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IdahoPilgrim

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Blog Entries posted by IdahoPilgrim

  1. IdahoPilgrim

    Swan Song

    By IdahoPilgrim,

    As the title of this blog entry indicates, I intend this to be the last entry. For reasons I won’t go into now I have basically curtailed my participation in this site and on this blog. That’s OK. My life is moving in new directions and the changes are exciting, and as I move on to new things it is only natural that some of my earlier passions diminish and fall by the side. I have been feeling, though, that one last blog entry was appropriate, even necessary, if only for the sake of giving myself closure.
     
    As I indicated in an earlier entry, this blog was started to keep a record of a trip I took in the summer of 2012 to visit each of the Twins minor league affiliates. The trip, which lasted almost three weeks, was not only a time to enjoy baseball. It was also in many ways a journey of discovery, as I used the time to heal both emotionally and spiritually from the accident I was in the previous fall that claimed the life of my mother and left me with a broken ankle. It was also a time to discern where God might be leading me next.
     
    In response to that discernment, late in 2012 I accepted the position of pastor at a Presbyterian church in Idaho, and thus last February I relocated to Pocatello, where I have since been serving. I talked about some of the changes I was experiencing in another blog entry last April. Now, about a year later, as I look back, I can reflect further on the journey on which God has taken me, with joy and gratitude, and with trust for what is ahead.
     
    One of the changes that is coming is that I am not going to be able to follow the Twins as closely as I have the past few years. I have decided, for a number of reasons, not to purchase a MLB.TV subscription this year. This means I will no longer have access to TV or radio broadcasts of the twins. I can still follow then on Gameday, but that is just not the same as watching or hearing. My baseball fix will be provided mostly by the Colorado Rockies (with former twins Hawkins, Cuddyer and Morneau) as I get their local TV feeds here in Idaho. I will still follow the Twins long-distance, of course, and my passion for them will not wane. But there will be a reduction in the amount of time I devote to them.
     
    That’s the only bad change coming. The rest is all good and reflective of the grace that God has shared with me this past year. First, things are going well in my ministry here in Pocatello. I have just passed the one year anniversary here and the congregation and I are on the cusp of an exciting time. We are beginning to talk together about what new things God may be doing among us and calling us to do. It is a discussion that I have been trained for and have experience in facilitating, and I am eager to see what comes out of this process.
     
    The biggest change on a personal level is, that for the first time in my life, I will soon be married. Shortly after moving here I began seeing a woman living about twenty-five miles away, in a neighboring town. The relationship has progressed and, particularly since late last fall, has deepened to the point where I have asked her to marry me and she has said yes. It will be a new time, a new beginning, in both of our lives as I learn how to share my life with her and as she learns how to put up with me. We are well-suited to each other, and she has even begun to appreciate baseball, to the point where she is willing to include a short stop in Seattle on our honeymoon to watch the Twins play the Mariners in July. (I will admit, though, I do tire somewhat of having to continually explain the dropped 3rd strike rule to her). I look forward to the life that we will build together, and the home that we will create (yes, I’m buying a house too.)
     
    So now is a natural time to look back, at where I have come from and the journey I have taken the past three years. I have walked through the valleys, and I have climbed to new heights that I never anticipated. And I know the future will continue to contain both, that life will continue to unfold. But I do feel as if a chapter in my life is closing, that a new one is beginning. I can now view the accident as part of my past and not part of my present. And I can look forward eagerly to where God will lead me and Brenda next.
     
    For those who have walked with me in this journey, I give my thanks. From those I have offended I ask pardon, and I give it freely to all who have challenged me. I appreciate how this site helped me through a difficult time in my life, and I wish you all well going forward. And I commend you all into God’s care.
     
    Oh, and one last thought – for those who question whether God has a sense of humor, consider this: The name of the street on which I have just purchased a house is … Homerun Street.
    Go figure.
  2. IdahoPilgrim

    What If?

    By IdahoPilgrim,

    I suppose I should start by admitting that I have a split personality – by “day” I am an ardent Twins fan, rooting for my team even when they do something stupid (which is all too often these days, but that’s another topic). At “night,” however, another side of me surfaces and I become one who is passionate about English football – and by football, I mean real football. Not the thing that millions of fans follow in this country that involves a prolate spheroid of artificial animal hide, but a game where it is actually against the rules to use your hands. Yes, I am a devoted fan of the English Premier League and Football League.
     
    With a season that runs from August to May, they are just now getting into their “spring training” mode in preparation for the resumption of football next month. I am, of course, gearing up for the season (just as I do I February for the Twins), and it has me thinking about the two sports in comparison – particularly the business aspects of each league. Thus the topic of this blog entry – what if? What if MLB had the same business structure as English football?
     
    To think about what that would mean, you have to be familiar with how they do business in their sports leagues across the pond. First, there are no franchises awarded by and ultimately controlled by a central league office as we have here. Each football club is an independent business, and the only way you get to play in the top league is if you have worked your way up the ladder (like players moving through our minors) and have earned a spot by success on the pitch (field). There is also the reality of relegation – at the end of the year, the teams who have fared worst end up getting relegated (demoted) to a lower level league, to make room for those who are moving up.
     
    There is also a significant difference in how player contracts are handled. While trades are possible, they are rare. Usually player movement is done through a transfer system, where a purchasing club pays cash for a player on a selling club. Then, the purchasing club has to negotiate contracts terms with the player himself – no play can be forced to move against their wishes. And there is no farm system to demote a player to who is underperforming. If you make a bad call and sign a player who just can’t cut it, you are stuck with that contract until it expires. You can, of course, choose to not play the person, but you do have to pay them.
     
    So what if those elements existed in Major League Baseball? Yes, I know, that is not how our system works and never will be, and I am not even arguing that it should. I’m just having fun speculating, what if? First, it would turn the whole selling-club/buying-club thing that happens each July on its head, because no longer could you equate a poor record with being a selling club. In the EPL, even the clubs near the bottom of the table have an incentive to improve. First, there is no draft, so no jockeying for draft position. Second, no club wants to get relegated, so nobody wants to finish near the bottom of the table (standings). Would we actually be talking about trading Perkins, Morneau, etc. and giving valuable playing time to Hicks, Arcia, Parmelee, etc. if the possible consequences of doing that was we’d be in the International League next year? The European system forces every team to take every game seriously, as if their sporting lives depended on it, because in their system it just might. And fans would know that they would be seeing "meaningful" games, even if the meaning is to just stay up and not be relegated.
     
    It would also eliminate all the games that teams play with their rosters every year, trying to work within the 25-man and 40-man roster rules. No more worrying about who we have to expose to waivers, or how can we find room for a new and valuable addition. No roster limits in the EPL, only what you can afford to pay in salaries. Agents would actually love the new system – they seem to do quite well for their clients across the pond.
     
    There would of course be warts and flaws – I am by no means implying that their system is better than ours. One of the downsides of their business structure is that competitiveness is reduced. Realistically, there are only about 4-5 teams (out of 20) that compete for the title every year, and it is difficult (if not impossible) for smaller market clubs to ever crack into that group. There are many fans who can’t even assuage the pain of 2013 by dreaming about 2015, because they know 2015 will just be the same – a fight not to succeed but just to survive (that should be familiar to people in Houston and Kansas City).
     
    But there is also one benefit that might come from this – an outlet for fan frustration when ownership seems unresponsive. Don’t like what the Pohlad’s are doing? Then start a new ballclub, one owned by the fans. Enter into one of the lower leagues, work your way up through the system, and maybe one day you can take out your frustrations on them on the field. That’s something that does happen in England – think FC United of Manchester, AFC Liverpool, and AFC Wimbledon. All clubs started by fans in protest against ownership, and particularly in AFC Wimbledon’s case eventually meeting the other club on the field of play in a competitive match.
     
    Yes, this is fantasy – this is “speculative fiction.” But then, what’s so wrong with that? What is wrong with asking, “What if?”
  3. IdahoPilgrim
    One of the topics being ardently discussed by the Twins fanbase these days is the status of Kyle Gibson and his recovery from Tommy John surgery. As a part of that discussion much has been made of the 130-inning limit to which Gibson is being held – indeed, it has become for some the focus of the discussion. If Gibson has only so many innings before he is shut down this year, then doesn’t it make sense to have him “spend” those innings with the parent club, getting MLB experience in preparation for next year? Indeed, there are few topics which evoke such passion right now than how the front office is handling Gibson’s recovery.
     
    The problem is, I’m not sure that that limit exists. I’m going to buck the trend here and challenge the conventional wisdom and say that it probably does not, at least not in the way most are using the term. Oh, I have no doubt that there is an internal target number that the organization is looking at, beyond which they will treat Gibson with kid gloves, shutting him down at the first sign of arm weakness or fatigue. Indeed, I would be disappointed if they did not. But I believe he will be allowed to pitch until that moment comes, regardless of his inning total. I choose to take Terry Ryan at his word when he said in March that such a hard inning limit does not exist.
     
    Minnesota Twins send Kyle Gibson down, can't wait to bring him back - TwinCities.com
     
    So where did this idea of the 130-inning limit come from? I think it starts last year and the Stephen Strasburg situation in Washington. In his case there was a firm limit, which was announced very publicly early in the season, preparing the fanbase for why Strasburg, their ace, might not be available to pitch in the playoffs. That put the whole question of inning limits after TJ surgery center stage in the eyes of the public. Add to that Kyle Gibson’s recovery from TJ surgery and it was natural for Twins fans to raise the same question regarding our young pitcher.
     
    The next piece is from an article on 1500espn.com that Phil Mackey published last November. In that article Mackey indicated that Ryan had told him earlier in the off-season that Gibson would be on a 130-140 inning limit, similar to Atlanta’s Kris Medlin who pitched 138 innings in his first full season back.
     
    Mackey: How does a 'healthy' Kyle Gibson fit into Twins' 2013 plans? | 1500 ESPN Twin Cities ? Minnesota Sports News & Opinion (Twins, Vikings, Wolves, Wild, Gophers) | Sportswire: Minnesota Twins
     
    From that point, the 130-140 inning limit became standard fodder, being picked up by bloggers and others and passed on regularly. Preseason analysis from the likes of Rhett Bollinger and others also perpetuated the idea, although they did call it an expectation rather than hard information from management. Soon it was the standard on which all forum threads on Gibson were based. And so here we are today.
     
    I of course could be wrong – there may indeed be an arbitrary number beyond which Gibson will not be allowed to go, one that has not been made public because that is just not the Twins way. But what if I’m not? What if my supposition is correct, and Ryan wasn’t just trying to fool us all in March? What if Gibson pitches for the rest of the season, although probably with extra days of rest? What does that say about how we handle information in the internet age?
     
    One thing it would remind us is how easy supposition can become “fact” just through the process of repetition. That’s something that is not limited to this case, of course. It’s become common in life in general, particularly in politics. The hard-cores on both the left and the right have become adept in repeating the same item of misinformation so often that it has become factual in the minds of many who listen to them. Think Barack Obama and the furor over his birth certificate. The challenge, then, is to always make sure of our sources before we take as definitive something we’ve read in a blog or forum (or a newspaper or magazine article too, for that matter).
     
    It also should remind us that wisdom comes not from always following the crowd, but from recognizing that wisdom is often something that has to be pieced together from multiple sources, never clearly revealed in any one source but only truly seen in composite. Kind of like a jigsaw puzzle – all the pieces have to be properly placed before the true picture emerges. Thus the challenge is to have the patience to truly investigate a question from all sides, and only when we have all the pieces can we truly put the puzzle together. And yes, that means listening to people with whom we disagree, recognizing that even from their words we can learn and grow even if we can not adopt their views and positions wholeheartedly.
     
