Fun story:
A couple of days before the July 4th holiday, one of my wife's good friends from Manhattan came to stay with us on Long Island for a few days. The week prior, we started thinking about what fun things we could do with her, and created a list of restaurants, vineyards, and attractions. One of those attractions involved baseball.
We don't live that far from the local minor league team—the Long Island Ducks—and we figured we'd see if the team was on a homestand. It turned out that not only were they at home, but they were playing on the 4th. And there would be a fireworks display after the game!
Baseball, hot dogs, and a fireworks show on the 4th? Absolutely.
Even though our friend is not a baseball fan, she was was excited. She'd only been to one game in her life, at Yankee Stadium, and that was about 20 years ago.
Well, game day arrived. We easily made it to the stadium, found parking (for free!), and got to our seats in a jiffy. There are only about 6,000 seats in the park, so even though we weren't at field level, our view was fantastic.
Look here:
The Ducks opened up an early lead against their opponent, the Charleston Dirty Birds, and the capacity crowd was impressively engaged. As we continued to watch, we answered any questions that our friend had about baseball, and she gradually picked up on the uniqueness of the sport. By the 5th or 6th inning, after more observation and conceptualizing, she turned to us and made the following comment, which I think you'll agree is packed with much insight and wisdom:
Hitting a baseball is really hard.
Amen to that!
The game continued. And
you know what? Although I haven't followed professional baseball very
much over the past few years, I definitely recognized the names of a few players as the lineup turned over. And because this is a trading card blog, here they are, in the familiar scale of 2.5 x 3.5 inches:
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2017 Topps Heritage Delino DeShields #648, 2016 Topps Heritage Jackie Bradley Jr. #91, 2020 Topps Heritage Chance Sisco #357 |
DeShields was in the starting lineup for the Dirty Birds, while Bradley and Sisco started for the Ducks.
I have to admit that I wasn't sure what level of minor league ball we were watching, but knew that all three players were in the majors not long ago. (Bradley Jr. was a gold glover and World Series champ in 2018!)
It turns out the Ducks are part of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, a 10-team league that "offers an open classification of play, the highest level of professional baseball other than Major League Baseball. . . . Atlantic League clubs pay players to win baseball games, not apprentice in baseball’s developmental levels."
Interesting. So I suppose if DeShields, Bradley, and Cisco are trying to make their way back to the big leagues, the ALPB would be a decent option.
In any case, the game continued, all three of us had a hot dog (with sauerkraut), and day turned to dusk. The field looked pretty sharp with the lights on.
Charleston mounted a comeback, getting to within one run thanks to a Ducks error and an absolute moon shot home run from a big first baseman named Keon Barnum. But the Ducks were able to hold it together for the win.
It made the fireworks all the more fun for the home crowd. A bunch of the players sat on the field and watched with their families too, which was a nice touch.
All in all, great seats and great entertainment for about $25 a ticket.
How about you readers and collectors? If you've got a minor league team nearby, have you ever gone to a game? How have your experiences been?
Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading!
