Granville

On a New Kind of Obstacle

Terminal C, Newark Liberty Bald Eagle 
God Bless America International Airport

Friday, June 22, 2018

Morgantown, WV


Outside the Game:
After all my travel tribulations just several days before, to say that I wasn't looking forward to flying again that week was an understatement. But a trip is a trip. My main concern was not having a repeat of Tuesday and the fact that my new boss at work hadn't let me meet the person covering for me yet. But my problems were from a different source.

I've been incredibly lucky over the years as far as my health and vacation. Outside of one or two scares, my constitution has held up at least until I came back. Now, I'm not saying that this was because of all my travel stress the day before, but I didn't feel well at work on Thursday and left a little early. "Not feeling well" translated into a 101-degree fever when I checked at home, and I had the achy tiredness of the flu.

So, fantastic.

I finished packing and took some Nyquil at 8 PM and fell asleep as I was watching Brockmire, then woke up again at midnight, made my way to my bed from the couch and doused myself with more Nyquil.

My fever was down to 99.5 in the morning, but I didn't want to chance going to work. I was already looking into moving my flight to Saturday morning if things didn't improve. I took some aspirin and worked from home for the day, which worked out, because the person who was covering for me apparently decided to just work from home herself because she wasn't that busy, in a turn of events that really put my mind at ease. I got some work done in the morning, then took a nap. I had a call where I was finally able to talk to my coverage, gave her as thorough a briefing as I could manage, and then lay down some more.

My fever was slight at this point, so I decided to risk it with the flight. I arranged a Lyft to the airport, and we hit no traffic on the way in. I upgraded to First Class for the flight to Pittsburgh mostly to avoid any hassles, and I got through security with no problems. I was thankfully in Terminal C and feeling pretty hungry, so I went to the Italian place and grabbed some carbonara and rice balls. I started feeling achy again, and my fever was back up to 99, so I just went to the gate and rested up until boarding.

There, of course, was a slight delay in boarding, and perhaps for the first time in my life, I sat in seat A1 on the plane. Not wanting to deal with anything, I gate-checked my bag and settled into my solitary seat at the front of the plane.

I was mostly exhausted, but the flight went quickly, and I spent most of it watching the second third of Paddington 2, which was delightful. We ended up arriving a little early, which caused a real delay at the gate, as we were parked, but the team to work our jetway hadn't shown up yet. All of the gate-checked bags were out and waiting by the time the jetway was opened, to the especial chagrin of another First-Class passenger who refused to gate-check his bag and crammed it in an overhead, and now all the time he saved by doing that was made naught.

I walked off and got my bag and was quickly on the train back to the main terminal. I called my friend on my cell and arranged where to meet, and I dropped my bag in the trunk and had an uneventful ride back to his house in West Virginia.

He and his son introduced me to the world of Rocket League, but I started to feel achy and my fever started rising again, so I eventually adjourned to his computer room where a giant pull-out bean-bag bed awaited me.


The Accommodations:
I was staying with my friend and his family in Morgantown. This meant setting up in their computer room. The usual blow-up bed was replaced by a giant bean-bag chair that folded out into a bed. Skeptical at first, I was quite surprised at how nice it was, especially for my old back. In addition, a Death Star nightlight kept things nicely illuminated for the evening.

On a Second Visitation

Monogalia County Ballpark, 2018

Saturday, June 23, 2018

State College Spikes (St. Louis Cardinals) vs.
West Virginia Black Bears (Pittsburgh Pirates)
Monongalia County Ballpark
NY-PENN League (A-)
Granville, WV
7:05 PM


Outside the Game:
I crashed for nine hours of sleep on the bean bag bed, waking up to a temperature of 76.7 and feeling much better. A breakfast of pancakes further fortified me for the game, which was spent in the traditional manner, playing video games all morning.

There was a break where everyone went for lunch at a local salad place, and then back to the video games for the rest of the afternoon. The weather had been a little concerning, with downpours running on and off all afternoon. Nevertheless, we packed up and made the short drive to the park, and the weather held out. As I wanted to do some photography, I was given my ticket, and we split up until I was inside.

