Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Kannapolis

On Picking Up a Missed Spare
Intimidators Stadium
Intimidators Stadium, 2017
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
Delmarva Shorebirds (Baltimore Orioles) vs.
Kannapolis Intimidators (White Sox)
Intimidators Stadium
South Atlantic League (A)
Kannapolis, NC
12:05 PM


Outside the Game: 
Finally back in the swing of things, I woke up early and had breakfast at the hotel, going back to the room to shower and pack up. I picked a hotel for my stay in Myrtle Beach and then headed out to the car. I would eventually find that I had left my leftover food from the Old Salem bakery in the refrigerator in my hotel room, but such goes life.

It also turned out I was in the same hotel as the Salem Red Sox, as I rode down the elevator with several of the players as they were going down to the team bus. So, there's that.

I gassed up and headed out to the game, which was a 12 PM start for a local Camp Day. As it happened, last year I missed the game in Kannapolis because I had written the start time wrong and arrived at the game to buy a ticket just as a Camp Day game was letting out. And so it goes. I triple-checked this year, and I was ready for the early start.

One thing was for sure as I exited my car: It was insanely hot and humid this afternoon. I mean, brutal, absolutely brutal. I was bursting into sweat just leaving the car, and that did not bode well for the rest of the day. I bought a ticket and did my photos outside the park before heading in.

I left the park as sweaty as I entered it, getting ready to be stuck in the car with this stink for the next several hours. I was on the road around 2:30 PM-ish, and I didn't hit much traffic at all, because I might have been the only person in the universe driving from Kannapolis to Myrtle Beach that day. It was mostly easy going, and I pulled into the hotel at around 6:30 PM and went to drop off everything in my room.

I went to a nearby Sticky Finger's Ribs for dinner, then went back to the hotel to shower the day off of me and hit the sack early, dealing with some stomach implications of the perhaps poor decision of going to “Sticky Finger's” for dinner.


The Stadium & Fans: 
Home to center, Intimidator Stadium
Home plate to center field, Intimidator Stadium

Intimidator Stadium, home of the Intimidators, was named for NASCAR racing legend and hometown son Dale Earnhardt, who purchased a stake in the team just before his fatal crash, and the team and stadium were renamed in his honor. The number 3, Dale's racing number, is permanently retired by the team, the team's uniforms are evocative of his racing outfit, and a replica of his NASCAR ride sits outside the front entrance.

The stadium has one main entrance with a brick facade behind home plate. It has a standard minor-league layout, in that the entrance emptied out onto a main promenade that runs from outfield to outfield above all the seating. The seating area is separated in two by a second walkway between the box seats and the upper seating area that runs a similar distance. The area between the dugouts is all flip-chair seating in both sections, while the areas from the dugouts to the short outfield is flip-seats in the bottom section and bleachers in the upper section. Picnic berms line the outfield corners and left-center field. The seats behind home plate are topped with a block house, holding the press box, and a second structure running along the first-base side, housing a level of luxury boxes.

The main promenade holds all the concession stands. At the entrance is the team store, which in turn houses a "From Kannapolis to the Majors" display. There is the requisite SALly-league John Henry Moss plaque, and the luxury boxes also sport the championship banners and the team's retired numbers. The left-field promenade ends in a party deck, and the right-field promenade ends in a children's play area and another picnic deck. The old-school digital scoreboard sits out in left-center field along a facing of trees that run the length of the outfield.

Mascot
Tim E Gator... ugh. I need a minute.

Alligator Tim E Gator (get it?) is the mascot at the park. As nearly the entire crowd was kids on a camp day, most of the activities were around various races, with especially silly contests saved for the camp counselors. Tim spent a lot of time schmoozing the kids, and, I hope, staying hydrated in a giant fuzzy suit in temperatures approaching triple digits.

The kids were fine and having fun, but the activity on the field was clearly an afterthought to their day out.


