Lawrenceville

On Heading South

Terminal C, again

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Atlanta, GA


Outside the Game:
So, I was heading out to the airport straight after work for a long weekend, and after the trials I had with my last trip, I was hoping that the travel gods were at least going to show me some mercy this time out.

I got out of work and to the airport with a minimum of fuss, although one of the more annoying account managers from work was flying out of Newark Airport that night as well. She threatened to find me and be annoying until my flight, so I left work quietly to avoid traveling with her. Once I figured out my gate, I found out where her gate was, located her, and then went to have dinner at a restaurant at the other end of the terminal from both of our flights. The meal was adequate, but uninterrupted.

It was another really cheap upgrade to first class, so I grabbed that, and almost immediately the travel gods struck me down for my impudence by delaying the flight an hour. The good news was that the delay in this case was, in fact, just an hour. The bad news was my fellow patrons.

There was some sort of con going on in Atlanta for Labor Day weekend. And two of the patrons were in the first-class line with me. Now, I love my fellow nerds; I really do. It is just that sometimes they really, really need to dial it the hell down, because they aren't doing the rest of us any favors. This was stereotypical geek couple #4: There was the slightly pudgy guy with Cheetos beard, and his objectively out-of-his-league blonde girlfriend who was clearly just with him because she had real self-esteem issues. He was the first nerd in her sphere to have the bright idea to actually ask her out and make her feel validated, and she said yes because she thought she was unlovable. I’m not being mean; I’ve just seen this dozens of times before.

And they were talking, constantly, loudly, about everything, trying really, really hard to keep up what they estimated (incorrectly) to be witty banter. And he was "coyly" making inappropriate and sexist jokes behind the guise of not knowing why his companion was with him, and she was trying to be the demure sex kitten. And of course they were going to the con as The Joker and Harley Quinn, and of course he was talking about how she really had the body for it, and of course they wouldn't stop loudly talking about it. It was just really, really embarrassing.

For many reasons, I was extremely relieved when we boarded, and they were in the very first row of first class, and I was in the very last, and that was very, very okay with me. My row mate was an overworked businessman who was coming home from China with this being his last connecting flight home, so he was out like a light nearly immediately, and I enjoyed some solitude on the flight down in my first-class decadence.

When we arrived, we got delayed getting to a gate, but still, it was late, but not too late. However, when I got to pick up my rental car, there was a huge line waiting. I would eventually find out that this was because that not only was there a comic book convention in town that weekend, it was also the Atlanta Pride parade. So, I had all that traffic to look forward to.

Spark one up, dude.

But I eventually got my Chevy Spark, and I was set to be asleep before 1 AM. My hotel was only ten minutes away, and I was all packed in with my GPS going, and no sweat.

First of all, whoever designed the airport in Atlanta, or, more specifically, the roads in the airport around Atlanta, I want to die a slow and painful, painful death. I followed the GPS directions, and they lead nowhere. I tried again, and it led to gates leading to the tarmac. I tried using the car's GPS system instead of my own GPS, and it actually took me back to the terminal. It was after 1 AM at this point, I was pretty tired, and there seemed to be literally no way out of the airport.

I think I ended up trying two or three more times to follow the GPS before completely cracking. I calmly took an assessment of the situation and came up with a new plan. No, wait, that wasn't it. I pulled out to the side of the road and started screaming at the top of my lungs while assaulting my rental car and shouting as many disparaging statements as I could think of about Atlanta and everyone in it. Yes, that was it.

There was a "screw it" moment, and I kept the hotel address in the GPS, and I found a main highway and got on it. I drove for a good five minutes, ignoring the plaintive pleas of the calm GPS voice that I was going in the wrong direction, and then I started to follow the directions again. This proved to work, and I arrived at the hotel in about fifteen minutes, finally.

Of course, at this point, it was nearly two AM. I rolled into the Country Inn & Suites in College Park to be greeted by a cop car sitting in the parking lot. It did not appear to be going anywhere, so I was debating whether to be re-assured or horrified that there was going to be a police presence in the parking lot of my hotel all night, and what exactly prompted its need?

I was too tired to care all that much at this point. I stumbled in to a very sympathetic counterperson at the hotel, who told me that the airport is always a mess, that she was going to put me in the quietest room she had, and if I slept too late, she would save me a little something from the breakfast buffet. Had things allowed, I would have married that elderly black woman just then, but I merely dragged all the stuff up to my room and passed out. However, her gesture was so welcome that I stayed there again on my way out of time after the weekend.


The Accommodations:

County Inn & Suites

I eventually made it to the Country Inn & Suites. Outside of the necessary police presence, I couldn't muster any complaints about the service-- or the room for that matter. There was a nice king-sized bed and an easy chair, along with a dresser, TV, and desk on the opposite wall.

The "quietest room she had" turned out to be handicap accessible, so I had a bigger than average bathroom, just with all the extra hardware that entailed and everything a little bit lower than expected.

But the air conditioning was already on and the bed worked, so I was lights out by 2:30 in the damn morning.

On a Brutal, Brutal Beating

Coolray Field, 2016

Friday, September 2, 2016
Durham Bulls (Tampa Bay Rays) vs.
Gwinnett Braves (Atlanta Braves)
Coolray Field
International League (AAA)
Lawrenceville, GA
7:05 PM


Outside the Game:
I did wake up late the next day, but not so late that I missed breakfast. The nice old lady was still behind the counter, so I waved to her sleepily on my way to whatever was on offer. She smiled and waved back. I have every confidence she was going to squirrel away some food for me if I didn't show up. I... I love you, old lady.

It was under an hour to the park for a night game, so I got my money's worth out of my hotel room until the last possible minute. After checking out, I headed up 85 and got the park with little issue. It was dreary and overcast when I got there, so I collected my ticket, took my pictures, and decided to find my next hotel.