After the game, we left before the post-game fireworks started and had a quick drive back to the house. We played more video games until we got tired, and then turned in for the night.


The Stadium & Fans:

Home plate to center field, Monongalia County Ballpark

The flies-off-the-tongue Monongalia County Stadium hadn't changed all that much since my first visit at the opening for the franchise a few years back. The landscaping had been worked out, to be sure, but the usually premiere home plate entrance was still backed against a hill, though it had been now turned into a party area called "The Bear Pit." There were other little touches, like kaleidoscoping art on the outfield railings of the park, and the far-too-steep berms had been turned to good use with a "Berm-O" game put on the left field hill that was used for a between-innings game similar to The Price Is Right's Plinko. Also, privacy screens were put up on the ends of the dugouts to prevent kids from pestering the players during the games.

The big change came in the outfield, as the area behind right field had been opened up into an area called the “Back Yard." The was a grating put in the wall so you could watch the game from back there, picnic tables to sit, as well as pitching and batting cages for use.

Cooper

The team was still pulling healthy, if not sell-out, crowds, although that could be attributed to the iffy weather for this game. Cooper was still there entertaining the troops between innings.


At the Game with Oogie:

Pepperoni Roll

So, this begins with the "Clear Bag Policy." UWV had recently instituted this policy at all of its stadiums to try and curb underaged drinking at the games, and it involved nothing but completely transparent approved bags allowed in the stadium. Since the Black Bears technically lease the stadium from UWV, they had to start following this policy, which is the strictest in all of professional baseball.

My friend hadn't brought up my tiny camera bag, but when I got to the gates, they were not going to let me in, although they eventually tagged it "media" because I don't think they wanted to deal with it. Once inside, I did my normal pictures and look-around to see what had changed.

In a "small world" moment, my friend dragged me out to the new "Back Yard" area in right field where a player I had seen in Australia was signing autographs. He was a member of the Pirates organization, so he played in the ABL during the winter here and played minor league ball here during the winter there. We had a little chat about things, and he seemed a nice enough guy. I hope he makes it further up the chain, but I got the impression he was glad just avoiding winter altogether as long as he could.

I also had a brief chat with a member of the management group for the team. They were schmoosing my friend, who had been a season ticket holder since the inaugural season, so I got to talk to him a little bit, especially about the new area they opened in right field.

My friend's tickets, as before, were right next to the home dugout between home plate and first base. There were other families they were on a "hi" basis with behind and in front of us. Next to us was a couple, the man of which worked for NASA and was trying to recruit my friend into playing in a 1st Edition D&D game he was DMing. My friend was very ineffectively trying to bow out of it.

In keeping with things, I looked away for a minute, and my friend's son got a baseball from one of the players in the dugout. He also got to play the Berm-O game in the mid-innings. Yes, because you're going to be young and cute forever...

I grabbed a pepperoni roll and a drink for dinner. Everything else was the game.


The Game:
This mid-season match-up in the increasingly mis-named NY-PENN League had the visiting State College Spikes facing off against the West Virginia Black Bears in a game that started off a little slow but featured a barrage of runs in what turned out definitively to not be a pitcher's duel.

The Spikes had a leadoff single followed by a walk, but everyone died on the bases in the first, while West Virginia went in order. State College got to an early lead with a leadoff E5 that made it around the bases on stolen bases, passed balls, and another error, staking the visiting team to a 1-0 lead, while the Black Bears gain went in order in the second. The Spikes got a leadoff single to third but stranded him there in their half of the frame. West Virginia had a two-out rally in the top of the third with a single and a double, but the lead runner was cut down from the outfield trying to score to end the threat.

