Category Archives: boston red sox affiliates

Hadlock Field, Portland, MAINE

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Number of states: 42
To go: 8
Number of games: 1
First game: August 7, 2022 (Erie SeaWolves 6, Portland Sea Dogs 4)

Click on any photo to see a full-sized version.

Getting to my 42nd state in which I had seen a minor league game was certainly a special part of my 2022. But–I have to admit–it was rather dwarfed by what happened a few hours earlier along US highway 302, where it enters Fryeburg, Maine across the New Hampshire border…

I entered my 50th state. Seriously, I did. Here’s the proof! And here’s me holding up a number: that’s irrefutable!

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I had been excited about that eventuality for pretty much every moment of my recallable life, and it happened. The original plan was for me to do this in 2020, which would have been preferable in some ways: I liked the poetry and symmetry of entering my 50th state during my 50th year. But I did get there as soon as possible, and I give myself credit for that.

I do have to say that the drive in from Vermont was one of the nicest drives of my entire life. I drove, and guy-who-stood-for-me-at-my-wedding Rob sat in the passenger seat giving a delightful play-by-play of the drive. He had spent from the ages of

8-ish to about 15 living in north central Vermont. In fact–in a fact that is entirely peak Rob, the Robbiest of Rob–he pointed out that he got his first job, at age 14, at the tourist center in Wells River, Vermont, where he directed tourists who had just entered from New Hampshire where to find all the best covered bridges, pancakes-with-syrup, and whatever else tourists wanted. Rob, who could not yet legally drive, knew where all of those were. The geography nerd child eventually became a cartographer as an adult.

The tour-guide nature of the trip was even more gorgeous than the Vermont and New Hampshire mountains, which is saying something. There was the ballpark where he threw a no-hitter. There was the road where so-and-so lived. There was the

shop where he had to go to buy some special treat. I’ve known Rob for well over half of my life, and getting to see the map pinpoints of his childhood was a rare, special treat.

Maine was nice, but man, it was hampered by 90-plus degree heat on this particular day, and alas, we had a Sunday matinee. So Hadlock Field, through no fault of its own, doesn’t score as high as it might for someone else. But we still had a delightful time on this day.

For starters, I did like the way the ballpark fit into Portland’s ubiquitous red brick. Rob probably knew why there was red brick

all over Portland, but I have since forgotten–you can Google it. But having that brick start on the outside sidewalk and crawl up the side of the ballpark is a beautiful touch. It works in with the green beams to create a nice touch.

On the inside, I found it a little less beautiful. We had one huge bowl–many, many rows deep. The “monster seats” were in right field rather than in left. I could live with that, but if you’re going to do a Monster like in Greenville, it seems like you’d want it to be green, in left field, or both. In any event, I was excited to get over there to take some photos…and I was stopped. 

Turns out that you have to have a ticket for that section to get in there, even way before game time. “Or,” he said, “you need a press pass.”

This is hardly an insurmountable obstacle. When you’ve got Matt on your side, you have a person who can convince someone of anything. He insisted that the very website you are looking at makes me worthy of a press pass. 

So the result is the Return of the Baseball Lifestyle Blogger. I told the guy at the business office about paulsballparks.com, and my quest, and his response was immediate and simple: “Cool! Let me see what I can do.”

This is what he did:

portlandmepresspass

I called that my press pass. Looking at it, it might just be a free ticket to the upper deck in left field. Once there, I could see the appeal. The perch there is a great place to watch a game, plus you are right alongside the bullpen, where I watched the Sea Dogs’ Brett Kennedy warm up, and where I enjoyed some lovely views. So the following photos show you what my press pass got you.


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The game itself was stuck in the heat and I have only a few memories of it, other than sweaty friends trying to endure it. One, regrettably, is the worst foul ball incident I have ever seen. It doesn’t feel like it was the Sea Dogs’ fault: the netting behind home plate was tall. It’s just that the grandstand was way taller. And one screaming foul back cleared the netting and wound

up in the row or two below the press box, where it hit a toddler right in the face. Lots of blood. The sound of that kid’s scream and the determination of the mom as she ran him down the many steps of the aisle, and (I assume) straight across the street to the hospital–that’s not a thing I can unsee. I know that some of my fellow ballpark travelers are mad about the extension of foul-territory netting that took place across the majors and minors a few years ago. They’d argue–correctly–that such an extension didn’t prevent this from happening. Even so, I’d have to say that having this happen to fewer toddlers would be much preferable than to more. I don’t even see the netting anymore. Let’s prevent as many of these as we plausibly can.