A short drive later I was at the Courtyard in the "Mall of Georgia," and I could, in fact, check in early. Since there was literally nothing to do in this area (it was until recently a forest that had been cleared for development), I asked around for lunch places, and I was told there was some chain restaurant or other just up the road in the Mall proper. And so I went and had lunch, and then trundled back to my room and crashed out for a very, very long nap. I had ironically set an alarm on my iPad to wake me up in time for the game, and as it turned out, thank god, because it was the only thing that roused me awake to grab my game bag and drive back to the park.

After the game, I had a quick drive back to the hotel. I was worried I wouldn't be able to get to sleep given the nap I had earlier, but that fear was completely misplaced.


The Stadium & Fans:

Home plate to center field, Coolray Field

For starters, this park is named "Coolray Field," which is ridiculous enough before you realize it is named for an air conditioner concern that saw fit to name itself "Coolray." I can't really decide which is more disturbing.

At any rate, Lawrenceville, GA is carved out of what was a heavily forested area. They have replaced this area with strip malls, "The Mall of Georgia," and Coolray Field. Trying to make this a magnet for development or some such, they have built a condo complex behind the outfield (also, presumably, to prevent the park view of being a barren hillside) called the "Views at Coolray." (Not incidentally, I want to smack everyone involved with this area's development.) The condo's pool complex looks out over right field (leading to a lot of skeevy-looking guys in speedos watching the game), and the complex has its own right field entrance.

The park itself is fine, if a little odd, but it isn't a AAA ballpark. It is nice enough for the mid-level minors, but for something that is supposed to be one step away from the majors, it is a little on the chintzy side and it does not bear comparison with other parks in the International League.

The main entrance is a weird little pavilion under welcome sun shades and semi-transparent pictures of Larry, Bobby Cox, and Hank Aaron. It was a little Orwellian, but when I was waiting to enter in the early evening sun, I would take shade behind the devil himself. The ticket office and the team store flank the main entrance on the pavilion.

Once you get inside, you find yourself on a wide promenade at the top of one row of seats, plus the luxury and press boxes and party decks on an upper level above first to third base. This would be a good AA park, but at the AAA level, it was just... off. The promenade runs all around the park and dumps out onto the picnic berm that covers the outfield areas. All the concessions, stores, and the small kids’ area in left are on the main promenade.

An up-to-date giant video board is perched in left, and a smaller video board is in the wall in right field, just below the majestic view of condos. Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron are retired out in right field, and there are some additional dedication plaques outside in the main entrance on pillars next to a pitcher's mound garden.

Chopper. Sure, whatever, I guess.

Chopper the Beaver was the mascot, and he kept schmoozing with the thin crowd for most of the game, while being helped by the human crew to do the standard games and races and whatnot. Considering that this could have been a playoff-clinching game, the nearly non-existent crowd didn't speak well for the local support of the team, and only a small subset of that crowd was left at the end of the long game, mostly, it seemed, to do the post-game toss-a-ball and go home.


At the Game with Oogie:

AAA Scoring

As Coolray Field had not yet extended the "protective" netting, I got tickets right behind third base for the game. The “local” food offerings didn't excite me, so I ended up getting a Braves dog and a souvenir soda for dinner.

Braves dog and souvenir soda

There was a quiet enough family in front of me, but behind me were three of the reddest rednecks you ever did red. This was right in the start of the Kaepernick scandal, and one of them declared loudly that he would kick the ass of anyone who knelt during the anthem. That was just the start of those festivities. I ascertained that two of them were father and son. Whenever there was just two of the three together, they proceeded to viciously badmouth the person who wasn't there. All three combos continued this goodwill tour. The topics of conversation were similarly deplorable. I was tempted to quote some choice comments to the person returning the next time, but I felt it wasn't worth it to unite three mouth breathing rednecks against me on the first night of the trip.


The Game:

First pitch, Bulls vs. Braves

One hesitates to use the term "brutal bloody murder" without proper context, but this game certainly qualified. Spoilers: It was a 14-0 blowout, with the Braves getting only 2 hits, and only one should have counted. The Braves were trying to clinch their division win in the International League and instead got murdered in front of a home crowd.

Actually, we can skip through the Braves entire game. Outside of back-to-back walks with one out in the bottom of the first, they did nothing. They went in order seven innings out of nine, had two hits (one of them very questionable) and five total baserunners, and two of those got erased on double plays. The best that can be said of them is that they only struck out five times.

The Bulls started scoring in the first, with a one-out walk, a single, and a sacrifice fly. Again, in the second they had two short singles, a walk, and a sacrifice fly. Two hits, a walk, an error, and a sac fly brought in two in the third. The wheels completely came off in the fourth, with a new reliever giving up five runs on two hit batsmen, a homer, a triple (really an E9, but what can you do?), an intentional walk, and a double that took them exactly around the order. Perhaps tired from all the running, they failed to score in the fifth, but had a leadoff homer in the sixth to get them back in the habit. Four more crossed in the seventh with two outs, thanks to a walk, a double, another walk, another double, and two singles, leaving it at 14-0. The Bulls threatened in the eighth and ninth, but they got no one home even though they had runners on third in both frames, but you know, people can only run so much.


The Scorecard:

Bulls vs. Braves, 09/02/16. Bulls win, 14-0.

The scorecard for the Gwinnett Braves was very similar to their major-league counterparts, meaning that it was on good card stock, but for no good reason, incredibly cramped.

It was a no-hitter through six on the Braves, who ended with just two hits. One of them, in the eighth, was clearly an E6 gift to the home team. A similar gift was the Bulls’ triple in the top of the fourth, which should have been an E9, as it was a misplayed fly ball that hit the right fielders glove and then was not backed up, yet it was ruled a hit.

There were a lot of hit batsman on the Bulls side, as the Braves first reliever plunked two (with quite a pitching line of .6 IP, 3 hits, 5 ER, 1 BB, 1 K), and the Braves position player thrown onto this dumpster fire in the 9th also hit a guy (but with a much better pitching line of 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K). This was also the first game I've seen in person where a position player was allowed to pitch.

