Monthly Archives: May 2010

The Pigs lost their opening game of an 8 game road trip today against the Charlotte Knights. The first inning saw Rich Thompson single and then get picked off of first base. Later in the inning, Sardinha’s throw to second went into centerfield allowing the Knight runner to third who eventually scored. Just more testimony to the Pig’s luck of late.

Good’s
Rich Thompson extended his hitting streak to 8 games, tying the team long streak with two other players. Rich also got a triple adding momentum to his cause to be a starting outfielder.

Andy Tracy went 2 for 3 with a homerun and a walk. Let’s hope this is the beginning of his return.

Not so Good’s
Errors and making the most of baserunners continue to be a problem for the Pigs. Still waiting for the team to come together and stop playing as individuals. I smell transactions coming soon…

I have to be honest.. the past two days have really kicked me. I am exausted. I made the trip to mom after yesterday’s game, had some fried chicken and came home to bed. That wind really does you in.. So to recap a little on the game and add some other side notes….

The Pigs lost the game 3 to 4 in 10 innings. I know the broadcasters announced that Rich Thompson was out on the force out in the bottom of the ninth, where had he been safe, the winning run had scored… but a similiar play in the 10th for the Clippers ended with a safe call allowing the Clippers to take 3 of 4 here in the Valley this weekend.

Former Ironpig Carlos Carrasco pitched 6 innings allowing 2 runs on 6 hits.

Jason Donald also had 3 hits including a triple.

Rich Thompson pushed his average to .338 after going 3-5 with a triple.

Andy Tracy had a hit and was robbed of a sure hit and 2 RBI when Clipper’s right fielder made a great catch of his fast sinking line drive.

Dane Sardinha hit a wind assisted home run into the Bud Light Trough.

Cody Ransom committed his 9th error of the season. No gold glove for this guy… however he had some terrible calls on him at the plate and he held his tongue. It makes you wonder if umpires talk and hold grudges..

Now quite possibly the most exciting thing to happen at CCP yesterday, possibly blown on to the field by that strong wind… a squirrel spent the better part of 4 innings in the outfield during the game. He seemed to enjoy Rich Thompson the most and was encouraged on by the Pig’s bullpen who were seen tossing him sunflower seeds. There were Richmond Flying Squirrels jokes tossed about and questions if security would taser it, but the squirrel was allowed to be the Pig’s 10th outfielder and no harm came to be.

Also, Brian Schneider was added to the Disabled list pulling Paul Hoover to Philadelphia and Kevin Nelson to the Pigs lineup yesterday. The Hog Blog reported that Nelson would be soon replaced by John Suomi.

8 days until the Pigs return home..

This past series we have heard a lot about ducks in Coca Cola Park. Each time former Ironpig Jason Donald came to bat the loud speaker emitted a loud duck call quacking away, possibly in homage to the Noise Nation’s former sub-group “Jason Donald’s Ducks.” Then last night, when Brandon Duckworth came on in relief the scoreboard played a clip from the movie, “The Mighty Ducks,” that resulted in a meek Quack chant amongst the remaining fans. This morning.. I have more Duck news for you!

Noise Nation favorite and former Scranton WB Yankee John Rodriguez has returned from his vacation in the Mexican League and has signed a contract with The Atlantic League’s Long Island Ducks. Rodriguez hit the lineup the next day and went 2 for 5 in a 10-6 Duck victory.

The Long Island Ducks are a non-MLB affiliated team located in Central Islip, NY and have played their home games in Suffolk County Sports Park since 2000.

Some fun facts about the Ducks:
They have led their league in attendance since they entered the league in 2000.

John Rocker tried to revive his career with the team, surprisingly in NY.

Jose Offerman gained infamy while playing for the Ducks after attacking opposing players with his bat in response to a hit by pitch.

Robinson Cancel is currently on the Duck’s roster. You may remember seeing him visit Coca Cola Park last season.

Current Bench Coach is Bud Harrelson

And today would not be complete without mentioning mom. Thanks mom. You drove me to countless baseball practices and games. I would never know what baseball was if you hadn’t pushed a shy kid out of the car at that first T-ball practice.

Also of note, mom’s favorite nick-nack theme… Pigs.

The Pigs pulled out a win against the hottest team in the International league tonight. The Clippers didn’t do themselves any favors, committing 4 errors in the crazy weather at Coca Cola Park today. I started the afternoon off by watching the movie Twister on TBS and I was ready to tie myself to the outfield railing a few times. The extremely high wind knocked over radios, soda and one unfortunate tray of nachos. It came close to knocking a few of the lighter Noise Nation members off their feet too. Add in the light mist, some very fine snow (Yes, we got some flurries there for a few minutes), a beautiful rainbow and a monsoon like downpour as the game came to an end. One of those game you talk about for years.. and not because of the play on the field.