    Finally, it reminds us nothing is carved in stone and the ability to adapt is a hallmark of the human condition. The two articles I linked above seem to be contradictory. Until you remember that one was published in November and the other in March. I have no difficulty believing both are accurate. Any change in stance comes from being willing to reassess the situation as more data comes in, in this case as they watch Gibson during spring training. That’s something every organization and every individual needs to be able to do, to always be willing to be flexible and change our views when new information merits it. It is only when we become so hard and fast in our positions that we stop looking for new information, that we stop being willing to test our beliefs, that we become in danger of ossifying and becoming irrelevant, and of having a fast-changing world pass us by.
  4. IdahoPilgrim
    A few years ago controversy erupted when Derek Jeter was mistakenly ruled to have been hit by a pitch and took first base at the umpire’s direction. Jeter admitted later that the ball had hit his bat, not his person, but that the umpire had made a ruling and he just abided by it. The subsequent controversy was about the role of ethics in sports. We all know that game officials, like players and everybody else, are human and make mistakes. Blown calls are a part of the game, and while they sometimes affect the outcome there really is no good way to eliminate them completely. Even some of those who admitted that Jeter was technically correct to take the base, though, were troubled by the message this seemingly sent to our youth – if you can cheat and get away with it, it’s not cheating.
     
    This is not anything new in sports, of course. Think of the retaliatory bean ball Scott Diamond threw last year – if that ball is not near the head the game goes on with no ejection, even though everybody in the park knew it was coming. In other sports as well, particularly in soccer and basketball, players will go down spectacularly after contact in an attempt to draw a call that may or may not be legitimate. I’ve heard it said that in every play in the NFL offensive holding could be called if the rule was strictly enforced, and defenders also have their bag of dirty tricks (not to mention bounty-gate, bugging locker rooms, and manipulating air flow in a stadium). This has been going on ever since organized sports began.
     
    And in some sense we can and should expect that, as this mirrors life itself. Think taxes – how many people won’t indulge the opportunity to reduce their tax bill by playing in the gray areas if possible? How many drive over the speed limit, using as their justification that everybody else does it? Dirty tricks have been a staple of politics for centuries. It certainly seems like, in whatever area of life, we are not inclined to allow ourselves to be guided by the “better angels of our nature.”
     
    That’s why I have always enjoyed golf. Golf seemed to be an area where honesty and integrity were something embodied, not just in the rules, but in the very approach to the game. The stewards of the game even sold that as golf’s image, talking about how our youth can learn these values through both the rules and the culture of golf. Yes, I know that in reality people are just as likely to cheat in golf as in any other aspect of life. The foot wedge is still an essential club in many golfers’ bags. The first-tee mulligan has become almost an institution in itself. Yet, in spite of that, the ethos of the sport was still that the spirit of the law had to accompany the letter of the law. Looking for a loophole to squeeze through was the exception rather than the expectation. We still remember Bobby Jones calling a penalty on himself that ended up costing him the U.S. Open title. It was still the hope that, in at least one area of our life, how we played the game was more important than whether or not we won.
     
    Now, that is gone too. Yesterday at Augusta Tiger Woods made a mistake and took a bad drop. Whether he intended to do so or not is immaterial. It happened, and it gave him an unfair advantage compared to the field. Today he was assessed a two stroke penalty, in recognition, but because an official at the time ruled the drop proper Mr. Woods was not disqualified as would normally be the result of turning in an incorrect scorecard. On the one hand, the ruling makes sense. If the official had ruled the drop improper at the time the penalty would have been assessed and the scorecard corrected.
     
    Yet it doesn’t change the fact that the whole thing feels sour to me. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. He should have known the rules about how and where to drop (and my guess is that he did), regardless of whether the official made a mistake. And I can’t but think that Bobby Jones, if he were here and had made the same mistake, would have voluntarily disqualified himself once it was pointed out to him. That won’t happen here; not at a major tournament in the 21st century, and comparing it to other sports, I can understand that. It fits the pattern that cheating is only cheating if you don’t get away with it.
     
    But I do think our commitment to ethics, honesty and fair play have died just a little bit this weekend. Never again will golf be a sport that can be an example for integrity, a sport where the bottom line was not the thing that mattered most. Now it’s just a part of the rest of our world, where results are what really count, and how we get there doesn’t matter if we win. Say farewell to Bobby Jones; from now on there will be only Derek Jeters.
  5. IdahoPilgrim

    Changes

    By IdahoPilgrim,

    First, the good news: On Monday, I watched the Twins home/season opener on my TV here in Idaho (thanks to a newly purchased MLB.TV subscription and a brand-new HDMI cable running from my laptop to my TV).
     
    Now, the bad news: On Monday, I watched the Twins home/season opener on my TV here in Idaho (thanks to a newly purchased MLB.TV subscription and a brand-new HDMI cable running from my laptop to my TV).
     
    I knew when I accepted my new call and moved out to Idaho there would be changes, but as I was watching the game from the comfort of my new living room (being the boss has its advantages, including taking a half day off on a Monday afternoon) those changes were driven home to me in a powerful way.
     
    Ideally, of course, I would have been at the Twins opener – near freezing temperatures notwithstanding. I had been to the last two, and I had been looking forward to many more. Now, I’m watching it on long-distance TV. I had been attending about a dozen games a year at Target Field; now the best I can hope for is a rookie-level team an hour up the road that won’t even start playing until mid-June.
     
    It is new and uncharted territory for me. I know that many others also struggle with being ardent fans from a distance, but having just moved away from Minneapolis I find myself all too aware that it just will not be quite the same. There’s something about being at the park that can’t be replicated; there’s something about seeing the players in person that gets lost on television. So I find myself learning to adjust, adapt, change. I will continue to watch the Twins remotely when my schedule permits, of course. But there will be more needed to fill the gap. So what will that be?
     
    First, it looks like that will be the Colorado Rockies. While both Seattle and Denver are equidistant from me, after getting my cable setup and reviewing the channel listings I find that the regional sports channel I receive is from Denver and not from Seattle. I’m actually not that disappointed with this, as it might be kind of novel to watch national league baseball on a regular basis. Granted, the Colorado Rockies might not have been my first choice, but at least it’ll be a regular fix of MLB play.
     
    And then yesterday another key piece of the puzzle fit into place. I was driving down the road, happening to pass the local “stadium” on my way back from the church, when I noticed the full parking lot. Turning in, I walked through the open gates (no admission) and took a seat in the moderately filled stands. For the next hour or so, I take in the last part of a local high school team playing a division rival. The game is not pretty (the home team gets shellacked 13-0 and the game is called after five innings due to a mercy rule), but it is baseball! Indeed, there’s something energizing about watching the raw game in itself, full of warts and without the polished sheen of professionalism. There’s something captivating about it. Watching the opposing fielder turn toward the wall as a ball sails over the fence for a home run is exhilarating regardless of the level of play. Seeing the rueful smile on the face of the batter when he realizes he got fooled on that last pitch for strike three to end the inning – it resonates even here.
     
    The high school season will only last about another month or so, but it gets me thinking. There are bound to be other opportunities this summer. There will be amateur leagues in town; there will be baseball. No announcers, bare-bones scoreboards, no names on the backs of the jerseys. But there will be baseball, and it will be fun to watch.
     
    I’ll still follow the Twins, of course; I’ll face to the east (toward Target Field) when I say my baseball prayers. But even here, in Pocatello, there will be baseball. Live baseball. Real baseball. And suddenly things don’t seem quite so bad.
  6. IdahoPilgrim

    Miracles

    By IdahoPilgrim,

    As I sit here getting myself ready to celebrate Easter, thinking of miracles (Easter is, of course, a time to celebrate the central miracle of my faith), I find my mind turning to the upcoming MLB season. What miracles can we hope to see this year? What dreams do we have for the coming season? What needs to happen for us, at the end of the year, to know that something wonderful and unexpected has happened? Here are the miracles I’m hoping for this year:
     
    The miracle of Mauer and Morneau returning to their form of a few years ago, anchoring a lineup supplemented by Willingham, Parmelee, Plouffe (who does NOT have a sophomore slump), Doumit and Hicks (who surprises everybody and is a ROY candidate).
     
    The miracle of a rotation with a sub-4.50 ERA and starters who can regularly take the game into the seventh inning (and occasionally the eighth). Anybody remember that complete game Walters pitched last season? Thank you, sir, may I have another?
     
    The miracle of a middle infield that routinely makes the routine plays and which makes "pitch to contact" not necessarily a thing to be feared (a little help with the bats wouldn't hurt either).
     
    The miracle of a bullpen that is tried and true so that when the door to center field opens we can be filled with optimism and hope rather than fear and trembling.
     
    The miracle of health as the inevitable injuries are mild in comparison to other teams, allowing us the luxury of putting our best team on the field more often than not, eliminating the need to bring players up from Rochester who are not ready or able to contribute.
     
    The miracle of a coaching staff that knows how to teach, and of players who are willing to learn, fundamental baseball, throwing to the correct cutoff and knowing when to try to take the extra base.
     
    The miracle of a Twins community that gathers around and supports the players (whether they agree with the acquisition or not) rather than cutting them down, and that is more concerned with looking for the bright spots than finding reasons to be bitter and resentful.
     
    And most of all, the miracle that, whatever happens, whatever position we finish in, we can look back in October at the season just passed, with a smile on our face, and say, “Wow, what a ride!” and then go into the offseason having thoroughly enjoyed another year of Twins baseball.
  7. IdahoPilgrim
    As I write this I am reading that the United States has crashed out of the World Baseball Classic (again) and will end up officially in 6th place – just below Cuba. I find myself of two minds about this. On the one hand, I share the understandable disappointment in the results. On the other, I find myself wondering if I should even care. After all, if MLB and the MLBPA don’t take this tournament seriously, why should I?
     
    Let me back up a bit and explain why I make that admittedly unfair statement (that MLB & MLBPA don’t care). Yes, the game has indeed gone international, and MLB-caliber players are now found in many different countries. Yes, a tournament of this nature is often decided by who is hottest and not who is best. Yes, it takes place in the spring before the US players are back in prime playing shape. Yet I still feel we should be doing better – after three tournaments, the US has never finished higher than fourth.
     
    For me, the answer is simple – we’re not playing our best team. Granted, the team is much improved compared to previous iterations, and participants such as Joe Mauer and Ryan Braun show that interest is picking up, but the US roster is still notable more for who is not present than who is. It reminds me of Olympic basketball. For years, we dominated internationally one of the games we created. Then we stopped getting the results because the quality of play internationally improved to the point where our collegiate athletes could no longer be competitive. It wasn’t until the Bird-Jordan-Johnson dream team that we regained our dominance.
     
    That’s where I think we are in the World Baseball Classic. If we’re going to take this tournament seriously, than it’s time to send out our A-team and not just those willing to play. MLB & MLBPA have said they want this to become like the soccer World Cup. That will never happen until every country puts out their best players, and not just the best players who choose to participate. In soccer, FIFA regulations require clubs to make players available for international duty. As a result, the top players virtually all participate in their quadrennial classic, and hence the interest around the world.
     
    Now, I recognize that the structure of baseball is different than the structure of association football. I know that players can not be compelled to play, nor do I think MLB & MLBPA should try. But unless more efforts are made to encourage/cajole/entice a higher level of participation from our best players, this tournament will never fulfill the dream it’s creators have for it. And until that happens, I just have to keep asking myself the question – should I even care?
  8. IdahoPilgrim
    Back when I was growing up I had a poster that proudly proclaimed “All I really need to know in life I learned from watching Star Trek.” Teachings such as “Remember the Prime Directive” and “Set phasers on stun” resonated with me then and still do today. As I start getting myself psyched up for the coming baseball season, though, I have found myself thinking that in many ways baseball, in addition to entertaining, can also teach us about life. Hence my thoughts on what I can learn about life from baseball.
     