There was nothing else notable about it, except the embarrassing amount of runs the Braves gave up.


The Accommodations:

Courtyard Marriott

I stayed this night at the Courtyard Marriott in Buford within the majesty of the "Mall of Georgia." But I had nice enough room with a spacious bathroom right off the entrance, a big old king bed in the bedroom, across from a pullout couch, desk, TV and dresser.

I think I statistically spent the most time in that bed for this entire trip. It lived up to its use and had extra pillows in the closet tossed on for the most pillow fort experience possible.

Click here to see all the photos for this trip.

2016 Labor Day

Charlotte

On Try, Trying Again

BB&T Ballpark, 2016

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Durham Bulls (Tampa Bay Rays) vs.
Charlotte Knights (Chicago White Sox)
BB&T Ballpark
International League (AAA)
Charlotte, NC
6:05 PM [Doubleheader]


Outside the Game:
Having made the decision to stick it out in Charlotte another day, I spent most of the morning re-arranging my schedule and seeing what I could move to accommodate the extra day stopover. It was a thankfully productive morning, and using the free day I had baked into the schedule, I was able to sort out seeing everything I needed to for the rest of the trip.

I also decided to stay at the same hotel. A quick conversation with the front desk got me to stay over another night at the rate of the first night, so I just decided to run with that and head out into the world.

A record of larseny

There was a small Wells Fargo Museum downtown that I decided to start at (and this was well before all the news of later that year broke). It was an amusing little excursion inside their corporate offices (later to be raided by the feds) that talked about their folksy start up, stagecoaches, pony express, and nothing at all about fraudulent accounts opened up to unsuspecting people. I walked around downtown and got lunch at a taco truck standing on a corner. The guy running it was a California transplant still wearing an Angels' cap. He told me where not to go downtown, and I went on my way to the Charlotte Aviation Museum, because I had time to kill.

It turned out that the main feature of the Charlotte Aviation Museum was the actual airplane from the "Miracle on the Hudson," later made into that Tom Hanks movie. This was certainly a form of kismet that I hadn't run across in a while, except that I was supposed to be in this place.

Miracle Plane: Slightly Used

The exhibit was very nice, and it was just weird to come all this way to see a plane that ditched in the water a couple miles from home and work. There were two older gentlemen volunteering there who I talked with. One of them was a big baseball fan, and assured me that it wasn't going to rain tonight, and we talked shop for a bit before I headed out.

I went back to the hotel for a nap, and then drove out to same parking lot from the night before, hoping for better results. Waiting for me at the front gate was the hat guy from last night. He thought seeing me again was the funniest thing in the world, and he laughed and laughed for a good five minutes. We talked for a while until the park opened up, and we went our separate ways.

After the game, it was with a certain amount of relief that I headed back to the hotel, parked up, and got some shut eye with a game finally under my belt again.


The Stadium & Fans:

Home plate to center field, BB&T Ballpark

BB&T Ballpark was in the AAA, which meant it was going to be nicer than most of the parks I'd see on this trip. It took up a downtown city block, across the street from another grass park, and you could walk the sidewalk all around the facility.

The main entrance plaza was flanked by the team store and ticket booth on top of brick fan walk, but there were additional entrances and ticket offices all around the perimeter. A display on the outfield side of the park had all the past names and logos of the teams, in addition to brick paintings of the old team logos and affiliations.

All the entrances opened up onto a main promenade that extended the total circuit of the field, emptying down into the main seating area. A second level ran from first to third base behind home plate with your requisite luxury boxes and party decks, as well as the "Budweiser Home Plate Club." The seats extended all around the park, tapering in the deepest outfield to a row of seats at a rail. Special seating areas and party decks were in the outfield corners, and the center field entrance was right by the giant digital scoreboard with smoke-spewing “Homer the Dragon” statue and a digital games area.

All the concessions ran along the main promenade--although one or two stores had entrances off the promenade in right field--and the main team store was right by the home plate entrance, and a special bar area at the top of first base.

The park was packed again for the double-header, which speaks well of the fan base, as well as perhaps a little extra juice from the rivalry between Charlotte and Durham, just down the road across the state.

I just work here, buddy.

Homer the Dragon finally got to do his full thang, instead of trying to placate fans hiding from the downpour the previous night. As befitting their AAA status, the between-innings activities were elevated above the minor-league standards, although there plenty of races, quizzes, and skill tests to be had. The t-shirt toss was done with a gold cart dragging a trailer with a pneumatic t-shirt Gatling gun, the Knights had a "royalty" mascot race through the outfield, and there was a giant dragon on the scoreboard that blew smoke every time there was a home run by the Knights.

Of special note was the first pitch, which, swear to god, was done by a blind guy, who nailed a perfect strike. I'm not even sure where to begin the appreciation on that. A prefect strike. It was amazing. I wonder if or how long he practiced for that, and if he’d like a shot with the Metropolitans.


At the Game with Oogie: 

Make-up scoring

The game was a packed house as the night before, but it was doubly so, as the rain-out had smooshed two days' worth of fans into one days' worth of games. My seat had moved up to the last row behind third base instead of a row or two down. There were two mothers with their kids strewn about the two rows, getting as together as possible, no doubt, after trading in tickets. Two of them and myself moved around so they could all sit together, so they were around with me for most of the game. They lasted for the first game, but went home soon after the second started.

More meatloaf

I grabbed a hot dog and drink before the first game, but between games, I headed back to the meatloaf stand again to get my fix. They remembered me from the night before, and said I'd get something "special." I'm not sure what that turned out to be, but I got a meatloaf sandwich, which is all I really wanted.

I also ran into the concession guy from the night before who recognized me. Between all that, and hat guy at the gate, it was a big old reunion at the park.


The Game (#1):

First pitch, Bulls vs. Knights

This was a stand-off of cross-state rivals who were both just on the unhappy side of .500. The first game looked to be all Bulls, but the Knights pulled it out in the end with a big inning.

