Central Islip

On a Hell of An Afternoon for a Ballgame

Bethpage Ballpark, 2012

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Camden Riversharks vs. Long Island Ducks
Bethpage Ballpark
Atlantic League (Independent)
Central Islip, NY
1:35 PM


Outside the Game:
With the season winding down, I wanted to see if I could get in a couple more games before dragging me kicking and screaming into the off season. Most of the minor league teams in the area are shut down once major league call-ups start, but some of the longer-season independent leagues still have games through at least the middle of the month.

I hadn't been out to Long Island yet to see the Ducks, which was odd, given their relative proximity and close affiliation with many ex-Metropolitans (such as former manager Gary Carter). Their last home game of the season was on a Sunday afternoon, and figuring that early Sunday was as good a time as any to cut across Manhattan, I gave it a shot.

I started on my trip about when I wanted, though instead of listening to Ed Randall and Talking Baseball, I was subjected to NFL preview shows on this Sunday morning. It indeed being Sunday morning, there was no traffic going through the Lincoln Tunnel and only a modicum of heartache driving across Manhattan proper to get to the Queens Midtown and 495. Once through the tunnel, it was relatively smooth sailing all the way out to Islip, and I arrived at the stadium just before they set up the parking lots. Because of this, I accidentally parked in the handicapped lot (which was the only one that was obviously a parking lot when I got there), but I moved my car over to the regular lots once there was someone to show me where to go.

After the game, the place emptied out pretty easily, and I was back on 495 westbound in no time. There was a bit more traffic this time on the approach to the Queens Midtown tunnel, but surprisingly less on my way across the City to the Lincoln. I got home with little fuss and spent the rest of the evening downloading and labeling all the pretty pictures.


The Stadium & Fans:

Home plate to center field, Bethpage Ballpark

Bethpage Ballpark is located out in the middle of nowhere, ever for Long Island, but was a nice enough park, especially for an indie-league stadium. The park's brick exterior was all terraced, and each of the entrances had imposing portals at the top of nice staircases, even if one end of the stadium did jut up against a block of apartments.

The entrances emptied out onto a main promenade above the seating bowl, which extended in two levels of seats separated by another lower walkway. The seats extended from left field to right field, and a row of luxury boxes ran from base-to-base behind home plate. In right field was party zone and in left was a larger picnic area. Concessions ran along the promenade (all with fowl-pun names, though with a nice selection of ballpark food, including corn dogs), and there were some specialty concessions out in left for a local barbecue place. The inevitable team store was located behind third, named, of course, "The Waddle In Shop."

The mascot duck was named Quackerjack in a way that made me wonder if the Crack Jack corporation had heard about it. He had an above-average suit, and actually performed a number of impressive tricks, including one-armed push-ups in a giant duck suit. He was involved in most of the on-field festivities throughout the afternoon.

And he's manly

It was the last home game of the season, and therefore Fan Appreciation Day at Bethpage Park. All attendees received a free program and scorecard for showing up, and they had a pre-game autograph session with the team and a post-game running the bases event. The managing duties that day were handled by the winner of a contest to be "Manager for a Day." I don't know how much of the on-field tasks he got to perform, but he did throw out the first pitch and exchange the lineups and the like in full uniform. There was an on-field MC in charge of the program of events, the primary of which was multiple mountain bike giveaways during the course of the game. Also thrown in were the typical minor-league fare of musical chairs, bat races, food mascot races, and t-shirt giveaways.

For a Sunday day game this far into football season, there was a respectable crowd on hand who kept very into the game. Getting crowd noise going was not a problem as one of the most popular fan items were duck whistles that quacked when you blew on them. These kept the kids in attendance entertained for most of the proceedings.


At the Game with Oogie:

Corn dog

This one was a weird one, because I saw one of my own kind. It was odd, because it was almost a Highlander thing, and I felt the presence before I even saw him. But as I was walking around waiting for the gates to open, I saw a heavy-set guy with a mid-range camera out taking a picture of the September 11th memorial, and realized that he was another baseball tourist. He was even also wearing a Brooklyn Cyclones hat, for the love of Pete. I had no idea what to do with this. We made awkward eye contact for a minute and then went about our business. I didn't exactly know how to breech the subject with him, and kept on thinking what I would do in a similar situation. I repeatedly saw him in the tiny stadium taking pictures, and then, when he whipped out a big plastic clipboard so he could score, I thought I was on Candid Camera. So there was that.

