The Year of Jim: Mystery Runner

After seeing the Somerset Patriots last summer and the Brooklyn Cyclones two years ago, Adam and I made the trip to Staten Island for the Staten Island Yankees on Thursday. Getting to Staten Island is kind of a hassle. I had no interest in driving there. The Staten Island Ferry is free so I wanted to take the ferry to the game. But taking the ferry back to Manhattan after a night game and then take the Subway to the Long Island Railroad would mean getting home at a pretty ridiculous hour. The Staten Island Yankees play some late afternoon games on the weekends, but that would most likely interfere with watching the Dodgers. So I targeted a weekday afternoon games (or late morning/early afternoon games). They had a couple of 11:00 starts where they have camps there and stuff. That worked for our purposes.

So I met Adam by the ferry. We took the 10:00 ferry to Staten Island. We had a good view of lower Manhattan, Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty. I don’t think I had ever been on Staten Island for any reason other than driving through it before, but the Staten Island Ferry is worth doing even if you had no reason to go to be on Staten Island. It’s about a five-mile ride with some cool views. You could just take the ferry and then take it right back to Manhattan (I’m pretty sure some people were doing that). Richmond County Bank Ballpark is maybe a ten-minute walk from where the ferry lets you off.

This made me think of a Seinfeld bit.

It was a good day to take the ferry.

The stadium has a great location. Beyond the outfield wall we could see the water and lower Manhattan. The food and beverage selection left something to be desired. I ended up getting a hot dog and a Flagship Pastime Summer Ale. I’ve stated my theory on summer beers before: Sam Adams makes a great one, and most breweries make a pretty underwhelming summer beer. I got it because there wasn’t much craft beer available and Flagship is a Staten Island brewery. It wasn’t really what I expected from a summer beer, but it was pretty good. I’ve had beer from three of the five boroughs. The two that I’m missing are the two where I’ve spent the most time (by far): Manhattan and Queens.

The Staten Island Yankees were taking on the Lowell Spinners, a Red Sox affiliate. Staten Island scored one in the first. Lowell tied it in the fifth. And that was all the scoring through nine. That meant it would be my first minor league extra inning game with their silly rule of starting the inning with a runner on second base. In the top of the tenth, Lowell had their leadoff hitter sacrifice bunt. He reached on an error by the pitcher. With the infield in, the next batter singled and drove in a run on a line drive that probably would have been caught if the infield hadn’t been in. The next batter hit a home run to make it 5-1. That inning would have been totally different if they didn’t start with a runner on second base. Staten Island scored one in the bottom of the tenth and that was it.

This was our view for the game. We were in the shade for most of the game. It was hot in the sun, but very nice in the shade. A hot dog, beer, and day baseball when the weather is good is tough to beat.

So I wanted to discuss some differences between the rules in the Majors and Minors. You have the starting extra innings with a runner on second in the Minors, which is totally ridiculous, but it’s the Minors, so whatever. In the Minors, each game of a doubleheader is only seven innings. I can live with that. And you have the pitch clock in the Minors, which is probably coming to the Majors. I’m fine with the pitch clock, but I don’t know if it’s going to work to increase the pace of play. I would definitely get rid of starting extra innings with runners on (at least in Double-A and Triple-A, I would just say whatever for levels lower than that).

After the game, we took the ferry back to Manhattan. We went to the Dead Rabbit, which was named the best bar in North America every year from 2013-2016. In 2016, it was also named the best bar in the world. I don’t know who was bestowing these honors. But it was a good bar. I had a Dead Rabbit Irish Red, which I hoped might be a Manhattan beer, but it was brewed in Brooklyn. There was a fire there in July that damaged their kitchen so they are still operating with a very limited food menu. We didn’t have anything to eat.

Our last stop was the Federal Hall National Memorial. It’s at the site where Federal Hall stood, which is where Washington was inaugurated in 1789 and the first Congress met. That building stood until 1812. The building there now was completed in 1842. It was the US Custom House for the Port of New York and later a sub-Treasury building (that started when Lincoln was president). There’s a big statue of Washington outside and it’s a little museum on the inside.