    1) Individualism vs teamwork – Yes, following individual statistics is fascinating, but at the end of the day how well an individual pitcher or hitter does is less important than whether the team wins. It is a reminder that success is defined more by what we can do together than by what we can do separately. It is also a reminder that sometimes the “glory” positions aren’t the ones that make the final difference. Home runs and strikeouts are fun to watch, but sometimes it’s the outfielder throwing to the proper base that decides the game. Everyone has a contribution to make, and everyone’s contribution matters.
     
    2) Errors happen – Even the best fielder is going to make a few mistakes over the course of a season. Nobody is perfect. And, yes, sometimes those errors will cost runs or even the game. The question is, will the players let those errors get to them and affect their performance, or are they able to shake them off? That’s what the best players do – they refuse to allow them to fester inside their heads. We are going to make mistakes in life. That’s human nature. We can choose to fixate on our mistakes, or we can learn from them and “play better” in the future.
     
    3) Umpires too make mistakes – All of us remember the playoff game a few years ago when the outfield umpire completely blew it, calling a ball hit to left foul when it was easily fair. Almost invariably in a game one manager (or both) will rush to the field to protest a call. Just as a matter of practicality, though, how often does the umpire actually change the call? At the end of the day, you have to continue playing the rest of the game – you can’t just take your ball and go home. There will be times when life isn’t fair. That’s just the way it is. The best thing we can do is not let ourselves fixate on that unfairness and allow it to keep us from continue trying and working for what is right. Life isn’t fair – get over it.
     
    4) You have to play all nine innings – Unlike other sports, there is no clock in baseball (part of why I like it). At the end of the day, you have to get 27 outs from the other side if you want to win. 26 won’t cut it. In the same way, until you give up that 27th out, you still have a chance (think St. Louis in 2011 world series). Sometimes we do get to those places in life where it seems like things are hopeless. That’s the time for us to remember that there is still more “game” to go, and as long as we’re alive we have a chance to do it better, to make a difference, to turn things around.
     
    5) It’s just a game – I am as passionate (or more so) than most about baseball, yet I always remember that, at the end of the day, this isn’t life. It’s entertainment. The point is to HAVE FUN! In the same way, life, while it is more than just a game, is meant to be enjoyed. Will there be times of pain and sorrow, times of frustration and anger? Absolutely. But I hope I never lose sight of the fact that life is ultimately a gift and a blessing, one that we are meant to treasure and in which we rejoice always.
  9. IdahoPilgrim
    It’s a ritual that happens every spring. In caves and dens around the country black and brown bears are gradually starting to claw their way to consciousness. The long winter’s sleep is winding down and once again the a new year dawns, filled with times of opportunity and times of crisis, with the chance to excel in the ritual of life and the danger of losing the battle once for all.
     
    In many ways that’s what I feel like as I head into Super Bowl Sunday. Yes, for one more weekend my attention is going to be firmly fixed on twenty-two grown men pummeling each other into oblivion. I will devoutly watch as a prolate spheroid of pigskin (artificial of course) is handed and passed back and forth and, every once in a while, touches someone’s foot (hence the name of the sport).
     
    And then, the way is clear for the boys of summer to come front and center once again. I will admit that, after the world series last year, I kind of drifted away from following the team for a while. Oh, I read the occasional story about which free agent signed and which free agent didn’t. I surfed the internet to see the reaction of the fans to this and that (ho hum!). I even put in my order for BA’s 2013 prospect handbook (it came today!). But for the last three months the Twins just were not high on my radar screen. I can of course make all kinds of excuses. I was preoccupied with my search for a new position (mission accomplished!); I was too busy following the NHL lockout; we actually had some basketball teams that were worth watching for a while (it didn’t last, of course). But the truth is that somehow my baseball sense just went into hibernation – waiting out the lean months of winter.
     
    But I feel that ending as we get close to the date when pitchers and catchers initiate the 2013 season. I find myself heading back to the Twins Daily site on a more regular basis, leafing through the forums in a way I haven’t done since November. I scour the map to find out where the nearest professional team is to the city in which I shall be living (a Rookie team 45 minutes down the road), and then looking up their 2013 schedule on the web. I read through who will be invited to the Twins camp, and I find myself looking forward in eager anticipation, even if some of the names make me cringe a little (OK, a lot).
     
    Because regardless of how good or bad the team might look on paper, regardless of the chatter on this and other sites about how many wins (or losses) we can expect this season, right now the Twins are tied for first place, not having lost a single game. Which means there’s hope! OK, perhaps it’s not much hope (although I see that Reusse, the eternal pessimist, is actually looking for an upside surprise this year), but it is still hope. It’s like every May when I brush the dust off my golf clubs and head out for that first round of golf. There is hope that this year will be different, that somehow the multiple major flaws in my swing will have magically self-corrected over the winter. It may not last much beyond the first round (first hole? first tee?) but at least for a moment I can dream.
     
    That’s how I feel about the Twins right now. For the moment, I can still dream. Forget about whether the dream is tied or not to reality – no dream is. Forget about what the landscape will look like in July. Right now we all start fresh. Spring is a time of renewal and new life. I choose to feel that in my love of baseball as well. Reality can come later. But for now I wish to rise from my baseball slumbers and look ahead to the day(season) with anticipation and optimism. For at least a time, the magic can start again.
  10. IdahoPilgrim

    Addiction

    By IdahoPilgrim,

    Note: The following entry is not in any way meant to mock or make light of those with real addictions. I know all too well the struggles that are associated with addictions of all types, and the effect it can have on lives. Please read this in the humorous spirit in which it is meant.
     
    It is mid-September. The Twins are twenty-four games under .500, getting their clocks cleaned 9-1 by Kansas City last night. It is raining and dreary out. So what is the highlight of my day? The release of the 2013 Twins schedule! Almost immediately after it is posted I am marking my calendar, pouring over the pages, seeing who’s coming in when, and beginning to think ahead to what teams I’m going to want to see, and where I might want to sit. It is only after a couple of hours of this that the sad truth is driven home to me – I am addicted to Twins baseball.
     
    How do I know it is an addiction? Because it fits all the symptoms:
     

    Preoccupation with all things Twins-related (how many times a day do I visit this site?);
    Impaired control over behavior (I just can’t turn the game off no matter how bad it is);
    Continued use for short-term gratification regardless of long-term consequences (ulcers);
    Rationalization used to justify continued interest (there’s always tomorrow);
    Wasting of financial resources to enable behavior ($13 parking, overpriced concessions, yet still I go);
    Withdrawal (I’m already starting to get the shakes with the off-season approaching).

     
    Yes, I can now admit that I am powerless over the hold Twins baseball has on me. The question is, what happens next? Is there a power than can restore sanity to my life? Perhaps a small group can be formed, with regular meetings, to help me manage the effects of this addiction (“Hi, my name is Steve, and I’m a Twins fan.”) Maybe I can get a Sponsor, someone I can call when I feel the urge to go to a ballgame. I could move somewhere where Twins baseball is not readily available, to remove the temptation (although given MLB.TV I’m not sure where that would be). Perhaps a less-damaging substitute, with fewer side effects (Minnesota Lynx?). Maybe even check into a clinic, isolate myself completely, no internet, no radio, no cable, no newspapers – anything necessary to help me go cold turkey and detox once and for all.
     
    The problem is, none of this will work, because when I am truly honest with myself I realize I lack the most important ingredient in any recovery: the desire to get better. No matter how many times I try to cure myself of this, recidivism is inevitable. I have to admit to myself that no matter how much hold the Minnesota Twins have over me, I crave only more. For me there is no rock-bottom (even after these past two seasons); I am happy in my addiction and in the hope that some day pain will turn to pleasure. So here I sit again, watching tonight’s game, storing up baseball to get me through the long winter months, and already dreaming of what will be next year. GO TWINS!!
  11. IdahoPilgrim
    NOTE: This entry is a postscript to my series of entries describing my game-day experiences on a tour of the Minnesota Twins farm system; it describes what led me to make this trip in the first place. Please be advised that it is very different from what has gone before in this series. It is longer, more personal and, in contrast to the light-hearted tone I tried to take with the previous entries, it is written from a more serious perspective and has a strong spiritual component. If this is not your cup of tea please just skip over this post and go do something else. If, having read this disclaimer, you still want to know why I did this, read on.
     
     
     
     
     
    I guess you could say that the idea to take this trip has its roots going back to Labor Day 2011 when my mother and I were in an hiking accident along the river bluffs southeast of the Twin Cities. The details of the accident are immaterial, but the result was my mother lost her life and I was left with a broken ankle. It was two-plus months before I could use my left leg and another two-plus months in outpatient therapy building my strength back up and learning to walk normally again. During that time of healing and recovery I spent much of my emotional (and physical) energy both grieving the loss and settling the business affairs of the estate, including fixing up and selling the house where I had grown up and where she had lived for forty years. In addition, the church I had been serving as interim pastor finally concluded their search for new permanent leadership, so I found myself without employment (fortunately, the inheritance eliminated any short-term financial concerns).
     
    As the work progressed on the house to the point where it was ready to list, and as the estate began to be wrapped up, I began to look ahead to what might be next in my life. In one sense, I knew this was a new beginning. Always before I had had members of my immediate family as a part of my life. Now, with my mother’s death (preceded by my sister five years ago and my dad in 1999), and being a lifelong bachelor, I am in a real sense entering new and uncharted territory. The simple question I have been asking myself is, What do I do now? Is it time to get back to my called profession and look for a church where God might be leading me to serve? Or do I go a new direction and look for a new career entirely? Do I stay in the Twin Cities area (I had moved back here a few years earlier out of concern for my mother’s health) or do I consider relocating? And if so, to where?
     
    I was aware of the biblical tradition of how the ancient prophets discerned God’s will for their lives – by spending time in the wilderness and allowing God to speak to them in their wanderings. The story of Elijah, fleeing from Ahab and Jezebel and taking refuge on Mount Horeb, and there hearing the voice of God in the silence of the night, was particularly poignant. In a similar way, many other cultures have the tradition of a “vision quest” when seeking direction for their lives. Then, as I was driving back from a short camping trip at one of Minnesota’s many state parks, I heard an interview on public radio with a woman who, after the death of her mother, made it her goal to hike the Appalachian Trail, and subsequently did so. The idea began to take shape that I needed to find some way to go on a quest or do something out of the ordinary, both as a part of the grieving process and as a way of seeking direction for the future.
     
    It was about this time, in April, when the Twins season kicked off, and since I didn’t really have anything else better to do with my time I began to follow not just the parent club but to keep track of the farm teams as well. One evening, while perusing the box scores, the idea came to me to visit some of the teams – perhaps Beloit, or perhaps New Britain and Rochester because their proximity to each other. And then, finally, why not visit all of them? I promptly dismissed the idea as both expensive and excessive (it would take 2-3 weeks to accomplish), but the idea continued to linger. If I was looking for a longer time of reflection and journeying, would this not work? And then, getting out the calendar and sitting down and looking at the home schedules of each team, it became clear that there was a perfect window of opportunity to actually do this trip if I wanted to. It was almost as if the schedules had been designed with the intent of making this trip possible. From that point on I began to realize that this was something, not just that I wanted to do, but something that I had to do. The final straw was when my mother’s house sold, receiving an offer less than a month after listing and closing at a fair price in less than two. This final removal of an impediment, when many houses are sitting for months without interest, signalled to me that the trip was meant to be, so the planning began in earnest, and on Tuesday July 31st I headed out on I-94 for the first leg of this odyssey.
     