The closest I was able to get to the dugout was the second tier of seats, which still game an excellent view of the field. Presumably, all the lower deck seats were season ticket holders, but most of those seats were vacant for the game. I was mostly situated among families, though one of them was less welcome than others. About two rows behind me was a walking (more waddling) stereotype of what everyone hates about New Yorkers. The paterfamilias of this clan was just your garden-variety overweight loudmouth know-it-all jackass who had to bellow every last thought coming out of his mouth. It got maddening after a while, though eventually the crowd more or less drowned him out, but only more or less.


The Game:

First pitch, Riversharks vs. Ducks

This was a simple tale of dominating pitching. The Ducks were starting former Phillies' farmhand Matt Way for the first time, and he absolutely ate up the Riversharks, beginning by striking out the order in the top of the first. The Ducks did little better, with three straight fly-outs (the first by former Metropolitan Timo Perez, now lead-off man for the quackers).

The Riversharks went in order again in the second, with the Ducks only getting a lead-off single in their half. The Riversharks went down in order again in the third, suffering two strikeouts along the way, but the Ducks had something going in the bottom of the inning. A one-out double was brought home on a single from the aforementioned Timo Perez before two strike-outs ended the inning with the score 1-0 Ducks.

In the top of the fourth, the perfect game was marred by a lead-off walk, quickly sacrificed over to second, but a blazing line out to short caught the runner off the bag and doubled-up to end the inning. The Ducks went meekly in order in their half, and the Riversharks had a quick ground-out to start the fifth. But then a poorly hit dying quail landed in left-center to break up the no-hitter. But two quick outs followed to end the half. Seemingly in sympathy to their pitcher, the Ducks broke it open in the bottom of the fifth. A one-out triple was brought in with a single, who then promptly swiped second. After a pop-out to first, a single brought the runner home, followed by a double to bring him home in turn. The next batter hit a clean single, and the runner tried to make it home from second, but was gunned down at home to end the inning with the Ducks up 4-0.

The Riversharks got a two-out walk in the top of the sixth and nothing else to show except for two more strikeouts, and the Ducks stranded a two-out double of their own. After another strikeout to start the seventh, the Riversharks got only their second hit, left on base by a following fly out and strikeout. The Ducks got something going with a lead-off hit batsman who stole second and then got driven in with a two-out single, leaving it 5-0 Ducks at the end of seven.

Not quite done shaming the Riversharks, Way struck out the side in the eighth, while the Ducks likewise went in order. At the top of the ninth, they pulled Way, and I nearly fell out my seat as Armando Benitez came out to close it for the Ducks. All the Metropolitan fans in attendance immediately started ragging on him, and he was clearly trying very hard to ignore them. He did not disappoint, giving up a lead-off single before improbably putting the next three down in order to secure the 5-0 Ducks victory.


The Scorecard:

 Riversharks vs. Ducks, 09/16/12. Ducks win, 5-0.

First things first: The Ducks get a lot of love from me for being so incredibly pro-scoring. As it was Fan Appreciation Day, everyone at the park that day got a free program and a free scorecard. The scorecards are usually sold in stand-alone kiosks with programs, and normally cost $1 each.

The scorecard itself is a quad-fold cardstock, and although it has ads, small boxes, and little space for replacements, it is well laid-out, and has special places for the sort of thing that I record anyway (such as weather and start times). Above and beyond that, they even made an announcement before the game about how the best way to follow the game was with a scorecard and where you can get one and where the lineups were posted. This was literally the only stadium I've been to that has made such an announcement, major, minor, indie, or otherwise. I salute the owners heartily for their commitment to the scoring arts.

As to the game itself, the story was in the strikeouts. The Duck's Way notched 13 strikeouts over his eight innings, while only scattering two hits and a pair of walks. He only faced three more than the minimum because the first walked batter in the fourth was erased on a lineout to the shortstop who doubled up the runner on second. While an interesting exercise, it was only the second-best pitched game I'd ever seen, behind Metropolitan Bobby Jones' 1-hitter against the Giants in the playoffs.

There was nothing else too out of the ordinary, except the triple in the bottom of the fifth that was somehow ruled a triple instead of a three-base error. Granted the fielder was diving for it, but the ball actually hit his glove.


