Granville

On Getting Out of Town for Something Unlikely

Rental car

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Morgantown, WV


Outside the Game: 

I was burning one of my Summer Fridays to be able to go out to see the grand opening of a stadium, something I had never done before and one of the items on my baseball Bucket List that I wondered if I would ever be able to complete. But as it happened, a new minor league franchise was opening up in the backyard of my best friend, and he had already scored season tickets. So, this was pretty much a no-brainer.

I had walked the necessary people through my one-day coverage document, and I headed out to Newark Freedom Liberty Bald-Eagle Apple Pie America airport after work. I took the PATH out to Newark and grabbed a NJ Transit train one stop to the airport with plenty of time before my 9:30 flight. I got through security and grabbed dinner at the diner in C terminal and waited to board.

It was with great surprise that my flight boarded on time and with no major incidents, we were in Pittsburgh on time to land at 11 PM. I quickly got my rental car in a dead, night airport and started my hour-and-a-half drive to Morgantown. I may have gotten the drive time down to an hour fifteen, but sometime after midnight, I quietly arrived at my friend's house, and quietly went inside and crashed for the night so as not to wake the wife and child.


The Accommodations: 

I was staying in the computer room at my friend's house now that his step-son had taken over the old guest room for some reason. It was an air mattress, but my back survived the trepidations.

On the First Time for Everything

Monongalia County Ballpark, 2015

Friday, June 19, 2015

Mahoning Valley Scrappers (Cleveland Indians) vs. 

West Virginia Black Bears (Pittsburgh Pirates)
Monongalia County Ballpark
NY-Penn League (A-)
Granville, WV
7:05 PM


Outside the Game: 

After the somewhat late arrival, I was similarly a little late in rising the next day. But breakfast waits for no man, and the day got on its way, as we settled into some important video gaming, breaking only for lunch before getting back into the digital trenches.

Eventually, it was time to head out to the stadium for the grand opening. It had been on and off raining all day, but I knew that unless it was end-of-the-world weather, they were going to get this no-brainer sellout and grand opening in, come hell or presumably high water. Without the planned connecting road to downtown, it was a bit of a drive to the park, but we got there and parked in one of the only opened lots, as construction was still being completed on the other lots in the outlying areas of the park. It was down to a fine drizzle by the time we got inside, so we hoped that was a good sign.

After the game, we got back to the car and fought through some congestion back to the house, where we capped the night with a little more video gaming and then hit the hay.


The Stadium & Fans: 

Home plate to center field, Monongalia County Ballpark

With a name like “Monongalia County Ballpark,” you know they haven’t successfully sold the naming rights yet. On the damp day of its grand opening, the stadium was clearly not quite finished. The signage was all temporary, the gate procedures seemed ad hoc, and the landscaping was very much not finalized, with large swathes of unleveled dirt and unfinished pavement surrounding the park. This is perhaps even more surprising given that the park hosted a spring season of college baseball for UWVa prior to the start of the NY-PENN League season. The park wasn’t the only thing incomplete, as the new road to connect up more directly with downtown Morgantown was not yet finished, the surrounding stores and hotels were not yet open, and there was even just one parking lot available for all the facilities.

The park itself is a fairly standard layout in a very non-standard configuration. Entrances are at right field and center field, with center field only open for the stadium’s premiere. The park is aligned at the bottom of a large hill with the usual marquee home plate entrance jammed up against the base of the hill, with no access. I’m not sure if this was because of them not being able to do the necessary landscaping in time for opening, or if this was some misbegotten decision on the part of the ownership.

The entrance opens out onto a narrow promenade that starts in center field and runs out to right field behind home plate. The walkway winds down a steep slope behind left field until it reaches the grandstand at third base. It levels off as it runs around the top of the seating bowl, and then leads out a wider right field plaza that ends in a stairwell down to the not-yet-open right field entrance. The main grandstand runs from dugout to dugout, extending down from the promenade via staircases. A second row tops the grandstand from a slightly shorter distance, hosting the luxury boxes and the press box. The chairs are all molded plastic bolted onto bleachers and weren’t exactly what you’d call “comfortable.”

What in other parks would be picnic hills in left and right field are too dangerously steep for that purpose here, and just end up as empty space, though apparently there are plans in the works to level them off. The two main concession stands are on the grandstand promenade, although there are additional stalls in the right field plaza area. A small box of a team store is on the promenade by third base, and it is too small by half. People were entering the store and getting on the end of the checkout line as it weaved through the entire store on its way to get to the front. Similarly, the promenade narrows in the grandstand, and it was wall-to-wall people, especially by the backed-up and overwhelmed concession stands.