Durham started the first with two four straight one-out singles to jump out to a 1-0 lead, while the Knights went in order. The Bulls started the second with a lead-off homer to extend it to 2-0, while the Knights went in order again. Both teams had one hit to show for the third, but then the Bulls went to work again. In the top of the fourth, a single, one through the wickets on the shortstop, and two more singles got home another run, making it 3-0, Durham. Charlotte threatened in the bottom of the inning, with back-to-back, one-out singles, and a two-out walk to load them up, but they stranded everyone with a grounder to second.

The Bulls started the fifth with another lead-off homer to make it 4-0, and it looked to be over, but the Knights finally got in gear in the bottom half of the inning. A leadoff homer got them on the board, then three straight one-out singles loaded the bases. A strikeout rose the Bulls’ hopes of getting out of the inning, but a two-out shot to dead center rocketed out of the park for a grand slam, making it 5-4, Charlotte.

And that was pretty much it, as both teams combined for a single and a walk the rest of the way, ending at 5-4 after seven and a half.


The Game (#2):

First pitch, Bulls vs. Knights

Whether the Bulls were roused by their late-inning collapse with the previous game, or Charlotte just got tired as the night went on, the second contest was over pretty quickly.

The Bulls started the game with a leadoff homer to right-center, while the Knights only also had one hit in their half of the inning--but it was a single and not a dinger. Durham led off the second with another homer, and then had a one-out single, walk, and two singles to bring in two more runs, making it 4-0, Bulls. The Knights went in order in the bottom of the second and third, and while the Bulls only threatened in the third with a second and third and two outs, but they couldn't bring anyone across.

The fourth inning flipped the script for a time, as the Bulls finally went in order, while the Knights led off with a double a walk and another double to bring in two runs to close the lead to 4-2, before going in order. The comeback lasted a half inning, as the Bulls clocked a one-out, two-on homer to dead center to bring in three more runs and run it out to 7-2, Bulls.

With the exception of a two-out double in the top of the seventh, both teams went in order for the remainder of the game, splitting the double-bill with a 7-2 Bulls victory in the second game.


The Scorecard(s):

Bulls vs. Knights, Game 1, 06/28/16. Knights win, 5-4.

The scorecards were full-page photocopies with the lineups already added in. There was no wasted logo or advertising space, so they were incredibly spacious and easy-to-use. In looking at them after the fact, it is amazing how neat these were.

Bulls vs. Knights, Game 2, 06/28/16. Bulls win, 7-2.

Both games were seven innings, thanks to the minor-league double-header rules. The first game was pretty straightforward, with two exceptions. In the top of the first, there was a caught stealing 6-4 after the runner over-ran second base on a single and couldn't get back in time, and the third single in the bottom of the fifth was out of the right fielder's glove and into the wall, yet scored a hit. There was the grand salami that same inning, with all of the runs earned, thanks to that. Nothing much to it beyond that. The Bulls pitcher went the distance (seven, in this case) and got the loss.

The second game was similarly uneventful from a scoring standpoint. There were twice as many pitchers used as in the first game (8 vs 4), and despite the score, not a ton of offense. Seven half-innings went in order, and I think the teams really just wanted to get some sleep at that point.


The Accommodations:
I stayed over at the Clarion Hotel Airport to help organize my efforts. Same, room, same everything.

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.

2016 The Carolinas

Durham

On Redefining the Word "Delay"

Punk is dead. Here is its corpse.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Durham, NC



Outside the Game:
My gate was unfortunately by the GBGB restaurant. I had suppressed the information that the guy who owned the naming rights to CBGB decided that Newark Airport was the place to open his theme restaurant with the name. Because nothing says punk rock like Newark Airport and mid-level eatery. Of all the ludicrous and offensiveness of this place was the fact that it had a record store at the entrance. Because who in their right mind is going to go vinyl shopping in an airport? It was too much. Anger increased to fury and dissipated to apathy in a way I found uncomfortable.

I was heading out straight from work for my North Carolina trip. To hit all the parks I wanted, I had to take an extra day on Friday, so it was a Thursday evening when I headed out to Newark airport. The only problem was that there was a tropical storm racing me to North Carolina, and my flight got delayed before I even left work.

So it was a more leisurely trip to Newark Bald Eagle God Bless America Airport than usual. My flight was delayed to 10 PM by the time I got to the airport itself. Given the delays and the packed flight, I upgraded to first glass for next to nothing and went to get something to eat.

We boarded for a 10 PM departure, and I settled into my comfy seat. And then, instead of pulling away from the gate, we got delayed to an 11:30 PM departure, and, in a first for me, the pilot just let us off the plane and told us to come back in an hour. And so I did, to wander around, because we got delayed to a 12:30 AM departure.

This was a functional problem, because the information I had available said all the rental car places at Raleigh-Durham Airport closed from 1:30-4:30 AM. And we were not going to make it. Now, the good news for me is that I chose a hotel right by the airport, so I could just take the shuttle to the airport, and get my car the next day. I ran into a woman who had the same problem, but no easy solution, as she had to drive to a relative's house after the plane landed. I tried to help as much as I could, but it looked like she might have to wait for the rental places to open again. I successfully contacted my rental place and got them to defer my reservation until the next morning.

I also had a chat with the pilot, who was hanging out by the gate after grabbing coffee. He was very open and communicative, which did a lot to improve the situation. He was showing everyone the story on his phone with the real-time weather map. He said he thought we could sneak in and land around 1:30 AM, and he was going to try and do that. And that is all I could really ask, I suppose.

We boarded again a little after midnight to find my seatmate had bailed. Apparently, he was just going down for a day meeting, and at this point, he figured he could just dial in. The pilot's plan did work, the flight itself was uneventful, and we snuck in and landed at about 1:45 AM. I dragged myself out to get the hotel shuttle. I'm sure I must have looked like something checking in, but I got a key, went to my room, and used the bed roughly.  


