On Turning Two
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Cedar Rapids Kernals (Twins) vs. Peoria Chiefs (Cardinals)
Dozer Park
Midwest League (A+)
Peoria, IL
7:05 PM
Outside the Game:
And so we pick up this day again around 1:30 PM. The good news was the schools had started leaving at 1 PM and were nearly all gone by the time I went to get into my car and point it toward Peoria.
The early ride was marred with construction and lane closures, but it was not greatly improved when I was dumped into interminable farmland in the middle of nowhere. The landscapes were gorgeous, but endlessly repetitive and the ride seemed to go on much longer than the two and a half hours on the books. I was almost heartened by the "Pair-o-Dice" casino that at least marked the outskirts of this godforsaken town.
I pulled into my Peoria hotel a little after 4 PM. The front desk person was a nice college girl who was in the middle of her training by a more senior member of staff. I got processed quickly enough and parked and did a quick dump-out at the my room before taking the short walk to the stadium.
The walk takes you right past the two big employers in Peoria and into the heart of what they are calling the "Warehouse District." Gates weren't until an hour before gametime, so I was in less of a rush than I thought. I bought my ticket and walked around taking pictures before they let everyone in at around 6 PM.
After the game, I took the leisurely and less sunny walk back to the hotel. I bought some sliders and a drink downstairs and made some late-evening room service for myself. I showered the sweat off me and spent an evening catching up on podcasts and paperwork before settling in after calling mom.
The Stadium & Fans:
 |
| Home to center, Dozer Park |
I have to hand it to Caterpillar. When they bought the naming rights to the Chief's stadium just after the turn of this century, they could have just named the place "Caterpillar Field" and been done with it, but they actually spent the half-second to think about it, and call it the much more fun "Dozer Park." So, kudos there.
Tucked in the Warehouse District of Peoria, it a nice downtown park with a view of the same beyond the scoreboard in right-center, but it the same generic park design that I've come to expect. There is a single wide promenade around the park, below which is the one main seating area along the basepaths, ending in a short picnic berm in right and one that snakes its way all the way to center in left. There are the obligatory party area in the outfield corners.
But the park does try enough that I don't just sigh and forget the place. At the entrance is a statue of "Mr. Peoria Baseball," Pete Vonachen, interacting with a young fan. They also moved the batting cages to the center field batter's eye so you can watch the players take hacks before the game, and they have a grounds crew Roomba that cleans home plate.
Homer the "fire chief" Dalmatian (the teams old Native-American mascot and branding melted away for some reason in the last 20 years) is on-hand to help with the standard between-inning fare of contests and races and whatnot.
At the Game with Oogie:
 |
| Italian beef |
I got in and did my regular routine, just twice in one day in a completely separate city. They had two-dollar tacos, which I partook of, but it was on a Wednesday. I mean, come on. I also succumbed to the inevitable and got an Italian Beef for ballpark dinner. Yes, chef.
I got seats in the shade behind home plate. There was only one guy in the row behind me, but a couple of rows ahead, there was a family with their dog, as it was Bark in the Park, and he was a good boy.
 |
| Good doggy |
Of perhaps more interest were the very obvious two scouts sitting a little to my right. I often get mistaken for a scout or a reporter (mostly because of the camera), but if you have done this as much as I have, the actual scouts are really easy to pick out, especially when they are tanned a deep, rich earth tone like these two gentlemen from the Giants' organization. I can only suspect they were here for the debut of the Peoria pitcher, but they did stay the entire game.
 |
| These are what scouts look like |
I did get a laugh out of them when during a particularly tenacious at-bat in the top of the ninth, I quipped after yet another foul ball, "Now you're just wasting balls." I feel I achieved something.
The Game:
 |
| First pitch, Kernals vs. Chiefs |
The Cedar Rapids Kernals and the Peoria Chiefs faced off on a hot early summer evening, but sparks did not fly.
The Kernals jumped out early, getting two runs off three walks and a double in the top of the first. Peoria squandered a couple of baserunners largely due to an inning-ending double-play in their half. Cedar Rapids only had a single in the top of the second, while the Chiefs stranded a leadoff error. The Kernals left a couple on the in the top of the third, while Peoria got one back in the bottom of the inning thanks to a double, wild pitch, and groundout, making it 2-1.
Cedar Rapids got that run right back in the fourth with a single and double, while the Chiefs went in order, leaving it 3-1. A leadoff walk got erased on a double-play, letting the Kernals go in order in the fifth, while Peoria went in order the traditional way. Cedar Rapids went in order again in the sixth, while the Chiefs stranded two runners in their half.
In their turn, the Kernals also stranded two runners in the top of the seventh, and Peoria went in order. Cedar Rapids managed to scrape an unearned run in the eighth, with two infield hits, a passed ball, and a wild pitch, to extend their lead to 4-1. The Chiefs got it back with a two-out solo homer in the later half of the inning, to close it to 4-2. The Kernals got a baserunner on a dropped strikeout, but couldn't do anything with it, while Peoria made a last-ditch attempt at winning the game. A leadoff double was followed by a walk and another double, only getting one run in to make it 4-3, but three straight outs followed, and the game ended at that score.
The Scorecard:
I was using the BWAA again thanks to death of local scorecards due to the pandemic. This game was quick with only a handful of interesting scoring bits.
This game was the debut of the Peoria starting pitcher. He sadly barely made it into the fourth, owning a 7.36 ERA at the end of it, with more earned runs and walks (3 each) than strikeouts (2).