Good’s
Every Ironpig on the team (minus a late addition to the lineup Sardinha). Heck even Bocock had a hit today!

Andy Tracy just missed a homerun that hit inches below the wall. A few came out and asked, and yes it was below the wall.

Not so Good’s
The weather played havoc with any ball hit in the air. These balls were moving all over the place.

Brian Schneider injured himself in today’s game, prompting Paul Hoover to be scratched from the lineup. If Schneider hits the DL.. look for Hoover to go up and either Gosewisch or Suomi to replace him in Allentown. Could Schneider possibly be on a rehab assignment for his bobble head day?

I saw a video this morning of a tall, mustached reliever coming in for the Round Rock Express and was surprised not to see Gary Majewski on the mound. Majewski, while still on the Round Rock roster, was not heading to the mound to face off against the Nashville Sound.

Instead was a character of a pitcher in Rojo Johnson. His story was given as a rough and tough reliever and this showed through when he cracked open a beer on the mound, wearing a large glittery necklace. After some wild warmups, Johnson’s first pitch sailed well behind the “Nashville batter” and he was ejected to a flurry of entertainment.

Well, it’s pretty obvious this was a stunt that Bill Veeck would have been proud of. Veeck, the longtime master of promotions in the Major leagues, was the mastermind behind the 70’s disco record disaster, the Eddie Gaedel at bat and aliens invading a stadium and taking players hostage during a game.

The mastermind in this case was Will Ferrell. Yes, you can tell pretty clearly that this was Will Ferrell and my first thought… that he was filming a minor league baseball movie, was incorrect. He was there to raise awareness for his charity event supporting cancer research. What a fun night.

While Gary didn’t pitch in last night’s game… his stats for 2010 are below:
1 win 1 loss
11 games
13.1 innings pitched
7 runs
15 hits
1 save
4.05 ERA

Tonight was one of those odd nights where not too much exciting happens. No really great catches, a couple runs scored and a bomb of a homerun. Kind of humdrum compared to last night’s game. Another sellout capacity crowd of 10,000.. and even that was expected with postgame fireworks on a Friday. Maybe I’m getting spoiled so far this year but nothing really jumped out at me tonight.

To whoever kept turning off my smoke machine.. knock it off. If I catch you there is the possibility of an atomic wedgie over the outfield wall. Really, each time it’s turned off it takes like 15 minutes to warm up again. Not cool.

Good’s
Andy Tracy had a “light assisted” double as Clipper’s left field Crowe lost a fly ball in the lights. He would have caught it… but the luck seems to be shifting Tracy’s way the past couple of nights.

Pig’s pitching staff added 14 K’s to the board tonight.

Not so Good’s
The entire batting lineup who scraped out 5 hits.

Maza let a burning ground ball ricochet off his glove and shoot between his legs with the bases loaded allowing a few runs to score. He fields the ball and turns two and this game has a different ending.

Mike Zagurski got tagged with the loss with 3 unearned runs. (see above)

We are all meeting out at Pitcher’s Sports Bar & Grill at 5:00pm tomorrow to join in the extended pregame radio show. Stop out and have some fun with us before the game!

I wanted to share this all with you. A couple weeks ago the Noise Nation made a road trip up to Scranton to see the Ironpigs take on the Scranton Yankees in Moosic, PA.

This afternoon I opened up my mailbox and noticed a card. I thought to myself, oh no another birthday, another wedding, another tupperwear or candle party that I need to make an excuse to get out of.. but it wasn’t.

It was a hand written, yes hand written, thank you note from the group representative saying how much he appreciated our visiting their stadium and wishing us a welcome return. What a class act that Scranton organization is! I have given many gifts and gotten generic thank you cards, if any thank you’s at all. I am hard to impress and I am very impressed by this! I realize this is part of a marketing department trying to get us to return, but to hand write a unique card to us was great.

Thank you Scranton Yankees! Thank you!

On a side note.. frequent reader “RD” was able to locate the Columbus Clippers Ring your bell song. Enjoy!

http://clippersbaseball.com.ismmedia.com/ISM2//MultimediaManager/1558.mp3

The Ironpig’s scored all 5 of their runs on homeruns tonight and unfortunately the pitching staff allowed the Clippers to cross the plate 10 times. At one point, down 10 to 5, the Pigs had the bases loaded with one out but they hit into a double play ending the rally and their best chance to get back into the game.