The Accommodations: 

Microtel Inn & Suites

I got there late and didn't spend a lot of time there, but I was at the Microtel Inn & Suites in Morrisville just outside the airport. The functional bathroom was just off the entrance to the left and the bedroom was in the next room. A small shelf desk was across from the bed, and on the other wall, above the AC unit was a padded shelf and storage drawers. The TV was on the bathroom wall.

But I just got the room, dropped my bags, took my pills, and passed out.

On Missteps Along the Way

Durham Bulls Athletic Park, 2016

Friday, June 24, 2016

Lehigh Valley IronPigs (Philadelphia Phillies) vs. 

Durham Bulls (Tampa Bay Rays)
Durham Bulls Athletic Park
International League (AAA)
Durham, NC
7:05 PM


Outside the Game:
This day began inauspiciously, with what amounts to a complete nightmare scenario for one of these trips, although I didn't quite realize it except in retrospect. You are going to need to know a little bit about how I pack and travel for this to be understandable. No one's forcing you to be here. You can leave at any point, buddy.

So, for the most part, I keep everything to a “two bag” scenario. There's my main carry-on, where I have my clothes and the like. Then there's the smaller backpack "personal item" bag that I have, where I keep my binder, my game bag, electronics, and medicine (on the plane). This is so if I have to check my carry-on for whatever reason, I have all the truly important stuff with my person at all times. Following so far? Great. Gold star.

So I woke up on Friday with not enough sleep and a rental car to pick up. Deciding that I need a break, I booked a surprisingly cheap boutique hotel right across from the ballpark for the evening, and then I shower, groggily pack up, and then plop down in the lobby to wait for the shuttle to the rental car place. This eventually shows up, I throw all my crap into the bus, and we get to the rental car place.

I'm already not in a mood for anything, when I realize that the rental place is an Alamo partner. If you remember my trip to Buffalo ("On Why Alamo Rental Eats Dead Babies After Killing Said Babies"), you'll remember my particular aversion to this rental establishment. Well, first off, I found out that they are, in fact, open 24 hours, so some of that drama from last night was unnecessary. Okay, whatever. New day, fresh start. Happy face, happy face.

Another city, another Accent

I had rented a Kia Rio, or a similar subcompact. I was told they only had full-size sedans that they were going to upgrade me to for free (and those that remember the trip to Kansas City remember my last "upgrade"), I was adamant about getting a subcompact like I wanted. I was told they had nothing at National, but they might have some at Alamo.

Okay, deep breath. Here we go. So I went to the other side of the lot, and met with an extremely helpful man who found me the one compact they had left, a Hyundai Accent in the back of the lot. Hurrah and huzzah. So I got my car, loaded my bag into the car, and then got ready to leave and realized that I needed my GPS to get me to the hotel. So I go and open up my trunk, and... wait, did I load my bag into the car? Bags. I need bags. Where was my backpack?

Look at how I'm not panicking. Look at me! LOOK AT ME! I very calmly went and looked around the car for my other bag. Failing that, I very calmly went over to the National side of the lot where I was talking to their people, and looked for my backpack. I then calmly sprinted back inside the rental building to look for my bag. I then calmly went back to my car and screamed incoherently for a good ten minutes.

So, I was here without my tickets, my schedule, my maps, and my electronics. Thankfully, my medicine was now in my carry-on, but I was not in a good place. Eventually, I think the screaming shook lose a memory of me sitting half-awake in the lobby of the hotel waiting for the shuttle, and I quickly called the hotel back. It turns out they had, indeed, found a black backpack in the lobby, and I could pick it up whenever.

All I had to do was drive back to the hotel... and pick up my GPS. I'm not a navigator by nature. The good news is that the hotel was right by the airport, so I just had to remember a couple of turns, and I'd be there in a five minutes. After screwing it up seven or so times, I was jauntily walking into the hotel lobby and demurely retrieving my backpack, which I abjectly hugged in front of a lot of people.

Back in my car, I was in a better place, a happier place--a place with documentation and GPSes. And I set up my GPS for the short drive to the hotel in downtown Durham. And I drove there with no problem, but the address for the hotel didn't lead anywhere but a grass square that was full of... something. After driving around four or five times, I gave up and flagged someone down. They explained that the festival was hiding the access road, and I had to make a sharp blind right a little ahead. I found the road, and I drove up the road to the hotel, which was right on the square, right across from the ballpark... with a festival in front of it. I nearly started crying at the thought of not sleeping again.

Upon checking in, however, I was assured that the festival didn't start until Saturday and that there wouldn't be any noise that night. I parked my car in the hotel lot, went up to my room, and dumped everything out. I went out to take pictures of the park, and accidentally wandered into the stadium. The main gate of the park was open and unattended, and people were inside, so I figured, what the hell, and went up the stairs. I eventually found a Little League camp going on, so I made my way out after a short time poking around, realized that I passed quite easily for a Little League dad, for whatever universal truth that imparted. I went back to the hotel for a very welcome shower and nap, because I had sweat through my clothes nearly immediately in the North Carolina June.

Durham Athletic Park

I went out to the original Durham Athletic Park (from the movie) and took some pictures there, walked around a little in downtown, and then went back to the hotel for another lay down before walking down to the game.

Boom

On the way out of the park, I didn't make it fast enough, so I got caught inside the park when the fireworks started, and I wasn't allowed out until they were over, while literally being about 100 feet from my hotel. As the game ended so early, I had some time to kill. I dropped everything off in my hotel room, and then wandered around the American Tobacco Campus across from the ballpark. One of the writers from work was a Durham native, and his friends ran an upscale cocktail concern called Alley Twenty-Three downtown. I decided to take a trip down there to see what I thought, but peeking in, I saw a lot of sharp-dressed people in a locals’ establishment. And I, wrinkled and sweaty and not in the mood to turn on any charm around strangers, decided in the better part of valor, and I went back to the hotel to get some needed shut-eye.


