Queens

On a Fine Start to the Season

Not Shea Stadium, 2018

Saturday, March 31, 2018
St. Louis Cardinals vs. New York Metropolitans
Not Shea Stadium
MLB, National League
Queens, NY
1:05 PM


Outside the Game:

The object of much desire

I thought I was starting the day under a bad sign. Thanks to some problems with the company’s site, I was late getting my Lyft to the PATH to go to the game. I felt a little slow the whole drive there, and sure enough, as soon as I got down the stairs, I had just missed the subway to 33rd Street.

And then they announced the delays on the PATH service, no doubt a hold-over from earlier in the week when a rail broke on the line, which made every commute to and from work a nightmare for most of the week. I was prepared to have quite a nice sulk when another 33rd Street train showed up out of nowhere and quickly sent me in the right direction. I got off, just in time to catch an orange train going north, and just again in time to grab the 7 heading east. I began to question if my initial assessment about my luck was not quite correct for today.

Along the way, the 7 train picked up a half-dozen young men who were blitzed off their asses. Thankfully, they were just loud and obnoxious drunk on Saturday morning, and not angry and dangerous drunk on Saturday morning. At every stop, one of them saw fit to hang out of the train doors and scream "All aboard!" before the doors closed.

There was an older Hispanic couple on the train, and in trying to stay out of the drunks’ way, we were huddled together in one corner of the car by the doors. I found out that it was "Build-a-Bear Workshop" free Mets teddy bear giveaway, and that the wife was particularly interested in getting her bear. We both took pictures of the stadium at the approach, and once the doors opened, it was every man for himself to get to the entrance.

There was a huge crowd already lined up for the game over two hours before the start of the game. I had yet to pick up my tickets, so I cut through the crowd to get to the ticket kiosk. I was confronted with a bank of broken or out of service machines, when I found one that was working and was quickly able to get my ticket.

As I was walking to the back of the stadium to see if the lines were shorter at those entrances, I walked right by a new entrance with no line that was opening up just as the gates were opening, and I was one of maybe the first hundred people in the stadium, inside and with my bear before people who had been waiting for over an hour even moved. Luck was definitely at least flirting with me at this point.

The way out was uneventful as well. Large crowds swarmed to the 7 trains, and it was wall-to-wall people on the extra express until the first couple of stations started to bleed passengers from the train. I went straight from the PATH to my car, as I had to go to my parents’ house to prepare the eggs for Easter the next day.

(And on my way home from that, I was trailed by a cop who decided to pull me over right as I was pulling into my garage to point out that I had managed to drive from my parents' house back to Hoboken without my lights on. Seeing my Metropolitan gear, he jokingly let me off with a warning because I was a fan.)


The Stadium & Fans: 

Home plate to center field, Not Shea Stadium

 Not Shea Stadium hadn't changed much since last season. The big updates were the addition of a NY lottery "Hit It Here" sign in right-center, the addition of a Citi Community Home Run apple in center field, and the fact that Mr. Met came out way earlier than last year. (He used to come out maybe a half hour or so before game time, and he was out and taking pictures at least an hour before, if not longer.) Also, the digital scoreboard in left field that showed the Manager Challenges next to the out-of-town scoreboard was altered to show the Challenges and the number of mound visits that each team had for the game, as part of the new "pace of play" rules for 2018.

Mr. Met

Opening Weekend always draws a big crowd, and especially with the Build-a-Bear giveaway, there was a thronging crowd on hand to see Jason deGrom pitch in only the second game of the season. It was your standard NY crowd. In between the selfies, there was a lot of cheering for what was happening on the field.


At the Game with Oogie: 

First Shack of the Year

There were more pre-teen girls at the game for the teddy bear giveaway than I think I have ever seen at a professional baseball game.

