Lakewood

On Revelations

First Energy Park, 2011

Saturday, August 7, 2011

West Virginia Power (Pittsburgh Pirates) vs.
Lakewood BlueClaws (Philadelphia Phillies)

First Energy Park

Southern Atlantic League (A)

Lakewood, New Jersey

7:05 PM

Outside of the Game:
My semi-official quest to see all the teams in New Jersey continued this weekend. I decided to check off one of the closer teams remaining (as the other two are Philadelphia-adjacent) and went to see the team in Lakewood, an hour and change from home.

It being a summer weekend, I was a little leery of a drive down the main shoreline arteries, but I surmised (correctly, in this case) that I’d be leaving late enough in the afternoon to avoid any major traffic on the way down, and I’d be coming back late enough to avoid any major traffic in the other direction. Beside some mild congestion and the inevitable toll-booth backups, the Turnpike and Parkway runs in both directions were without major delays, though the drive back was a little on the damp side.

Heck, I didn’t even hit much street traffic in Hoboken, a side effect of a summer weekend when most people get the hell out of Dodge.

The Stadium & Fans: 

Home plate to center field, First Energy Park

First Energy Park is a rather nice single-A park, if a little pedantic with the naming. Unlike many low minors parks, this one had seating all around the field in a single bowl. There were picnic hills in left and right field, and there was a bar/grill area in dead center that was hosting a dollar beer and fifty-cent wings event that night, so it was quite popular, even with the impending weather. A small arcade and bouncy castle entertained kids in right, and a full-blown kids area in left housed your standard child-based amusements. In keeping with their Jersey Shore location, lifeguard chairs on sand boxes ringed the outfield promenade and were a big hit with kids, who scrambled out to claim them as soon as the park opened.

Food courts flanked the shoulder of each outfield on the promenade, and various stores and concessions extended around behind home plate. There was a second deck accessible only by elevators near the entrances that led to the more exclusive areas. There was a special “Upstairs” bar open only people who bought reserved box seats (though you only had to buy a ticket in that area once, and you got a pass that was good for the rest of the season), the requisite luxury boxes that lined the area around the press box, and two party decks at the end of the upstairs areas above first and third base.

It was Irish Heritage Night that evening, which included a free T-shirt for the first 2,000 fans, a visit from the New Jersey Irish Queen, the previously mentioned dollar beer night, special green jerseys for the home team, and a bagpipe band that marched around the promenade for most of the evening. As part of the festivities, there was a charity auction for the player’s uniform jerseys, which wouldn’t be used after this evening, anyway.

As with most minor-league events, it was family-oriented, with smatterings of hardcore baseball cranks. This summer weekend game was well-attended, with six-and-a-half plus thousand in the park that evening. That said, the place was mostly filled with some strain of Phillies fans, and, as per usual, they classed up the joint. While many of the fans were supportive of the team, there was some fairly constant heckling of home players whether the transgressions were real and imagined. 

Neutral arbiter

But the pinnacle of the evening was during the bean ball conflagration in the seventh. After the BlueClaws pitcher had come inside all inning and eventually hit a Power batter, the ump warned him. And he promptly hit the next batter, getting him chased from the game, in the largest travesty of justice any of the assembled fans had ever witnessed. In the bottom half of the inning, when the first BlueClaws batter got tagged, the amateur jurists of the stands demanded the umpire’s head, loudly talking about how he had to toss the Power pitcher. Sitting behind me, the male half of an older couple of Pirates (and subsequently Power) fans grumpily (and correctly) told the female half the people had no idea what they were talking about, as only the BlueClaws pitcher had been warned, not both teams, which would have necessitated the immediate ejection of the Power’s pitcher. She told him gently to calm down, and I turned around and gave him a sympathetic look.

At the Game with Oogie:

Damp scoring

I surprised the ticket-taker by announcing my willingness to “go for the $15 seats” to get behind the home dugout. My big-spending ways from up north were already catching notice. For my flashy expense, I got seats right behind the BlueClaws dugout and an aforementioned year-long pass to use the special bar upstairs.

My seat was one row away from the field and the top of the dugout, which was the frequent trotting grounds for the BlueClaws mascot, Buster. To his credit, there was only one mascot for the team (as opposed to the handful you usually get to peak children’s interest at a lot of minor league parks) and, as mascots go, Buster was actually on the entertaining side of things. He wasn’t just some marketing intern in a big, fuzzy suit. He seemed to actually care about his job.

