I made my second trip to New Jersey for some minor league baseball. This time I went to visit my friend Adam and we went to see the Somerset Patriots of the Atlantic League. The Atlantic League is the league that the Long Island Ducks play in. I still haven't been to a Ducks game, but my first experience at an Atlantic League game was enjoyable.
When I went to Trenton earlier this year, I was unsuccessful in my attempt to cross New Jersey off my beer list. So I wanted to make sure that I succeeded this time. So we started by going to the Twin Elephant Brewery, which has only been around for a little over a year. They had seven or eight beers on tap and we both got a flight with five beers. Most of them were pretty good. The guy that showed us the big room where they do all their brewing said 95% of their beer is sold right at the brewery so that's likely a beer that I won't have the chance to get anywhere else anytime soon.
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| I think New Jersey beer put me at 33 states. |
That evening, we were off to the game. It started raining right before we got there, but it didn't last long. There was a little rain during the game also, but it didn't affect the game at all. The Patriots play at TD Bank Ballpark. The setup was very similar to Arm & Hammer Park in Trenton. There was definitely a better food and beer selection, though. Since I did some drinking at the brewery, I opted not to have a beer. And I only had a black bean burger to eat. I was about to spend a week on the road so I didn't want to eat a lot of unhealthy food at the game. There was a pretty good food and beer selection, though. The crowd was pretty good as well. I'm putting TD Bank Ballpark at number 9 on my list of minor league parks, between Arvest Ballpark in Springdale and Memorial Stadium in Boise.
The Patriots were playing the Sugar Land Skeeters from Texas. The Atlantic League teams are all in the Northeast except for the Skeeters. I have no idea how that team makes money. Their travel expenses have to be significantly higher than the rest of the league. I would think that all the teams use buses and/or trains for their travel except for the Skeeters. I guess the Skeeters could just fly at the beginning and end of each road trip, but they have to spend a lot more on air travel than any other team in the league.
One of the interesting things about the Atlantic League is that you will find a lot of familiar names because you do have a decent number of players with Major League experience. The Skeeters had two people that we took an interest in. Manny Corpas is a former Major League pitcher. The only reason that he was particularly interesting was because we were sitting right next to the Skeeters' dugout and Adam noticed that he was wearing Chicago Cubs pants. You definitely notice some things sitting down by the dugout. One of the Sketters' hitters was saying that the umpire said he could barely see a pitch because of the sunlight reflecting off the AT&T ad right next to the batter's eye as the sun was setting. The other interesting player was Hector Olivera. The Dodgers signed him for six years and $62.5 million. He never played in the Majors for the Dodgers, but he was part of the trade where they acquired Alex Wood. So that worked out pretty well for the Dodgers. He played parts of two seasons for the Braves and hit two home runs. They traded him to the Padres and the Padres released him. So I'm pretty sure Olivera still is getting paid by one of the three Major League teams that once had him. He was the DH for the Skeeters and he had two singles, a double, and a walk. The manager for the Skeeters was Gary Gaetti. I remember Gary Gaetti, but I definitely didn't remember how good his career was. He had 360 home runs and 1341 RBIs. That's 105 more home runs and 341 RBIs more than Chase Utley. I'd have to look at Chase Utley's stats before I would say he's not a Hall of Famer (and I would say no for sure, but if Ryne Sandberg is in the Hall of Fame, you can make a strong case for Utley), but I'd never even think of Gary Gaetti being anywhere close to the Hall of Fame (to be fair, Gaetti played in five more seasons than Utley has so far, but Utley is not going to catch him in home runs or RBIs).
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| Our view for the game |
The game was not particularly competitive. The Skeeters went up 10-0. The Patriots scored two in the 8th and two in the 9th to make it 10-4. I like patriots in American history, but I was happy that a team named the Patriots lost.
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