    The idea of writing about it comes in part from that interview I heard on public radio (the woman in question actually wrote a book about her experiences), and also from my participation on the Twins Daily site, which I discovered in early May. I had posted many comments on the forum threads, and I knew that some also blogged about this or that. I had toyed with the idea of blogging as well, but never did so because there was never a topic on which I really felt the need to write. I will say that when the trip started I was still on the fence on whether I would blog about it or not, but the day after the first game I just sat down and started typing and my thoughts flowed out naturally and formed the first entry. I decided from the start that this would be written primarily for myself, to help me document my own experiences and allow me to go back later in life and look at this trip again, to allow me to relive it. If others found the entries interesting, that would be a bonus, but if not, it didn’t really matter to me. This was a part of my own process of healing and discernment.
     
    So did the trip accomplish what I hoped? I would say yes. I saw a lot of good baseball (which in itself was part of why I did this), and it was good to see parts of America that I hadn’t visited in years, and to just be on the road and travelling. More importantly, though, it did the job of getting me out on an extended “quest” in which I could allow God to speak to me and give me direction. In that respect, it turns out that the drives between the cities were more important than the games themselves. While I occasionally let the radio search for stations to pass the time from place to place, for the most part I drove in silence, with only my thoughts for company. Winding through the Appalachians, heading down through South Carolina into Georgia and Florida, going back up the coast on those marathon days between Fort Myers and Hartford, driving through the genteel countryside of Connecticut – those all became times for God to speak in the silence of my soul. There is no one point that I can look at and say “This is the moment” when I knew what God wanted next. But, through the process of the whole journey, I did come to what I believe was a discernment, and I now have a gameplan for the direction I go from here. Whether it works out as I hope and expect, who knows? In one sense, I have a process in mind and not an endpoint, so God could still lead me in new and unexpected ways. But I do enter this new time in my life with gratitude for what I had before, for the joys and blessings my family gave me while they were with me and for the legacies they left me, both tangible and intangible. I enter it with a renewed sense of purpose and a willingness for God to lead me wherever God chooses. And I enter it having watched a lot of baseball, which is always a good thing.
  12. IdahoPilgrim
    It was noted elsewhere that this week attendance dropped below 30,000 at Target Field for the first time in its history. Some saw that as a harbinger of doom, leading to a vicious cycle of depressed revenues followed by lower payroll followed by a poorer product on the field followed by depressed revenues followed by...
     
    My own take: At last! This is what I’ve been waiting for since Target Field opened. Don’t get me wrong – it was fun to see a full ballpark for a while. But I’m glad the honeymoon is over. Why? Because I don’t like crowds. That’s not to say I don’t like people. In small, carefully controlled quantities people are great. But I’ve never liked when it gets to the point where you don’t have any elbow room. That’s why I’m always of two minds about going to the State Fair. I enjoy the experience, at first, but after a couple of hours the throngs have begun to wear on me and I start thinking about a quick exit.
     
    Thinking back on my tour of the Twins farm system the two most enjoyable game-day experiences were in New Britain and in Elizabethton. In both cases, attendance was about two-thirds of stadium capacity. The other parks felt too empty. At the 2/3-capacity level, though, there was enough crowd to provide a lively atmosphere and yet still enough free seats to be able to spread out and move around and not be crowded (and in one case to flee the merciless rays of the sun). Somewhere in the 65%-75% range felt like a good mix.
     
    Translating that metric to Target Field, and you have a desired audience in the 25,000-30,000 range. The concourses are not quite so crowded, the concession stand and restroom lines are more reasonable, and you don’t have to worry about getting seated next to someone who will ... ah... hamper the game-day experience for you.
     
    You also have the advantage of flexibility in going to games. One of the things I hated about the first couple of years in the new stadium is the difficulty in making a same-day decision to go see a ballgame. For good parts of those seasons they were sold out in advance. I remember going down one time and having to make the choice between a standing-room ticket and going home empty after having paid for parking. Now, I can look at the weather, see how I feel, and, when the time and mood are right, head out to the park on a whim and catch a game. That was part of what I enjoyed about my minor league experience, and I’m glad those days are back for the Twins.
     
    Is there a chance that attendance will fall to a point where the stadium becomes less lively? Of course. I remember some of those days in the Metrodome, and they were not pretty. I hope it never becomes a ghost town on game day. But I for one welcome the return of casual baseball, when I can get up that morning, with nothing planned, and say “Hey, I think I’ll catch a Twins game today.”
  13. IdahoPilgrim
    As I watched the game on TV last night (trying to put comparative images of The Towering Inferno out of my mind) I found myself wondering why I even loved this game so much. I even tried watching some basketball instead, but inevitably my finger kept moving toward the “last” button on the remote to check back on the game. Why? What is it about baseball that has me so ensnared, even when my home team is the Minnesota Twins? After reflection, here are five reasons I still love the game – even this year.
     
     

    There’s no clock. One of my pet peeves is sports that play games with the clock for competitive advantage. The final two minutes of a basketball game can take fifteen minutes to play. After the two-minute warning football changes its stripes completely and becomes a whole new animal. Hockey is better as you can’t stop the clock in the middle of the action with a time-out, but stalling tactics are still common. But in baseball, you can’t just run out the clock when you have a lead. You have to make that final play, get that last out, before the game can end. I remember watching last year’s World Series. Twice in game six Texas was one pitch away from winning it all. But they couldn’t get that last pitch, and St. Louis ended up winning the series. In baseball you have to finish what you started; there are no shortcuts.
    The relaxed pace of play. I know the trend these days is for more extreme games, with more speed, more contact, more “rad.” I guess I’m showing my age here, because I like the more deliberate gameplay of baseball. Do the dead times between pitches sometimes get heavy? To be sure. I do prefer a pitcher who cuts that down to a minimum and doesn’t dilly around before getting set up for the next pitch. But I like that you don’t have to keep your eye on the screen every second of every minute for fear of missing the action. It’s easier to pay attention and I prefer the more relaxed atmosphere.
    I love the sense of history that goes with the game. More than any other of the professional sports, baseball is tied to the history of America. The professional game has roots from before the Civil War and the current league system came into being in the waning days of Reconstruction. Since then baseball has been a part of the American scene. This was something that was driven home to me afresh when I visited Cooperstown this summer. It truly is the national pastime, even if football has usurped it in popularity in recent years.
    The gap between the “rich” and the “poor” is smaller than the other sports. No, I’m not talking economics here (and certainly not politics). I’m talking about the chances of a home fan seeing a win, regardless of who the home team is. Even the top teams in baseball struggle to win more than 60% of their games, and even the worst teams can usually manage to win 35-40% (Houston excepted, of course). Yes, you have stars, and some teams are perennially better than others, but even a Twins fan like myself can go to the ballpark with a reasonable hope of seeing a win. Hockey is also better in that way (which is part of why I like hockey too, and also because I played it), but in basketball and football if you have a bad team there just isn’t much incentive to go watch the team play. You can go for the atmosphere, for the whole game-day experience, but you don’t go for the game, which you know in advance will probably suck. More than any other sport, a baseball fan of even a bad team can enter the stadium with hope.
    There’s always tomorrow. I used to love watching football; my family had Vikings season tickets back when they were going to Super Bowls. Now, my interest is almost nonexistant. Why? Because I got tired, whenever the Vikings or Gophers lost, of being depressed for a whole freaking week. Life is too short for that. In baseball, even if you lose, there is always the (decent) chance that tomorrow will be different – you don’t have to wallow in it. Even in a bad season, you can look forward to the next day when maybe they’ll win and you’ll go to bed feeling satisfied rather than depressed. As a person of faith, I like hope. I prefer looking ahead to the good days to come than obsessing over past losses. In baseball I can do that more than the other spectator sports.

     
    That’s why I love baseball.
  14. IdahoPilgrim
    So what kind of fan am I? When I was in Fort Myers that was one of the season-long advertising gimmicks they were touting – the varied nature of those who attend ballgames. Yesterday, attending my first Twins game since my minor league trip (I love watching a pitching duel!), I found myself thinking back to the various minor league parks I was at and comparing them to the relative cathedral that is Target Field. I also found myself thinking about who had attended those games, and who I saw around me last night.
     
    I have never been a big fan of “there are two types of people...” mantras, but in this case it seems appropriate. On the one hand there are those for whom the game itself actually matters, whose primary purpose in attending is to watch and follow a game of baseball. There are various subgroups they divide into, which I will touch on later, but for them the game itself is the center of the experience. Then there is the other segment for which the game may be interesting but they are there more for the whole package, on-field and off-field. This includes the family outings with kids (most of whom have lost interest in the game by the fourth inning but still enjoy going to the park); it includes those who focus as much or more on the culinary options than upon the construction of the lineup; it includes those who are there for special events or group outings, or who are attending their first game with a group of their friends. Personally I tend to fall into the first group – when I go to a baseball game, I want to focus on the baseball (which is part of why I like keeping score so much – it keeps me focused on the action on the field). I suspect, however, that I am in the minority on most nights.
     
    Even in that first group I see some differentiation, however. There are those who are schooled in the game, most of whom have played the game itself. These are they who know the nuances of how the game is played, who recognize the variations in where the fielders station themselves based on situation, who can tell a “good at-bat” from a “bad at-bat,” and who avidly watch, not just the pitch, but the pitch location and type, watching a gameplan unfold for each hitter. For the rest of us (and I include myself in this) we simply watch to see what happens, much as we watch the Vikings, enjoying the action but not really seeing the defensive shifts and offensive strategies or recognizing the meaning of the substitutions. One of my fellow participants on this site has a signature line “Baseball is like church; many attend but few understand.” Being in the “church business” myself I recognize how true this is in reference to religion, and I accept that in baseball I am one of the multitudes who attends but doesn’t truly see what it is I am seeing. Some days I think it would be neat to learn what it is I am missing, to become a true student; other days I am happy where I am at, just watching the action unfold.
     
    There is also another differentiation among those who attend for the game itself, or among those who are fans in any sense. There are those for whom the driving goal is to win championships, to “win silverware” as they say overseas. For this group, everything should be done with this in mind. If that means gutting a team for young prospects to increase the odds of success three years down the line, then the question is “why haven’t we done that yet?” Another group, and I put myself in this category, doesn’t go to the ballpark with hopes and dreams for 2015; we want to see a good game tonight. Competitiveness, even in a down year, is something we value. That’s not to say I don’t dream of another World Series win as much as the next; I would love to see it happen. But what is more important to me is that, going to the ballpark, I have a reasonable chance of watching a Twins win, and that it be a well-played game regardless.
     
    So where is all of this going? Just with the realization that all of these various types of fans have to be part of the equation. No one fan type is more or less worthy; no one group is right, and no one group is wrong. The job of the Twins (and any organization that plays a spectator sport) is to find ways to speak to all of the above. It’s important to put a quality product on the field; it is also important to pay attention to the rest of the game-day experience (that’s why I’m not as cynical as some when the Twins spend promotional effort highlighting a new culinary option). Certainly any organization wants to win championship, but at the same time there have to be players on the field who can excite the crowd today, not just three years from now. Is this going to create tension among the fanbase? Inevitably. Do you trade Morneau for prospects or keep a crowd favorite even if he is on the wrong-side of the career bell curve? Do you spend your money fixing the rotation or sprucing up the ballpark? The challenge is to do both, to find the right balance, to find a way to simultaneously appeal to both the purists and to those who just want to have a fun night at the ballpark. Because both matter.
  15. IdahoPilgrim
    So now that last night’s game is over and we have all had a good night’s sleep, what do we take away from what happened in the third inning yesterday? The first thing is to just recognize that this may not be over. Both pitchers gave the obligatory “I didn’t mean to do it” quotes after the game; everybody has learned the Cole Hamels/Bryce Harper lesson well. I can’t speak for the rest of you, but I didn’t buy either of those quotes last night, and I doubt MLB will either. Diamond’s pitch was more obvious and deserving of an ejection (although I did notice Hamilton dodged in such a way as the pitch came closer to his head than if he had just taken it), but I have no doubt that the commissioner’s office will believe Oswalt’s was intentional also, even if it was a tad less obvious. There may be repercussions for one or both players after the game is reviewed, or the league may choose to look the other way and accept the post-game statements at face-value.
     