I went and did my run to Shake Shack for the first Shack of the year, and then did my tour of the museum and team store. While I was in line at the store, I ran into the Hispanic couple from the train who were looking for magnets that I had just found. The wife had gotten her teddy bear, so all was fine in the world. In doing my second walk-around, I was surprised to find Mr. Met out so early doing pictures, and then I went up to my seats in the Foxwoods deck, grabbing a Rao's meatball sub in the club area before doing more wandering around.

Second lunch

I settled into my seat on the third-base side of the club level about a half-hour before game time. There was a guy and his girlfriend to my left. He didn't show up in person until the second inning because he was waiting in concession lines, and she was fashionably dressed in cut-up jeans that left her freezing through the entire game. There was a large group of friends to my right who popped in and out throughout the game between beer and concession runs.

The boyfriend to my left was scoring the game, as well as a guy in the row in front of us. It was quite the number of scorers for this day and age. We talked a little about things, and I helped him fill in his card for the plays he missed while getting his date a hot dog at the start of the game.


The Game: 

First pitch, Cardinals vs. Metropolitans

 The Metropolitans were hosting the always-feisty St. Louis Cardinals in, thanks to the odd new scheduling debuting in 2018, the second game of the season this cold Saturday.

The Cardinals were certainly cold, as Jason deGrom set them down in order in the first. New York jumped out to an early lead with a leadoff double, a walk, a fielder's choice that eliminated the lead runner, and another double that brought in two runs, raising a 2-0 lead before going in order the rest of the inning. St. Louis only managed a single in the top of the second, while the bottom of the Metropolitans order only got a walk in the bottom of the inning. The Cards went in order again in the third, and New York repeated the feat.

St. Louis finally got something going in the top of the fourth with a leadoff walk, sacrifice bunt, and back-to-back, two-out singles to bring in a run, to cut the lead to 2-1. New York answered back immediately with a leadoff homer in the bottom of the fourth before only scrounging a single for the rest of the inning, but increasing the lead to 3-1. The Cardinals went in order again in the fifth, while the Metropolitans got a one-out home run to left to get a 4-1 advantage. The Cards got a leadoff single to second on an error in the sixth, but then struck out in order to strand the runner, and New York managed to squander back-to-back leadoff singles in their half.

The Cardinals wasted back-to-back leadoff singles of their own in the top of the seventh, while the Mets turned a leadoff single, walk, ground out, and sacrifice fly into another run, for a 5-1 lead. St. Louis cracked a one-out homer to center in the top of the eighth, while New York converted two singles and a double into another insurance run to make their lead 6-2. The defeated Red Birds only got a walk in the top of the ninth, and the Queens faithful went home happy with a 6-2 win to extend the undefeated streak to two games.


The Scorecard:

Cardinals vs. Metropolitans, 03/31/18. Metropolitans win, 6-2.

Out of perhaps morbid curiosity, I decided to back and try the Metropolitans’ official scorecard, part of the now $6 program. For those poor fools of you who have read all my previous ramblings about the official card (I know you're out there), you'll recall that the Wilpons have done no right in the last decade or so with the scorecard, except for keeping it the full size of a two-page spread and not putting advertisements on it. It has been a wasteland of smudging background colors on the card area itself, erasable lines, and wasting most of the spread with dark background colors around all the borders, making them unable to be written upon.

So imagine my surprise when I was confronted with the clean, new, scorekeeping-friendly scorecard the Metropolitans had. The background was nearly all pristine white and the print quality was decent enough that it didn't erase away. It was intelligently laid out, had minimal use of color, and plenty of space for scoring. It was almost as though they had designed a scorecard to be actually used for scoring.

That said, there were very few interesting plays to score this game. There was a 5U in the bottom of the first on a ground-out to third with men on first and second, a 4Ut in the bottom of the second on a two-out grounder with a man on first, and an overshift ground-out in the bottom of the third (4o-3). The bottom of the sixth had the weirdest play of the game, a CS 8-5 when a runner tried to go first to third on a single, and there was an infield fly rule in the bottom of the eighth (F-6 IF).

