Ever since I finished getting to all the Major League stadiums, I’ve been trying to get to as many minor league stadiums as possible. I’m once again unfinished with Major League Stadiums since I need to see the A’s in Sacramento and eventually in Las Vegas. I’m definitely not going to get to every minor league stadium, but I’m trying to get to new ones whenever I can. I’m especially trying to get to all the ones that are fairly easy to get to. The state of Maryland has three affiliated minor league teams and I hadn’t been to any of them. One is on the Delmarva Peninsula and that’s pretty much a foreign country (I’d have to go through the entire state of Delaware instead of just the small part between New Jersey and Maryland). I’m totally fine not getting to that one, but the other two were much more accessible and I got to them on the same trip.
I hadn’t seen Jon since he married Halie three years ago. So I was talking to him about going down for a visit and a Chesapeake Baysox game one weekend. He gave me a weekend that worked for him and the schedule worked out so that the Aberdeen IronBirds were home the same week. Aberdeen has an Amtrak stop so it was an easy one to get to. My brother Tom drove down from Pennsylvania and met me in Aberdeen to see the IronBirds (the Orioles’ high-A affiliate) take on the Jersey Shore BlueClaws (Phillies) on Thursday before I went down to visit Jon the following day.
Unbeknownst to Tom and I but knownst to anybody who checked the IronBirds’ Twitter account, the Thursday game turned out to be a doubleheader. I only found out when I went on their website to buy tickets. We were hanging out at the hotel watching Seinfeld and I saw that the start time was listed at 4:35 when it had been 7:05. They got rained out the night before (the forecast for my entire trip was looking a little questionable, but it worked out for the most part). So I bought tickets and we headed to the stadium. We got there in the fifth inning. They only play seven inning double headers in the minors so we ended up seeing pretty much one regular game of baseball as we saw the end of the first game and the entire second game. In the first game, the BlueClaws scored two runs before we got there and that was all the scoring for the game. The second game started at 7:05 and it was more eventful. After the first inning, the IronBirds led 2-1. The BlueClaws scored four runs in the third on a fielder’s choice, error, sacrifice fly, and a single to go up 5-2. But the IronBirds came back in the fourth. Anderson De Los Santos hit the only home run of the game. Two RBI singles and an RBI triple gave the IronBirds a 7-5 lead. Both teams scored in the sixth (on a wild pitch and an RBI single). The BlueClaws scored in the seventh on a sacrifice fly, but that was all they could get and they lost 8-7. The first game was an hour and 46 minutes and the second game was two hours and 24 minutes. It was 82° and cloudy. Attendance was 1,281, but there were a lot less than that when we first got there. A lot of people probably also didn’t realize it was a doubleheader or they weren’t out of work in time for the first game.
The IronBirds play at Ripken Stadium, which is part of the Ripken Experience baseball facility. Besides Ripken Stadium, there’s also a field with the same dimensions as Yankee Stadium. Then there are youth fields which are miniature versions of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Citi Field, Citizens Bank Park, Fenway Park, Memorial Stadium (the former home of the Orioles), Nationals Park, PNC Park, and Wrigley Field. I was wondering how they chose all of those. It seems like they leaned heavily on northeastern stadiums. Dodger Stadium would be a good one to have for a symmetrical stadium, but they’re probably not getting a lot of teams from Southern California to play there so I guess it makes sense to have something like a mini Nationals Park instead of a mini Dodger Stadium. Anyway, the worst thing about the stadium was the artificial turf. It was pretty good other than that. I had a pulled pork sandwich and a Duckpin Pale Ale from Union Craft Brewing in Baltimore. They were good. Union Craft Brewing also has an IPA named after Eddie Murray that was available at both stadiums I visited on this trip. Eddie Murray spent 13 years with the Orioles so that makes sense, but I first remember him as a Dodger. He was a Dodger only from 1989-1991 (and then again for nine games in 1997, I did not remember that). I would have had the beer named after him in honor of him leading the Majors in batting average, but not winning the batting title in 1990, but I’m not a big IPA guy (that’s one of my favorite pieces of baseball trivia, he didn’t win the batting title because Willie McGee got traded from the Cardinals to the A’s, but he had enough at bats and a higher batting average during his time in the NL than Eddie Murray did for the season).
We got cheap tickets that were in the second row right behind home plate. Make baseball fields grass again.
The next day I took the MARC train down to Union Station and then took the Metro to visit Jon in Bethesda. Jon and Halie now have a son named Rory who is about to turn two years old. I think both of them told me something like it would take 5-10 minutes for him to warm up to me. That was pretty much exactly right. He didn’t say much at first, but then he seemed to enjoy having me around for the weekend. It was fun to meet him and get to play with him for a couple of days. We took it easy on Friday night. After Rory went to bed, Jon and I rewatched the Orange Bowl from my birthday. It’s probably my favorite Notre Dame game that I can remember. It really was a great game and the fourth quarter was pretty crazy. Penn State probably should have won, but James Franklin is their version of Brian Kelly. He beats lots and lots of teams that aren’t very good, but if you’re a very good team, you’re going to beat Small Game James. We were a very good team and we beat James Franklin. I believe Marcus Freeman will lead Notre Dame to a National Championship (hopefully this coming season). When he does that, the Orange Bowl will move down to number two on the list of my favorite Notre Dame games.
