Fayetteville

On the Everlasting Hope of Leaving

Newark Liberty Bald Eagle Freedom Apple Pie Airport

Thursday, July 25, 2019

Morrisville, NC


Outside the Game: 
I had this particular trip planned forever, as soon as I found out that there were two new baseball teams that were going to force me to go to North Carolina yet again. I spun it into a summer Friday, but I had always planned to leave on the Thursday from work. But as time and luck would have it, my main client was going to be in our offices that day. Now client visits are never actually fun, but it also made things more difficult in that I couldn't just be wearing my normal "travel clothes," because I had to be dressed for the client. This necessitated packing more than I wanted to, as well as carrying my sneakers with me to work. Now, granted, none of these are exactly insurmountable obstacles, but it did add to my normal travel stress.

This particular client meeting led to a bunch of really insane directives that I won't go into here, but the day did pretty much grind to a halt once they left, with most of the stunned staff leaving early, and I had plenty of time to kill before heading to the airport for my late flight. After murdering enough time, I was off, and took a leisurely run to the airport, which was always welcome. I took a nap on the train, had nice, long walks on the insane security lines they had arranged at Newark Liberty God Bless America Apple Pie International Airport, and then had a relaxed dinner at the Italian place in Terminal C until it was time to board.

Boarding was uncontroversial, and I was able to get to my seat and secure some overhead space with no trouble. This was during one of the bad heat waves, and it quickly got hot on the plane, to the point that the flight crew told us to turn on our overhead air jets to try and make things better, because I guess re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic is better than doing nothing. The old couple next to me was particularly suffering from the heat, but we eventually got underway for the short flight, and high altitiude eventually took care of the heat problems.

I watched most of the Lego Movie 2 during the brief flight before being vomited out into the very last end of the RDU Airport, for a nice, refreshing walk to the rental car area. After a wait, I got a shuttle and my rental Honda Accent and was able to take the short drive to my hotel. The world's slowest Indian man checked me into my room, and I was able to get settled in an asleep before one AM.


The Accommodations: 

Days Inn, Morrisville

I normally go to the Microtel at Raleigh-Durham Airport for my stays here, and it makes me depressed to realize that I have a "regular" hotel for the North Carolina airport. But they do have so many damn baseball teams. Besides the over-long check-in procedure, the Days Inn that was my backup--and right across the street from the Microtel--was fine, which I believe is the mission statement for Days Inn. I had two double beds (which just meant that I had a double bed with a ton of pillows), and the beds were across from a dresser with TV and a small non-descript desk. The bathroom had a toilet and a tub shower, with a vanity outside by the entrance to the room.

I slept, and that's about all I needed from it.

On Christmas in FayetteNam

Segra Stadium, 2019

Friday, July 26, 2019

Carolina Mudcats (Milwaukee Brewers) vs.
Fayetteville Woodpeckers (Houston Astros)
Segra Stadium
Carolina League (MiLB, A+)
Fayetteville, NC
7:00 PM


Outside the Game: 
I woke up early the next day, but I stayed in bed because I was still tired. I eventually dragged myself downstairs for some breakfast, and it was a surprisingly nice spread for a Days Inn, and I downed some yoghurt, Fruit Loops, and a bunch of microwave chicken sandwiches that you could douse with a pot of sausage gravy.

This was all lovely, and then a couple walked in. Many of you may not know about Goreans. They are a BDSM variant that come from the Gor series of sci-fi/fantasy books, where many women are kept as abject sexual slaves. To say the series is controversial is a bit of an understatement. Anywho, the people into this in real life wear distinctive collars (or at least the slaves do), and I know all this because I fell down a Wikihole once that I regret tremendously. Today was the day I'd meet my first in person, as the woman of the pair was wearing that collar. The smug-looking guy sat down, and she went around and wordlessly got him breakfast until he motioned for her to get her own once he was served.

Look, I really don't care what you do in your private lives, but this cringe-topia stuff in public makes me an unwilling participant in your sex life, and I want no damn part of it.

I was just about done eating when they showed up, so I beat (uh, I regret the phrasing immediately) a hasty retreat to my room where I took a nap, arranged my hotel for that evening, bought my ticket to the game, and worked out addresses to put into my talking direction box later on. I then took a nap before showering up, packing, and getting ready for the noon checkout.

Awkward stand-off

On the road by just after noon, I had a short hour or so drive to Fayetteville, home of Fort Brag, and affectionately or not known as FayetteNam. There's not a ton to do in this town that aren't pawn shops or strip clubs, but there is the Airborne and Special Operations Museum, and it had free admission. And I had time to kill, and so there we were. It was quite a nice little museum, if a bit heavy on mannequins and describing things--especially the Special Ops folks--in the most positive light possible. On my way out, there were some Italian paratroopers on the way in who I talked to briefly (the Italian is still functional, hooray) before heading across the street to the North Carolina Veteran's Park for a look around.