The only now-play scoring of note was thanks to the pitcher batting in the 8 hole, I had to do a lettered skip-down to accommodate everyone in the eighth position as the game went on.


The Accommodations: 
Jersey City, sweet Jersey City

Click here to see all the pictures from this trip.

 2018 Stand-Alone

Johnson City

On Dollywood or Bust

Virtual Dolly--we have the technology

Friday, August 11, 2017
Pigeon Forge, TN


Outside the Game:
So, I had a bit of a conundrum. Even though it was a Friday, none of the teams that had been rained out previously were playing at home, and none of the other teams that I wasn't planning to hit this trip were home, so I was left with a free day.

For some reason, Dollywood sprang to mind. It was only about two hours from Bristol, and I had a bug in my ear about it for a while. Dolly Parton in a saint in Tennessee, and although a bit of kitsch character, she fully embraced it. And she was a decent enough person. She made a theme park right in the poor area where she grew up, bringing tons of jobs to the area, as well as doing things like having a charity that sent a free book per month to any child that signed up. That, and being this close to something as "Dollywood" and not going when I had a free day seemed like a wasted opportunity.

So after a long sleep, I got up and had breakfast, showered up, and headed off. It was a crisp just-under-two-hour drive straight down 81 to where it turns into 40, and I was at Dollywood fairly soon after it opened. In fact, the only real traffic I hit was when you had to turn off 40 to state road 66 to get to the park.

I got to the garish entrance and was quickly whisked over to a picket-fence-lined parking lot, and a short tram ride later, I was at the entrance to the park. I opted to grab an amusement park-only ticket, and not a double-ticket to the water park next door, which would turn out to be prudent, and not just because I didn't have a bathing suit with me.

They saw me coming a mile away

You walk into Dollywood and are immediately faced with the Palace Theater with the Dollywood sign out front, where nearly everyone stops to grab a picture. I took a walk to "Craftsman’s Valley," where Smoky Mountain craftsmen have all sorts of stores. I got about a quarter of the way in before I saw the handmade bat store, called "The Batter's Box." I ordered up a custom bat, and found out they had a service where you could just get everything you bought in the park hand-delivered to the gift shop at the exit so you didn't have to carry it all around, and as I walked out to see the bald eagle rescue area across the way, I was completely bought into the experience.

You'd be surprised how much I can eat

There are a number of all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants in Dollywood, which is to be expected I guess, and I passed "Miss Lillian's Smokehouse," which was an all-you-eat place with nothing but smoked meats. And I went in and had lunch. And I just kept eating until I could just about move. And I also got a souvenir cup that you could refill for cheap around the park. And eventually, I waddled out to the park. I stopped at another craftsman place where you can blow your own glass ornament. And I did that, too. And it also was sent to the front for me to pick up. I even dipped my own candles and bought a bunch of old-timey stuff like liniment at a "general store." And it was all shipped to the front entrance for me.

What kind of wheel is this? Bueller? Bueller?

I walked out to the fairground area of the park, and road on Ferris wheels and played skeet ball and other fairground games. I put all my stuff in lockers and started to go on some of the roller coasters. It was a Friday afternoon in August, yet the crowds weren't bad at all, so I was able to go on a lot of rides quite quickly with no wait. As I was going up to another roller coaster, all the rides suddenly shut down. A guy out front said a thunderstorm was coming through, and they had to shut down as a precaution until the storm was however many miles away from the park. Fair enough.

I went on a few inside rides, and then as the rain started to fall, I went inside to the Dolly Parton museum at the park, to be greeted by a Dolly hologram before seeing the story of her life. There was even a section on the Imagination Library and places to sign up your kids for the free books.

A little rain

The steam train was still running, so I ran over to get a ride on that when I came out of the Dolly museum, and we went on a damp ride on steam train, which at least served to keep the smoke and ashes from the rain tamped down, as they had a safety message on the train about what to do if you got an ember in your eye during the ride that I was glad I didn't need to put to use.