The Accommodations:
Hoboken, nothing more

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.

2012 Stand-Alone Trip

Camden

On Finishing Up Jersey

Campbell's Field, 2011

Friday, September 2, 2011

Lancaster Barnstormers vs. Camden Riversharks

Campbell’s Field

Atlantic League

Camden, NJ

7:05 PM

Outside of the Game:
With a four-day weekend lying out before me, finishing the last checkbox of my agenda to see all pro teams in New Jersey seemed a gimmie. But frankly, this completion just asked more questions than it answered. Okay, I did Jersey. By completing one state, I have merely opened the door to doing ever other state. Sure, places such as Connecticut and Delaware would be easy, but do you have any idea how big New York is, for example? These implications were better left for analysis at another time.

All I had to do was get down to Camden and the rest would have to follow. It was the Friday of Labor Day weekend, however, and the direction I needed to go was south, so there were some inherent problems. I got done with a bunch of chores, shopping, and whatnot earlier in the day, and, due to the events of Hurricane Irene, I needed to go out to my parents’ house to retrieve my car. During the train ride to their house, I discovered that NJ Transit now uses double-decker train on some of their service lines, which would have been useful for me twenty years ago when I went to school on that line, but it is still sort of neat today.

Car acquired, I decided to take off fairly immediately for Camden, about two hours south. I got onto the Turnpike and sat through some expected traffic until I got past the Garden State Parkway juncture, where things transitioned to fairly smooth sailing. It only took about two and half hours or so to reach Camden, and after some TomTom wrangling to get me to the actual stadium, I parked up across the street from the park.

Going home was without any sort of traffic, it being night and I being travelling in the opposite direction from 99% of humanity that evening. I got home and parked in a largely abandoned Hoboken and went back to my apartment in peace on a Friday, which is largely unprecedented in this berg.

The Stadium & Fans:

Home plate to center field, Campbell's Field

Campbell’s Field is named for the titular soup company, which has been the only good thing in Camden for about 100 years now. The “Soup Kids” adorn statuary outside the main entrance to the park, and the signage would meet Andy Warhol’s approval, with the can splashed all over the place.

The park itself was quite well done all-around (except for certain seating signage, to be addressed a little lower). The landscaping and the outside of the park fit in nicely to the post-industrial area it inhabits on the riverfront, and the stately Benjamin Franklin Bridge between Camden and Philadelphia offers a scenic backdrop to the outfield. The park apparently won some design awards, as boasted by a big sign at the main entrance.

As with most indie parks, it is one seating area that extends below the entrance level, accessed by a promenade that goes from left field to right field. Left field is anchored by a party deck and a merry-go-round, while the right field walkway ends in a covered party area and an extensive “active fun” zone for kids (with things as exotic as a climbing wall) that looks directly out into right field. Between the two extremes are various concessions and the team store right behind home plate. There is an upper deck behind home plate on top of the broadcast booth that houses the luxury suites and a specialty bar and concession areas for adults.

Tucked next to the entrance (and doubling as the team offices) is an edifice called the “South Jersey Baseball Hall of Fame,” which is just about as specific a Hall of Fame as I’ve run across. New Jersey-shaped plaques near the entrance list the inductees, and a small exhibit area honors current and past teams in the area, as well as the achievements of ballplayers from southern New Jersey.

The Hall

While it was the start of a holiday weekend, there was still a respectable crowd of a thousand or two in the seats, although they mostly sat on their hands unless there was something particularly of interest happening on the diamond. The between-innings activities were minor-league standard races, contests, and tomfoolery with the mascot Finley the Rivershark. (Get it? FINley?) There were some more unique location-specific events, such as the Party Patrol pretending to be a River Line train (which bounces back and forth between Camden and Philly over the Ben Franklin bridge in the background), and the particularly inexplicable “Trash Man”: a guy who comes out with a trash bag and dances badly for a while. There is probably some important back-story I’m missing on that one, to be honest. Or maybe it is just a guy with a trash bag – what do I know?

Finley... get it?

At the Game with Oogie:

Whoo

On the holiday weekend, I pretty much had my choice of where to sit. Once again, I splurged for “expensive” seats behind the home dugout. One knock against Campbell’s Field is that the seat numbering needs some work. The lower seats by the field are on a different numbering system that the box seats above them, and once you walk down to the level of the field seats, there are no signs saying what section is what.