I had a nice little exchange with Erie catcher Jon Rosoff. He caught my eye because he looked a little short for a catcher–or portlandmerosoffeven for a ballplayer. He’s listed as 5’8″; take that for whatever it’s worth. Anyhow, as I checked him in the program, I noticed that he was from Army. That’s kind of a cool background, I think–unusual for a pro ballplayer. So when he gunned down a would-be base-stealer (I think it was Christian Koss in the 7th), I went ahead and shouted: “Nice throw, West Point!”

And he acknowledged it. A little point up with his gloved hand in my direction.

I don’t know whether he thought I was a fellow cadet (had he looked at my toothpick arms, he’d have pretty quickly figured out I’m not), but it looks like he heard me and appreciated it. And given how much enjoyment I get out of watching these guys play, any chance I get at returning a little of that is a thing I like.

By the way, the hot dog I had was just terrible. Kept in a steamy bag, and “condiments” were merely plastic packs. It’s the official hot dog of “we’re not even trying.”

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Rob, Matt and I parted ways before the end of the game: they were off to the airport in Boston, while I was going to stay the night in Portland and have one more lobster before my Portland to Portland full day of travel the following day. We eschewed any man hugs (not good while sweaty) and told each other we’d see each other for the 2023 trip, which will take us across the Midwest to the Negro League Baseball Museum. It’s going to be our eighth trip. I hope we’re just getting warmed up. 

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BALLPARK SCORE

REGIONAL FEEL:  7/10. Gorgeous on the exterior with the red brick. Not enough New England touches on the interior for me: it’s in danger of “this could be anywhere.”

CHARM 3.5/5

SPECTACLE 1.5/5
Not sure if this is because I was hot or what, but the on-field stuff didn’t do much for me.

TEAM MASCOT/NAME 1.5/5
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Here are a couple of shots of Slugger. Slugger is pretty much a top-scoring-Family-Feud-answer of mascot names. If there’s a story of what a sea dog is and why it’s appropriate for Maine, I’d like to know it.

AESTHETICS 3.5/5
Again, lovely on the outside, less so on the inside. Plus a cool sculpture:
portlandmesculpture

PAVILION AREA 2/5 
You can’t walk around the whole ballpark. In fact, you can’t even walk around part of the ballpark unless you’re savvy enough to get a press pass.

SCOREABILITY 4.5/5
Nicely done.

FANS 3/5

INTANGIBLES 1.5/5 
Too much running against it tonight, with a hot day and a hurt kid.

TOTAL 29.5/50

BASEBALL STUFF I SAW HERE:

A Quincy Nieporte homer followed by a Dillon Dingler RBI double give the SeaWolves the lead they would never relinquish in the 7th.

Stephen Scott and Izzy Wilson homer for the Sea Dogs.

Jon Rosoff with a hit and a couple of runners gunned down for Erie.

Polar Park, Worcester, MASSACHUSETTS

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Number of states: 39
To go: 11
Number of games: 1
First game: August 4, 2022 (Worcester Red Sox 12, Durham Bulls 0)

After a night at the kinda-icky Brockton Sox park (not commemorated here–see the rules for why), the pandemic-postponed New England swing for the College Buddy Baseball Annual Tour happened just two years late. And it started with a pretty cool

and unprecedented night in Worcester.

Had the tour happened in 2020 like it was supposed to, we would have made it to Pawtucket instead, and I would have crossed off Rhode Island. But by the time we could make the trip happen, there was no more Pawtucket: instead, there was this place, which was exactly what you’d expect out of a 21st-century ballpark. Corporate. Antiseptic. Nice, but not special. Yes, it has all of the amenities, but it felt the same as pretty much any other spot. Also–it was pretty spendy for a minor league park. 

In any event, I did appreciate the Red Sox history on display in Woostah. The sign that points to Fenway and all of its affiliates feels more regional here somehow, and not just because so many of the Sox’s affiliates are rightly in New England. This is a place to see the future Sawx and talk about the current Sawx, and we got a chance to do that.

And I did so with my buddy Chuck! Chuck is one of the few purely on-line friends I have ever known, and this was our chance to meet in person. I met him through refereeing: he’s a former Division I basketball official who paid some visits to my old officiating blog. That led to Facebook friendship, which led to me wanting to meet him in person when I was near his central Mass home! There were no badly missed calls that night. Had there been, Chuck and I would have had the umpires’ backs.

WOOSTAH! Chuck was as good a guy in person as he was on-line, and we did some ref-nerding out that day.