The rain looked to be slowing down, so I headed back to my original locker to grab my stuff and move it over to a locker nearer to the rides I was going on. As I got there, the sky really opened up to a torrential downpour where you couldn't see two feet in front of you, and the small group of people who had the same idea as I did were trapped with me in the small overhang until the rain gave up. It was so long a downpour that I called my parents out of want of anything better to do, as the WiFi didn't reach to the location we were at.

Eventually, the rain gave up and I retrieved my stuff, and I started walking around. No one had any idea how long it would be before the rides started up again, so I spent my time with a couple inside rides and going through some of the other stores in Craftsman’s Valley to bide the time. I had an unofficial estimate of a half hour on the rides, and just as that time was about to come up, it started raining again. Giving up, I headed back to the entrance, did some shopping the gift shop there, and then went and picked up all the stuff that I had bought in the various other stores throughout the park.

The park, even at this late hour, were letting you get a rain check on your ticket, but as I didn't know if I'd ever be back in the area again, I demurred. I damply got back to my car, and damply rode the two hours back to the hotel.

I grabbed some dinner on the way back and spent the rest of the evening drying out my clothes and gear. There was a hot shower and soak in the tub to cap it off, and I was in bed at a relatively early hour, exhausted from the endeavors of the day.


The Accommodations: 
Not much time spent in the hotel at all today. Mostly, it was after coming home from Dollywood.



On Slipping, Shipping, and Dripping

TVA Credit Union Ballpark

Saturday, August 12, 2017
Elizabethton Twins (Minnesota Twins) vs.
Johnson City Cardinals (St. Louis Cardinals)
TVA Credit Union Ballpark
Appalachian League (Rookie+)
Johnson City, TN
7:00 PM


Outside the Game:
I had another extremely lazy morning, getting up just in time to grab the last of the breakfast buffet, and then heading back up to the room for a post-shower nap.

Once motivated to leave, I took a 20-minute ride south-west of Bristol to another commercial cave, Appalachian Caverns. This was a larger commercial cave, and it even had a wild cave tour (where you do actual caving and have to get dressed properly). I wasn't feeling particularly energetic, so I stayed with the commercial tour, which was run by the female owner of the cave, and she brought along their terrier dog, who loved to go running around in the cave.

With me was a family and another couple, and the guy--a veteran by all accounts--was charitably one of the dumbest people I think I had ever met. Now, he wasn't a bad guy by any stretch of the imagination, but his cognition level had me surprised he was an army vet and not eating crayons with the marines. (My dad was a marine; I say it out of love, leathernecks. Please don’t kill me.) I mean, one of his first questions was how long it took someone to dig out this cave, and it went downhill from there. How long did it take them to fill the "pool" (the underground river)? Were there any monsters living in the cave? These were all, honest-to-god, real questions he asked seriously.

Tiny garden

The cave itself was quite extensive and beautiful. There was a lot of wildlife in the cave, including crickets, bats, and cave fish. They had even installed a bridge over the river in one place. The cave saw action as a Confederate hospital during the war. A big room in the cave relatively close to the entrance was used to house wounded, with its high humidity and stable temperature. The location was previously used by the natives for ceremonies.

On the way out, I stopped at the gift shop and stocked up on knickknacks, and then drove back to the hotel. I packed up to leave the next day, grabbed a nap, and then went back to the Burger Hut for lunch. I then grabbed all the stuff I was shipping home and my game bag and headed out for the night.

I stopped in at a FedEx Office location in Johnson City and packed up all my stuff for home, including a  shipping tube for the bat from Dollywood. A little while later, I had a much lighter load, and headed off to the park.

I got to the stadium and bought a ticket and started to do my walk-around the park when it started raining again. By the time I had done my circuit, it was really starting to pour, so I retreated back to my rental car to wait out the torrential downpour. As luck would have it, it slowed down a lot and stopped right as the gates were scheduled to open, so I went right in.

