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| Virtual Dolly--we have the technology |
Pigeon Forge, TN
Outside the Game:
So, I had a bit of a conundrum. Even though it was a Friday, none of the teams that had been rained out previously were playing at home, and none of the other teams that I wasn't planning to hit this trip were home, so I was left with a free day.
For some reason, Dollywood sprang to mind. It was only about two hours from Bristol, and I had a bug in my ear about it for a while. Dolly Parton in a saint in Tennessee, and although a bit of kitsch character, she fully embraced it. And she was a decent enough person. She made a theme park right in the poor area where she grew up, bringing tons of jobs to the area, as well as doing things like having a charity that sent a free book per month to any child that signed up. That, and being this close to something as "Dollywood" and not going when I had a free day seemed like a wasted opportunity.
So after a long sleep, I got up and had breakfast, showered up, and headed off. It was a crisp just-under-two-hour drive straight down 81 to where it turns into 40, and I was at Dollywood fairly soon after it opened. In fact, the only real traffic I hit was when you had to turn off 40 to state road 66 to get to the park.
I got to the garish entrance and was quickly whisked over to a picket-fence-lined parking lot, and a short tram ride later, I was at the entrance to the park. I opted to grab an amusement park-only ticket, and not a double-ticket to the water park next door, which would turn out to be prudent, and not just because I didn't have a bathing suit with me.
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| They saw me coming a mile away |
You walk into Dollywood and are immediately faced with the Palace Theater with the Dollywood sign out front, where nearly everyone stops to grab a picture. I took a walk to "Craftsman’s Valley," where Smoky Mountain craftsmen have all sorts of stores. I got about a quarter of the way in before I saw the handmade bat store, called "The Batter's Box." I ordered up a custom bat, and found out they had a service where you could just get everything you bought in the park hand-delivered to the gift shop at the exit so you didn't have to carry it all around, and as I walked out to see the bald eagle rescue area across the way, I was completely bought into the experience.
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| You'd be surprised how much I can eat |
There are a number of all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants in Dollywood, which is to be expected I guess, and I passed "Miss Lillian's Smokehouse," which was an all-you-eat place with nothing but smoked meats. And I went in and had lunch. And I just kept eating until I could just about move. And I also got a souvenir cup that you could refill for cheap around the park. And eventually, I waddled out to the park. I stopped at another craftsman place where you can blow your own glass ornament. And I did that, too. And it also was sent to the front for me to pick up. I even dipped my own candles and bought a bunch of old-timey stuff like liniment at a "general store." And it was all shipped to the front entrance for me.
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| What kind of wheel is this? Bueller? Bueller? |
I walked out to the fairground area of the park, and road on Ferris wheels and played skeet ball and other fairground games. I put all my stuff in lockers and started to go on some of the roller coasters. It was a Friday afternoon in August, yet the crowds weren't bad at all, so I was able to go on a lot of rides quite quickly with no wait. As I was going up to another roller coaster, all the rides suddenly shut down. A guy out front said a thunderstorm was coming through, and they had to shut down as a precaution until the storm was however many miles away from the park. Fair enough.
I went on a few inside rides, and then as the rain started to fall, I went inside to the Dolly Parton museum at the park, to be greeted by a Dolly hologram before seeing the story of her life. There was even a section on the Imagination Library and places to sign up your kids for the free books.
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| A little rain |
The steam train was still running, so I ran over to get a ride on that when I came out of the Dolly museum, and we went on a damp ride on steam train, which at least served to keep the smoke and ashes from the rain tamped down, as they had a safety message on the train about what to do if you got an ember in your eye during the ride that I was glad I didn't need to put to use.
The rain looked to be slowing down, so I headed back to my original locker to grab my stuff and move it over to a locker nearer to the rides I was going on. As I got there, the sky really opened up to a torrential downpour where you couldn't see two feet in front of you, and the small group of people who had the same idea as I did were trapped with me in the small overhang until the rain gave up. It was so long a downpour that I called my parents out of want of anything better to do, as the WiFi didn't reach to the location we were at.
Eventually, the rain gave up and I retrieved my stuff, and I started walking around. No one had any idea how long it would be before the rides started up again, so I spent my time with a couple inside rides and going through some of the other stores in Craftsman’s Valley to bide the time. I had an unofficial estimate of a half hour on the rides, and just as that time was about to come up, it started raining again. Giving up, I headed back to the entrance, did some shopping the gift shop there, and then went and picked up all the stuff that I had bought in the various other stores throughout the park.
The park, even at this late hour, were letting you get a rain check on your ticket, but as I didn't know if I'd ever be back in the area again, I demurred. I damply got back to my car, and damply rode the two hours back to the hotel.