This led to a number of issues during the game, as people sitting around me were always trying to work out if they were in the right seats or not. Before getting settled in twenty minutes before the start of the game, I asked some stadium personnel to make sure I was in the right seat, so I was fairly certain I was in the correct place, but no less than three groups of people sat down and subsequently found out they were in the wrong section. (And, if you have a scorecard in your hand, people assume that you are an authority on things. All three of the groups at one point or another asked me what section it was, with some version of “you probably know this” added at the front or back of the question.)

When everyone finally got in their right seats, I was surrounded by families, as is often the case in indie and minor-league games. Since we were literally across the river from Philly, most of these families tended to be Phillies fans, which I tried very, very hard to not hold against them.

The Game:

First pitch, Barnstormers vs. Riversharks

This was a late-season contest between teams towards the top of their respective divisions in the Atlantic League. While the Barnstormers were in second place, they were below .500 in what I assumed to be the weaker division. Things seemed to be pointing towards the Riversharks, but things can often seem wrong.

The first went quietly for both teams, with some walks and hits scattered in. A leadoff walk in the top of the second would come back to bite the Riversharks, as a double sent the runner to third with one out, and a sacrifice fly brought him home, for a 1-0 Barnstormers lead.

The Riversharks only got a single hit in the bottom of the inning, and besides a bizarre error without proper backup that threatened a big inning in the top of the second, the Stormers couldn’t get him home. Both sides went more or less quietly until the bottom of the fourth. The Riversharks led with a double, but a weak pop-out to second temporarily put a damper on things. But the next batter walked, and the follolwing doubled, bringing home one run. The subsequent batter hit a sacrifice fly before a groundout to short ended the inning, with the Riverharks in command, 2-1.

It stayed that way through the eighth, as both teams scattered some base runners but did nothing substantive for the intervening time. In the top of the eighth, the Riversharks brought in another pitcher, and he was absolutely rifling through the Barnstomers, getting the first two outs on strikeouts looking. But the next batter got a single (that should have been caught if the center fielder was playing correctly), and the one after him crushed one over the wall in right, making it 3-2 Barnstormers.

The Riversharks tried to get some back in the bottom of the inning, with a one-out single and stolen base followed by a walk. But the rally ended with a fly out to center and a fielder’s choice to short. In the top of the ninth, the Barnstormers tacked on some insurance runs with a leadoff single, and then, on a grounder back to the mound, the pitcher threw the ball into right field. Again, the play was not properly backed up (no doubt leading to an increase in blood pressure in the Shark’s manager). The runner scored all the way from first, and the batter made it to second. A double brought him home before a new pitcher was able to close out the side with the Stormers leading, 5-3. The Riversharks weren’t up to the challenge, and the Barnstormers closer put them down 1-2-3, leaving the final score at that tally.

The Scorecard:

Barnstormers vs. Riversharks, 09/02/11. Barnstormers win, 5-3.

The scorecard was a two-sided cardstock item, given away for free at one of the customer relation booths. They weren’t that easy to spot, and I had walked by them several times before I saw them (ready to go to the Eephus League Scorebook I carried around for just such occasions), but I eventually noticed them.

The scorecard itself was one of the more interesting designs I had run across in all my travels. It had a three/two row of boxes for balls and strikes on the left side of each scoring box, and then a small diamond on the right side. It made things a little on the cramped side, and I went with the line system for scoring instead of alphanumeric to make the most of the smaller space. I was more or less able to cram everything I needed in there.

Another truly bizarre play managed to work its way into this game. In the top of the third, a runner managed to hit into a 6-4-4-6 putout. It was as symmetrical as it was odd. With a man on first, a tailor-made double-play ball went to the shortstop, who fired it to the second baseman covering, who promptly missed it by a mile. No one was backing him up, so the second baseman completely lost possession, and then had to run after the ball to retrieve it, while the runner at first went to third and the batter turned first and went to second. The second baseman got the ball finally, and fired it over to the shortstop in time to cut down the runner, resulting in the scoring above.

In the home fifth, all the outs in the 1-2-3 inning involved the pitcher and first baseman (1-3, 1-3, 3-1), and the first out of the top of the sixth followed the pattern as well (1-3).

Truly odd things have been happening on the ball field recently.

The Accommodations:
Good ole Hoboken

Click here to see all the photos from this trip.

2011 Stand-Alone Trip