Crowd distraction technique

On the way back, it was an easy out of the parking lot, as most of the crowd was still watching the fireworks. I made the 45-minute drive back to the hotel in about a half hour, and then hit the shower and the tub, finished packing, and then hit the sack.


The Stadium & Fans:

Home plate to center field, TVA Credit Union Ballpark

TVA Credit Union Ballpark unfortunately sounds like a higher-level minor league park with the inevitable naming rights, but it was actually at home in the modest Appalachian advanced rookie league. It certainly was a stand-out park from most of the others in this league and looked like a higher-level, purpose-built park as opposed to others in the league. The park was actually on a large footprint, taking over the entirety of a plot of land, and you can completely walk around the outside on a sidewalk next to the iron fencing with brick posts.

There was one ticket booth and one entrance on the first-base side behind home plate. The entrance opened into a wide promenade that extended around the entire outside of the park from outfield to outfield. All of the concessions, stands, and activities were out on that promenade, with entrances into the park on the third- and first-base sides and via a walkway under the press box to behind home plate. The main concession stand was just to the left of the press box ramp, and the team store was just off to the right. The rest of the promenade on the first-base side was covered with tents hosting beer concessions, local groups, and even a band (that could only play sporadically due to the weather). A small children's play area was at the right-field end of the walkway.

The seating bowl was a little unusual. Two rows of box seats (ironically not under cover from the overhang) ran from dugout to dugout. The rest of the seats were bleachers running from base to base. The press box sat at the top of the seats behind home plate, and an overhang covered most of the bleacher seats from about dugout to dugout. There was a party area called "The Perch" in short left field. A small digital scoreboard was part of the double-height outfield wall in left center, with the rest covered with ads for local businesses, with the exception of the batters' eye in dead center and a championship placard in right-center. An affiliate banner hangs in right field, and plaques honoring Lonnie Lowe and Howard Johnson are in the ramp under the press box. Players banners run the length of the brick wall outside of first base.

JC, sorry. Jay Cee

Even with the weather, there was a more than healthy crowd at the stadium that day to cheer on the home team. Mascot Jay Cee the cardinal was around before the game and between innings for a full suite of minor-league mayhem of contests, games, and quizzes.


At the Game with Oogie:

Damp scoring

Most of my time in the park was spent dodging the intermittent rain storms. Given the weather, I sprang for a reserved seat under the covered grandstand by home plate. I was in the first row, so it was a good view, obviously. After a bit of a wait when the sun came out, I grabbed a Gatorade, hot dog, and Bojangles chicken sandwich from the one concession stand, made a trip to the team store booth, and then settled in for the game.

High-school fare

There was a large family of no-doubt season ticket holders beside me to the right and behind me, and there were somehow two rotating families in the seats to my left. I wasn't quite sure how that worked.


The Game:

First pitch, Twins vs. Cardinals

No one will ever call this game between the visiting Elizabethton Twins and the Johnson City Cardinals a pitcher’s duel. But even given the score, there was a lot of nothing in this game, with a ton of action crammed into the bottom of the fifth where the Cardinals would blow the game open for good.

Elizabethton jumped out to an early lead in the top of the first with a one-out single, triple, and sacrifice fly, staking them to a 2-0 lead. The Cardinals went in order in the bottom of the first thanks to a double-play after a one-out walk. The Twins would also go in order in the top of the second, but Johnson City tied up the game with a single, hit batsman, single, and a misplay by the center fielder, leaving it 2-2 after 2. Elizabethton went in order again in the top of the third, while the Cardinals got another run a single, two wild pitches, and a ground-out with a purpose, giving them their first 3-2 lead.

