On a Strange Glimpse into the Future
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Brooklyn Cyclones (New York Metropolitans) vs.
Staten Island Yankees (New York Yankees)
Richmond Country Bank Ballpark at St. George
NY-PENN League (Short-Season A)
Staten Island, NY
7:00 PM
Outside the Game:
After my trip up North (west) the week before, and my trip up North (East) the next week, I needed to stay relatively close to home to keep my sanity on this weekend. I was way behind on all my writing, and next week would just give me more.
It was fortuitous, then, that the Staten Island Yankees were home this weekend. I had seen them on my first "official" trip way back when, but I hadn't gotten any good photos, so I wanted to go back and correct that, especially because I could then order my Flickr book of the first 100 stadiums I visited.
As PATH has seen fit to prohibit both ferry and PATH train service to lower Manhattan on the weekends (the former as a matter of course and the later due to "maintenance"), I had to be a little creative in getting to the Staten Island ferry. I took the PATH to Christopher Street and then walked over to the red line, which could take me to South Ferry. As this would also take me past work, it would be an unpleasant reminder of Monday. Speaking of unpleasant reminders, there were also police barricades up for, I recalled, the Pride Parade. This led to some hectic thinking about whether the parade was Saturday or Sunday, as I can't imagine the Hell of trying to get back to the PATH in the aftermath of the parade.
I made it to the ferry without incident, and got on the cattle call that was the boarding process. There was a nice breeze blowing, I spent a relaxing ferry ride up on the open deck. We were eventually disgorged on Staten Island, and I took the brief walk to the park.
After my photographic ramblings, and sitting in the sun for an unconscionable amount of time waiting for the Will Call office to open, I eventually got in line and entered the stadium as it opened at 6 PM.
The way out was fraught with more worry. I kept an eye on the clock, slowly ticking over 10:30 PM, and the last ferry for a half hour. The game mercifully completed itself at 10:56, and I left on a sprint for the ferry. Breathlessly arriving, I was greeted by an announcement that due to "police activity," the ferry was going to be delayed ten minutes.
Defeated by fate, I walked back outside to catch the post-game fireworks over the park, then trudged back into line as the ferry boat finally showed up at the dock. We boarded, and I spent another enjoyable ride above-decks trying to do some nighttime photography. The red line took me to the PATH and home, where I did a little work on the scorecard before heading to bed.
The Stadium & Fans:
With the lengthy--and somewhat confusing--title of Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St. George, the name needs a little deconstruction, much similar to "Nippon Ham Fighters." The stadium is the "Ballpark at St. George," and it is sponsored by "Richmond County Bank" (much in the same way it is the "Nippon Ham" company sponsoring the team, the "Fighters").
That out of the way, this riverfront park is right next to the Staten Island terminal of the Staten Island ferry, which makes getting to and from the park relatively easy, as long as you're taking the ferry. It is an urban park, bordered on all sides by city streets, though the outfield wall faces out to the river and the riverwalk. During batting practice, I was walking by as a well-struck ball came screaming out of the stadium, hurtling over the shoulder of a confused gentleman sitting on a bench on the river walk, bouncing once, and then bounding to the depths of the river. "You should have dove for it," I offered.
Unlike most short-season A parks, it has entrances at all corners, with the main entrance and ticket booth by home plate; an entrance by the Will-Call box offices at third base; an entrance in the left field corner; and another entrance and ticket office in right field, closest to the ferry terminal. There is an extended plaza by the left field entrance by the river, which has a small playground, and ends in the Staten Island 9/11 Memorial, which brackets the site in lower Manhattan now being occupied by the Freedom Tower. I am not going to talk about how ridiculous a name that is now, however. This is me not doing it.
The park has a slightly unique layout in the walkways in the park are dual-leveled. The entrances in the outfield start on a lower level, and then, around first and third bases, there are stairways up to an upper promenade that extends around behind home plate. Above that upper walkway extends a second level that houses the press boxes, as well as an extensive (for A ball) section of club boxes. The seating bowl extends down from the upper walkway and is not spilt up by any intermediate walkways, just two landings for handicapped seating at around first and third bases.