Some other things of note are the field is nearly completely turf, except for the pitchers’ mound, and especially in these wet conditions, they seemed particularly dangerous to the young prospects playing on them. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a career-ending injury or two. Also, the seats ride up right next to the field, but this necessitates foul ball netting across the entire sitting area, as well as some interesting situations of people having to check behind them when foul balls are hit as they often carom off the upper deck and fly back into the stands. The only place to get an unimpeded view of the field is the right field plaza.

The brand-new digital video board and scoreboard sits in left-center field, above a single tier outfield wall that is not yet overgrown with local ads. A bank of trees forms the batter’s eye, and the rest of the outfield wall vista is the rolling mountains in the distance.

Hanging with Mr. Cooper.

So, the brand-new mascot for the Black Bears is Cooper, the black bear, named for nearby Cooper Mountain, home to actual black bears. The costume was preternaturally clean, as this is the first game he was attending, having only been out for a few PR appearances prior to the first game. He was introduced in the pre-game as “just having come out of hibernation,” so who knows if they will do this every spring or not. He pretty much did standard mascot duties for the game, schmoozing with fans and helping out with the on-field activities and whatnot. Most of those were standard minor-league stuff, apart from the “Smile Cam” and “Bear Hug Cam” (presumably in the place of kiss cams), and the playing of Thank God I’m A Country Boy by John Denver during the seventh inning stretch.

As this was the franchise opener, the park was packed to capacity, even with the rainy weather. All new franchises have enthusiasm at the start of the tenure, but who knows if it will keep up? But for now, the greater Morgantown area seems pretty smitten with its first professional team, and they were all very much into the game and festivities.

At the Game with Oogie: 

Rain scoring

So I was with my friend and his family, who had secured season tickets when the team first offered them last Fall. Because my friend is tenacious, he managed to grab seats right next to the entrance to the dugout and put the seat for his son right next to the dugout. Cute kid + dugout access = more freebies than he'll ever need in a long lifetime. This was evidenced nearly immediately, as the friggin’ President of the NY-PENN League, on hand this evening for the grand opening, gave him a ball even before the game started. That little so-and-so won't know how good he has it.

I split up with my friend and his family to do my walking around and photography. That was hampered a lot by the netting that covered the entire seating area and the weather, but I made do. Getting around was difficult, because the tiny park was filled to capacity, and my foray through the team store was even more memorable, as it was just a matter of joining the back of the register line as soon as you got in, as it was snaked throughout the entire confines of the small building. But I did get some opening day merch, so there's that.

Pepperoni roll and souvenir soda

I settled on a local favorite for food and got a loaded pepperoni roll, whatever that was, for food. I went down to the seats, which were right behind the plate and, as mentioned, right next to the home dugout. The seats were molded plastic things bolted onto bleachers, so they weren't the most comfortable things in the world, and the drainage left something to be desired, as water was pooling in the concrete floor at our feet.

But through it all, it was the first grand opening of a ballpark I had even been to, and it was probably the only opportunity I would have in this situation. It was also good to spend some time with my friend and his family watching a ballgame.


The Game: 

First pitch, Scrappers vs. Black Bears

The good news was that the inaugural game between the Mahoning Valley Scrappers and the brand-new West Virginia Black Bears not only got off despite the weather, but it was also a run-soaked affair. The bad news is that the new home team ended up on the wrong end of it.

The first inning was the first and only to go quietly, with both sides going in order. The Scrappers then went to work in the top of the second, scoring three runs on a single, a triple, a hit by pitch, a walk, an error, and a ground-out, putting them up 3-0 early. West Virginia came back in the bottom of the second with their own run on two singles and an error, to close it to 3-1. Mahoning Valley then tacked on four more in the third, starting the frame with back-to-back homers, and then getting two more runs on a hit batsman, a single, a wild pitch, and another single to extend their lead to 7-1. The Black Bears went in order in the bottom of the third.

The Scrappers didn't manage to score either in their next half-inning, with just a walk to show for the top of the fourth. West Virginia got a runner as far as third after a leadoff single, but he went no further. The hiatus on scoring was over in the top of the fifth, with Mahoning Valley blasting out four more runs on a spate of walks and hit batsman driven in by a sacrifice fly and a bases-clearing double, stretching the lead to 11-1. The Black Bears just had a two-out double in the bottom of the fifth. The Scrappers drove in three more runs in the top of the sixth on the back of a walk, two doubles, and a sacrifice fly, making the lead a ludicrous 13-1, while West Virginia just went in order in the bottom of the inning.

