Brooklyn

GAME 9

Keyspan Park, 2006

Date: July 8, 2006, 6:00 PM
State College Spikes (St. Louis Cardinals) vs. 
Brooklyn Cyclones (NY Metropolitans)
Keyspan Park
Brooklyn, NY
NY Penn League, Class A, Short Season
Promotion: Dave & Carrie Bobble-head & Post-Game Wedding


The Stadium & Fans:
This is still one of my favorite parks in the country to see a game. Although a minor league park, the layout and location really sell the experience, especially in the summer when the heat and sun are dissipated by the ocean breeze coming over the outfield wall. Looking one way, you see the parachute drop and the ocean, and the other you see the amusement pier and the titular Cyclone. Awesome ballpark.

As with most minor league games, the crowd is largely made up of families and die-hard baseball fans, though the later are much more prevalent in the baseball history-laden borough of Brooklyn. There were, unfortunately, an annoying number of "there to be seen" trendies who couldn't tell you the teams playing while looking at the scoreboard.


Scorecard:

Spikes vs. Cyclones, 07/08/06. Spikes win, 3-1.

Although a free giveaway with sizable scoring boxes, the scorecard is still one of my biggest beefs with the Cyclone experience. It is a full-sized program for free, but they cut the costs by printing it on newsprint, which is the worst for trying to keep score. It tears and smudges easily, and the background printing of the logo makes erasing messier than it needs to be.


Miscellanea:
A couple bought up the game that day for their wedding. The giveaway was a bobble-head of them (which looked more Central American than Jewish), the between-inning events were all themed on weddings, and the wedding proper happened at the end of the game. It became a lot less heartwarming when I realized that they were both salespeople for Radio Disney and had used all their sales contacts to underwrite the whole affair. They have a website about it.


Travel & Other Non-Game Activities:
Man, as much as I like seeing games at Keyspan, it is quite a haul. It was actually quicker for me to drive down to the Trenton Thunder game than it is for me to get out to Coney Island.


The Game:
While Brooklyn has got some decent pitching and some rifle arms in the outfield (three assists this game), they have no offense to speak of. Brooklyn drops their third in a row, 3-1, and that one run was unearned. There was also a strikeout-passed ball combo that led to the batter reaching first on a strikeout.


Thus ends my trip. I did have Sunday to catch another game, but 9 games seemed to have a spiritual completeness to it. I have come to terms with my baseball geekery and found my spiritual Zen. I hope to spin this out into an even longer trip next year, heading further north or out west, as fates will take me.

Click here to see all the pictures from this trip.

2006 The East