On Just Being Out of the Heat
 |
| Prince George's Stadium, 2014 |
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Altoona Curve (Pittsburgh Pirates) vs.-Bowie Baysox (Baltimore Orioles)
Prince George's Stadium
Eastern League (AA)
Bowie, MD
6:35 PM
Outside the Game:
After the tiny bit of frustration the day before, I decided to take it easy this morning. I lounged around in bed for a bit, went down and had breakfast, and then headed back to my room to lounge around some more. I then settled in for some serious lounging.
With an 11 AM checkout looming, I eventually go dressed, loaded up the car, and turned in my key. My first stop was a gas station to fill up (since I used far more gas than expected the day before for some reason) and get some money, and then I was heading out to Bowie (which is pronounced Boo-ey, and not Bow-e, as one would expect).
I didn't actually have anything planned, but after the previous day, I decided to get to the park and figure everything else out later. Although there were the prerequisite traffic lights eating away at the very concept of time itself, the drive up went relatively smoothly, and I pulled in at the park a little after noon. I got a ticket and did my regular walking around, and I then decided to head out to see what I could see.
Which wasn't much, to be honest. There were a couple of little museums I wasn't in the mood for, and it was mostly a suburban community for Baltimore and DC. It reminded me a lot of my hometown of Clifton, and that is not a flattering comparison.
I got some lunch for lack of anything better to do and drove around for a while looking for anything interesting. There was an "Old Town Bowie," but it turned out to be a couple of antiques shops and a visitor's center. After a half hour or so of this, I started looking for a park to walk around and take a nap, but the heat was starting to get to me. But then I passed a mall with a Barnes & Noble. And so I pulled in and spent some time at the bookstore Cafe checking Internet, and typing on this a bit, and generally not being in god-awful heat.
It's amazing how much time you can kill in air conditioning with the Internet. It was eventually time to head over to the park and so a quick drive later planted me back in the gargantuan parking lot. I picked a spot that was near an exit and went on my way to the park. On my walk-around, I found a divot behind center field that had captured two batting practice balls, which I grabbed up before heading back to the front.
And there I was immediately confronted by Batman, Robin, and the 60's Batmobile. For real. It turned out that it was Superhero night, and a local car collector brought his pet Batmobile copy, and, for some reason, was teamed up with an anti-huffing parents group, taking pictures and giving out pamphlets about why huffing is bad. In the face of this situation, I got on line to get in, and away we went.
 |
| No, really: The Batmobile |
After the game, I did not stay for the end of the intern talent contest, nor the running on the bases, and the fireworks were in my rear-view mirror when they started. A few interminable Maryland stop lights later, I eventually made it out to the interstate at just before 10 PM and started to drive home as fast as traffic and physics would allow. After being stuck in the slow lane for approximately two days, it was just floor it and go north as fast as possible. With the exception of a couple of Pennsylvania trucks being in the left lane at one point, it was all smooth sailing, and I pulled into my garage in Hoboken a little before 1 AM.
The Stadium & Fans:
 |
| Home plate to center field, Prince George's Stadium |
Prince George's Stadium is a suburban field located next to nothing in particular, just off the highway. Which, given how little else Bowie had going on, wasn't that much of a surprise.
That said, it was a nice enough park, if a bit weird. The entrance plaza had a baseball diamond made in the stonework underneath a generic statue of an old-timey baseball player holding hands with a young girl--I never quite figured the symbolism out. Scripted neon signs identified the Tickets booth and "Gift Shop," but they were a little hard to see in daylight with the glare. The park was set in scrubland and backed against a small wood in the back, where low ranch houses held batting cages and clubhouses.
Once inside, the park was a common minor-league design. A main promenade ran from right field to left field behind home plate, with a smaller walkway halfway between the seats, separating the boxes below from the reserved seats above. The press and luxury boxes ran above everything from about first to third base, and most of the concessions were on the main concourse, mainly underneath the luxury areas.
Left field ended in a (roped off) picnic hill and the Bud Light All-You-Can-Eat patio, while right field ended in (another roped-off) picnic hill, children areas (complete with merry-go-round), and a lighthouse off in deep right.
 |
| Super Louie |
It was Super Hero night at the park, and that permeated all the activities. Mascot monsters Louie and Rocko were decked out in superhero gear, as were the entirety of the college-aged fan crew. There was a new superpower contest, and most of the rest of the regular activities became super-themed (Super Simon Says, Super Tug-of-War, Super Pizzas Giveway, etc, etc.). There was a sizable crowd on-hand for the match, but the contests and super-hero activities seemed to be most their focus.