The Twins went in order again in the fourth, while Johnson City tacked on another run off a leadoff double, and a single, increasing the lead to 4-2. Elizabethton went in order yet again in the top of the fifth, and the Cardinals absolutely obliterated the opposing pitching staff in the bottom of the frame. The inning started with a walk and a wild pitch, but a home run to left made the wild pitch moot and cleared the bases. The next batter singled, but was caught stealing, giving the first out of the inning. The next two batters walked and singled, and then another wild pitch moved them up a base. Another walk loaded the bases, and a hit batsman forced in a run. A fielder's choice gunned down the runner at home, but left the bases loaded. Two more walks forced in two more runs, and then a double left it second and third with two outs. The next batter mercifully popped out to second, but the batting-around damage had been done, with seven runs in and the Cardinals out to a 11-2 lead. After that inning, the Twins responded with a sole walk in the top of the sixth, and an exhausted-from-the-running Johnson City team only had a single in the bottom of the inning.

In the seventh, Elizabethton got a little something going, with two singles and a sacrifice fly helping to close the lead to 11-3, but the Cardinals got in right back in the bottom of the seventh with a single, hit batsman, walk, and a groundout, to make it a nine run game again at 12-3. The Twins started the eighth with a leadoff double and a walk. A two-out hit batsman leaded up the bases, and a ground out and a balk brought in two runs to make it 11-5, and Johnson City only had a sole single in the bottom of the inning. In the top of the ninth, the Twins had a leadoff walk, and nothing else, ending the long, drippy game with a 12-5 Johnson City victory.


The Scorecard:

Twins vs. Cardinals, 08/12/17. Cardinals win, 12-5.

The free scorecard was part of the free, half-tabloid, full-color program. The problem was getting one. With the rain at the time of gates opening, they didn't have anyone giving them out. After asking around, I eventually had to go back to the ticket booth to have someone dig one out for me. The scorecard was one page of a spread at the back of the program, with the other page providing scoring instructions on one half and an ad on the other. As with most Cardinals scorecards, it was bad. There were lines for players with replacement, as well as pitching lines, and each scoring square had a pre-printed diamond. But everything was so tiny as to make it really hard to be legible, and the glossy paper made it hard to write with pencil. Even the pre-printed categories were almost too tiny to write in. It looked as though it may have been designed for a two-page spread and then shrunk down for one in the worst way possible.

That said, outside of a balk in the top of the eighth and the complete collapse of the Twins pitching staff in the bottom of the fifth, there wasn't anything of note as far as scoring.


The Accommodations:
I was spending my last day in the Comfort Inn. Not much time spent at all.

Click here to see all the pictures from this trip.

2017 The Carolinas II & Tennessee

Pulaski

On Bigtime Smalltime

Calfee Park, 2015

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Johnson City Cardinals (St. Louis Cardinals) vs.

Pulaski Yankees (New York Yankees)
Calfee Park
Appalachian League (Rookie +)
Pulaski, VA
7:15 PM

Outside the Game: 

I woke up relatively early on an overcast morning, but still reluctantly dragged my lazy ass down for the breakfast buffet, before trundling back up the stairs for a shower or more bed-lying. There wasn't a whole lot on the docket today, so I wasn't in much of a particular hurry.

But I did eventually finish packing and getting dressed and then headed out to check out and start the two-hour drive up to Pulaski. There was literally no one making the drive from Danville to Pulaski that day except me, and so it passed pretty effortlessly. Getting to the park was a bit of an adventure, because the stadium was in the middle of another park in such a way that my GPS did not enjoy the experience at all. It took a couple of tries before I just drove into the park and hoped for the best, and eventually I did make it to the stadium, where I took my pictures. I drove out to the hotel in neighboring Dublin, because Pulaski didn't even rate much in the way of hotels. The downtown that I drove through on the way was a couple of blocks of mostly closed buildings with the visage of a town that had lost its way a long time ago.

About fifteen minutes later, I was at my hotel and checked in. I dumped all my stuff out into yet another hotel room, and after looking on the Internet for any local attractions worth my attention, I collapsed on the bed for a nap and spent a lazy afternoon catching up on paperwork and organizing and some such, including a long soak in the tub to try and get my body more enthusiastic about the rest of this trip.