The scoring began in earnest in the top of the fourth, with two doubles, a hit batsman, a walk, and a single to plate four runs for State College, jumping to a 5-0 lead. The Black Bears answered with a leadoff error, two doubles, and a single, leading to three runs to make it 5-3. The Spikes couldn't keep up and went in order. But West Virginia didn't stop in the fifth, where a walk, hit batsman, a single, and two doubles got four runs across, giving them an 7-4 lead. Things slowed in the top of the sixth, where State College scattered a walk and a single to no effect, and the Black Bears got a leadoff single to second on a stolen base and stranded him there.

The Spikes got only had a leadoff single in their half of the seventh, while West Virginia two more in the bottom of the seventh with a walk and a homer to left to extend their lead to 9-5. State College got two runners on with an error and a walk, but stranded both in the eighth, while the Black Bears finally went in order again. The Spikes then went quietly in order in the ninth, securing the home-team victory, 9-5.


The Scorecard:

Spikes vs. Black Bears, 06/23/18. Black Bears win, 9-5.

When I first visited the Black Bears the last time, they didn't have a program or a scorecard. To be fair, it was their franchise's opening day, so they probably had a few other things they were working out. For this visit three years later, they finally had their program together, but it is almost sad they did. This is, hands down, the worst scorecard I ever saw.

The program is a free mini-tabloid on magazine paper. As minor-league programs go, especially for the NY-PENN League, it was nicely produced and laid out, with the specific and tragic exception of the centerfold scorecard.

The scorecard was on semi-gloss paper, so it was easy enough to write on with pencil, it took up the entire spread, and it was on a white background to make it easy to put in notes. This ends the list of good things about the scorecard.

First of all, they called it a "STAT SHEET," not a scorecard for some reason. The home team was on the left side instead of the more traditional right side, but that can be forgiven. What can't be forgiven was the fact that this was a Scoremaster-type scorecard that was clearly scaled down to the current print specs, making it almost unreadable, let alone unusable. Each Scoremaster-type scoring box has a line of progressions at the top of the box, a pre-printed diamond, an out-number box, and ball and strike counters. It takes a steady hand to be able to fill out a scoring box in this thing correctly, and it is barely, barely legible when you do. This is clearly meant to be printed at twice, perhaps three times, its printed size in the program.

There are room for two replacements with each batting line, but for some reason, there are 17 batting lines. It makes me wonder if whoever printed this up didn't know what a scorecard is for. There are regular summary lines at the end of each batting line, but the boxes are so small as to be almost useless. There are three stroked-out lines after the summary stats at the end of each line for some reason, taking up even more precious space. There are extended inning summary data (R/H/E/LOB) at the bottom of each inning column, but again the space is so small, more information makes it worse.

Oh, and there's no pitching lines. Half the card is wasted on player lines that can't possibly be used, and there is no space for pitching lines. I wrote the pitchers in at the bottom of the card.

Without doubt, without question, easily the worst scorecard in professional baseball.

As for the game, there were  a couple of tiny notes on the tiny card. A single in the bottom of the third was annotated to show it was actually an E6. And I made a note on the CS 7-2 in a blank area because the scoring square was so small I couldn't fit in in legibly. There were a number of costly errors for both teams, but thankfully for the space allotted, there was nothing too complex to record.


The Accommodations: 
I was again in the computer room with the surprisingly comfortable bean bag bed.

On Reverting to Type

Sunday, June 24, 2018
Morgantown, WV


Outside the Game:
With the wife and son off at an event all day, there was nothing stopping my friend and I was reverting to patterns long-held since high school and just sit around and play video games all day. We got up, and after breakfast, we started playing until a break for a late lunch at Wendy's, more video games, a break to make hotel arrangements for the next night, more video games, a break for dinner at Arby's, and then more video games, until a break for packing once the family came home. It was a good day.

In the process of packing, my luggage tag, which had lasted me since I had started these foolish trips, broke, but some quick mending got it back and working. Everyone was joining me for the next day in Bluefield, and then we were parting ways. I was going on to North Carolina, while they were going south to join up with other family in South Carolina. Everyone got packed up, and we went to bed.


The Accommodations:
I was in the warm bosom of the bean bag bed in the computer room for my last evening.

Click here to see all the pictures from this trip.

2018 East Coast Leftovers