    Given that, in today’s climate of concern about concussions, any pitch deemed thrown near the head with even a whiff of intentionality is going to merit an immediate ejection (and possible future suspension), is it still possible to allow the players to police themselves, as in the “good old days?” I believe so, and this blog entry gives my thoughts on that. I say up front that I speak strictly as a fan, having only watched many games on TV and in person. I have never actually played the game (unless you count one forgettable year in Little League minor league), and I know that puts me at a fairly large disadvantage when talking about a subject like this, but here are my thoughts nonetheless, for whatever value, if any, they have.
     
    I take my cue from asking the question, “Why didn’t Wally Bell issue a warning after the Oswalt pitch to Mauer?” Certainly if he had even a suspicion that it was intentional, and would normally draw a response, would that not be the practical course to take? Unless – you intended to let the other team get their “payback” before stepping in to make sure it didn’t progress beyond that. I have no inside knowledge for this other than my own hunch and intuition, but to me it makes sense. My suspicion is Bell didn’t want to close the door for Minnesota to respond in kind, in accord with the “unwritten rules” of the game. What forced Bell’s hand was a) the fact that the payback came on the first pitch, when everybody in the stadium was waiting for it to happen, and the fact that it came near his head.
     
    So how should Diamond do this in the future? First, it would be desirable to have an at-bat or two intervening, to break the sense of tit-for-tat. I understand, though, that the next at-bat for Hamilton came up in the situation best designed for retaliation – early in the game, with none on, when it probably won’t matter much putting the guy on base. So I’ll grant him that. Next time, though, I would make sure it wasn’t on the first pitch. Maybe a 2-0 or a 3-0 count. Throw a pitch high and outside, throw one low in the dirt and to the backstop (there was no one on base, remember), and then he has established his “wildness” for that at-bat. The next pitch can go right in the ribs and not look quite so out of place or intentional. It gives the umpire a plausible excuse to look the other way and issue warnings to both benches instead of an ejection, which is exactly what I think Bell was looking for. And then, of course, you need to keep the ball down. The game has changed; head-hunting is not allowed even if it’s a proportional response to an earlier play in the game. I will give Diamond the benefit of the doubt here and assume the ball sailed up a little higher than he actually intended (and I suppose, if I’m to be completely fair, I’ll give Oswalt that same benefit – he meant to hit him, but not quite so high up). Keeping the ball down to the numbers or lower would send the message as effectively as can be done in the current era.
     
    One last thought – kudos to Gardenhire for coming out as well. He obviously knew he was going to get tossed when he did, but it was good to see him standing up for his player (particularly if he called the play?) and not let him be the only one sent off. I’ve been critical of Gardy in the past for getting sent off too frequently, but this one was legit.
  16. IdahoPilgrim
    Note: This is the last in a series of blog entries detailing my game experiences on a road trip to see all the Twins minor league affiliates in their home parks. For those interested, links to previous entries are listed at the end in chronological order.
     
    After a quiet day visiting one of the local state parks and catching a matinee I head out to Frontier Field again. This time it is a beautiful night for baseball and while I am sad that this is the last game of the trip I can’t think of a better way to go out. The parking lot is actually fairly full tonight, and walking up to the ticket windows I see six are in operation, with a line at each (yesterday there was one, with no waiting). Looking around the stadium during the game, it is a nice contrast with yesterday, and when they announce the attendance of 6,700 it seems about right. I get my promised “double pig” macaroni & cheese (with bacon and ham mixed in) and head to my seat. Today I’m back behind home plate (slightly to the third base side), three rows up. From here I can see the rest of the Rochester skyline that eluded me yesterday. This is obviously season-ticket territory; most of the patrons sitting around me are on a first-name basis with their neighbors. I am next to a family with two small kids, and I make a mental bet with myself that they won’t last through five innings. I am proven right when, in the middle of the fourth, the mother takes the two kids to a grass berm area to play while the father stays behind to watch the game.
     
    As I get settled, the club president is presenting awards on the field for the largest groups of the year. After he is done and a couple of ceremonial pitches are thrown a local boy scout troop presents the colors and a trumpet duet does a nicely arranged version of the national anthem. It is probably the best anthem I’ve heard on this trip. The starting lineups are announced, and leading off the order for Rochester will be two players just optioned from the parent club, Tsuyoshi Nishioka and Brian Dozier, playing second and short respectively. You can tell that Dozier has just gotten in, as they haven’t even had time to put his name on his uniform yet – he is wearing an unadorned #11. The preliminaries are finally done and it is time for the final game on this trip to start.
     
    Rochester gets on the board first in the bottom half of the opening frame, with Nishioka hitting a solid single to right center and Parmelee walking. Then, with two out, Clete Thomas hits a double down the left field line into the corner and the Red Wings stake themselves to a 2-0 lead. After that, the game settles into a groove, with each side getting the occasional baserunner but not being able to seal the deal. It almost feels like two fighters probing, gradually feeling each other out looking for a weakness. On the Rochester side there is none, as Esmerling Vazquez pitches a beautiful seven innings and never lets Indianapolis string anything together. They manage four hits and two walks, but that is more than outweighed by Vazquez’s ten strikeouts (the last of which, to end the seventh, sends the crowd into a frenzy as it is the game’s “K-Man,” meaning everybody gets a free taco at Taco Bell).
     
    Even though the game is tight, I never get the sense that the crowd is worried. The game notes in my program say that the Red Wings have the best record in the league since July 1st (26-16), and I get the impression that they are confident that a two-run lead can hold. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to, as Rochester breaks the game open in the bottom of the seventh. With a new Indianapolis pitcher, Wilkin Ramirez takes first after being hit by a pitch. Then Escobar, of Liriano trade fame, hits a beautiful sacrifice bunt down the third base line; the fielder has to hustle to make the play and ends up bouncing the ball to first and everybody is safe on the error. The stage is set for Evan Bigley, who wallops one over the left field fence, scoring three more and giving everybody the sense that the game is effectively over. The Red Wings add one more in the eighth as Ramirez doubles home Thomas. Deolis Guerra takes over from Vazquez to start the eighth and he promptly strikes out the side on nine pitches. In the ninth he starts to get hit hard, including giving up two on a long homer, but he has just enough to cross the finish line, and Rochester wins 6-2. It is the perfect end to a perfect night of baseball.
     
    And so the road trip ends on a satisfying note, with a final record of 7-2-1. Tomorrow I head my car west for Minneapolis and home.
     
    ***
     
    AWARDS
     
    Best Stadium Setting: Elizabethton, TN, for the scenic beauty (Honorable Mention for Rochester, NY, for its urban setting and skyline)
     
    Best Game Day Experience: New Britain Rock Cats
     
    Most Exciting Home Runs: All of them, but special mentions to Miguel Sano, Oswaldo Arcia, & Evan Bigley.
     
    Best Performance by a Starting Pitcher: Esmerling Vazquez, Rochester Red Wings (Runner-up: Trevor May, Reading Phillies)
     
    Best Hot Dog: Hammond Stadium, Fort Myers, FL
     
    Links to previous entries
     
    http://www.twinsdaily.com/entry.php?1594-Minor-League-Odyssey-Day-One-Beloit
     
    http://www.twinsdaily.com/entry.php?1610-Minor-League-Odyssey-Day-Two-Beloit
     
    http://www.twinsdaily.com/entry.php?1618-Minor-League-Odyssey-–-Day-Five-(Game-Three)-Elizabethton
     
    http://www.twinsdaily.com/entry.php?1620-Minor-League-Odyssey-–-Day-Six-(Game-Four)-Elizabethton
     
    http://www.twinsdaily.com/entry.php?1645-Minor-League-Odyssey-–-Bonus-Coverage-–-GCL-Twins
     
    http://www.twinsdaily.com/entry.php?1653-Minor-League-Odyssey-–-Day-Eight-–-Game-Five-(Fort-Myers)
     
    http://www.twinsdaily.com/entry.php?1662-Minor-League-Odyssey-–-Day-Nine-–-Game-Six-(Fort-Myers)
     
    http://www.twinsdaily.com/entry.php?1671-Minor-League-Odyssey-–-Day-Eleven-–-Interlude
     
    http://www.twinsdaily.com/entry.php?1681-Minor-League-Odyssey-–-Day-Twelve-–-New-Britain-(Game-Seven)
     
    http://www.twinsdaily.com/entry.php?1696-Minor-League-Odyssey-–-Day-Thirteen-–-New-Britain-(Game-Eight)
     
    http://www.twinsdaily.com/entry.php?1707-Minor-League-Odyssey-–-Day-Fifteen-–-Rochester-(Game-Nine)
  17. IdahoPilgrim
    By late afternoon I am wondering if the game tonight is going to happen. A series of strong afternoon thunderstorms has come through the area and the rain has been heavy. The Red Wings do a good job, though, of keeping the public informed on their website of the game’s status, updating it regularly (are you listening, Twins?) and at 5:30 it is announced that the game is definitively on; the gates will open at 6pm, rain or no rain! Putting on my jeans (I have been wearing shorts the entire trip) and digging out my fleece sweater-jacket, just in case, I head out for Frontier Field.
     
    The stadium is in downtown Rochester, on the west edge of town and facing the center of the city (although you can’t quite see the downtown skyline). Looking over to left field you see the Kodak Tower, headquarters of Eastman Kodak and once the tallest building in Rochester. Parking is right next to the stadium in the Kodak company lots ($6, unless it is a weekday afternoon game, in which case the lots are reserved for Kodak employees and fans are on their own). Railroad tracks pass down the south side of the stadium, and periodically throughout the night locomotives will chug by, blowing their whistles (each time I manage to resist the urge to yell out “Train!”). The stadium itself has a capacity slightly over 10,000 and was opened in 1996, which is surprising as it somehow feels older than that. Perhaps it is the emptiness of the seats – announced attendance is 4,700, but I don’t believe it; I would have guessed half that, probably weather related.
     
    Getting to the ticket window I resignedly ask if they have any seats that are dry. To my pleasant surprise the answer is yes, and I get my $8 reserved seat ticket to one of the two areas in the stadium covered by a roof overhang. I will not have to sit three hours watching baseball in wet blue jeans! The downside is that the seat is near the top of the stadium, and for the first time on the trip I am watching the game from a distance instead of being right near the action. Wandering through the stadium to survey the food choices I opt for the double-sized roast beef sandwich, promising myself to sample the specialty mac-n-cheese the next evening. The stadium has several plazas with tables and benches at which to sit while dining, so I avail myself of one and flip through my souvenir program. Before I know it, time has flown and they are playing the national anthem, so I hurry to my seat before the first pitch, managing to bob and weave like a professional boxer around an army of mascots (it is mascot night here at Frontier Field) all trying to make physical contact.
     
    P.J. Walters is making a rehab start, and he begins slowly with seven straight balls. He gets a sarcastic cheer from the crowd when he finally gets one over for a strike, but he ends up walking the batter anyway and gives up a single to the next. That turns out to be the extant of the damage, though, as after that he seems to settle down, getting out of the inning and working efficiently into the third. I am a bit surprised when they pull him after only ten batters (and after just giving up his second hit); hopefully it’s just he was on a pitch count and not a re-injury. David Bromberg comes in and pitches quite well for another four-plus innings before starting to fade in the seventh and giving way to Daniel Turpen. Put them all together and you have five hits and two walks scattered across eight innings and a shutout going into the ninth.
     
