On Not Double-Checking
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| At least I saw art. |
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Charlotte, NCOutside the Game:
After being stuck in Charlotte for two days, I made the decision to stay another day. Kannapolis didn't have that many hotels, it was only a twenty-minute drive, and I'd be closer to where I was heading out the next day if I stayed there. The hotel was fine, I already was locked into a low rate, so I went with it.
After days of dancing around the closed Mint Museum, I decided to spend my morning there. Getting a double-pass, I was able to go to the museum downtown, as well as the actual nominal museum in the old mint north of town. Considering my only other option was the Dale Earnhardt museum and memorial near the stadium, I figured I'd go for some culture.
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| Wood warping |
The larger annex downtown had a lot of artisanal work that, as someone just starting out in woodworking, I had the faint flickering of how insane the organic forms being executed truly were. A prefer "real" craftmanship art such as this over the modern executions. It was just enough to wallow in the craftmanship. There was also an exhibit of Ansel Adams photography to make me feel really, really badly about being such a crappy photographer. It is enough to make you want to throw up your hands and quit. The annex in the actual old mint building north of downtown had more of the same in a smaller space. I went hog wild in the store.
I decided to head up to the park to pick up my tickets, and, of course, there was traffic, turning a twenty-minute drive at worst into a forty-five minute excursion. I got there just after 3 PM, and my Spidey senses were tingling. There were too many cars in the lot. The stadium gates were open and unmanned.
I still went up oblivious to try and pick up my ticket, to be informed that the game just ended. The one game that I hadn't confirmed the time on was moved to 1:05 PM “Camp Day” start on a getaway day, and the team was not going to be home for two weeks.
Well, friggin’ fabulous.
So, of course, I had to sit in traffic on the way back to the hotel, I dumped my game bag in my room, and decided to just go out to dinner and make the most of it. I immediately passed a Cracker Barrel and gave up; had my chicken, biscuits, and gravy; and went back to the hotel to sulk for the rest of the night.
And an early, failure-filled night was had. Always double-check your start times, kids.
The Accommodations:
I was at the Clarion Hotel Airport again. Same room, same situation. Nothing much new to report, except that the dead cockroaches in the stairwell were finally cleaned up.
On Getting Back on the Horse
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| L.P. Frans Stadium, 2016 |
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Kannapolis Intimidators (White Sox) vs.Hickory Crawdads (Texas Rangers)
L.P. Frans Stadium
South Atlantic League (A)
Hickory, NC
7:05 PM
Outside the Game:
When I woke up, I double-check all the game data very carefully so as not avoid a repeat of the previous day. The game for today was, in fact, that night at 7 PM, and all I had to do was drive over to Hickory. I did my morning routing and got out on the road by 11 AM and drove the hour over.
I started at the stadium, and picked up my ticket and took my pictures, and then looked for something else to do for the rest of the day. As per usual, "local historical stops" won out. There is always, always, always a local museum or whatnot no matter how small the burg that I travel to, and it turned out there were two historic houses in the area, The Maple House and the Harper House. As can often happen, there appeared to be two local historical concerns that ran the places separately and didn't seem to get along too well, because whenever the stakes are the lowest, people seem to be dug in the deepest.
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| Baby respirators. Anti-vaxxers want this. |
The Maple House was a free, self-run tour by the "indie" historical society. It was a nice little excursion, and I remain more interested in architecture than I find seemly. After that, I went over to Harper House, maintained by the "official" historical society, with a proper tour and everything. There was a second building of an old pre-fab home next door to the Harper House, and in the basement of that was also a large exhibit on when the area was used as a polio quarantine during the last big outbreak. I spent a good deal of time there just wallowing in what the anti-vaccination crowd would like us to go back to. It is important to remember what the consequences are for such stupidity.
Speaking of stupidity, afterwards, I drove to my hotel and checked in, ready for a quick shower and nap before the game, but then my cell phone rang. This can never be a good thing. It was either my landlord, my parents, or work, and none of them would have good news. Hoping for a wrong number, I saw it was my boss, and answered, and I was informed about the latest round of layoffs at my company. The small “victory” was that it did not affect me, but it did hit my department in the stupidest way possible. I thanked my boss for the update, turned off all the lights, and sat in the dark staring at the ceiling. I may have fallen asleep or not. I'm not sure, but at some point, it was time to go to the game.
Slightly sullen, I drove to the game, parked, and then went in for the duration. I drove straight back after the game and went directly to sleep, because I was just about done with Thursday.