There was an infield hit in the wild top of the eighth that was clearly an E6, and in that same inning, there was a K-BI double play, as the batter struck out and impeded the throw at the runner on-base who was running on the pitch, and I may never see that particular DP again. The "No Hit Hitter" was no-hit. I do not recall what the prize was.
The Accommodations:
 |
| Staybridge Suites, Peoria |
Finally utilizing my room at the end of the night, this Staybridge Suite was a little smaller than the others this trip, but not a slouch by any stretch.
The kitchen was right by the entrance, with a desk and couch on the opposite wall leading into the bedroom, where the outer wall had a dresser and TV, and the bed and nightstands were on the adjoining wall. A small vanity hallway led to the bathroom that was on the other side of the kitchen.
Comfy and quiet, and that's all I really ask for.
On Peoria
Thursday, May 21, 2026
Peoria, IL
Outside the Game:
Thanks to the two-city double-header the night before, I had pretty much nothing on the agenda for the day, which is odd for these trips.
I was up early and made a lazy morning of it. I was up before the breakfast buffet even opened and had to wait a bit until it did, had an average breakfast, and went back to my room for "Lazy Morning Part II, Electric Boogaloo."
I did some planning and trying to work out my last three days. The only teams that were home were five-or-so hour drives each way, and I didn't have that in my old bones, plus I wanted to spend a day at the Volo Museum. I got it into my head to perhaps see the Cubs game the next day. But I needed to work out where I'd be staying: holiday weekend in Chicago at the last minute wouldn't be cheap, and so few hotels even have parking. It turned out there was a place in Lincoln Park, of all places, that might work, but I couldn't get in touch with the hotel itself to see if it would work out or not before the checkout time came.
I asked if I could leave my car for the afternoon, packed up when answered in the affirmative, and headed out to see what there was to see of Peoria.
Ah, Peoria, easily the lesser of the two American Peorias. Its boosters say that it is a city with a small-town feel at the crossroads of the Midwest (equidistant from Chicago and St. Louis), with an affordable lifestyle and just enough to keep things interesting. Detractors say it is a two-factory town (healthcare and tractors) that is a glorified suburb in the middle of a cultural wasteland.
 |
| Richard Pryor left Peoria as soon as he could. |
My trip this day seemed to bear both out. My first stop was a statue of native son Richard Pryor (who left as soon as he was able) and then over to one of the big employers in town at the Caterpillar Visitor's Center. You enter through a mock-up of one of their giant dump trucks, and--as warned by the ticket people--I found the insides teeming with home-schooled kids on a field trip. While corporate-positive in a way I didn't think was possible since the 1970s, it was a nice museum/propaganda piece, telling their company history while casually shilling their products. There were a couple of simulators that let me know I did not have a future in earth moving, and a couple of equipment planning games that I did better at (which leads me to believe I choose the correct profession), but the most interesting thing in the entire place was the fact that it was the Caterpillar corporate basketball team that won two Olympic gold medals in the 1950s. They just won their way to the Olympics and got gold twice. That just seems nuts today.
Just next door was one of the only other museums in town, the ambiguously named "Riverfront Museum." I was prepared to be underwhelmed, but I had to eat my pretension. It was a fine little museum on its own, but it also had the travelling Ken Burns American 250 exhibit, which was really interesting. There was also a big special exhibit about toys, but it was all toys from my youth, which made it both fun and depressing at the same time. It was very well done and quite interactive, and I might have spent more time than I want to admit at the working arcade machine corner they had set up.
They had a number of nice little displays on topics ranging from duck lures, to minerals, to the space program's local connections, as well as the first production car in America and native son Dan Fogelberg (who also left town as soon as he could). There was also an amazing metal sculpture exhibit "Bronzeville to Harlem."
 |
| Bronzeville to Harlem |
I bought some popcorn outside their IMAX theater and went on my way. I was trying to decide to pull the trigger on the Cubs or not, but I ultimately resolved to keep to my "No Chicago" policy while in Illinois and just head up to Volo for the next day. I booked a hotel as close as I could to the museum and then walked back to my car.
I had a decent three hour or so drive back up to the civilized part of Illinois. I filled up my rental for my last time on the trip and grabbed some snacks/lunch for the drive. Thankfully, there was less traffic and lane closures on the way north than there had been on the way south. I pulled into the Holiday Inn complex at around 5 PM or so. The hotel was clearly there to host guests and bigwigs for conferences at the research hospital across the street. A nice lady checked me in and then I parked and went up to my room.
I unpacked, prepped for the next day, and then grabbed a shower. Not feeling too ambitious, I decided to have dinner at the nearly empty hotel restaurant while I did my laundry in the hotel basement. I leaned into it and got the steak special, which was good enough for a hotel steak. I wandered around a little until my drier was done and then took everything back to the room for a lazy night. I pre-packed everything, caught up on my podcasts and paperwork, called my mom, and had another early night of it.
The Accommodations:
 |
| Holiday Inn, Crystal Lake |
As mentioned, I was at the Holiday Inn at Crystal Lake, which was a place to basically host people visiting or attending conferences at the huge hospital facility next door.
The room itself was worthy of VIPs, with a full bathroom just off the entrance, and a couch and king-sized bed and nightstands on one side of the room, and desk, dresser, and TV on the other. The bed was indeed very comfy, and I was sprawled across it for most of the evening.
