to be purchased separately for $1, or included in the $3 program. If you're going to charge for the scorecard, charge for the scorecard. Don't nickel and dime it.

That said, there were a couple of odd plays, and that was it. In the bottom of the first, there was the attempt to stretch a single to a double where the throw went past the cut-off man. This led to the run-of-the-mill "CS 9-5-4" put out. With the bases loaded in the top of the fourth, there was also the all-so-common "DP 5-5-3" you see every day. The run walked in the top of the fifth wasn't earned, thanks to the E5 that preceded it.

Everything else was largely cut and dry.


The Accommodations:
Just Hoboken

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.

2013 Stand-Alone Trip