The right field walkway ends at that entrance, and along the lower walkway is the Professional Baseball Scouts Wall of Fame. Various other concessions run along the lower and upper walkway (including the team store in the area behind home plate). A sizable kids area is at the left-field entrance. Just after the kids area is the extensive tented patio for the All-You-Can Eat seats near first base. The main scoreboard sits in left, and the wall in right is a narrow auxiliary scoreboard. Retired numbers perch on the club level near home plate, and the championship banners sit on the same level near first base. The home dugout is on the third base side, no doubt because it is the first section to get the shade in the setting sun.
On-field antics are run by the "Pinstripe Patrol" (which, in a great heresy to all things baseball, include a team of "dancers," who are barely concealed cheerleaders) and mascots Scooter, the Holy Cow, and monkey Red (allusions to late Yankees' announcers Phil Rizzuto and Red Barber). Most of the entertainment is minor-league standard races, contests, and dancing. As it is Staten Island, and the ferry is literally next door, the scoreboard race is of ferries, and they did have one unique contest, a "Princess Race," for fathers and their daughters. The dads are dressed like kings, and the daughters princesses. They have to race to put on glass slippers, grab a tiara, and then kiss a frog, before running back to the king. It was a nice catering to girls that you don't often see in parks, if a smidgen stereotypical.
The crowd was packed about 50/50 with SI Yankees and Cyclones fans. Unlike other low-A ballparks, while there were families here, the majority of the crowd was hard-core baseball people.
At the Game with Oogie:
As this was a Brooklyn/Staten Island game, I had gotten my tickets the day before online. This secured me a seat right behind the Cyclones dugout, but it did necessitate going to the Will Call window. They only decided to open that at 5:30 PM, and a line was forming, so we had to stand out in the sun for a good, long time before the window opened. To add insult to the injury, we had to watch the college-aged attendants literally re-arrange furniture for a good ten minutes or so before they attended to guests.
By the time the windows were opened, there was a snaking line going nearly to the corner. Some woman walked up just as the windows opened and asked if this was the line for all the windows, and tried to shove past me to get to the other window. I explained that, yes, the line was there for a reason. She then started acting all huffy, and I apologized to her for her inability to know what a line is, and then went to get my tickets.
Once I got in, I did my normal walking around. I ended up at one of the specialty concessions in left field that had meatball parm sandwiches, which I got, along with a drink. I had an early lunch for some reason, so I was starving at this point. I washed all of it down with a pretzel or two.
As mentioned, my seats were just behind the Cyclones' dugout. In my row was an older Staten Island fan, but for the most part, I was surrounded by fellow Brooklyn supporters.
Especially the guy next to me. He carried two bags worth of stuff with him, including scorecards, and a big, handwritten daily schedule that I couldn't quite ascertain the purpose of. He did have a season ticket package with the SI Yankees, which I can assume to be for all the Cyclones games there. He had an All-You-Can Eat bracelet, as evidenced by his frequent trips up the stairs, which he would return from with various hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken sandwiches, which he would drown in ketchup and then lustily eat.
He cheered on the Cyclones in a subdued way, as he juggled his scorecard (which he kept in the empty seat next to him), his mystery schedule (which he consulted every half inning), and his never-ending supply of food (which he got up every inning or so to refill--seriously, I've never seen someone put away that much food).
The guy was harmless, but I did wonder if I was looking into a slightly more Jewish version of my future. I already had the scorecard and the bags while at the games alone. I have to figure I'm only a step or two away from the manic scribblings of my own calendar. The top of my computer desk is already covered in note cards filled with team schedules and dates. Frankly, putting them into a single schedule just makes sense.
I'm sure there is some greater truth to be had of all of this, but I stopped thinking about it after he checked his watch for the last time and tottered off in the eighth inning.
The Game:
This was to be a game between the first-place Cyclones and the struggling SI Yankees, but I was in attendance, so, of course, it was a blowout for the Yankees that was worse than the score suggests.
The game at least started according to plan. The Cyclones got a leadoff single that moved to second when a grounder to short got booted. A single to center brought a run in, but the trailing runners were stranded after three straight outs, leaving the score 2-0, Brooklyn. They would hold that lead for several minutes. The Yankees began their assault with a one-out single to center. This was followed immediately by a homer to left that tied the game up. With two outs, the Cyclones pitcher walked two in a row, then gave up a run-scoring single, and was pulled from the game in the first. The new pitcher gave up a double to clear the bases before a fly out to left ended the inning 5-2, Yankees.