I was sitting right behind of the biggest BlueClaws fan in existence. He showed up a little after me, and clearly had season tickets in the first row of seats behind the home dugout. He was prepared with an improvised rain poncho and was decked out in the Irish-night gear from some year past. He had his glove with him and was listening to the radio broadcast of the game on a portable radio. Hard to the cores, yo. He knew all of the players by name and nickname and cheered them as they came in and went out to the field. He apparently didn’t get the Phillies fan handbook. He also was apparently supposed to be at a soccer game that night, as everyone that came to see him throughout the evening asked him why he was there and not at the soccer game.

The Game:

First pitch, Power vs. BlueClaws

The BlueClaws are the defending two-time champions of this league and single-A affiliate of the seemingly unstoppable Phillies, and the Power are the bottom-dwelling affiliate of the recently resurgent Pirates, so it looked to be a mismatch from the start. Through eight batters, the BlueClaws pitcher was perfect, before back-to-back singles and a walk broke up the no-no, but not the shut out, as the skies opened up to a constant rain that everyone seemed determined to play through.

Outside of a mild first-inning threat, the BlueClaws had nothing going on themselves until the third, where a leadoff triple got brought home on a fielder’s choice, making it 1-0 at the end of three. The Power came back with their own leadoff double brought home by a subsequent single, to tie it at 1-1 in the top of the fourth. Beside some scattered hits, both teams mostly went in soggy order until the top of the sixth.

The Power smacked their own leadoff triple in that inning, knocked in immediately by a sacrifice fly. A walk was followed by a double and a single, which scored a run. A wild throw by the catcher on a stolen base attempt brought in another run, before a strikeout ended the inning 3-1 Power. A one-out double for the BlueClaws went for naught as a line drive to third doubled the runner off second to end the bottom of that inning.

And then things got ugly. A single was erased by a double-play at the top of the seventh, but the BlueClaws pitcher was coming in close on the batters. He hit the next one, and got warned, and then proceeded to plunk the next batter, too, getting the hook from the umpire for the last offence. The next pitcher got a strikeout to end the inning, but not before ire had been raised. The very first BlueClaw got plunked in the bottom of the inning, making this the first bean ball war I had ever seen in person. The ump then warned the Power pitcher, and the next three batters went in order.

A lone two-out single was ditched on a caught stealing to end an unconventional 1-2-3 top of the eighth. And then BlueClaws got lucky, or the Power’s pitcher got bad – your choice. A fast strikeout was followed by a single and then two quick walks. A long double brought everybody home and chased the pitcher. The replacement gave up a single to drive in the go-ahead run, but then induced a double-play to end it, but not before the BlueClaws had jumped to a 4-3 lead in an incredibly quick half. The BlueClaws closer came in for the ninth and mixed in a walk during the process of setting down the Power, securing the inexplicable BlueClaws win.

Then it occurred to me, like a bolt of lightning. Firstly, I think it is obvious to everyone that the Phillies don’t deserve this run of good luck, which is preternatural at this point. Somehow there must be a reason behind this. And then the answer came to me: a Phillies fan sold his soul to Satan for a run of success for his team. He no doubt succumbed to the clever wording of such promises, and so garnered only the single World Series title, and the residual success without consummation will make the sole (soul?) title even more disappointing.

But here’s the thing: it means at least one Phillies fan is definitely going to Hell, and frankly, that’s a start. The only question that lingers is where a Phillies fan was able to get his hands on a soul…

The Scorecard:

Power vs. BlueClaws, 08/06/11. BlueClaws win, 5-4.

The scorecard was part of the free program handed out at the gate. It was a magazine-paper, pamphlet-sided publication, updated with information for the next two series. The scorecard was in the center fold, and had good space for replacements and pitching lines, but the boxes were a little on the cramped side and the paper wasn’t the best quality, so it didn’t hold writing the best, nor did it stand up to the rain particularly well. But for the price, you really can’t argue.

Beside the surfeit of “HBP” to record, most of my scorecard items for this game were notational, noting when the rain started and stopped, when a pitcher was tossed during the bean-ball war, and labeling the “K Man” for the game (who did get whiffed twice, leading to everyone in attendance getting a buy-one-get-one-free pass for a night admission to a nearby amusement pier).

The Accommodations:
Home, sweet home

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.

2011 Stand-Alone Trip