At the Game with Oogie:
 |
| That one thing... |
I had seats on the home first-base side. As it was Super Hero night, there were wall-to-wall families in the park, with most of the kids dressed in some sort of costume. There was a small family with well-behaved children to my right, a small family with well-behaved children to my left, and a giant group three families with insane brats sitting in front of me. I shouldn't say that. One of the families were dwarves, and their kids were well-behaved. The rest of them were on my very last nerve.
 |
| Corn dog and fries |
As my stomach wasn't doing too well, I got a corn dog dinner, because if I was going to go down, I was going to go down swinging a corn dog.
The Game:
 |
| First pitch, Curve vs. Baysox |
The bottom-dwelling Curve were playing the third-place Baysox, but the game didn't play out that way. In fact, the word of the day was apparently "doubles," because there were a whole lot of them.
For example, the game started with back-to-back doubles for the Curve (1, 2) that brought in one run. A fly to right moved the lead runner over, and a walk made it first and third with one out. An amazing catch on a fly to right held it to a sacrifice fly that brought the runner in from third, and a ground-out to second ended the half 2-0, Curve. The Baysox went in order, already hinting that this game may be over.
The second inning began with an Altoona double (3), and a sacrifice bunt moved him over to third. An grounder to first offered hope of a short inning, but a single to left brought in the runner from third, before a grounder to short ended the half 3-0, Curve. Bowie went in order.
The third inning went a few batters before a double. Back-to-back singles started the inning for the Curve, and the next batter flied out to left. Then a double (4) cleared the bases, and another double (5) brought him in. The pitcher was chased (3.3 innings pitched, 8 hits, 7 earned runs), and the new pitcher got a strikeout before giving up a single that scored the runner on base. Another strikeout mercifully ended the inning 7-0, Curve. (To be fair, the Baysox pitcher wasn't bad, per se, it is just that all these doubles and hits were on the chalk and going into the corner. It was bad luck all around.) The Baysox started their inning with a double (6), breaking up the no-hitter, and fielder's choices got him to third, but there he stayed.
In the fourth, we waited one ground-out for our Altoona double (7), who moved to third on a short single. Another double (8) brought in a run and made it second and third with one out. A ground-out followed that brought in the runner from third and moved the trailing runner to third, and a single brought him in, while an error by the second baseman on the next batter made it first and third with two outs. But a grounder to third ended it at 10-0, Curve. Bowie went in order.
In a surprising turn of events, the Curve went in order in the fifth, as did the Baysox. In the sixth, the Curve had back-to-back, one-out singles, and a two-out single to load the bases, but nothing came across. The BaySox had a one-out double (9) to show for the bottom of the sixth.
The seventh started with a single for Altoona, erased on a fielder's choice. A two-out walk made it first and second, and a wild pitch made it second and third. A single brought in a run, but a ground-out ended the half a 11-0, Curve. The Baysox got a two-out runner on an error by the pitcher, but on the following double (10), the runner from first was cut down by a mile trying to score, leaving it 11-0, Curve.
The Curve, perhaps tired from all the running, only had a one-out single in the top of the eighth, while the Baysox had back-to-back, two-out singles, eventually stranded by a grounder to third to end the inning. In the ninth, the Curve had a leadoff single and then a one-out single to make it first and second with one out. A double-play ball to second was cheered lustily by a home team fanbase that had little to cheer about all game. Bowie went in order to end the ninth and the game 11-0, Baysox, and get the fireworks started that nearly all in attendance were waiting for at that point.
The Scorecard:
 |
| Curve vs. Baysox, 07/26/14. Baysox win, 11-0. |
This may be the weirdest scorecard situation I've ever encountered. In the free program they gave you at the door, they had one page of a scorecard for one team, with a note at the bottom to go visit fan services if you wanted a full scorecard--which in no way explains the value of having one page of the scorecard printed in the program. I even asked the woman manning the fan services booth why this was, and she didn't know, either. At any rate, there was a full, pre-printed, one-page scorecard on regular paper at fan services. It has the opposing pitchers with the batting line of the other team, but otherwise was uncontroversial.
Scoring-wise, the only thing of real note were the ten total doubles. There were only two people on the Altoona Curve who didn't have a double (though every player had at least one hit). The 21 hits by the Curve were also of note, and there was a caught stealing 7-2 in the bottom of the seventh when a runner on first tried to score on a double. There was also a rather rare 5U on a grounder to third in the bottom of the eighth.
Another point of interest was an at-bat during the top of the third, where the Curve batter lined a foul on a hard arc over the netting and bulls-eyed a spectator on the promenade behind home plate, who was knocked out. He was eventually okay.
The Accommodations:
Late, but Hoboken. There, I received a voice mail from my landlord telling me that instead of kicking out the girls downstairs, she had renewed their lease. I then spent the rest of the evening staring at the ceiling in the dark.
2014 Maryland
No comments:
Post a Comment