In the second, the Cyclones only managed a baserunner on a one-out error. The Yankees kept going with a leadoff double, joined on the bases by a hit batsman. An odd attempt to steal third failed, and then a strikeout and fly to center ended the threat. The Cyclones managed an one-out double, which they stranded. A new Cyclones pitcher came in the bottom of the third and gave away the rest of the game. A double led off the inning for Staten Island, and a grounder moved him over to third. The next batter walked and stole second. A sacrifice fly to right brought in a run and moved the runner to third, and an error by the third baseman brought him in. The next batter homered, and the one after him doubled. The next two batters, perhaps coincidentally, were both hit by pitches to load up the bases again. A short single brought in a run and completed the batting around before a fly to left ended it at 9-2, Yankees.
Brooklyn managed only a two-out walk in the fourth, but Staten Island led off with a triple that was brought in a one-out sacrifice fly to extend the lead to 10-2. The Cyclones got a leadoff walk in the fifth that moved to second on a wild pitch and to third on a ground-out. A two-out single brought him in before a strikeout ended the inning, and minorly closed the gap to 10-3, Yankees. The Yankees, this time, only managed a two-out single for their half of the fifth.
The Cyclones had a leadoff walk in the sixth, followed by a walk and another single, but the Yankees' pitcher put it together to strike out three in a row and end the threat. In the bottom of the inning, Staten Island had a two-out walk followed by another walk, but they were stranded by a pop fly to third.
The Cyclones finally got
something going again in the seventh. Another leadoff walk moved to second on a following single, and then third on another wild pitch. The runner on first moved to second on defensive indifference, and then everyone came home on a towering home run to center. The next batter singled, but was stranded by three straight outs, with the score a more respectable 10-5, Yankees. Staten Island came out with a leadoff single in their half, and then a two-out double brought in the run to make it 11-5, Yankees.
In the eighth, there was the first clean frame of the game, as the Cyclones went in order. The Yankees for their part only had a two-out hit batsman and a walk, which were stranded on a fly out to left. The top of the ninth was the second clean frame of the game, as Brooklyn went in order to seal up the 11-5 Yankees victory.
The Scorecard:
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| Cyclones vs. Yankees, 06/28/14. Yankees win, 11-5. |
The previous (and only) other time I visited, the scorecard was a photocopied one-sheet that didn't even come with a program, so in that regard, you can say that things have improved with the SI Yankees. The scorecard now comes in a color tabloid newspaper program that includes some of the standard minor-league program amenities.
But that color newsprint just rubs off on everything. Wearing light colors as I do in the summer to abate the heat, a few minutes of carrying the thing around made me look like a coal miner from the 19th century. It rubbed off
everywhere.
That said, the scorecard itself was both large and cramped. It got a page all to itself, but the actual scoring squares were tiny, an impression made more so by the fact that ball and strike boxes were included a'la Scoremaster, and space was taken up on both sides by an inch of space for the running line scores across the bottom that could have been better spent on more pitching lines. Some information in the scorecard was pre-printed ("Field" and "Start Time"), but overall the effort was rather poor, which no doubt explained the prevalence of personal scorecards that most of the regulars seemed to employ. They even put the home team on top, standing convention on its head, which had me scoring the scoring boxes despite my best efforts for nearly a half inning.
Scoring-wise, the interest was in errors and futility. There were
seven wild pitches in the game and four hit batsmen. (Two came back-to-back in the third with nary a warning from the umpires.) Ten walks littered the proceedings, and "only" four errors (though there were at least three more questionable calls that could have been scored either way that got a little home cooking, in my opinion). There was also an embarrassment of strikeouts, with
twenty-three whiffs by both teams.
With all that scoring and futility, it is not surprising that ten pitchers were also used by both sides, with the first pitching change happening in the bottom of the first inning. It was just a sloppy game, where the pitchers alternately could not get an out or couldn't be stopped from striking someone out. Of particular note was the fact that the Cyclones failed to have a clear 1-2-3 inning all game, while the Yankees only managed two.
I also logged what I think might be my first caught stealing at third (2-5), just given the rarity of the attempt.
The Accommodations:
Hoboken, after much sea travel
2014 Stand-Alone Trip