When it was time for the game, I drove back to the park and dropped my car off in the "far" lot before buying a ticket and heading into the game. After the game was over, the crowd headed into the damp night, and another quick drive got me back at the hotel and in bed at a reasonable hour for the long drive the next day.

The Stadium & Fans: 

Home plate to center field, Calfee Park

Let’s get this out of the way: only the Yankees organization would have a luxury box in the Appalachian League, a Rookie league so low on the baseball totem pole, it doesn’t even warrant an “A.” The Rookie Leagues are the dubious inheritors of the old “D” level teams of the most abject rookies with no hint of prospect about them. And the Pulaski Yankees have a luxury box in their Appalachian-League field, Motor Mile Field at Calfee Park.

Calfee Park started its life as a WPA ballpark that was constructed as part of the plan to try and build the country out of The Great Depression. The luxury box came much later, after the Yankees took over recently and did the latest in a string of renovations at the park, which included the curiously cross-shaped structure behind home plate.

The park itself is wedged inside a larger municipal park and residential area. Two small parking lots are outside the main entrance, with the closer one dedicated to seniors and the disabled, and a VIP lot is by the VIP-only entrance near first base. From the outside, the main entrance beyond left field is a solid, low, brick-wall portcullis. But the rest of the park is visible from the parking lots and surrounding streets that overlook the park, in most places with just chain-link fences in the way. One particular house across the street from the ballpark and on a hill overlooking the field has a particularly sweeping view from beyond right field, and the owners regularly come out on their porch to watch the games in the evening. Hell, I know I would.

The main entrance dumps out into a small plaza at the end of left field, right by the visiting bullpen. A long, asphalt path runs the length of left field, connecting up with the general admissions bleachers, which run from short left field to home plate, with all but the furthest extent being covered by a large overhang. A series of small staircases leads to the area by home plate, with box seats crowded around home plate, with a higher section of bleachers on the third-base side, more seats in a separate area on the first-base side, and a series of tables above the walkway behind home plate underneath the “T”-shaped luxury box building, holding the press box and the indoor and patio luxury boxes. Beyond them on the first-base side is a deck area by the home dugout with table service. Behind home plate and down the first-base line is a large plaza area where the VIP entrance empties out, as well as holding the team store, concessions, and a small area of picnic tables. The outfield wall runs between one and three tiers, all slathered in local ads, with the exception of the batter’s eye in dead center. The new digital video scoreboard rises in left-center against the backdrop of trees, and some houses in right and right-center.

"Mantler"? Seriously? You're a Yankees franchise.

Although perhaps heresy to many, the Yankees’ minor-league clubs do have mascots, and Calf-E, the hole-y cow (get it?) is the mascot-de-jur. He is involved in some of the activities, but he definitely isn’t as ever-present as other minor-league mascots. In addition to the MC, there are the Calfee Girls cheerleaders, as well as a Motor Mile drumline, giving the whole thing a lot more high-school flair. The small stadium was packed, even with threatening weather, and they were very much into the P-Yanks victory through it all.

At the Game with Oogie: 

Chicken sandwich, souvenir cup, and "Yankee fries"

On this damp evening, I "splurged" for a seat right behind the dugout that cost me ten American dollars. The tarp remained on the field until right before the game was about to start. The ushers said that there was a rain storm that was bearing down on the region that was forecast to plow right through where we were, but in this case, the meteorological failure rate worked to my advantage, for while the sky looked as though it might explode into rain at any point, it managed to not do so for the duration of the game.

The concessions at Calfee Park were strictly on the high-school cafeteria level, but they were cheap and tasty. I grabbed a chicken sandwich and "Yankee fries," which are apparently just thin-cut steak fries, along with a tiny souvenir soda.

