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This one's for you, Seawolf.
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It was National Guard Day at the new New Britain (AA Eastern League) ballpark yesterday. The farm team of the Twins was playing host to the Connecticut Defender farm team of San Francisco.
MMYF, my daughter (who's husband is in the National Guard) and I got Rock Cats/ National Guard T-shirts as we went through the gate. One of the Guardsmen there knew my son-in-law. It was also Lou Gehrig /ALS day, and all in attendance received a Lou Gehrig baseball card, (made up special for the occasion) with his picture on the front and his career stats on the back (not individual years - they had to make room for the ALS logo and a place you could contribute).
As part of the opening ceremonies, a newscaster form the local NBC30 station read Lou's farewell speech. He was accompanied by a six or seven year old boy with the same last name as the newscaster. MMYF and my daughter wondered if the kid was from a first marrige, because they remembered the newscaster announced his "upcoming marriage" two years ago.
The new ballpark was built right next to the old ballpark, but the old one is still standing. It is now the home field of the local high school team. The concession stands are plentiful and varied. There is even a place where you can buy wine, but it was closed because of Connecticut's blue laws. I guess the laws don't cover beer. There are separate Sam Adams kiosks from places where they sell the other beer.
Regular parking is $3, "premium' parking is $5. In major league parks, premium means close to the ballpark. Here, is was farther away for two reasons:
If you park close to the single decked stadium, foul balls can hit your car.
It makes it easier to get out of the lot after the game.
Both reasons make sense.
New Britain is called "New Britski" because the town has a high percentage of Polish-Americans. MMYF was born there, but her family moved back to the Bronx when she was 2 years old. This was her first time back to the city, and other than the new ballpark, it looks like it hadn't changed much since she left.
It took me a while to find the pitch speed indicator because it isn't on the fancy new scoreboard. The scoreboard isn't a jumbo-tron, but has decent enough graphics to be considered a mini-tron.
We had decent seats - about ten rows behind the home (first base) dugout - almost in a straight line from first base to second.
As we settled into our seats, we heard the PA announcer say "Today's injury report is brought to you by St. Francis Hospital." At least it wasn't the local drug rehab clinic. Speaking of drugs, the players on both teams looked smaller than their listed heights and weights. Maybe they could use some enhancement, because both teams came into the game with team batting averages of under .250.
A guy named Slowey started for the Cats. He had pretty good command, but his pitches topped out at 88 MPH, and there wasn't much difference in speed between his heater and his breaking ball. I though he was 3 MPH away from being a good prospect.
My daughter liked the Cats' right fielder - a kid named Oeltjen - because he was from Australia and he was "cute". He is the only Cats hitter close to .300. The Cats also have a player named Molina. But unlike everyone else in the world with that name, he isn't a .240 hitting catcher. He's a .240 hitting second baseman.
The Defenders started a player named Sisk. I don't know if he is related to ex-Met pitcher Doug Sisk. But he is hitting under .200, so further investigation gets pushed to the back burner.
The Cats' left fielder named Guzman crushed a 2 run homer over the right center fence for the only real offense in the game. Its a good thing he hit it that hard, because the Defenders' centerfielder name Timpner made two great defensive plays in the game that earned him two stars each on my scorecard. I got the feeling that if Guzman's ball had stayed in the yard, Timpner would somehow have caught it.
The only player who's name I recognized was Cats' reliever Julio DePaula. He had a cuppa' joe (I later checked - it was four games) for the Twins. He had also been in A ball this year, so I guess it was for injury rehab. The injury must be better, because he hit 94 on the gun a few times. He pitched the last two innings to save the 4-1 Cats' victory.
Attendance was announced as 4,844 (it looks like the place can hold 15,000). If so, then many of them came disguised as empty seats. Someone near us said they usually draw much bigger crowds. But it was a beautiful sunny day on a holiday weekend, and he guessed folks were either away or doing the backyard cooking thing.
Sure enough, it was easy to get to our car and get out of the parking lot.
Fun Day. A good game, a T-shirt and a Lou Gehrig card. Scrapple8 where were you?
Later
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