Park Only Visit Binghamton Mets, Binghamton NY

Date of visit: Thursday, June 21 2012

Cooper and I headed over here which turned out to be a bonus park, since we originally had not planned to travel this route.  The Mets, which are the AA affiliate of the parent New York Mets, were out of town playing  Akron. 

We were able to get the nice folks there to open the gift shop, and got a ball and pin.  This is a nice stadium, sort of downtown, seats 6000.  Cooper spied a ball in the bull pen, and a nice young man from the grounds crew fetched it for him. 

What the stadium looked like today.....

Park Only visit- Lynchburg Hillcats, Lynchburg Va

Date of visit Monday, June 4, 2012

The Hillcats were out of town while we were in Lynchburg, so we stopped in for a ball and pin try.

This stadium is an old CCC project dating from the 30's, but has been updated several times.

Today, it is a very modern venue:

They just signed on as the High A affiliate of the Atlanta Braves. 

We met up with a very nice young lady who escorted us to the team store, where we got a nice logo ball and a pin.  

Revisit- Salem Red Sox, was Salem Avalanche

Date of visit- Day game, Sunday June 3, 2010

Tina, Brandon, Cooper and I went to a game way back in 2008 I think here, when the franchise was known as the Salem Avalanche.  Today, they are the High A team for the Boston Red Sox. 

This is a beautiful stadium!  In the foothills of Salem, Va.  Seats about 5000 or so. 

We got to the field about 3 for a 4:05 game-  parked for free- and got great seats first row on the visitors dugout. 

There was an announced crowd of 2507- that looked about right. 

Got a ball and pin, and this day, the players were all signing autographs on the concourse before the game, and Cooper was able to get a poster and have Jackie Bradley Jr sign it for him.  Bradley played at the Univ of SC and is having a terrific year this year, batting .370 something, and has an on base percentage of like .491 batting leadoff. 

He went one for 3 today, and had an RBI with a double. 

The outcome was never in doubt:

The Red Sox crunched em!  They had 18 hits, a lot of them for extra bases, and won going away. 

Park Only Visit- Hickory Crawdads- Hickory NC

Date of visit- May 31, 2012

Stopped by Hickory on the way to Advance, NC and the Winston Salem Dash on the first day of the Summer 2012 trip.  Nice park, got a ball and pin here. 

This field has a huge jumbotron, the biggest and nicest I've seen at any minor league park. 

There was a posted attendanced of 3607, but I'm pretty sure there were not more than a thousand folks there. 

Because we had had a long day, and there was lots of weather around, we left after 6.5 innings, with the Dash loosing 4-0, but they wound up making a game of it, and lost 8-5

Note that there were 25 hits in the game, plus 5 errors.  I would say the official scorer was very generous tonight, we saw what we thought were about another 5 or so errors in just the game we saw!

Got a nice logo ball and pin.

Park Visit- Danville Braves Danville Virginia

Date of Visit-  June 1, 2012

We stopped in here on our way to Lynchburg, Va.  Had to try twice, since the first time I tried, I took an incorrect turn and then couldn't make the turn with the motor home, so we had to go back out and across the highway to a rest area, unhook, and then drive in. 

Danville is the rookie Appalachain League affiliate of the Atlanta Braves.

The field is a smallish, 2500 capacity American Legion Field.

We got a ball and pin here, plus Cooper got a free league ball, and I got a free Army T Shirt. 

Winston Salem Dash- Winston Salem NC

Date of Game:  May 31, 2012


On the first leg of the 2012 Summer Adventure, Coop and I did two parks today, and we got here at Winston Salem about 6 pm for a game between the Dash and the Frederick Keys. 

We thought we had good seats, Section 107, Row 5 right at the home dugout.  Turned out to be good seats for seeing the game, but not worth anything for getting balls-  This league or team clearly is cheap when it comes to baseballs, they kept everyball all night, never threw any into the crowd, didn't have batting practice, so Cooper got skunked for balls. 

This is a beautiful new park, about two years old. 

Since it was a long travel day, and we had been up very early, we left after 6.5 innings, with the score 4-0 Frederick, the Dash came back and made it interesting, and Frederick wound up winning 8-5.

Line Score showed 25 Hits and 5 errors, I would say the official scorer was very generous with that, I thought there were 4 or 5 more errors. 

Official crowd was listed at 3708, I would have said there were no more than a thousand there... lots of empty seats. 

This park has one of the nicest video jumbotrons of any minor league park I have seen-

They had a big fancy control room on the concourse, with a staff of about 10 or so running the various components of the information systems:

Port St Lucie Mets

Date of visit:   Monday, April 9th 2012

We originally just stopped here to get a ball and pin, but decided later to come back and do a game.  The Mets played the Charlotte Stone Crabs, and won on a walk off homer in the bottom of the ninth!

The Mets are the High A affiliate of the New York club, and have played here since 2009- there were only 571 folks there tonight!
Beautiful stadium, free parking!  8.00 for our seats.  Coop got 4 balls tonight. 

Our seats were in Section 108, behind the dugout, but the better seats would have been down in section 110.  Coop roamed the stadium as he does for most of the game.  Got 2 balls at the end of the game! 

Temperature at game time was 74, down to 71 at the end of the game. 

Did get a logo ball here, but they didn't have a hat pin. 

Revisit- Jacksonville Suns AA for Marlins

Date of visit:  Saturday, April 7th, 2012

Cooper and I ran up to catch a nite game with the Huntsville Stars tonight, a revisit to this stadium.  This is a 39 million dollar stadium, and it is right next to the old Gator Bowl in downtown Jacksonville.  Ample parking, $7.00.  Today was "glove day", which we weren't aware of beforehand, so Coop got a nice new glove.

Nice crowd tonight, the game temps were a bit chilly and breezy, temps were about 72 at the start and down to maybe 66 by the end of the game. 

The Suns lost the game, 3-1-  no home runs tonight, lots of hits, actually.  Posted attendance was 5500.