My seat was just on the first-base side of home plate in the third row back. The stands in this area were packed with fans, and even the general admissions bleachers were filled with people. Two guys sitting next to me struck up conversations for most of the game. They were season ticket holders, and they said that someone else who was doing a ballpark tour had been sitting in my seat just a couple weeks ago. So, at least I managed to find my designated seat. They talked about all the renovations that the Yankees did, and how that they really brought a lot of fans out to the park. They said they knew the family that had the house that overlooked the park and were sitting out on the porch watching the game this evening, as they usually did. This seemed a little strange until I realized how small a town this was, and how everybody probably knew everyone else anyway.

The Game: 

First pitch, Cardinals vs. Yankees

This face-off between the Infant Bombers of Pulaski and the visiting JC Cardinals was not a pitchers’' duel by any stretch, and in the end, the Yankees big fifth inning was bigger than the Cardinals big fifth inning, and that was the end of it.

It looked like it might be over early as the Cardinals jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first off two home runs to right-center, but Pulaski came back in the bottom of the inning to turn a single, wild pitch, ground out, and second single into a run to cut the lead in half to 2-1. Johnson City went in order in the second, while the Yankees had a leadoff walk that got stranded on third after a stolen base and a passed ball. The Cardinals had a lone single in the third, while Pulaski had a hit batsman and a single that didn't make it home.

Johnson City went in order in the fourth, but the Yankees tied it up on a leadoff homer to right in the bottom of the frame. The fifth inning was a scoring frame for both teams, as the Cardinals brought in three on the back of a single, double, and homer to momentarily take a 5-2 lead. In the bottom of the fifth, after a flyout to center, Pulaski just kept hitting. Two singles were followed by a dropped fly in center to load the bases, and a double cleared them. A walk made it first and second, and a triple cleared the bases again. A single brought in another run, and another single made it first and second with one out, but a strikeout and a caught stealing ended the threat with the Yankees up, 9-5, after batting around. Johnson City only had a single in the top of the sixth, while the Yankees got two one-baggers and no one across in the bottom of the frame.

The Cardinals went in order in the seventh even after reaching on an error thanks to a caught stealing, and Pulaski matched their feat. Johnson City had just a single in the top of the eighth, while the Yankees loaded the bases with one out but failed to score any more. The Cardinals then went meekly in order in the top of the ninth, making the Yankees' 9-5 victory final.

The Scorecard: 

Cardinals vs. Yankees, 07/01/15. Yankees win, 9-5.

The scorecard was part of the $1 full-color magazine program, located about 3/4ths of the way through the program, not in the traditional centerfold. On glossy magazine paper, it made pencil writing, especially colored pencil writing, very difficult. The scorecard itself was okay, taking up nearly the entire spread outside of a ribbon of team and league promos at the top.

It was a Scoremaster variant, with ball and strike boxes in the upper left of each scoring square, along with a pre-printed diamond. (I even went the distance of scoring fouls as opposed to clean strikes with differing direction slashes that extended out of the boxes.) Each batting line had space for two replacements, with inning totals by batter and by inning, including LOB. The pitching lines were on the bottom, including total batters faced. The stats lines at the top above the batting lines were repeated on both sides, with lines for attendance (1,368--one of the few times attendance was announced in rookie league), wind, game start and end time, weather, and scorer.

There were a couple of weird plays this game. In the bottom of the fateful fifth, the second out came on a CS 2-5 after the runner on second tried to advance on a wild pitch. There was also an F-2b in the top of that inning on a pop-up bunt. In the top of the seventh, after the center fielder dropped the ball, the runner was CS 9-6 after trying to take second on the muffed play.

The Accommodations: 

Sleep Inn & Suites

I stayed the night at the Sleep Inn and Suites in nearby Dublin. My room had a small hallway leading to the bedroom that had the entrance to the sizable bathroom off to the right. The room had two double beds with nightstands and a small easy chair on one wall, and a dresser, refrigerator, and desk on the other.

The room was cozy, especially with all the pillows from both beds stacked onto one, where a pillow fort was properly constructed to encase me for the rest of the night.

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.

2015 Virginia