My seat was right by the passageway to the Durham dugout, so I was treated to a set of autograph seekers. They were the kind I don’t like that much: guys with massive sheets of cards of who they think the next stars would be, leaning over the railing to get some signatures. What bothered me about this was there was a kid there. Now, let’s be clear. I do get signatures sometimes: always of my scorebook, and always of a game that I have seen that person in from the past. What I find is that this frequently leads to a moment of joy for the player that I get to sign. Most recently, this has meant I figure out who a

player is that I have seen play in the past who is now a coach. I get him to sign a thirty-year-old scorebook. For the now-coach, that’s a huge trip down memory lane. Last year, former relief pitcher Doug Henry, now pitching coach for the Tri-City Dust Devils, spent time reading the entire box score of a game he saved as a Brewer in 1993. Truthfully, I like the feeling that I’m sharing a thing with a guy rather than taking a thing from him.

But even with that, I won’t compete with a kid for an autograph. If kids are there, I won’t be. So this means that I either go to a fiftysomething coach while all the kids are clamoring for the twentysomething players, which feels right, or I am in a place that

has set aside time for autographs, where I can queue up with everyone else.

What I do NOT want to be is like the guys in this photo. I mean, different strokes, and I hope they are happy and all of that, but there’s a kid in this photo who wants to interact with a ballplayer, and I find that the transactional nature of trying to create a card that will sell for a ton of money to be kind of joyless in comparison.

We’d get plenty of joy this night, though. Michael Wacha was on a rehab start for Worcester, and he looked awfully good. Kept the pitch count low and got all the way to 4 2/3 innings. The Sox were crushing 4 home runs off of Bulls pitching, so the game was out of control very quickly. Then A.J. Politi came on to get through the seventh.

No hits.

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My rule is that I will not discuss a no-hitter in progress. It’s not that I’m superstitious. I know that I do not have any impact on whether a pitcher gives up a hit. It’s more that it’s not worth talking about until we get through 6 innings. I have stuck with that through my lifetime of baseball, and it has served me well. So I was willing to discuss it even when I finally got to my first no-hitter in 2021 (Baltimore’s John Means in Seattle). 

I don’t find combined no-hitters terribly impressive as one-guy no-hitters like I saw Means do, but having one as a part of our college buddy trip: that was pretty awesome. It was also provided a little tension late in a blowout game.

Chase Shugart pulled it off in front of my friends–old and new–with two more innings of hitless ball. Josh Lowe smacked a

ball pretty hard, but the Sox’s Devlin Granberg made a really great catch: a diving catch to his right. It was a real charge to end the game and begin the on-field celebration.

You can’t go wrong with a spark like that, and something about it happening on one of my trips–like, the coincidence of this

happening on my one time at this park–was kind of special. There’s nothing quite like jumping up and down and celebrating a great play to finish off a great experience.

I didn’t get a real sense of Worcester or Massachusetts as a place, truthfully, beyond the Red Soxiness of it all. I wonder if I’d have felt something different in Pawtucket. Still, there was a lot of fun, great friends, and an accomplishment I won’t soon forget.

BALLPARK SCORE:

Regional Feel 6.5/10

Other than the Red Sox stuff, I didn’t get much of a sense of New England here.

Charm 2.5/5

Too corporate. Corporations are not charming.

Spectacle 4/5

The higher the level, the less I want stuff to interfere with the baseball. This rule is especially important in the midst of a no-hitter, and the WooSox obliged well.

Mascot/Name 3/5

I didn’t get a shot of Woofster, and he didn’t impress much on my memory, but I wrote 3/5, so I guess he was fine, as is the name “Red Sox,” which matches with the history of the team (going from PawSox to WooSox).

Aesthetics 3/5

Again, fine. Not special

Pavilion area 3/5

Scoreability 4.5/5

They did a fine job keeping up with a LOT of hits and runs (for one team, anyway) and I trust they would have been solid if there had been a tough, important scoring decision late in the no-hitter.

Fans 4/5

My buddy Chuck was great, but the guys bugging the Durham team weren’t.

Intangibles 5/5

I mean, it was a no-hitter capped off by a fabulous diving catch. Can’t give that anything other than a 5.

TOTAL: 35.5/50

Baseball stuff I saw here:

Andrew Wacha, A.J. Politi, and Chase Shugart walk 5 batters but give up no hits.

The WooSox tee off on poor starting pitcher Easton McGee, with 4 home runs in 3 innings, leading a 17-hit attack. 4 of those hits and 2 of the homers come from former Mariner (and “wow, he’s still playing, cool!” guy) Abraham Almonte. Pedro Castellanos adds three hits and a home run.

Devlin Granberg ends the night with a catch everyone will remember.

Written May 2023.