The Stadium & Fans:
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| Home plate to center field, L.P. Frans Stadium |
After a run of somewhat cookie-cutter minor league parks, L.P. Frans Stadium was a nice cracker of a refurbished old park to mix things up a bit. From the outside, it certainly had all the hallmarks of turn-of-this century construction, with a main entrance decorated with some precursory baseball statuary and a team store and ticket booth flanking a main entrance that emptied out onto a promenade. But those appearances would be deceiving. A quick walk around the park reveals the original wooden outfield walls still standing, and wooden bleachers and practice areas at the end of the outfield.
The main promenade does extend from outfield to outfield behind home plate and lead down into the single seating bowl, but it is not the same old, same old. The "luxury boxes" and press boxes are bunkers sitting on the top of the seats, not elevated above, with angled sun shades extending up from them. A second walkway extends in the seating bowl, separating the cheap from the more expensive seats below.
The wooden party deck ends the walkway in right, while the left field end of the park ends with play area, complete with a merry-go-round. Memorials, the Hall of Fame, and the "Crawdads in the Majors" are all on the promenade behind home plate, and the main scoreboard is perched nearly in dead center.
The main concessions are pleasingly retro brick bunkers serving up cafeteria food at cafeteria prices, but the Crawdads Cafe in right offers baseball-stool seating or indoors table service that ranges from overflowing diner items at decent prices to eating "challenges."
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| Careful, there. |
Conrad the Crawdad was the day's mascot. Extra points for difficulty, as it is hard to do anything with claws. It was a cereal-themed night, for some reason, so cereal give-aways and a "guess the cereal" contest spiced up the regular races and such. There was a pretty thin crowd for the Thursday night game. You're tempted to give points off, but there were one or two die-hards riding the opposition, as well as a family doing a K-counter, so there is a little hope on that front.
At the Game with Oogie:
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| Rebound scoring |
I got seats behind the third base line and behind the dreaded "extended netting." Most of the fans were families, but they were few and far between. Utterly enchanted by the little bunker concessions, I started out with a burger and soda for under $2, and then went to the Crawdad Cafe. I resisted the urge to try one of the eating dares, and just got a gaping basket of chicken wings for $5.
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| Honking basket of chicken fingers |
I was writing up the stadium for the magazine, so I was taking copious notes. I got a lot of curious stares from the Cafe staff, but I don't think any of them could quite get up the courage to ask the weird Northerner what was going on.
The Game:
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| First pitch, Intimidators vs. Crawdads |
This match-up between the farm teams of the Rangers and the White Sox was fixed to be about as exciting at the top teams meeting, but it ended with the home team going home happy, so I suppose that is something.
The Intimidators threatened with two singles in the first, but stranded them with strikeouts. On their side, the Crawdads started the game with a triple, brought home by a double, brought home by a one-out single, to jump to an early 2-0 lead.
Until the sixth, the Intimidators did nothing but strike out five times between the second inning and then. In the bottom of the second, some sloppy play got the Crawdads more runs. A one-out double was followed by an E6 to make it first and third. A blown pick-off throw brought in a run and got the runner on first to third, where a sacrifice fly brought him in, making it 4-0 Crawdads after two. But then the Crawdads also went fallow until the fifth.
In the bottom of that fifth inning, a one-out walk came home on a three-base error on a dropped fly in left. A homer followed, bringing in two more runs. The bases eventually were loaded again before everyone got stranded. In the top of the sixth, a two-run homer finally got the Intimidators on the board to make the score 7-2, but both offenses slowed down until the eighth. In top of that frame, a two-out Intimidator walk was driven home by a deep double to make it 7-3, but that is as close as it would get.
The Scorecard:
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| Intimidators vs. Crawdads, 06/30/16. Crawdads win, 7-3. |
The scorecard was part of the free newsprint program, but unlike most newsprint programs, this one didn't fall apart at the first hint of use and stood up to pencil writing fairly well. The card itself wasn't taken up by odd proportions or advertisements, so it was large and comfortable to use.
Outside of a bigger than average homerun count, the game was fairly conventional from a scoring standpoint. There was a 7-1-4-3-6t caught stealing in the bottom of the first, and in the bottom of the second, a blown pickoff throw to first led directly to a run and the trail runner going to third when the throw went in the dugout. A dropped fly in left field in the fifth led to two more runs. The Crawdads starter struck out eight over six strong innings, and there was a nice 5-5-3 double play in the bottom of the seventh.
The Accommodations:
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| Holiday Inn |
I was at the Holiday Inn in Hickory for this evening. Outside of the unpleasantness with the news in the afternoon, I can't quite complain about the rest of the stay.
The room was the standard arrangement of roomy (and slightly fancier than average) bathroom off the entrance and double queen beds in the bedroom, along with an easy chair, desk, and dresser with TV. All of the pillows were pooled to one bed for maximum pillow fort effect.
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