    Meanwhile, Rochester has been scratching their way ahead, run by run. In the third Michael Chang leads off with a grounder to the third baseman. It looks to be an out, but the first baseman casually steps off the bag moments before the ball hits his glove. I half expect the umpire to call Chang out anyway, as I’ve seen that before, but he calls it straight and Chang is safe. It turns out to be an important call. Lehmann moves him over to third on a nice double down the left field line, and two batters later Dinkelman hits a weak grounder to the right side of the infield, being thrown out but also scoring the first run of the game. In the fourth Matt Carson leads off with a fly that just clears the fence in straight-away center. Then, in the seventh, Parmelee and Carson hit consecutive doubles deep in the park, and Rochester is up 3-0. Turpen struggles in the ninth and is pulled after giving up two consecutive hits and a walk, putting the tying run on first, but Anthony Slama comes in (with the crowd making as much noise as I’ve heard in about three innings) and strikes out the final batter, sealing the Red Wings 3-1 win.
     
    Not much interesting in the promotion/contest department, but one nice touch was in the middle of the seventh when they played “God Bless America” while on the video screen pictures of those serving in the armed forces, with names and ranks, were displayed. It was nicely done.
     
    ***
     
    Getting into Rochester late yesterday pays off in having two full days to see sites in the area, as both games are night games. I take advantage of this today by driving west about seventy miles to Niagara Falls. I have been there before, but they are impressive nonetheless. I pay my $10 parking fee (which I considered quite reasonable, actually, all things considered) and look around the site. I consider going on the Maid of the Mist boat trip and taking the Cave of the Winds hike at the base of the falls, but decide I am not in the mood to get wet today, so I pass on both. Instead, I take the walking path around the perimeter of Goat Island, which separates the American falls from the Canadian falls. I am about half-way around (and at the farthest point from my car, of course) when it starts to rain. *sigh*
  18. IdahoPilgrim
    After a much needed late wakeup and a quiet morning worshiping at a local church and stopping by a Dunkin’ Donuts (you can’t swing a dead cat around here in Connecticut without hitting one) for a late breakfast, I headed out to New Britain for my only day game of the trip. Temperature was in the eighties and the sky was partly cloudy; all in all a good day for baseball. Getting to the stadium I decide to splurge today and go for the preferred parking ($6) as opposed to general ($4). The extra minute and a half it saves me walking to the ticket window probably doesn’t matter much, but the trip is heading into it’s last week and I don’t have to be quite as frugal as when I started. I also go for the club seats ($15) and am two rows back of the Rockcats dugout. I spend the pregame time munching on my cheese fries and watching the New Britain players sign balls and toss them to kids standing at the edge of the dugout with wide eyes and eager dispositions. When it comes time for the ceremonial pitches I hope that last night’s eight-pitch marathon was an anomaly, and that turns out to be the case – today there are ten. At least this time some of them have decent throws that make it to the fielder on the fly.
     
    By game time I notice that, when the sun is not behind the clouds, it is a bit warm. Over to my right an EMT is treating a woman who is feeling the effects of the sun and heat. There are a couple of EMTs walking around the stadium throughout the afternoon, making sure nobody gets into too serious trouble from the weather. I decide, of course, to stick it out where I am (I paid extra for this seat!) – and I manage to last almost three full innings before I retreat to a section of the stadium which is in the shade. Fortunately, there is enough room so that isn’t a problem (attendance was right about 5,000 again today). I look around from my new seat and, based on the relative population densities of the sections, I surmise that I am not alone in my decision.
     
    The Rockcats today are facing Trevor May, probably the top prospect in the Phillies system. Today he looks it. Pitching six innings, he basically shuts New Britain down for the first five. He strikes out six in the first three innings (making batters like Arcia look foolish) and only allows one runner into scoring position before the sixth inning. Reading, in the meantime, nickels and dimes their way to a 4-0 lead by the end of the fourth. In the top of the second, with none out and a runner on second, the Reading batter hits a fly to medium right, caught by Arcia. The runner tags to head to third, and Arcia moves to make a play, only to come down on his foot wrong and go down in a tumble. The third base coach alertly sends the runner home, and Reading scores the first run on a two-base tag-up. I get the sense that somehow this is just not going to be our day. A two-run homer in the third and a throwing error by Shawn Roof at second in the fourth allows the Phillies to add to their lead. Steve Hirschfeld doesn’t pitch that badly, going the first five innings, but neither does he help himself out at all, not striking out a single batter and giving up nine hits.
     
    Starting in the sixth it looks like May is tiring a bit. He pitches himself into a jam and loads the bases with one out. The crowd is all too aware that the game is not yet out of reach. Then former prospect Joe Benson caps off a lousy weekend by weakly hitting into a double play, ending the inning. In the seventh they finally get to May, opening the inning with three consecutive hits (singles by Romero & De Los Santos and a double by Rohlfing), scoring one. Aaron Hicks brings in one more after May is relieved, and the game is 4-2. In the bottom of the eighth Arcia doubles and Romero brings him in with a single to cut the gap to one run. I start to wonder if a come from behind victory is in the works. Then, in the ninth, Dakota Watts comes in to pitch the last inning and uncharacteristically falls short of the mark, giving up four runs on two hits, a walk and two New Britain errors. The air deflates out of those still in attendance, the game is over after the obligatory non-eventful bottom half of the inning, and I head back to the motel for the night, with a trip record of 5-2-1. At least New Britain has held onto the last playoff spot, with a half game lead over Reading.
     
    One contest of note: the tossing contest (which last night was toilet paper rolls and hula hoops) is, appropriately for the weather, water balloons. Partner A stands with his/her back turned to partner B and lobs water balloons backward over their head. Partner B is wearing a batting helmet with a plastic bucket attached to the top and must try to catch the balloon in the bucket. Again, I see no actual scores made (and several balloons which shatter on impact, dousing the players) but the kids seem to have fun anyway, which is the point.
     
    ***
     
    The next day is a travel day, but the distance is short enough that I add a couple of fun events as well. First, as I am only an hour away, I drive down to Groton, Connecticut, the spiritual home of the U.S. Navy submarine force, to visit the submarine museum and tour the USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine in the world. You only get to see small bits and pieces of the boat (the engineering sections are entirely off-limits), but for a former navy man it is meaningful nonetheless.
     
    Then, driving through New York, I take a detour and head down to Cooperstown to visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame. I had been here once before, as a youth with my dad, and I had forgotten that parking is spotty at best. I end up having to walk about a half-mile to the hall entrance before I can pay my $20 entrance fee. It is worth it. There is history, there is memorabilia and jerseys from the game’s greats, there is the hall of plaques...I spend a good couple of hours wandering around, soaking it all in. Every game I’ve seen on this trip, every player I’ve watched, all are hoping someday to end up here. It feels appropriate that, on a trip where I watch careers begin, I also visit the dream they have in common. I wonder who will be here next from the Twins, who will be the next Harmon Killebrew, the next Rod Carew, the next Kirby Puckett, ... the next Bert Blyleven?
  19. IdahoPilgrim
    I heard somewhere once that the biggest jump in the minor league system is the one between high-A and Double-A. I don’t know if that’s actually true, but as I get to New Britain Stadium and get settled I find that I can believe it. For the first time I am in a sizable stadium designed for a minor league team (Hammond Field was also sizable, but it was clearly designed with the Twins in mind – Fort Myers is just an occupant in the months between spring training seasons). I also immediately notice that there is a scoreboard with video technology and replay ability. Clearly we have graduated to another level. I am aware that, for the first time, I will be watching players who could be contributing to the parent clubs very soon. Some here today are on the 40-man rosters, and there will probably be a few that receive September call-ups. As I walk around the stadium (carrying the compact folding stool that I am given at the gate for being one of the first thousand adults, a surprisingly sturdy freebie that I might actually use someday), the food choices also begin to approach what one might find at a major league club. Instead of a single concession stand, there are several, including a sit-down restaurant on the top level of the stadium.
     
    As part of the pregame festivities they have the now-obligatory ceremonial pitches. I remember in the old days when it was a big deal, a single pitch, usually thrown by somebody important. Tonight, there are eight of them. None of them are caught on the fly by the fielder standing at the plate (seven of them fall short and bounce their way in, and one hotshot who thinks he’s the reincarnation of Walter Johnson actually stops to reach down and pick up the rosin bag before throwing a hard fastball two yards wide of the plate to the backstop). The last one is at least novel – it is a local college football coach, who tosses a football toward the plate instead of a baseball. The umpires enter the field and again you see the upgrade at this level – three-person crews instead of two. The anthem is played by a brass band who leads off with a wonderful rendition of “America the Beautiful,” with a modulation to a higher key for a second stanza and finishing with a nice flourish (the anthem itself, which comes afterward, is actually a little disappointing in comparison).
     
    I am, for the first time on this trip, watching a game that has real playoff implications. Beloit had already clinched a playoff berth, Elizabethton has a half-lap on the field, and the Miracle have been underwhelming all season. New Britain, on the other hand, is running neck-and-neck with tonight’s opponent, the Reading Phillies, for the second playoff berth in the division. Going into today the Rockcats have a half-game lead. I enjoy baseball regardless of the meaning of any individual game, but it is nice to watch one that actually matters. As I get my program and scorecard (the one negative aspect of the evening – it is a xeroxed piece of paper, with copier noise included, that is difficulty to see and use), I and the rest of the roughly 5,000 fans in attendance look forward to seeing if New Britain can stretch that out a little bit and guarantee a series win.
     
    Blake Martin starts the game for New Britain and does OK for five innings, deserving the win he earns. He gets two K’s in the first inning (five total for the game), but they sandwich two virtually identical solo shots over the right field fence, and Reading breaks out with a two-run lead. After that he settles down and scatters a few baseruners but holds Reading in check. New Britain in their half of the first manages to load the bases with nobody out. It is clear, though, they the parent club has done a good job of teaching “Twins Baseball” as the next three batters fly out and they end up getting only one run. They make up for it in the next two innings, however, when the Rockcats take advantage of a shaky performance by the Reading starter (Brody Colvin, making his second start at this level, who lasts 2.2 innings, giving up four hits and seven walks and bouncing more than one ball to the backstop). In the second, Chris Hermann hits a nice three-run homer over the right field fence (it is the first and only hit of the inning for New Britain – those walks will kill ya.) Then, in the third, Romero takes first after being hit by the pitch, Hanson singles and Beresford doubles (bringing in Romero), and Hermann walks, loading the bases. That will be it for the Reading Starter as he is pulled for a reliever, who promptly gives up singles to Arcia and Colabello, scoring three more. At the end of three, it is 8-2 New Britain.
     
    The game is basically over from that point forward, going on cruise control until late in the evening. Arcia caps a three-hit night with a two-run homer in the seventh (how is this guy not in the majors yet!), making it 10-2, and Bruce Pugh and Edgar Ibarra combine to give up four runs in the eighth and ninth and perhaps give Reading a false sense of hope, but Dakota Watts finally closes it out with a one-pitch grounder back to the mound and the fans go away happy. The series win is guaranteed, and more importantly New Britain now has a little cushion over their rival in the race for that second playoff spot.
     