 

 

Fluor Field, Greenville, South Carolina

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Fluor Field, Greenville, SOUTH CAROLINA

Number of states: still 37
States to go: 13

First game: August 16, 2018 (Greenville Drive 4, Greensboro Grasshoppers 2)

Click on any photo to see a full-sized version.

First, my I file a complaint?  Thank you. Here is my complaint.

The otherwise-fine folks at the Greenville Drive would not allow me to bring in a camera case. And I was lugging along a fairly pricey camera.  Grrr.   So we headed back to the hotel and left the case, compelling me to hang the camera around my neck all night long. We sat in our seats, right behind the dugout, and I placed the camera in front of me. I was told not to put the camera on the dugout. I get why not: they have mascots and cheerleaders running down the dugout the whole night long. But

sheesh: this meant my only choice while seated was to put the camera on the ground, on a grate.  Thankfully, it was dry, but a spilled beer anywhere behind me would have endangered the camera. Dumb rules. When I asked why I wasn’t allowed a camera case, the usher said “That’s the way they’re doing it anywhere.” Really?  I told her I’d been to many, many minor league ballparks all around the country and none barred camera cases.  

Complaint over.  Because, outside of this complaint, the night was lovely.

Fluor Field bathes in baseball. Right across the street, Shoeless Joe Jackson’s boyhood home beckons: only open briefly during the week, or I’d have walked inside. As it is, I just liked that it a foul ball with a few bounces from home plate. 

. Inside the park, the Drive (nice baseball name, too!) celebrate baseball history…mostly baseball history. Typically, this annoys me in minor league ballparks, and the Drive laid on the Red Sox stuff awfully heavy: the gift shop felt more like Fenway Park than Fluor Field.  

But…then again…Fenway is my favorite park. And the Drive pull off their goal nicely.

First, and most obviously, we have what I’ll call the Minor-league Monster.  It’s well done. It, like in Boston, is 310 feet down the line.  It, like Boston, has seating upon it.  Unlike Boston, however, they would let me up onto it to take some photos (I’ve never tried that at Fenway, to be fair, since my only visit predates the Monster seats, but still, I suspect greenvillemonsterI’d need the right ticket to get up there). And if a little cloying imitation is what I require in order to get the look from up there, well, I can accept that.

The Drive were celebrating Carolina Panther night while I was there, with mascots and cheerleaders from the Panthers hanging out on the concourse and cheering during the game. Free T-shirts! I liked the locality of it all, even if the locality was football related (giant Panthers drum!). And the locality was awfully nice on its own. I knew absolutely nothing about Greenville coming in, but found it to be a delightful town with a lovely downtown and a pretty cool sports bar to catch some afternoon games before ours. 

Just something Southern about the evening: the syrupy air, the warmth, the cheerleaders, the voices around me. It was easy to slip into a fine night of baseball with an old friend and chill out. I got over my annoyance. Good job, team.

 

 

BALLPARK SCORE:

Regional Feel: 7.5/10. 

A pretty high score considering how much the deep South imitated New England. But the local feel found ways to slip in, like a flood through sidewalk cracks. I was even cool with the Panther-themed duds.

Charm 4/5

Fenway gets a 5/5, so this place gets a one less than that because it’s an imitation.

Spectacle: 4.5/5

I don’t have any specific memories of promotions, etc. beyond the Panthers, but liked the feel of the whole night.

Team mascot/name: 3.5/5

Apparently this guy is named Reedy Rip’it the Frog.  He’s fine. The team name, Drive, is simple and beautiful.

Aesthetics: 4/5

See “Regional Feel” above.  It’s lovely, but it’s stolen (with permission) lovely.

Pavilion area: 4/5

Lots of room to roam, especially by the foul poles.  Couldn’t walk around (the monster in the way), but the monster itself is cool.

Scoreability: 4/5

While the choice to put “One Carolina” instead of names on the players’ backs was noble and symbolically nice, it did slow down scoring a bit.  It prevented a perfect score from the WONDERFUL and free game notes and pre-printed scorecard (never seen one of those before) they passed out. Umpire names!

Fans: 4/5

Nice people around us.

Intangibles: 3/5

Bumpy start hurt this one–but there were way more good moments than bad on this night.  Fabulous ballpark.

OVERALL 38.5/50

BASEBALL STUFF I SAW HERE:

Enmanuel de Jesus with strong pitching for the Drive, striking out 10 over 7 innings and picking up the win.

Thomas Jones’ RBI single tied the game in the third for Greensboro. Zach Sterry’s 6th inning homer broke the tie and ended the scoring for the Drive.

Written May 2019.