It was then that I noticed that they ballpark was literally right across the street. I hadn't planned on it, but since I was here, I decided to pick up my tickets and do my outside photos. The Amtrak train lines were right between me and the park, so I took the car down the street to the park, but due to the big construction going on around the stadium, it required a lap or two to realize where to stop. I parked across the street at City Hall and walked down a long construction corridor to get to the box office and pick up my tickets. I stopped in at the team store to do some shopping and ask where the hell to park for the game that night before heading back to my car to go to the hotel.

Gourmet lunch

I checked in with no issues, and since I didn't have lunch yet and had a suite at the hotel, I bought a bunch of microwave food before heading up to the room. I had my sit-down lunch, as it were, before taking a very serious nap that was the fury of a late arrival last night and a lot of walking so far today. At about 5 PM, I set out for the game and found the $10 lot that the team store personnel had recommended just down the street. It was a give-away night, so they had told me to get there early, and early I was.

There was already a small line by the time I attached myself to the end of it with a half-hour before gates, so I called my parents while I was waiting, and a short while later, I got my team logo winter hat and was off and running.

On the way back to the car after the game, I realized I had lost my lens cap somewhere, which was annoying, but I beat all the traffic out by ditching the fireworks, and I was back at my hotel in no time. I packed up again, planned for the next day, showered off the sweat, and settled in for an early night.


The Stadium & Fans: 

Home plate to center field, Segra Stadium

Segra Stadium will be lovely when it is finished. Fayetteville is clearly banking on the park being the center of a revitalization of downtown, but most of the surrounding gentrification (condos, parking garages, etc) are still under construction, making it a little bit of a rough going to get to the park.

Once you get inside, it is a very nice park, especially for A+ ball. One big promenade goes around the entire park, with the main seating area descending from it from outfield to outfield. A second level of party decks, luxury boxes, and the press box runs above the man level from about first base to third base. A large kids play area anchors the left-field corner on top of a picnic hill by the bullpen, while a party bar and deck sits in the right-field corner near the batting cages building. Small sections of seats dot the center field wall around the pyramid batter's eye, and the big digital video board sits in left-center against the background of trees above the outfield wall. The Amtrak station is literally behind the left-field wall, and trains make regular appearances during the game, prompting musical cues such as Last Train to Clarksville from the stadium PA.

Most of the main concessions and the Bird's Nest team store are on the promenade behind home plate, making it tricky to grab food while still watching the game. A big Home Plate Bar mixes up the inevitable cornhole with a foosball table. There is a memorial plaque to Babe Ruth (who got his professional start at the defunct team in nearby Cape Fear), and a fully-expected POW-MIA chair.

Demon bird

Bunker the Woodpecker is the mascot that runs the between-inning entertainment with the human crew. It was "Christmas in July," for some reason, so most of the events were Christmas-based. They went all-out on this, to be fair, even going so far as to have a snow-making machine on a small field beyond the center-field wall that turned into exactly the kind of anarchy snowball fight you'd imagine from a place packed with kids. Other events including building a snowman (wrapping people in toilet paper, an event that failed spectacularly), Christmas-themed quizzes, and the present-wrapping contest.

Ah, the present-wrapping contest. The concept was simple. Hilariously huge boxes were given to two women to wrap in the time between an inning, and whoever finished first would win some prize or other. Except one of the women was a young Hispanic lady who was wearing a tight, spaghetti-strap top. I mention this because she was rather blessed, and while she was flailing around and bending over trying to wrap her package (she would win the contest), her straps fell off regularly, and while nothing technically got revealed... well, let's just say it was quite a show, and I'm pretty sure a tweener boy in the row in front of me went into puberty at that very moment.


At the Game with Oogie: 

Chicken fingers and souvenir soda

I scored a seat on the home-plate side behind the long dugout a row back. It was a nice enough seat with a good enough view. There was a big family sitting behind me, mostly women, and no one except the husband was interested in the game. They spent more time out of their seats than in them. The other, smaller family in front of me was watching the game intently, so I suppose that balances things out.

Minor scoring

I entered when the gates opened and did my inside photography. I wasn't too hungry, so I ended up just getting a chicken fingers basket and a souvenir soda. There were multiple events after the game, starting with the minor-league standard ball toss and ending with a fireworks, but I was out the gate and back to the hotel before they even started to fire them off.