I grabbed some dinner on the way back and spent the rest of the evening drying out my clothes and gear. There was a hot shower and soak in the tub to cap it off, and I was in bed at a relatively early hour, exhausted from the endeavors of the day.
The Accommodations:
Not much time spent in the hotel at all today. Mostly, it was after coming home from Dollywood.
On Slipping, Shipping, and Dripping
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| TVA Credit Union Ballpark |
Elizabethton Twins (Minnesota Twins) vs.
Johnson City Cardinals (St. Louis Cardinals)
TVA Credit Union Ballpark
Appalachian League (Rookie+)
Johnson City, TN
7:00 PM
Outside the Game:
I had another extremely lazy morning, getting up just in time to grab the last of the breakfast buffet, and then heading back up to the room for a post-shower nap.
Once motivated to leave, I took a 20-minute ride south-west of Bristol to another commercial cave, Appalachian Caverns. This was a larger commercial cave, and it even had a wild cave tour (where you do actual caving and have to get dressed properly). I wasn't feeling particularly energetic, so I stayed with the commercial tour, which was run by the female owner of the cave, and she brought along their terrier dog, who loved to go running around in the cave.
With me was a family and another couple, and the guy--a veteran by all accounts--was charitably one of the dumbest people I think I had ever met. Now, he wasn't a bad guy by any stretch of the imagination, but his cognition level had me surprised he was an army vet and not eating crayons with the marines. (My dad was a marine; I say it out of love, leathernecks. Please don’t kill me.) I mean, one of his first questions was how long it took someone to dig out this cave, and it went downhill from there. How long did it take them to fill the "pool" (the underground river)? Were there any monsters living in the cave? These were all, honest-to-god, real questions he asked seriously.
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| Tiny garden |
The cave itself was quite extensive and beautiful. There was a lot of wildlife in the cave, including crickets, bats, and cave fish. They had even installed a bridge over the river in one place. The cave saw action as a Confederate hospital during the war. A big room in the cave relatively close to the entrance was used to house wounded, with its high humidity and stable temperature. The location was previously used by the natives for ceremonies.
On the way out, I stopped at the gift shop and stocked up on knickknacks, and then drove back to the hotel. I packed up to leave the next day, grabbed a nap, and then went back to the Burger Hut for lunch. I then grabbed all the stuff I was shipping home and my game bag and headed out for the night.
I stopped in at a FedEx Office location in Johnson City and packed up all my stuff for home, including a shipping tube for the bat from Dollywood. A little while later, I had a much lighter load, and headed off to the park.
I got to the stadium and bought a ticket and started to do my walk-around the park when it started raining again. By the time I had done my circuit, it was really starting to pour, so I retreated back to my rental car to wait out the torrential downpour. As luck would have it, it slowed down a lot and stopped right as the gates were scheduled to open, so I went right in.
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| Crowd distraction technique |
On the way back, it was an easy out of the parking lot, as most of the crowd was still watching the fireworks. I made the 45-minute drive back to the hotel in about a half hour, and then hit the shower and the tub, finished packing, and then hit the sack.
The Stadium & Fans:
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| Home plate to center field, TVA Credit Union Ballpark |
TVA Credit Union Ballpark unfortunately sounds like a higher-level minor league park with the inevitable naming rights, but it was actually at home in the modest Appalachian advanced rookie league. It certainly was a stand-out park from most of the others in this league and looked like a higher-level, purpose-built park as opposed to others in the league. The park was actually on a large footprint, taking over the entirety of a plot of land, and you can completely walk around the outside on a sidewalk next to the iron fencing with brick posts.
There was one ticket booth and one entrance on the first-base side behind home plate. The entrance opened into a wide promenade that extended around the entire outside of the park from outfield to outfield. All of the concessions, stands, and activities were out on that promenade, with entrances into the park on the third- and first-base sides and via a walkway under the press box to behind home plate. The main concession stand was just to the left of the press box ramp, and the team store was just off to the right. The rest of the promenade on the first-base side was covered with tents hosting beer concessions, local groups, and even a band (that could only play sporadically due to the weather). A small children's play area was at the right-field end of the walkway.
The seating bowl was a little unusual. Two rows of box seats (ironically not under cover from the overhang) ran from dugout to dugout. The rest of the seats were bleachers running from base to base. The press box sat at the top of the seats behind home plate, and an overhang covered most of the bleacher seats from about dugout to dugout. There was a party area called "The Perch" in short left field. A small digital scoreboard was part of the double-height outfield wall in left center, with the rest covered with ads for local businesses, with the exception of the batters' eye in dead center and a championship placard in right-center. An affiliate banner hangs in right field, and plaques honoring Lonnie Lowe and Howard Johnson are in the ramp under the press box. Players banners run the length of the brick wall outside of first base.