On Saturday, we took it easy in the morning and then Jon and I headed to the Wharf in Washington DC for lunch. Apparently it’s all fairly new restaurants and shops and stuff. We enjoyed some shrimp cocktail and crabcakes. Then we headed to Bowie for the game. Like the game in Aberdeen two nights earlier, this game turned out to be a doubleheader. I saw that right before I went to bed the previous night so it wasn’t as big of a surprise as it was in Aberdeen. We got there before the gates opened and there was a long line to get in. I don’t know if it was because there was a pretty tight window between the gates opening and the first game starting or because of the free giveaway. They were giving out Hawaiian shirts that looked pretty cool. I would have taken one, but by the time we got in they only had XL and XXL left. Either option would have been way too big and I never would have worn it so neither of us took a shirt.
It was my second straight minor league game with an Orioles’ affiliate playing a Phillies’ affiliate with the Chesapeake Baysox (the Orioles have the most logical group of minor league teams with the three minor league teams in Maryland and their triple-A team in Norfolk, Virginia) facing the Reading Fighting Phils. Both teams scored a run on RBI singles in the first. Reading scored on an RBI double in the second and another RBI single in the sixth. Chesapeake made it 3-2 on a groundout in the seventh, but that was all they got. We decided not to stay for the second game and head back to Bethesda to try to watch a collegiate summer league game, but it was rained out. The weather in Bowie was fine, but it rained pretty hard in Bethesda. It had stopped by the time we got there, but I guess they decided to call it with the field all wet. We missed Chesapeake winning the second game 8-3, but that was fine. I got to one game and experienced the stadium. It’s not like I had any rooting interest in the game and it would have been cool to get to another game so I didn’t care about missing the second game. The game we saw was an hour and 49 minutes. It was 88°. It was pretty hot at first with the game starting at 5:05, but it cooled down as it got cloudier. Attendance was 4,770. I don’t remember if it was Aberdeen or Bowie, but at one of the stadiums, they did a fifth inning stretch since it was a shortened game with the doubleheaders.
Day baseball is good as long as it’s not too hot and natural grass and dirt are great.
The Chesapeake Baysox definitely have the better stadium that I went to during that trip. They play in Prince George’s Stadium, which is a terrible name. Of course, it’s in Prince George’s County, which is also a terrible name. They should change the name to George County (I was thinking Washington County, but Maryland already has a Washington County) and the stadium to almost anything else. But the grass field and the bigger crowd made it better than Ripken Stadium. I also liked the setting. It was kind of isolated. You drive down this road to the parking lot and then there’s the stadium and then it just looks like a forest behind that. They had a big green screen behind the center field wall as the batter’s eye. I was thinking they could just have the trees as the batter’s eye, but that probably wouldn’t work as well early in the season before the leaves have come in. Their season probably doesn’t go late enough that the leaves are going to be totally changing colors, but it would be a cool location for fall baseball if it did go that long. The food and beverage was solid. I had a pit beef sandwich and a Mully’s Blood Orange Blonde from Prince Frederick, Maryland. The sandwich was good. And although the brewery is in another place in Maryland with a ridiculous name, the beer was an excellent summer beer. I wouldn’t take it over Sam Adams Summer Ale, but it was good.
So that was my trip to Maryland. I got to see Tom for the first time since around Christmas and I got to see Jon and Halie for the first time in three years and meet Rory so that was all fun. It was my first time in Maryland since before the pandemic. My next trip had me heading north instead of south so I’ll get to that in my next post.
Before I finish, I had some quick thoughts on the All Star Game. I’ll give Rob Manfred credit for something. Having the players in their regular uniforms (and without uniform ads) was beautiful. Of course, what I’m giving him credit for is just undoing his own stupid decision to have everybody wear the same stupid uniforms for the All Star Game so I’m not really giving him credit. We also had seven inning doubleheaders in the Majors because of the pandemic and he undid that. I was okay with seven inning doubleheaders in the Majors because of the circumstances, but getting rid of them was a good decision. It would be wonderful if he would undo other more significant stupid decisions like having the DH in the NL (the Dodgers benefit from the DH more than anybody else and I still hate it) and having a runner on second base in extra innings. And we had our first swing off to decide the All Star Game. It’s a really stupid way to decide a baseball game. But with all the stupid things they’ve already done with the All Star Game, whatever. It was interesting and the game doesn’t mean anything so I can live with it. But my fear is that Rob Manfred will try to decide real games like this. I fear that it’s more likely that he’d do that than get rid of the runner on second base in extra innings. It might be interesting, but it’s not baseball. Having batting practice pitchers decide games that matter would be unbelievably stupid (except it would be believable with Rob Manfred). Supporters might compare it to shootouts deciding hockey games. It’s not that for two reasons. In hockey, the alternative was having ties. In baseball the alternative is playing baseball to decide the games. Also, penalty shots (though rare) are part of hockey games. Batting practice is not part of baseball games. Having the swing off to decide meaningful games would be like having a three point contest to decide basketball games or a 50 yard field goal contest to decide football games (I hate college football overtime, but a 50 yard field goal kicking contest would be worse). So I said I would give Rob Manfred credit for something and then I spent most of this paragraph criticizing him for doing stupid things and worrying that he will do more stupid things. That sounds about right.