The Stadium & Fans: 

Home plate to center field, Durham Bulls Athletic Park

Thanks to Bull Durham, if the Durham Bulls aren't the most famous minor-league team, they are at worst in the top three. This was one of the parks that I had been looking forward to the most, and thankfully, it did not disappoint.

The new Durham Bulls Athletic Park (D-BAP, as opposed to the old wooden Bulls Athletic Park [BAP] from the film) was a relatively new park, located smack dab in the middle of the revitalized area next to the American Tobacco Campus, the old factory that had been converted into shopping, arts, and restaurant spaces. The outside of the park is clad in red brick, and you can walk all around it on city streets. A walk of fame is on the sidewalk outside of third base. There are two entrances: one in center field (Diamond View, right by my hotel) and the main one at home plate. The home plate entrance (at Jackie Robinson Drive and Blackwell Street) is plaza with fountains and baseball statuary the mouth, in front of the team store, which is flanked by the two entrance gates and stairs up to the park. A bat company store is to the right of the entrance, and the suite entrance is to the right. The ticket booths run along the wall by the fan walk.

The main entrance stairways all empty out onto a main promenade that runs all the way around the park on the outside wall. Behind the seating bowl were most of the concessions, the stores, and the brewery. Oh, yeah, they have their own brewery in the park. You can smell the hops as you walk up the stairs of the main entrance. A landing behind home plate has seating to eat food, as well as bevy of bulls, and an exhibit space. There was something there about the origin of baseball cards in Durham when I was there, with the rest of the exhibit at the local history museum.

A smaller walkway circled the park from inside the seating bowl, separating the lower seats from the upper seats. At the top of the higher seating area there were the luxury boxes and the press box, as well as several party landings. The seating extended out to the wall in left and into right-center field, with a picnic hill near dead center and standing room only along the left field wall to center. The main scoreboard was built into the "Green Monster" in left field, next to a manual scoreboard. An auxiliary digital scoreboard ran the length of the low wall in right.

There is a plaza in left field with more restaurants. If you climb up to the top of the green monster, you can stand beneath the iconic "Hit Bull, Win Steak" sign. Right field has "Jackie's Landing", the Home Run Patio, and the Budweiser Picnic Area, which sits in front of the "Wool E. World" kids’ area. The outfield view is dominated by condos and business spaces that sprang up around the popular park. Also scattered through the park are baseball reliefs shared with the Bulls' sister stadium in Toyama Japan.

Wool E. Bull E.

Wool E. Bull is the beloved bull mascot. He is greeted by cheers and adoration wherever he goes, and spends most of his time in the stands or running the between-inning activities with the other human fun crew. These endeavors are befitting the AAA and somewhat more complex than the regular minor-league fare. Of course, there are callbacks to the movie, most notably with the Durham Bull Racers, where super-sized, felt-costume versions of the main film characters do their race around the park. The grounds crew even gets into the act, with the "Diamond Cutters" getting a dance routine during their work at the start of the seventh inning.

Durham Bull Racers

The Bulls are incredibly popular, so the park is usually packed, but these are baseball fans first, to be sure. They were knowledgeable and into the game and not just standard minor-league families looking for a distraction for the evening. This town bleeds blue.


At the Game with Oogie: 

Movie scoring

Sometimes you find yourself looking in a mirror that you don't want to see. I headed to the front gate a while before the stadium was to open, and I found people already there waiting. It turns out they were hardcore autograph hunters.

I had run into their ilk at both Spring Training league strips. You can spot them, with their three-ring binders and endless supplies of Sharpies. Seeing my game bag, they assumed I was one of them, and asked me if I knew what IronPigs were signing, but after I told them I had no idea, they started to ignore me. People came and went from their group, after updates on who was in the lineup, who was more likely to sign, and who people were looking for. Their three-ring binders were thrown open, cards extracted and transferred to smaller binders they would use to hunt the actual signatures, and then they'd be off talking again. Some visiting IronPigs signers even stopped in to share info, and it seems that team affiliation was not a limiting factor in the fraternity. They knew all the security personnel by name. They all got pre-screened before the gates were opened. And as soon as the call came in, they were gone like a flash into the park and to the dugouts to get their signatures.

Now, as much as I'd probably like to judge them, I guess I find myself not in a particular place to do so, given that they at least lived here and hadn't traveled this far for the privilege. So it goes.

Angus and cheese sandwich

I had a seat in the last row of the lower seating area by first base. The place was packed, and it was mostly families around me. I grubbed out on an "angus and cheese" sandwich, and then a foot-long hot dog to wash it down.


The Game: 

First pitch, IronPigs vs. Bulls

If this AAA game between the Bulls and the IronPigs were a weather report, it would be "Brief, with scattered scoring." It was a pitchers’ duel, for the most part, with the players going through most of the game like a cabbie getting a flat rate for the trip.

The IronPigs went in order in the first, but the hometown Bulls started the game with a double. On a groundout to short, the runner made it to third, and then scored on a two-out single. Another single made it first and third, but a fly out to right ended the first at 1-0, Bulls. The song remained the same in the second, with the Pigs going in turn, but the Bulls had a one-out double who made it to third on a wild pitch, but was stranded. 

And that was pretty much it until the sixth. There were two hits combined for both teams, and that was about it. In the top of the sixth, however, the IronPigs started a two-out rally with a walk and then a triple to bring him in. A single followed to score the runner to make it 2-1 Ironpigs, but the runner got picked off first to end the scoring. And then to the eighth, basically, with two Bulls baserunners to show for the interim.

The top of the eighth began with a walk and a wild pitch to get the runner to second. A ground-out to second got him to third, and he was brought in by a gutsy bunt single. The speedster bunter stole second and was brought in by a two-out single to left. But the scoring ended there, at 4-1 IronPigs. Both teams went in order until the bottom of the ninth, when the Bulls decided to try and come back to win it. A single started the bottom of the frame, but a grounder to second erased the lead runner, and two quick outs ended the game, a 4-1 loss for the hometown Bulls.