    It is football night at New Britain Stadium, and they modify their contests appropriately. In one, three Dunkin’ Donuts mascots are racing a young child (who everybody knows is supposed to win), and it looks like the iced coffee is about to pull off an upset, when out of the dugout comes a red-shirted football player to take him down with a nice body tackle, clearing the way for the youngster. The football theme also carries over into their tossing contest, as two teams, made up of two kids each, compete. Each team has a person bending over in football fashion trying to hike rolls of toilet paper through their legs back to their teammates who are holding hula hoops. I’m not sure what the final score was (I didn’t see any of the rolls actually go through the hoops), but the contest appears to be successful and the kids go away happy.
  20. IdahoPilgrim
    I pull into the parking lot of the motel just north of Baltimore and get a room for the night. I lay back on the bed for a minute and I realize one thing – I am tired! So tired that I decide to throw dietary cautions to the wind and call the local Pizza Hut for a delivery. As I knew it would be, it has been a long haul these past couple of days, heading out from Fort Myers on Thursday morning, stopping for the night in Somewhere, South Carolina, and then continuing on today through North Carolina, Virginia and on into Maryland. The timing turns out lousy, and I hit the Washington/Baltimore complex just in time to catch the start of rush hour as the people head out early for the weekend. In my mind I tell myself that this is a preview of tomorrow, when I work my way through New York City (although hopefully, being Saturday, it won’t be that bad). But! – the goal has been accomplished. I am now about five hours away from Hartford, which will allow me to get in early enough to rest a bit before heading out to New Britain Stadium.
     
    The tiredness is actually something that I appreciate, as it fits in to a larger theme I had in my mind when I first conceived of this trip. When I first got the notion to do this, back in April, I thought it would be neat if, as much as possible, I use the trip to get just a sense of what it’s like to be a professional ballplayer in the minor leagues. The schedule worked itself out nicely, as this time in August and the relative location of the teams lent itself to working my way up the system – from Beloit to Fort Myers to New Britain to Rochester – just as a player would hope to do. (Yes, going to Elizabethton after Beloit breaks the pattern, but at some point the concept had to give way to practicality, and that seemed the best way to handle it). The long drive up the coast that I have just about knocked off gives me perhaps a taste of the long bus trips that minor league players have to make. Like the players, I find myself having to grab fast food on the run, even if I know it isn’t really the best for me, and I have to carve time into my schedule to do an occasional load of laundry and the other necessary housekeeping chores that are a part of life. I have to watch my money, staying in relatively cheap hotels (some of which should be castigated with limp noodles for what they call a “continental breakfast”) and living out of my single suitcase. When I first started making my schedule I also had it set up so that, even on my “off” nights, when I wasn’t near a Twins affiliate, there would be a farm club of another MLB team in the area whose game I could attend (and in one case a National League game), to simulate the every-day nature of the professional game. That last part was dropped when I decided that the main point of the trip was to have fun and not have it be work, and that an evening off every now and then might be a nice thing for a person of my age. I decided that, as much as I love baseball, going to seventeen games in seventeen nights would probably test even my limit.
     
    So here I sit, on an off night (getting ready to follow the Twins game long-distance), realizing that the trip is over halfway done, having enjoyed what I have seen so far, and looking forward to the games that are ahead.
  21. IdahoPilgrim
    I arrive this evening curious to see just how exactly they are going to turn bacon into a promotion. I end up being underwhelmed – all it means is that you can purchase a small paper basket of bacon strips for $1 when you buy any other concession stand item. I choose not to indulge, and judging by how many people I saw carrying those small paper baskets around, not many others do either. They also wrapped the ball for the ceremonial pitch in bacon too (I’m not sure why), but it doesn’t seem to have any effect. The only interesting thing that happens during the ceremonial toss is watching the mascot (Miss a-Miracle) deftly dance trying to catch the pitch without landing her feet on the freshly drawn batters and catchers boxes. In any case, it is a small crowd, slightly under 800 (and well below their season average). Some promotions are born great, some have greatness thrust upon them, and some crash and burn, I guess.
     
    The big question for tonight is how will Jupiter (and Fort Myers, for that matter) respond to last night’s drubbing. Almost immediately it begins to look like more of the same. Pat Dean starts off throwing three good innings, giving up only one hit, walking one and striking out two. In the bottom half of those innings, the Miracle start working the scoreboard once again. They open with three consecutive hits (followed by an error on the shortstop) to quickly put two runs across. The second inning goes nowhere, but then in the third they get hot once more. An opening walk to Ray, last night’s hero, followed by hits from Pinto, Rams, Gonzales and Leer score three more, and after three complete it is 5-0, Fort Myers on top.
     
    It is at this point that I start to wonder if the game will get finished, as the skies start looking threatening and the rumble of thunder begins to be heard to the south. The weather has actually been somewhat better this evening – the temperature is still the same, but it doesn’t feel quite as muggy and there is an intermittant breeze to take the edge off. The game continues, and now Dean begins to fade a little bit. His command is not quite as good, the Hammerheads start getting some hard hits, and air outs are replacing ground outs. He gives up two runs in the fourth and makes it interesting in the sixth before getting out of the inning. All in all, a solid performance, but I am just as glad he doesn’t come out for the seventh.
     
    Fortunately, it doesn’t matter, as Fort Myers immediately gets back the two runs in the bottom of the fourth (Santana scoring on a nice RBI triple from Lance Ray, and Ray scoring on Danny Rams’ single), and the game goes into the seventh with the Miracle up 7-2 and seemingly heading for another win. Clint Dempster comes in and immediately gives up two hits, but pitches out of it. Then, in the bottom of the seventh, with two out, the long anticipated rain arrives, and arrives quickly. In the space of a few heartbeats a slow drizzle turns into a downpour, the fans flee for the shelter of the stadium concourse, and the grounds crew covers the diamond with the tarp. While the rain is pelting down and the lighting is flashing, the PA announcer informs the waiting crowd that the safest place to be during a thunderstorm is in front of the concession stand. It is gratifying to know they take such an interest in our safety (or... are they trying to sell more hot dogs?) Given the five run lead with less than two innings to go, I am not surprised when, after the required thirty-minute delay has passed, the umpire comes out, gives the wash-out signal to the press box, and the game is called for another Miracle victory (giving me a 4-1-1 record for the road trip!)
     
    I do give congratulations to the Miracle for one of the more novel promotions I’ve seen in baseball – there is an auto detailing firm in town who, when the game starts, goes through the parking lot and picks out the dirtiest, filthiest car they can find. When the license plate is announced over the speakers, the owner is invited to come to guest services and pick up a coupon for a free car wash (and no, it is not mine). I am also a little disappointed that the rain also washed out one of the between-inning contests – the shoe search. The family sitting a few seats over in my row has had their two young children picked to participate. They are going to have their shoes taken off and, after the seventh inning is over, their shoes (along with a boatload of others) will be dumped on the sideline and they have to go pick theirs out (with some sort of prize if they can do so). With the lightning, the contest is cancelled and the kids end up disappointed (actually, the parents are disappointed – the kids don’t really seem to care). Thus ends my time in Fort Myers, and I head back to the motel to rest up for the long trek up the coast.
     
    ***
    Couple of side notes today. First, after spending a nice, quiet morning with a leisurely breakfast and some time spent reading on the beach (it’s still good to be on an ocean beach, even in August!), I head over to the complex and catch the first couple hours of the GCL game. I mention it because you never know who you will see over there. First, as the game starts, a Twins staffer calls one of the players sharing the bleachers with me over to him. It is Kyle Gibson. I learn later that he is being moved from the GCL team to the Miracle to continue his rehab. (Slama is also there and pitches in the game, but I left before he was put in). I also happen to notice, looking over to my left at the third base side bleachers, a man who looks suspiciously like Terry Ryan (later confirmed by a staffer). I spend a few minutes wondering if I should go over and say Hi and introduce myself, but before I decide either way he gets a phone call, walks under a nearby palm tree to take it, and shortly afterward heads off to another part of the complex.
     
    The other side note is actually from Tuesday’s game, late in the evening when the lopsided score has made following the game somewhat irrelevant for all but the die-hard purists. A Miracle staffer is talking to an elderly fan sitting near me, and I can follow their conversation. The staffer is saying that the biggest difference between the pros and the high school/colleges from which players come is the schedule. It’s not changing to the wooden bats (most adapt to that fairly quickly); it is going from playing a few games a week to playing almost every day, non-stop, for weeks on end. It is the grind of professional baseball and how players adapt to it that helps sort out who is going to make it and who won’t. I find the comments enlightening and perceptive. It also points out to me perhaps the true value of the short-season leagues. It allows the newly drafted players to make the transition in a smaller step – two-plus months instead of five-plus – so by the time spring training and the full season leagues start next year, they have already begun to get used to the marathon-like nature of the professional game.
  22. IdahoPilgrim
    I get into Fort Myers about quarter to two – too early to check into the motel, so I decide to buzz out quick to the Lee County Sports Complex to see if I can catch the tail end of the GCL game. Sure enough, I manage to take in the last couple of innings. I drive in the main entrance to Hammond Stadium, go past the empty parking lots, and at the west end of the complex pull off the road onto the grass where a number of cars have created a makeshift parking lot. Walking past the Twins offices here I get to field 1, where the game is underway.
     
    The field is basically a high school field, if that. There are no dugouts per se – the players benchs are segregated by a chainlink fence that surrounds the field. There is no crowd noise getting in the way, so you can hear the banter back and forth from the players on the field and the bench as the game progresses. Some in english, some in spanish. There are three small bleacher sections, each about fifteen yards long and four rows high. Both the players areas and the bleachers are covered, so at least you are out of the sun. Looking toward the outfield, I immediately notice the complete lack of advertising on the outfield fence (also chain link) – something that was quite prominent in both my previous stops. There is no admission charge, no refreshment stands or noticeable vending machines. There is however a restroom next to the field (for which I am grateful after my drive). Unlike most professional games, following the action requires careful attention unless you wish to be hopelessly lost. There is no scoreboard, no announcer, no roster sheets, no scorecards, no players names on the backs of their jerseys. If I go tomorrow I will need to take pen and paper just to keep track of the score, the inning, how many outs, etc...I will not try to keep score in any case.
     
    The stands are about a quarter to a third full, with many of them being players not in the lineup (opposing team players interspersed and sitting side-by-side, conversing in their native languages). I happen to be sitting near a woman with whom I strike up a conversation. As I suspected, she is there because she has become friends with one of the players – Jonathan Murphy. Turns out he and another of his teammates (Bryan Santy) met the woman at her church during Sunday worship (GCL takes Sunday off). It is a reminder that the nomadic nature of professional baseball often requires players to adjust and reacclimate to new surroundings on short notice. After getting to know them, she and her husband have become unofficial quasi-sponsors for John, helping him get adjusted to his new lifestyle and feeding him dinner a couple of nights a week (which is particularly appreciated as the pay at this level is meager). I ask her how John likes playing professional ball, to which she says, “He loves it.” That drives home to me what baseball should be about – players playing in 95 degree heat with few people watching for a mere pittance, in part because of the dream of making it to the Show someday but, also, simply because they love the game.
     
    The game ends, I make a beeline for my car to get to my air-conditioned hotel, and get ready for tonight’s Miracle game and the return of Carl Pavano.
  23. IdahoPilgrim
    As soon as I get to the stadium tonight, I can tell that I am moving up the chain and getting closer to how things are done in the big leagues – for the first time, I have to pay for parking ($3). The stadium itself is actually a stadium – it isn’t just a ball field surrounded by stands – which you would expect given that it is the spring training home of the parent club. Two main seating options: there are the $9.50 box seats which are individual plastic seats situated in the lower half of the stadium, and there are the $7.50 general admission tickets for the metal benches that populate the upper half. This time I’m sitting behind the Miracle dugout on the third base line, two rows up from the rail. Taking a quick look over at home plate tells me that I will have to be on my toes tonight, as I am in prime territory to take a sharp foul off a left-handed hitter (which doesn’t happen). Because it is the spring home of the Twins you get much more sense of the stadium and club being connected with the parent. On the facade under the press box are all the numbers retired by the Twins, and the division, league and world series pennants are noted, as is the replica of the 1987 championship ring – all just like Target Field. Lining the outfield fence are a variety of palm trees, giving the park its local flavor.
     