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| JC, sorry. Jay Cee |
Even with the weather, there was a more than healthy crowd at the stadium that day to cheer on the home team. Mascot Jay Cee the cardinal was around before the game and between innings for a full suite of minor-league mayhem of contests, games, and quizzes.
At the Game with Oogie:
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| Damp scoring |
Most of my time in the park was spent dodging the intermittent rain storms. Given the weather, I sprang for a reserved seat under the covered grandstand by home plate. I was in the first row, so it was a good view, obviously. After a bit of a wait when the sun came out, I grabbed a Gatorade, hot dog, and Bojangles chicken sandwich from the one concession stand, made a trip to the team store booth, and then settled in for the game.
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| High-school fare |
There was a large family of no-doubt season ticket holders beside me to the right and behind me, and there were somehow two rotating families in the seats to my left. I wasn't quite sure how that worked.
The Game:
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| First pitch, Twins vs. Cardinals |
No one will ever call this game between the visiting Elizabethton Twins and the Johnson City Cardinals a pitcher’s duel. But even given the score, there was a lot of nothing in this game, with a ton of action crammed into the bottom of the fifth where the Cardinals would blow the game open for good.
Elizabethton jumped out to an early lead in the top of the first with a one-out single, triple, and sacrifice fly, staking them to a 2-0 lead. The Cardinals went in order in the bottom of the first thanks to a double-play after a one-out walk. The Twins would also go in order in the top of the second, but Johnson City tied up the game with a single, hit batsman, single, and a misplay by the center fielder, leaving it 2-2 after 2. Elizabethton went in order again in the top of the third, while the Cardinals got another run a single, two wild pitches, and a ground-out with a purpose, giving them their first 3-2 lead.
The Twins went in order again in the fourth, while Johnson City tacked on another run off a leadoff double, and a single, increasing the lead to 4-2. Elizabethton went in order yet again in the top of the fifth, and the Cardinals absolutely obliterated the opposing pitching staff in the bottom of the frame. The inning started with a walk and a wild pitch, but a home run to left made the wild pitch moot and cleared the bases. The next batter singled, but was caught stealing, giving the first out of the inning. The next two batters walked and singled, and then another wild pitch moved them up a base. Another walk loaded the bases, and a hit batsman forced in a run. A fielder's choice gunned down the runner at home, but left the bases loaded. Two more walks forced in two more runs, and then a double left it second and third with two outs. The next batter mercifully popped out to second, but the batting-around damage had been done, with seven runs in and the Cardinals out to a 11-2 lead. After that inning, the Twins responded with a sole walk in the top of the sixth, and an exhausted-from-the-running Johnson City team only had a single in the bottom of the inning.
In the seventh, Elizabethton got a little something going, with two singles and a sacrifice fly helping to close the lead to 11-3, but the Cardinals got in right back in the bottom of the seventh with a single, hit batsman, walk, and a groundout, to make it a nine run game again at 12-3. The Twins started the eighth with a leadoff double and a walk. A two-out hit batsman leaded up the bases, and a ground out and a balk brought in two runs to make it 11-5, and Johnson City only had a sole single in the bottom of the inning. In the top of the ninth, the Twins had a leadoff walk, and nothing else, ending the long, drippy game with a 12-5 Johnson City victory.
The Scorecard:
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| Twins vs. Cardinals, 08/12/17. Cardinals win, 12-5. |
The free scorecard was part of the free, half-tabloid, full-color program. The problem was getting one. With the rain at the time of gates opening, they didn't have anyone giving them out. After asking around, I eventually had to go back to the ticket booth to have someone dig one out for me. The scorecard was one page of a spread at the back of the program, with the other page providing scoring instructions on one half and an ad on the other. As with most Cardinals scorecards, it was bad. There were lines for players with replacement, as well as pitching lines, and each scoring square had a pre-printed diamond. But everything was so tiny as to make it really hard to be legible, and the glossy paper made it hard to write with pencil. Even the pre-printed categories were almost too tiny to write in. It looked as though it may have been designed for a two-page spread and then shrunk down for one in the worst way possible.
That said, outside of a balk in the top of the eighth and the complete collapse of the Twins pitching staff in the bottom of the fifth, there wasn't anything of note as far as scoring.
The Accommodations:
I was spending my last day in the Comfort Inn. Not much time spent at all.
2017 The Carolinas II & Tennessee
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