On Closing Days
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| Coca-Cola Park, 2013 |
Monday, September 2, 2013
Pawtucket Red Sox (Boston Red Sox) vs. Lehigh Valley IronPigs (Philadelphia Phillies)
International League (AAA)
Coca-Cola Park
Allentown, PA
1:35 PM
Outside the Game:
This was an early afternoon game, which is why I was even contemplating it on Labor Day proper. It was also the last game of the season for the IronPigs, so I was a little worried about getting tickets.
I got up at a reasonable time after sleeping like the dead for most of the night. I went down to the motel lobby to pick up some breakfast and then went back to my room to pack up. At the crack of 9, I called the ticket office and secured my seat. I worked out how long it was going to take to get the stadium and then killed time until I had to leave.
Up to this point, I'd avoided the rain that was forecast all weekend. It rained overnight in Lancaster, but none of it yet had fallen on me in person. As I headed out on the road to Allentown, my luck would run out. It was overcast all morning, and it was clear that I was heading towards darker skies. About halfway through the drive, it went from a few drops on the windshield to a full-on rainstorm. This lasted most of the drive, but the good news seemed to be that I was driving towards lighter skies by the end of my run, and the rain tapered off as I pulled into the stadium.
I got out of my car to do my normal thing, and about half way around park, I discovered that I hadn't driven out of the other end of the storm; I had driven in front of it. The torrential rain began as I was the furthest possible distance from my car. I found some relative cover quickly and donned my rain gear. I had gotten a new two-piece "rain suit" that I would be trying out for the first time. The good news was that it did keep me head-to-toe dry. The bad news was that it couldn't cover my camera and game bag. The other good news was that I had a second poncho that I put over my rain suit.
So I was able to wait out the rain in relative comfortable terms. The problem was that while all the plastic was keeping the rain out, it was also keeping all the heat in, and it wasn't a cool rain, but a humid rain, and I was getting just as wet from sweating out than I was by rain coming down. Thankfully, the rain eventually stopped right before the gates opened so I could at least ditch the rain gear.
After the game, I headed out to the car while they were still throwing balls at hoops in the stadium. I left the parking lot and navigated the minor congestion to the main roads to get me back home.
And then the traffic ahead of me stopped. And I was wondering if there was an accident ahead of us, until I realized that I couldn't see the traffic ahead of us anymore. There was a dividing line in the universe, and there were the things on this side of it that I could see, and there were things on the other side of it that I couldn't see. And when it was my turn to get to the line between seen and unseen, I got another unpleasant trip though memory lane.
Torrential rainstorms are endemic in central PA. There's nothing in the geography to break them up, so it is just a wall of rain as far out as you can see, and that is about ten feet in front of your car once you enter the storm. The last time I had been through the area was when I was driving home from college for the last time, and one of these storms came up, and I remember it seeming just about right for the day I was having.
And this day, after alternately being soaked and scorched all afternoon, it was just about right as well. A lost caravan of cars proceeded along at about 25-35 MPH through the worst of it. As if the analogy wasn't perfect enough, the storm broke away almost the instant that I crossed over into NJ. If just to drive the point home more, I didn't even have any traffic on the Polaski, nor the Holland Tunnel. I parked my car in the garage and dragged all my crap home, hoping I wouldn't meet the new neighbors as a damp, dirty mess dragging along various bags of things.
I managed to make it to my apartment, where I started to unpack, do my laundry, and take a shower all at the same time. I eventually remembered about work the next day, got depressed, and went to bed relatively early.
The Stadium & Fans:
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| Home plate to center field, Coca-Cola Park |
Given the beating Allentown has received in popular culture, it was odd to me that it managed to get such a big-name sponsor for its minor league team as Coca-Cola Park. Yet here we are. The stadium was surrounded by parking lots, again with the closest ones reserved for season ticket holders and other big-wigs. Along the main facade at one end is the entrance for VIPs, and the main entrance is on the farther end, past the ticket office, by the main gate where the regular folks go. Two big chambers on either side of the main gate spew bubbles while you wait, so there's that. It was actually a bit depressing on a gloomy day such as this was.
The main entrance dumps you out into AT&T Plaza beyond right field. There is a ton of table seating for the concessions found there, and an iron piggy bank and other curiosities right next to the main team store. You can pick up the main promenade here, which extends all the way around the stadium, and leads down to the one section of seating below the walkway. Regular seating extends from left field to right field, bleachers sit out in left, and several bars and wall-level seating crawl around center and right. A picnic hill also resides in center field. Luxury boxes and the press box extend the traditional first-to-third base above the main seating area, and some special luxury seating is available right behind home plate.
The kids area is in the center field area starting behind the batter's eye in center, and a giant Martin & Co. Guitar sits near its end in right-center. A tiki bar and the "Bud Light Trough" sit out in center, as well, near the K-tracker. The main scoreboard stands atop the picnic hill in center. Concessions are at regular intervals along the promenade, and there's a special "Beer and Bratz Platz" on the first-base side that leads to a small area with lederhosen-clad women selling beer and sausage. What more can you ask for?