    Just as the quality of the stadium has improved, so has the quality of the food. There is the traditional ballpark fare – it is in fact 2-4-1 night, where hots dogs and small sodas are two for the price of one. I opt instead for the hamburger bar. I toy with ordering a Richard Simmons burger – a hamburger topped with with a chicken breast, a brat, bacon & cheese – and decide instead to opt for the healthier mac-n-cheese burger (just what it sounds like), which is actually quite good. The stands are fairly empty – the stated attendance was just under 1,000 in a facility which holds 7,500 – and the person sitting next to me (a retiree from New Jersey who has moved to Fort Myers and is a big Phillies fan) also comments on how small the crowd is. He thinks it has to do with the fact that it’s getting late in the season and the team hasn’t been doing that well, so fans are just getting worn out. He also shares the cute slogan (which I heard from a couple others as well) that if the team plays well, it’s a “Miracle.” The skies are cloudy and there are some nasty-looking clouds in the area, but the weather holds off and is not a factor. It is one of the more unpleasant nights to watch baseball, with temperatures in the uppers 80s and heat indexes in the uppers 90s most of the game, with little or no wind for relief.
     
    I remember reading an article in the Star Tribune about how the Florida State League is a pitcher’s league. That is a concept that does not hold true tonight. Just as my last attempted game saw a deluge of water, this time there is a deluge of hits and runs. Every Miracle starter has a hit, scores a run, and all but two have an RBI. Before that, however, it is the Carl Pavano show as he makes his first rehab start after being put on the DL in June. He pitches two innings, facing seven batters. His control is good, but he is a pitch-to-contact pitcher, giving up a solo homer in the first and a solid single in the second (erased by a subsequent double-play). His fastball is right in the 84-86 mph range both innings. The Miracle do get a couple in their half of the first, thanks to a two-RBI single from Lance Ray, starting off a big night for him. The Jupiter starter is wild, walking two and hitting another, and gives hope that sooner or later the Miracle will take him for a bunch.
     
    In the third, that hope becomes a reality, as the Miracle send thirteen men to the plate, get six hits and four walks, and put them together for nine runs (all earned). It starts off with Liddle, Pinto & Rams loading the bases with a single and two walks. Then Lance Ray hits a deep fly that clears the fence in right-center, scoring four and putting the Miracle up 6-1 with nobody out in the third. It doesn’t stop. Singles from Knudson (no relation) and Morales, walks to Santana and Michael, and two more hits (single for Liddle, double for Pinto) bring in four more. A final sacrifice fly adds to the total and the third inning ends with an 11-1 lead for Fort Myers. Boer (who replaced Pavano in the third) is iffy, giving up one in the fourth and three more in the seventh before he is pulled (Fuentes does a nice job to finish the final 2+ innings), but it doesn’t matter as the Miracle keep their foot on the gas and get eleven more over the next four innings, making the final 22-5. Highlights included three more Miracle home runs (a two-run shot from Rams, a solo bomb from Ray for his second of the night, and a two-run ding from Morales, who seems to be picking up his game a little). As the game approaches the later innings you can tell that even the cynical Miracle fans are happy as the team continues to pick away. Their attention span begins to fade as the on-field action is now taken for granted and they begin to focus on other things, occasionally checking in to see how many more the Miracle have scored. It is not unlike what happens after Thanksgiving when the turkey is eaten and, even though attention has turned away from the meal and the conversation begins in earnest, people will periodically reach over and pull off one more bite, “filling in the corners,” until they are truly stuffed. By the time it ends, most of the crowd has already left. I drive out with a scorecard that looks like the physics calculations NASA used for their moon shots (picking up a coupon for a free Jr. Frosty at Wendy’s as I leave the gate) and get back to the motel to sleep and dream of long flies over the fence.
     
    ***
     
    One side note from tonight's game. For the first time ever in my life, I get my hands on a ball used in play. After a foul grounder is corraled by the ballboy, he tosses it to a young child in the seats near mine. She doesn't catch it, it bounces down, and comes to a stop in my row a couple of seats over, from where I retrieve it. After forty-eight years! (And yes, I did give it back to the girl).
  24. IdahoPilgrim
    No game tonight, as the “bible belt” proved to be all-too-true to it’s nickname and gave the residents here a reenactment of Noah’s flood. I pulled out of the parking lot in Johnson City at 6pm in the rain and promptly splashed water over the front of the hood. You could see the sheets of water running down the streets seeking lowest ground. Deciding that baseball is not worth sacrificing either myself or my vehicle (such as in trying to drive to Elizabethton) I decide to head back inside and await developments. Sure enough, a few minutes later the National Weather Service has issued a flash flood warning for Johnson City and Elizabethton with travel not being advised, and by 7pm the game has been officially postponed and rescheduled as a double-header tomorrow (Monday). This is somewhat ironic as it is Faith Night for the Twins, when many local church groups would presumably be attending, but then I remember that there are many other more pressing matters requiring our prayers and perhaps good weather for the night wasn’t on the list.
     
    Being a math major and having studied probability and statistics, I knew when I started this trip that weather would be a factor at some point. I chose to do this trip at this time because the respective schedules of the clubs not only lined up well but also allowed me to build in “weather days.” That being said, I don’t want to redo my schedule completely and risk missing out on one of the later stops, so I had to decide whether to stick around for the double-header or cut my losses and head out for Florida tomorrow morning. My goal was to watch each team twice, but it is more important that I get to see each team at least once (plus the weather service is predicting a 60% chance of rain tomorrow as well, so that double-header is by no means guaranteed), so I am going to end my Elizabethton stay at only one game. At least it’s not a complete loss, as I sit here in the hotel room watching Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN (St. Louis & Milwaukee).
     
    It is a disappointing end to the day, but at least the rest of the day was a pleasant addition to my trip. After going to worship at a local church and doing some laundry, I head out to spend some time in the area this afternoon. Stopping back in Elizabethton I tour the old fort there at Sycamore Shoals State Park and take a short hike along the banks of the Watauga River. Then, to get more flavor of the local area, I intentionally “lose” myself driving at random on some of the roads south of Elizabethton, getting as far as Roan Mountain about twenty miles south, then using my GPS to get me back to Johnson City. The roads in the back country are narrow and in some cases it would be a stretch for two cars to pass side-by-side. There are steep curves and hairpin turns as the roads wind among the mountains. The area is sporadically populated and most of the houses are normal, but there are a couple places where the rundown and ramshackle nature of the domecile start the opening notes of “Dueling Banjos” inside my head. (To be serious, I have yet to meet anyone who does fit the “Deliverance” stereotype; everyone down here has been gracious and friendly). Eventually I get back to Johnson City, sit back in the room and watch a couple hours of golf on TV, and then get ready for the game just as the skies open.
     
    So it’s on to Fort Myers, where I plan to be for the opening of their next homestand on Tuesday.
     
    ***
     
    P.S. My decision turns out to be prescient, as upon arrival in Jacksonville, FL for the night I go online and learn that today's doubleheader was cancelled due to weather.
  25. IdahoPilgrim
    I show up at the ballpark not really knowing what to expect. It is, by far, the smallest of the parks I will be attending (cap. 1500), which is to be expected for a rookie league team. It turns out to be basically a junior college or division III field. That being said, it does have character. It turns out I am visiting on a busy night. As I park the car and walk to the gate, I hear live music coming from inside the concourse. There is a fundraiser going on for the local United Way, with prize giveaways and an opportunity to make a $5 donation, which gets you into the game (I assume the United Way and the city have negotiated in advance how that will be divided between them). In addition, they are celebrating “Christmas in August.” Sitting in the reserved seats behind the plate one can look left and see a green plastic inflatable Christmas tree; Santa Claus prowls the field before the game and walks the concourse during it, greeting young and old fans alike; in between innings Christmas carols come over the loudspeaker, instead of the normal between-inning music.
     
    The ballpark itself is fairly standard – a small section of $6 reserved seats behind home plate (with a banner commemorating Kirby Puckett’s 1982 season in Elizabethton) and two general admission stands (a larger one down the first base line and a smaller one down the third base line) for $4. I checked the website before the game, and a season ticket for reserved seating (34 games) will set you back a whopping $100. I suspect the setting will be the most inspiring of the cities I visit. Looking out over the center field fence you see the Blue Ridge Mountains rising up before you. Turn your head over to the left and slightly behind and you can watch the Watauga River flow silently but swiftly along the green area surrounding its banks. There is a one concession stand (which I have not sampled yet but will Sunday) and a souvenir stand, selling all your traditional gear.
     
    I enter the game itself hoping for great things from the Twins, based on their record, but it turns out not to be their night. The umpires come out and meet with the managers, the anouncer gives the starting lineups, and it is only then that I realize who I’m looking at – Dale Ford, a former MLB umpire whose 25-year career ended during the ill-advised mass resignation in 1999. Currently serving as a member of the Tennessee legislature, he must still find time to be involved in the game, as there he is calling balls and strikes behind the plate. I find out later that he lives in the Johnson City area.
     
    Unfortunately, the rest of the highlights of the night belong to Danville, whose starting pitcher, Lucas Sims (Atlanta’s top pick in the recent draft, from a high school in Georgia), is basically untouchable for five innings. Regularly getting ahead in the count and seemingly inducing ground-ball outs at will, Sims shuts down the Twins lineup, surrendering only one hit (a shallow blooper from Rhodes in the second) and only letting three other balls leave the infield (all fly outs). He leaves the game after five innings, striking out five and walking one. Meanwhile, on the other side, Angel Mata keeps it close for four innings, pitching well if not quite as commanding as Sims. He also has five strikeouts and, with a solo homer in the first being the exception, looks like he is dueling Sims fairly close. He does also give up a run in the second, but while he did put the runner on base it is a poor throw on a stolen base attempt and an error on the shortstop that allows him to score. Then, in the fifth inning, in a deja vu of my second game in Beloit, the wheels come off for the Elizabethton starter. His control vanishes, he ends up walking three batters and giving up another single, and before you know it the Twins are down 5-0. Josh Burris, Tyler Herr and Luke Bard do a good job preventing any further damage, but it will end up costing the Twins the game. Elizabethton does finally get a couple across in the eighth inning, with Jorge Polanco hitting a nice blast over the right field fence for a two-run homer, and when the ninth inning comes around you do get the sense that anything is still possible (as the Twins have pulled off comebacks like this more than once this year). When they get a couple men on with one out, you can feel the palpable anticipation and hope from the crowd (most of whom have stayed this long). Only to end with a whimper and a 5-2 Danville victory.
     
    Like most clubs, Elizabethton has it’s share of between-inning contests for kids. I was surprised at first that the announcer doesn’t bother to explain how the contests work; they just say “Now it’s time for the rubber chicken toss” or “On the field we have our twirling bat contest.” I suppose they just assume that everyone there has seen them so many times they already know how the thing works (which in most cases is probably correct). The one I appreciated most was the “Hillbilly Horseshoe” contest, where a T-ball stand is placed on the sideline and two small children take turns throwing painted toilet seats trying to get them around the post. Gotta love that self-deprecating humor!
     
    ***
     
    While my focus in this blog is on my baseball experiences, I may also take some time to talk about other parts of my journey. The previous two days were spent driving down from Janesville to Johnson City, Tennessee, stopping to visit some friends overnight in Illinois and then stopping again in Kentucky at a Super 8. I’m using my Tom-Tom GPS to guide me, and I have it set to “shortest route” rather than “shortest time.” As a result, while I still spend a fair amount of time on the interstate highway system, I am also getting some miles on other highways, giving me a chance to really see good chunks of this country (which is one of the secondary reasons I am on this trip). The strategy really pays off once I get into Kentucky and head toward Tennessee. Winding my way through the Appalachians on curving two-lane roads gives a thrill that you just can’t get when you’re going 70 in a straight line on a bland piece of concrete. Both the scenery and the driving experience may turn out to be some of the non-baseball highlights of the trip.
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