The Scorecard: 

IronPigs vs. Bulls, 06/24/16. IronPigs win, 4-1.

If there was any part of the experience at DBAP that was a little underwhelming, it was the full-color, half-tabloid program on magazine paper. But the program was free (rare for AAA), and the scorecard, in the centerfold) was on good paper stock. While about a third was taken up by ads, the scorecard was still spacious and easy to write on and use, so I can't really call it all that underwhelming.

From a scoring perspective, the game was a bit blah. There wasn't anything particularly out of the ordinary or controversial. It was a pitcher’s game, to be sure, but the pitchers weren't all that overpowering. So it goes



The Accommodations: 

Aloft

I had originally looked into staying at another boutique hotel in town that was built in an old bank and is an art space as well--I stayed when down there for business, but it was going for something like $800 for the night. So, while I liked that hotel, I didn't like it all that much.

Not that the newly open Aloft wasn't fighting for hipster hotel title tooth and nail. They didn't have a check-in desk. Oh no, there was a circular check-in station in the middle of the lobby, in between the trendy bar and the trendy restaurant. 

My room was boutique hotel 101. Dimly mood lit, the entrance led off to the spacious bathroom, with sliding partitions in the bathroom with glass shower and counterless wash basin. The flat screen was on the wall in the other room, above the wall-length wooden counter, ending in the trendy desk. The comfy bed had a local art headboard, and, of course, pixel art pillows, matching the pixel art window shade over the window, looking over the square below. I could just about see into the left field entrance of the park from where my room was.

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.

2016: The Carolinas

Norfolk

On Redemption

Harbor Park, 2015

Thursday, July 2, 2015

Durham Bulls (Tampa Bay Rays) vs.
Norfolk Tides (Baltimore Orioles)
Harbor Park
International League (AAA)
Norfolk, VA
7:05 PM


Outside the Game: 
There wasn't much outside the game this day except for driving. A quick check of the weather let me know that either Bluefield or Princeton, WV, were going to be rained out tonight, so my only hope was to cut five hours across the state to try and hit a makeup with Norfolk. Not looking to have two rain-outs in one trip for the first time ever, I buckled down and committed to the drive.

I grabbed my breakfast from the buffet and went back to my room for a relatively lazy morning. I was going over all my options and double- and triple-checking the math before finally getting fully in gear, showering up, packing, checking out, and hitting the road.

It was a little before eleven when I headed out, but there was nothing to do for the day except drive across the state. One minor mercy was that the Thursday afternoon drive didn't encounter any real traffic at all. Beside a quick stop for gas and shoveling some food in my mouth, the only setbacks were a couple of small packets of congestion before reaching Norfolk. I was straight off to the stadium when I got there, grabbing a ticket and heading right in, as I was getting there just as the gates were opening, and I had already taken all my outside shots of the park during my first rainy trip at the start of the trip.

After the game, I made the short drive to my chosen hotel for the evening. It was right downtown, and the only real hitch was figuring out where to park. I stopped right in front of the hotel to check in, but it turned out I had to go all around the block to get to the entrance of the parking lot I inadvertently passed on the way in. But I was able to get parked rather quickly, and I spent most of the remainder of the evening trying to figure out what I was going to do to get the trip back on schedule, so it was a lot of referring to weather reports, which teams were where, and wishing in the most effective ways I could imagine to do so.


The Stadium & Fans: 

Home plate to center field, Harbor Park

Harbor Park has a wonderfully un-corporatized name, and it is a wonderfully old-school look about it. The facade of the circular structure is brick below concrete, and it has more going on outside than the average park. For starters, beyond the expected team offices, team store, and ticket booths, there are two transit hookups to the station: a light rail station as part of the cavernous parking lots that surround the park, and a ferry terminal outside of right field. There are three entrances at home plate, first base, and third base, all with plazas outside of them (not to mention the handicapped, groups, and VIP entrances that the average fan can't use). There is a statue of "Sandy Tide," a mermaid baseball player, right by the home plate entrance, and there are a number of other memorials outside of the park, including a fan brick walk by home plate, a memorial to Dave Rosenfield, the stadium dedication, and a plaque about Baseball in Norfolk. There's also the entrance to the "Hits" restaurant from the outside, as the restaurant operates even when there isn't a game on.

All the entrances dump out onto an upper promenade that runs from outfield to outfield behind home plate. All the concessions and stores face out onto the field, so fans can grab grub without missing the game. A lower walkway runs through the lower seating bowl, separating box seats below from regular seats above. And since this is a AAA park, there are actually two sections of legitimate upper deck in the left and right field corners that have their own walkways at the base of the seating areas. A large second tier separated from the other upper deck seating runs from about dugout to dugout behind home plate and houses the press box along with several floors of luxury boxes. And out in right field, there is the building for the "Hits at the Park" restaurant, whose windows let its patrons see the game while having a sit-down meal. Right field ends in a party deck with a large roof, and left field ends with a party area picnic hill with tables in left-center.

There are a ton of scoreboards in the park, starting with a digital strip auxiliary boards on either side of home plate. A digital scoreboard sits in left-center, above the picnic hill, a pitch speed board is in left closer to center, and a giant digital video board (with more ads than actual video board) in in right-center. A single-tier outfield wall runs below it all, with only a few big ads on it. The batter's eye rises black from center field, and the cranes and bridges of the dockyard form the backdrop for the stadium.

There is a ton crammed into the main promenade besides concession stands and stores. Dozens of "Tides Facts" and Hall of Fame plaques (most dating from the NY Metropolitans long affiliation with the team) line the promenade, as well as the "10-Year Tides All Stars," and plaques for the Youth Baseball Fund and the dedication to the old stadium. There is a small kids area in an alcove in right, and a collection of baseball statues showing a kid pitching to a batter and a catcher are also on the promenade.

He's... something, I guess.