At the Game with Oogie: 
Scoring
Shade scoring

While I had bought a relatively cheap seat on the third base side of home plate, the weather was not allowing me to sit in it. The brutal heat and humidity dogged me as I did my walk around the park and stopped into the shop and grabbed a cheap brat and Gatorade. I decided to make the move and grabbed one of the unoccupied patio chairs with umbrellas on the top of the promenade instead of my seat, and since this was perhaps one of four times I have ever moved my seat because of weather conditions, you can perhaps imagine how seriously hot and humid it was this day. I could chew my brat more easily than the air.

Grub
Brat and Gatorade

Before settling in for the game, I bought a couple other Gatorades and sat down with my table for scoring and the umbrella to keep me from bursting into moldy flame. There was only one annoying guy sitting in the patio chairs a couple seats away. He was complaining about all the kids, which was an odd position to take on "Camp Day," but what can you do?

Of note was the fact that a hot foul ball came back and ricocheted off the other chair at my patio table. The annoying guy made a run for it, but a camp kid got it before he did, and I found that more than a little amusing.


The Game: 
First pitch, Shorebirds vs. Intimidators
First pitch, Shorebirds vs. Intimidators

This humid match-up placed the visiting Shorebirds against the home Intimidators, and for the most part, the Intimidators lived up to their name, except for the very end, where their closer tried very valiantly to give the game away.

Delmarva went in order in the first, while the Intimidators got two men on, but no one across. The Shorebirds had a lonely single in the second, while Kannapolis went in order. Delmarva scrounged a singular double in the third, while the Intimidators had a singular walk.

The action didn't pick up much in the fourth, with a leadoff single and nothing else for the Shorebirds, and a leadoff walk followed by a double that somehow didn't score a run for the Intimidators. Delmarva duplicated the feat in the top of the fifth with a double and then a walk and no runs, while Kannapolis managed to load the bases with two outs thanks to a walk and two hit batsmen with nothing to show for it. The Shorebirds went in order in their half of the sixth, while the Intimidators finally did some scoring with a leadoff homer to right-center, before going in order with a 1-0 lead.

Both sides went in order in the seventh, and Delmarva had a walk and a single in the top of the eighth. The Intimidators did some intimidating in the waning afternoon of the bottom of the eighth, with a leadoff single, a double, a flubbed grounder to first, and a sacrifice fly putting some insurance runs on the board and extending the lead to 3-0. And they needed it, because the Kannapolis "closer" nearly gave it all back in the ninth. A leadoff single for the Shorebirds was erased on a grounder to third, and a fly out to right made it two outs. Then three straight singles brought in two runs, with the tying and winning runs on base for the number two hitter. The closer finally got his act together an induced a pop up to the catcher to hang on by the skin of their teeth for a 3-2 home victory.


The Scorecard: 
Shorebirds vs. Intimidators, 08-02-17. Intimidators win, 3-2.Shorebirds vs. Intimidators, 08-02-17. Intimidators win, 3-2.
Shorebirds vs. Intimidators, 08/02/17. Intimidators win, 3-2.

The scorecard was part of the $1 program. This was a little pricey is what is usually a give-away league, but the program and scorecard were actually worth the money. The scorecard was a cardstock centerfold that took up the entirety of a magazine-sized program spread. Nearly all the space was taken up by the scorecard, which made for a lot of space for easy scoring. It was a little weird in having "Visitor" and "Home" lines with checkboxes for the appropriate one at the top of the card, but it does give you some flexibility if you don't want to do the visitor left/home right default alignment.

That said, there was nothing of particular scoring interest in this game. There was one error, one dropped third strike that needed to be put out manually, one caught stealing, and that was about it.


The Accommodations:
Country Inn & Suites
Country Inn & Suites

I was staying at the Country Inn and Suites just outside the real touristy area of Myrtle Beach (i.e. all of the beach). It was nice enough room for my two-day stay. It had a large king bed and easy chair across from a dresser, TV, and desk. It had a nice-sized bathroom with a long vanity and tub.

It was away from most of the tourists, quiet, and clean, so it had everything I needed of it.



2017 The Carolinas II & Tennessee

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