The scoring kept coming for Mahoning Valley in the top of the seventh, with two more runs on three singles and a bunch of errors, making it 15-1. Clearly reaching the limit of their dignity, the Black Bears busted out in the bottom of the seventh, with five runs on four(!) walks, two errors, a strikeout passed ball, and a double, to make it a more respectable 15-6. For the second time in the game, the Scrappers went in order in the top of the eighth, while West Virginia got another one back on four walks, to make it 15-7. Mahoning Valley went in order in the top of the ninth despite a leadoff walk thanks to a double play, and despite the efforts on a walk and hit batsman, the Black Bears were not able to more than double their score, and lost their very first game, 15-7.


The Scorecard: 

Scrappers vs. Black Bears, 06/19/15. Scrappers win, 15-7.

As the Black Bears hadn't gotten their scorecards printed in time for their first game, I was left with using the BBWAA scorebook for this game.

Where to start? There were 17 walks in this game. 17! There were also nine errors. There were also five hit batsmen, the sort of average you'd expect to see in a late 60's game between the Dodgers and the St. Louis Cardinals.

The hardest part of scoring this game was keeping track of earned versus non-earned runs thanks to all the errors. You're hard-pressed to find many scoring plays where there isn't an E somewhere in there. Or at least a hit batsman. 

In all this slop, there were some plays of special note. In the top of the fifth, with a runner on first and second, there was a pickoff throw from the catcher 2-3 that caromed off the runner's helmet that let the runner on second advance to third. In the bottom of the seventh, a runner reached first on a wild pitch on a swinging third strike. He then made it to third on the next batter's double but was thrown out after going too far towards home 7-5. Also, the Scrapper as a team hit for the cycle, although you almost have to in order to score 15 runs.


The Accommodations: 

I was in the computer room again, with no great problems arising from the air mattress.

On Neither Rain Going Away and Nor Coming Back Another Day

Quitters

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Morgantown, WV


Outside the Game: 

So, we had plans to see game two in the short history of the Black Bears later in the evening, but until then, we had a day to kill. After getting up, having some breakfast, and starting with our day, it was time to retire to the computer room for more computer games for the rest of the morning, interrupted by a brief run out for lunch before more computer games.

As the afternoon wore on, there was more and more rain coming down from the skies, until it eventually cleared up mostly in the late afternoon, with a good prognosis for the weather clearing for the game, much as it had the night before. Despite the adult male optimism, the wife and son portion of the contingent was not so positive-minded, so it was just us to drive down to the park for the game. A drizzle turned into a downpour as we waited in the parking lot, and just before the gates were set to open, the stadium screen flashed up a message that the game was cancelled because of weather, so I got to be there for this milestone in the Black Bears franchise as well. 

We drove back to the house for some impromptu video gaming for the rest of the night before turning in.


The Accommodations: 

I was again in my friend's computer room on the inflatable mattress, and I was only starting to feel some ill effects in my back from it.

On When Delays Work To Your Advantage

Sunny Pittsburgh

Sunday, June 21, 2015
Jersey City, NJ


Outside of the Game: 

The delay on my flight actually worked out to my advantage in the morning, as I didn't have to get up nearly as early as I was expecting, so I was able to get up and say goodbye to my friend before heading out. I was on the road for a nothing interesting ride back to Pittsburgh International Airport.

After dealing with the New York area airports, it is so easy to forget how much other airports are not like that. I dropped off my rental car and was through security in under a half hour, so I had nothing but time to worry if there would be more delays. I tried to get on an earlier flight, but there were no seats left, so I just got some breakfast and waited sullenly by the terminal.

But I was pleasantly surprised when in addition to my plane being at the gate, the crew wandered up rather early in my waiting period. In overhearing their conversation with the gate staff, the pilot came in very late this morning, so they had to move the flight back so that he had his appropriate time off between flights. Thus informed, and sitting as I was close to the gate, I dozed off until the plane started boarding.

We all got on the flying bus with little effort and were off at our new flight time. I got out at Newark, hailed a cab home, and was off doing laundry in no time.


The Accommodations: 

Home, sweet Jersey City

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.

2015 Stand-Alone Trip