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| Nothing is funnier than periodic table jokes |
On-field activities are run by Iron Pigs FeRRUS and FeFe (know your chemistry), as well as a fan team. It was super-hero day, so everyone and the mascots were dressed up as heroes, aligning with the children's give-away of capes. There was a part of my disappointed that there was not an adult-sized equivalent give-away, but not disappointed enough to ask. On the scoreboards, all the players had their heads superimposed on the cartoon bodies of likes of the Hulk, Batman, and even Space Ghost. Activities were minor-league standard races and tests of "skill," including one absolutely adorable pig race, where kids gets dressed up in pink pig suits and joyously run around the infield.
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| Dignity |
The grounds crew does the Yankees bit where they dance around during the late-innings field work. They were strutting their stuff to "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" today, doing a bit of line dancing. I'm not sure if that is there regular bit or not. The crowd for closing day was, as you'd expect, pretty large. There was even a small, but noticeable, contingent of PawSox fans on the first base side.
At the Game with Oogie:
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| Heart-healthy food |
As this was the first closing day I'd ever be attending, I stayed the course and bought my tickets ahead of time before I left the last hotel. I managed to get a seat several rows up behind the home third base dugout. The place was packed that day, even with the rain. It was mostly families around me, including one group with two tweener girls in front of me. They were quite eager to get any freebee from the field and were often up on their chairs any time the mascots or party patrol came around. It made it harder to take pictures, but I can't really fault their exuberance. Some older folks were behind me, talking about the larger baseball world, and it was nice listening to their talk to offset the youth in front of me.
I got a brat at the Beer and Brats Platz to eat. It was very nice, but after a whole weekend of that kind of food, I was getting some rebellion from my system that let me know I should probably eat healthy the next few days.
The Game:
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| First pitch, Pawsox vs. IronPigs |
Here we had yet another game with a division leader and a team struggling to stay above .500, this time on the last game of the season. It went about as you'd expect.
It started slow, as both sides went in order until the bottom of the second. The IronPigs managed a two-out single in the bottom of the inning, who made it to second on a steal, but that was it. Both sides went in order in the third in what was either a tightly-fought pitchers duel, or two teams sleepwalking through a meaningless last game.
Things picked up in the top of the fourth, as the PawSox got back-to-back singles to lead it off. A successful bunt moved both runners over, and then a sacrifice fly to left brought in the lead run. A strikeout ended the half with the PawSox up, 1-0. The IronPigs could only answer with a two-out walk in the bottom of the inning.
Scoring one run would become a theme for the next few innings. In the fifth, the PawSox again lead it off with a single to left, moved him over to second on the most blatant balk I've witnessed in person, and then further on to third on a ground-out to second. A one-out walk made it first and third, and a two-out single brought the lead run in, making it 2-0, PawSox. The IronPigs managed only a one-out single in their half of the fifth.
In the sixth, the PawSox had a one-out single followed by a double to left to make it second and third with one out. A single brought the lead run in, but the runner on second was gunned down at the plate. A fielder's choice ended the inning with the PawSox up, 3-0. The IronPigs managed a two-out walk in their half. The gravy train continued in the seventh with a PawSox leadoff single. Back-to-back, two-out singles brought in the lead run before a ground-out ended the half with their lead extended to 4-0. The resigned IronPigs went in order.
The scoring streak was broken in the eighth, as the PawSox only managed a leadoff single, and the IronPigs again went in order. Both sides backed into the end of the game and regular season by going in order in the ninth, securing the PawSox's 4-0 victory.
The Scorecard:
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| PawSox vs. IronPigs, 09/02/13. PawSox win, 4-0. |
This one was a mixed bag. On the plus size, it was a free pamphlet-sized giveaway on good magazine paper. There were limited ads and a reasonable amount of space to score on. However, it was good magazine paper, so it was hard to write on with regular pencil and nearly impossible to write on with colored pencils.
An odd aside was that the full lineups were available (for free) from the fan relation booth, separate from the programs (which were available at the entrances), but there was also a pre-printed paper scorecard available at the booth, as well. I ended up using the program, but at least the printed scorecard was pencil-friendly and included all the lineups, as well as the umpires.
There were a couple of interesting plays. In the fourth, I can't remember the last time I saw anyone in the majors or minors in America use two sacrifices back-to-back to bring in a run. The balk in the fifth was an uncommon occurrence, of course, and there was a pretty, pretty 3-6-3 double play in the top of the eighth. There can never be enough of those.
For the second straight game, the K-man for the game waited until their last at-bat to strike out, granting the crowd a discount on something at some local restaurant. And on Fan Appreciation Day, no less.
The Accommodations:
Hoboken, with a bunch of new people
2013 Labor Day
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