The local mascot is Rip Tide. He is... I want to say "fish," but maybe see monster. He's kind of blue and indistinct. For "Super Hero Night," he also was equipped with a cape, as were the humans on the fun team. A couple of the between-inning events were superhero themed, but most were your standard variety minor-league contests, races, and giveaways, with a couple of unique events throw in like a contest to catch items in oversized skirts. The first pitch was thrown out by a bunch of cosplayers, but for "superhero night," I don't think a stormtrooper or a Ghostbuster really qualified, but no one asked me.

The crowd was no doubt diluted by the pre-game rain-delay, but given that, there were a decent number of butts in the seats for a rainy, Thursday game in the middle of summer.



At the Game with Oogie: 

Disreputable scoring

So after finally getting into the stadium at Norfolk on the second attempt, I darted around and tried to get all the interiors shots that I could, which was a challenge with just an hour and a half at a AAA park, but I needn't have worried. At around 6:30 PM, the sky opened up for a two-and-a-half-hour rain delay to the start of the game, so I had all the time in the world to wander around and take pictures, albeit damp, before the game got started.

Hot dog platter and souvenir soda

I spent some of my time eating a hot dog platter, and in wandering around the only dry, covered parts of the field during the delay, I ran into a lot of the cosplayers who were there for "superhero" night, though I almost did ask one woman dressed up as Thor if she could knock it off with all the rain. But I demurred.

During the delay, I had to sort out where the heck I was going to spend the night. I was holding off on getting a hotel to perhaps get some of the drive in back across the state that evening so I wouldn't have another five-hour drive the next day. But as the rain plowed on, I realized that even under the best-case scenario, I was going to be stuck in Norfolk for the night, either after a late ending to the game, or to try and pick up the Tides the next day when there would inevitably be a double-header that I would be able to get in the rained-out game.

But I had left my tablet in the car, so I called up a friend of mine who went onto Hotels.com and went through the listings for me until we found a historic hotel that was a short drive from the park that seemed like the best idea, so I got the number from him and booked straight after, so at least I had a place to stay for the evening.

The rain delay did eventually end, with the game kicking off just after nine. My ticket was on the box seats right by the field nearly right behind first base, so I had a good, damp look at everything. The crowd was definitely less than it had been when the rain started, and around me, only the family directly to my left, who were clearly season ticket-holders, were there. They kept to themselves, so I just scored the game and was happy enough to just get the game in and make it my hotel sometime before the middle of the night.


The Game:

First pitch, Bulls vs. Tides

This damp International League contest got started after a two-hour rain delay, and both the Norfolk Tides and the Durham Bulls played like they had somewhere to be after the game, which started late and was only getting later.

The visiting Bulls lead off with a bunt single in the wet grass, had it second and third after a double, and a ground-out got in the first run, staking them to an early 1-0 lead. Norfolk went in order. Reversing things, Durham went in order in the second, while the Tide got on the board with a homer to right center to tie it up, 1-1. The Bulls again went down in straight numbers in the third, while Norfolk stranded a one-out double on the base paths.

Durham had a sole single in the top of the fourth, while the Tide had back-to-back singles to lead off the bottom of the fourth, and a sacrifice fly gave them the first lead of the night, 2-1. Both sides went down quickly in the fifth, and the Bulls did it again in the top of the sixth, while Norfolk head a leadoff homer to left to extend the lead to 3-1.

In the top of the seventh, Durham stranded two singles, while the Tide did the same. There was then a hiccup to the home team victory in the top of the eighth as a two-out single was followed by a homer to left to tie it up at three. Not rising to the challenge, Norfolk went in order in the bottom of the inning. The Bulls tacked on two more runs in the top of the ninth with a single, a walk, and a double to pull out to a late 5-3 lead. And there it would end, as Norfolk again failed the final challenge and went down in order in the ninth to seal the Durham victory.



The Scorecard: 

Bulls vs. Tides, 07/02/15. Bulls win, 5-3.

The scorecard was the centerfold of the $1 full-color magazine program on glossy paper. The scorecard was simply a mess. Sixty percent of the spread was taken up by ads on the top and bottom. The glossy paper made it literally impossible to write in red pencil, so I had to score in regular pencil. I compensated by numbering the outs to make them stand out. There were exactly nine lines for players, with the boxes just large enough for replacements. A pre-printed diamond was in the scoring boxes, but it was large enough to score adequately. Pitching lines were underneath the batting lines, but there was space for only three pitchers, which was inadequate. The batting lines did not include summary columns, and the innings also lacking summary rows. Tiny columns were left at the end of the pitching lines for Notes. The home team was on the left side, which was pretty odd, also.

The game itself was not very interesting from a scoring perspective, and there was only one item of note. In the bottom of the seventh, the Tide center fielder was called out on a grounder to second. He disagreed with the call and was ejected for arguing before his manager could intervene.


The Accommodations: 

The Tasewell

For a last-minute hotel pick for a one-night stay, I pretty much lucked out as much as possible. To start off with, the Tasewell was just a short drive from the park, so it gave me the longest rest period I could expect. The hotel was a renovated old classic, which was amazing to just walk around in to see the architecture of a legitimate old hotel such as this one. I went wandering the halls and the floors for a bit when I got settled just to see the layout of this old place.

The room itself lived up to the hype, featuring actual furniture, and not "hotel furniture," the same style and brand of interchangeable furniture that you see in nearly every hotel chain, even if they aren't owned by the same company. The main room had a king-sided bed with two nightstands on one wall, with a dresser and a desk on the adjoining walls. Opposite the bed was another dresser/TV stand with a CRT TV, next to a 3/4 refrigerator with a microwave on top. The bathroom was in the corner of the room, leading to a structurally imposing room with an old sink and a modern shower stall put inside.
I wasn't doing much than sleeping for a night, but it was one of the few times I was compelled to walk around a hotel to take it all in ever, so that says something for it. I got a great night's sleep in the solid room, and I was sad to leave it the next day.

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.

2015 Virginia