The Game: 

First pitch, Mudcats vs. Woodpeckers

This game pitted the middle-of-the road Mudcats against the bottom-adjacent Woodpeckers in a quick-and-tidy, low-scoring, pitcher's duel, decided by one inning.

Things began inauspiciously for the home team in the top of the first as a leadoff walk for the Mudcats promptly stole second, but three quick outs stranded the runner on second. Fayetteville had a leadoff single and a two-out walk in the bottom of the inning, but nothing came of that, either. Both sides went in order in the second, but the Woodpeckers started their inning again with a single, but this time, he was erased on a double-play. Both sides anemically went in order in the third.

The fourth inning saw Carolina get on the hit parade with a one-out single that made it to third on a blown pick-off throw, but there he stayed. Fayetteville again went in order despite a leadoff single, this time the victim of a failed stolen base attempt. In the fifth, it was the Mudcats turn to go in order, but it was finally the Woodpecker's time to shine. A leadoff double made it to third on a single, and a sacrifice fly to right brought in the first run of the night. A double right after only got the runner to third, but an error on the throw in by the center fielder let another run score, and another double brought in a third run, leaving the score 3-0 after five. Carolina stranded a one-out double in the top of the sixth, while a leadoff walk and two-out hit batsman suffered the same fate in the bottom of the frame for the Woodpeckers.

The seventh saw both sides go in order, and the Mudcats did the same in the eighth. Despite two walks, Fayetteville managed nothing in the bottom of the eighth, and Carolina went quietly in order in the ninth, leaving the home team with a 3-0 victory.


The Scorecard:

Mudcats vs. Woodpeckers, 07/26/19. Woodpeckers win, 3-0.

The scorecard was not part of the inaugural-year team program, but a stapled collection of papers that was also a free give-away. It had match-up information and recent news for the team, scoring instructions, rosters, and the scorecard, which was a nice little packet to have. The lineups were pre-printed, with no obvious space for replacements, giving a stats block for each batter and pitchers. The full bench and bullpen were listed out, as were the umpires, and a stats block in the upper right-hand corner had space for first pitch, time, and weather, as well as the R/H/E totals for each team. The vistor abbreviation in this block was wrong, apparently unchanged from a previous series when they were playing the Potomac Nationals (POT).

Outside of one unobtrusive ad at the top, there were no advertisements on the card, and the scoring squares were small, but not uncomfortable. There were ten innings of scoring columns, with each batting line ending in a slightly bizarre Hits / At Bats/ RBI headers. Each inning column ended in a full blow-out of runs, hits, errors, and left on bases. The pitching lines were pretty regular stats, ending with the somewhat uncommon "batters faced." There was extensive space for notes on each team, which was welcome, and pretty necessary.

The first weirdness of note came in the bottom of the second, where a leadoff grounder to third hit the bag and caromed off into the ether for a hit. In the top of the fourth, a two-base E1 was annotated to reflect a blown pick-off by the pitcher throw far away. The bottom of the fifth was rife with oddities. The leadoff double was noted to say it was hit to the wall, and the left fielder got his glove on it, but couldn't hold it. The next batter scored on an E8 that was explained as the center fielder's wild throw to second. A double to dead center later that inning was noted that it fell between two fielders, either of whom had a play on the ball. And in the bottom of the seventh, there was a full-count walk that was changed to a strikeout after the fact, which provoked a good deal of discussion. Beside all that, the only thing mildly out of the ordinary was a strike-'em-out-throw-'em-out double play in the bottom of the sixth that had a bit of a run-down, scored DP K-2-6-3.

The line of the night went to the Woodpecker's reliever, with 2 innings pitched, 0 hits, 0 runs, 0 walks, 6 strikeouts, and 6 batters faced. Can't hardly do better than that.


The Accommodations:

Home2, Fayetteville

I relatively splurged on the Home2 for the evening, since this was the only full-day and sleep-in I'd be able to do for this weekend blitz tour. While the place was nice, for what I was paying, I would have liked it to be nicer, for example. There were numerous little problems (stains, broken things, etc) with the room that you'd overlook in, say, a Days Inn, but you can't help but be a little disappointed in with a nicer hotel.

The entrance to the suite was right by the kitchen area (which, for an "efficiency suite," only had a microwave). The bathroom was just to the right with a nice enough shower, toilet, and sink vanity. Further down the room was a living room with a fold-out bed across from the desk/dining table, with a curtain to divide up the room if you so desired. The main king bed was further down on the right, across from a large dresser and a TV with a divan.

Outside of little things, there was nothing really wrong with it, but it didn't seem much worth the price is all.

Click to see all the pictures from this trip.

2019 Side Trip -- North Carolina