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| Joe O'Brien Field, 2017 |
Greenville Astros (Houston Astros) vs.
Elizabethton Twins (Minnesota Twins)
Joe O'Brien Field
Appalachian League (Rookie+)
Elizabethton, TN
7:00 PM
Outside the Game:
I had a lazy morning the first day in Tennessee. I rolled out of bed and down to breakfast, and then rolled back up to my room where I took a supplementary nap after a shower.
Eventually up and out the door, I headed downtown to the excessively named "Birthplace of Country Music Museum." The museum refers to the "Bristol Sessions," a set of recordings by a New York record producer in 1927 to sample what was then known as "Hillbilly Music." These recording would launch the careers of the first real stars of what would become known as "country" music.
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| The Birthplace of Country Music Museum |
Now, outside of a penchant for Johnny Cash, I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a country music fan, but this was exactly the sort of place that I loved to find on these trips. Under normal situations, I would never, ever go out of my way to see a place such as this, but it was quite informative to me, and I learned a lot. I walked out of the gift shop with a CD of the recordings and a biography of the producer who made it happen, and I know much more now than I did then. And that's all I can really ask out of life. Before being the "Big Bang" of country music, Bristol was famous for being bisected by the Virginia/Tennessee border, and an electric sign arch over the road where the state line passes is another tourist attraction, which I saw as I drove to the museum earlier.
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| Proper hole in the wall |
I stayed in the area downtown after the museum to look for lunch, and I saw a hole-in-the-wall lunch counter called the "Burger Bar" that wouldn't have been out of place in the 40s. It was everything I hoped it to be, as I sat at the crowded counter and got a relatively cheap burger and fries combo to die for. And it wouldn't be the last time I visited.
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| Less impressive in the daylight |
After lunch, at the suggestion of my friend, I drove a little out of town to the Gray Fossil Site and Natural History Museum, an active archaeological dig site that came into being after road construction turned up a mother lode of dinosaur fossils. I went through the small museum they had and tramped out to watch somehow-still-pasty paleontology students digging at the outdoors site, as well as even more pasty paleontology students in the labs upstairs working on the bones that were dug up. I had told the person at the counter that I was interested in a walking tour out to the site, but she went on break at some point and did not tell the new person at the front, who apologized and said it would be another half-hour before someone could take me out due to the missed connection. Not wanting to see the dig up close that much, I jumped into my car and went back to downtown Bristol.
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| Nothing like pasty grad students outdoors |
I tooled around in the row of antique shops on the main drag for a while, picking up a couple of old knickknacks for my trouble before heading back to the hotel for a nap. After waking up, I grabbed my game bag and got ready for the short, 30-minute drive to the park.
The drive was uneventful, but the address for the stadium did not have me ending up at a stadium. After some fiddling with GPS, I was able to get the stadium as a location and not an address, and I got within sighting distance of the light towers, which is all I generally need to get to me a park these days. I parked up, bought a reserved seat at the ticket booth, and then headed in.
After the game, it was another quick ride back to the hotel. Falling into a rhythm, I finished up my scorecard, soaked in the tub for a bit, and hit the hay.
The Stadium & Fans:
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| Home plate to center field, Joe O'Brien Field |
Joe O'Brien Field is about as far from a "cookie-cutter" ballpark as you might imagine. The main entrance is a low facade of a building right by the main parking lot. You can't much go around the park before access is cut off. The park is jutted up against the river, which you can't see from the main entrance. The field is at the end of a river park, and once I entered, I found out there is another entrance from the river park, essentially a back-door wedged in behind third base.
The entrances both empty out onto a large plaza, and a smaller walkway underneath the stands and buildings runs from third to first base outside the seating area. The main plaza area is behind first base, and houses two low buildings that hold the sole concession stand and souvenir shop. A small group of picnic tables and the Road to the Show run under the first base stands, along with a stand-alone Italian ice cart. A small inflatable fast-pitch also sits in this area, along with a 1960s-era drink machine in the back of the ticket booth.
There is one section of actual seating behind home plate in an uncovered grandstand. On either side are two pillbox buildings up on stilts over the claustrophobic walkway that holds the handicapped seating underneath. One box is the press box, and the other is "The Cave" party area. Two rows of bleachers run separately from the dugouts to the bases on both sides.
The double-decked wall is covered with ads along the outfield, with the exception of the blacked-out dead-center batter's eye, the digital scoreboard in right-center, and a championship and league board further towards right field.
The park has been there for a while and has accumulated a number of memorials. Hrbek, Puckett, Mauer, and Morneau all have wooden placards at the top of seating areas, with the dates they played for the team. There is also the aforementioned Road to the show under the first base seats. Additionally, there were a number of veteran memorials, including the de rigueur POW/MIA seat in the plaza, reserved veteran seating in the parking lot, and another banner for vets in the plaza.
There again was a prayer before the start of the game, and in the program, they advertised a "God and Country" night, which was probably to be expected. The mascot didn't make an appearance, but there was a decent crowd for the game, and they were into the action on the field, as there were again limited between-innings antics and contests. It was also safe to say that a lot of the people in the stands knew each other, as most folks didn't get five feet walking before greeting someone.
At the Game with Oogie:
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| Brat & chicken sandwich |
So, after sitting on the hard concrete and then the metal bleachers on the previous night's games in Bristol, I decided to splurge on a reserved ticket, which at least ensured be a plastic seat with a back. Sadly, they were molded plastic, but it was still an improvement over the last night.
I grabbed a brat and chicken sandwich at the sole concession stand at the park and did a little shopping at the sole merch stand next door. I was running low on money as I forget to grab cash that day, and was down to my last $100, which was going to have to tide me over until after the game at least.
I had an assigned seat behind home plate and had the row pretty much to myself. Right in front of me were two locals and behind me was a family of fans for the visiting Astros. The Astros family got loud, but they were good-natured about it, especially when their team started to tank the game.
I again won the program contest, scoring a $5 local Dairy Queen gift certificate. Not ever going to be back in the area, I asked the guys in front if they wanted the prize. After a bit of negotiation, they agreed to take it. They also wondered if I was working for a radio station or something because they heard me "calling the game" behind them. I had to sheepishly tell them that it was just me muttering to myself (too loudly, it would seem) as I scored the game. They seemed satisfied with that answer.
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| Winner, winner |
This also marks the first time I’ve ever been called a "Yankee" to my face. The gentlemen in front of me also inquired if I was one when they heard me speak, so another check mark for that day.
As the sun set, a large flock of mosquitoes (subsequent research has informed me it is called a "scourge") settled in to snack on the crowd, but the lighting of some torches on hand for just such an occasion lessened their impact.
The Game:
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| First pitch, Astros vs. Twins |
This match between two top teams in the Appalachian League looked to be a better match-up than we actually got, with the hometown Elizabethton Twins blowing the visiting Greenville Astros out of the water.
The Astros went in order in the first, while Elizabethton managed to waste a leadoff walk and double with no one across in their half. Grenville had two walks and a single to load the bases in the top of the second, but likewise got no one across, and the Twins went in order. Both sides hung it up in the third, going in their respective orders.
In the top of the fourth, Greenville stranded a one-out double, but the Twins got on the board. A leadoff single was followed by a homer to stake them to a 2-0 lead. The Astros stranded a lone single in the top of the fifth, while Elizabethton kept on going. A walk and single went back-to-back to start the inning, and a wild pitch moved them over to second and third, and a subsequent single brought them both in to open the lead to 4-0. Greenville went in order again in the sixth, while the Twins racked up three doubles and two runs in the bottom of the sixth to open a commanding 6-0 gap.
Both sides went in order in the seventh, while Greenville finally got on the board in the eighth with two walks and a single to close it a little to 6-1. The Twins scattered two baserunners on an error and a single to no avail, but the Astros only had a single to show for the top of the ninth, leaving Elizabethton with a 6-1 victory.
The Scorecard:
Astros vs. Twins, 08/09/17. Twins win, 7-1.
The scorecard was part of $2 color newsprint tabloid program. The profits went to charity, so it is hard to work up much of a froth about it, but it was a pretty bad scorecard. It was part of the centerfold spread and perhaps half of the top of the spread was dedicated to the scorecard, while the rest was 75% ads and 25% scoring instructions. There was a colored background, which was smudge city on newsprint, especially colored. There was only one line for each lineup spot, but it was long enough to allow substitutions on the same line. The scoring boxes were unnecessarily tiny, which made it hard to score legibly.
There were a couple of scoring plays of note. There was a strike-'em-out-throw-'em-out double play in the bottom of the fourth and a ground-rule double in the bottom of the sixth that went off the third baseman and into the stands for the double, which is an odd way to get a double to be sure. On the disappointing front, in the bottom of the seventh, there was a 3-6-1 DP, and I know that is how they are running the play these days, but it will never be as satisfying as the old 3-6-3 DP. I will now go and yell at some clouds with an onion on my belt.
The Accommodations:
I was at the Hampton Inn again. Not much to report, there.
2017 The Carolinas II & Tennessee
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