Good’s
Andy Tracy doubled, tripled and walked. The triple was a hard hit ball to left field that Columbus’ left fielder tried to make an aggressive catch on and it scooted under his glove and rolled to the wall. Tracy did leg out the triple but as easily as it could have been a single, it could have been an inside the park homerun if any other Pig had been on the basepaths.

John Mayberry and Cody Ransom both homered. Chris Duffy hit 2. Ransom’s 7th home run is leading the team and ties his mark for errors at 7.

DeWayne Wise gunned down top prospect Carlos Santana at 3rd base trying to stretch a double into a triple.

Jerry “The King” Lawler was on hand tonight and signed free autographs for all fans willing to wait in line. He was a good sport and also assisted Hambone in his first win of the 2010 Pork Races by clotheslining the showboating Chris P. Bacon and Diggity.

Not so Good’s
Both teams had 11 hits and only Columbus made the most of them.

Pig’s pitchers issued 8 walks and seemed a little wild tonight. Combined they threw 155 pitches and only 87 of them for strikes. Gordon alone issued 4 walks.

Clutch hitting remains a problem for the Pigs. They stranded 6 runners on base.

A few days ago I was talking to a co-worker from Columbus and he mentioned that the Columbus Clippers had a promotion for many years in their old stadium involving cowbells. They had bell giveaways and even a song played over the PA system when everyone in the stadium would ring their bells. (Attempts to obtain the audio file have been unsuccessful, see lyrics below:

Columbus Clippers, our team is number one!

Columbus Clippers, our fans are half the fun!

No matter who they’re playing, they’ll always play ’em well

Columbus Clippers ring your bell!

This slowly died off in Columbus when the Yankees affiliation ended and the Nationals took over in 2006 and was finally discontinued when they built their new stadium last season. Some fans feel they lost a tradition.

Looking at attendance over the weekend against the Indians proved to be a success! 3 capacity crowds of 10,000 vaulted the Ironpigs to the top of the AAA class with an average of 8,480 fans a game.

Last season the Lehigh Valley finished 3rd behind Columbus and Sacramento. Columbus was riding the high of a new stadium and with colder weather early is a good bit behind in 2010 at 7,127 a game. That sophomore year trend that we were warned about (yet didn’t happen here in the Valley) might turn true for the Clippers.

Sacramento is still pulling in a crowd consistantly though. Taking a look at what we are up against, let’s compare the competition to ourselves.

Coca Cola Park
Opened in 2008
Capacity 10,000
Estimated Population – 816,012

Sacramento’s Raley Field
Opened in 2000
Capacity 14,680
Estimated Population – 2,136,604

So we’re up against stiff competition for finishing first this year. Sacramento has more than a 2-1 advantage on us and the extra 4,680 seats per game can give them a clear edge for sellout crowds. I believe we can take this spot and keep it for the entire year but we have to keep Coca Cola Park full.

Ok, I can hear it now.. “What’s in it for us?” well anyone who has taken an economics class will say increase in demand increases price but I’m not falling for that one. I’m looking at economy to scale. If we keep filling this stadium.. I believe we will keep the prices level for tickets, food, etc. Over the past 3 years, prices across the board for everything have gone up. The price of tickets and food have remained the same since 2008 at CCP. So what’s in it for us it to keep this team here, keep it affordable and keep it fun. (If you don’t believe me try a Scranton game as an example. Low attendance = $13 tickets and $5 gristle burgers not to mention the 4-5 items offered at one concession stand compare to the incredible range of food offered at many stand here in CCP)

Last but not least, tomorrow we will be graced by wrestling royalty. Not only is Jerry “The King” Lawler a wrestling celebrity, he is also remembered for his infamous staged feud with comedian Andy Kauffman and if my research is correct, he is also an avid collector of Coca Cola Merchandise. Let’s get this guy into the team store..

A few things I’ve been wanting to comment on…

The PA announcer at Coca Cola Park, Tim Chorones does a great job. I’ve been to a few parks and the excitement and energy he puts into the stadium is far beyond the bland reading of the others. It significantly adds to the fun atmosphere in the park and wanted to take a moment and say it out loud.

Another complaint I heard a lot about was the slow moving tickets lines. I found out why this was, yes I said was, and it was due to a printing issue on the tickets. The barcodes were aligned with a line pattern on the paper ticket itself and threw off the bar code readers. While season ticket and group leaders were contacted and replacement tickets issued.. some clever ushers actually came up with a card’like device to “fix” the problem. Leave it to American inguenuity!

2 Weeks ago if anyone had said the Ironpigs would be short on outfielders we all would have collectively laughed at them. But as we have seen this week, 2 quick injuries placed the team into that spot. Injuries to Wise and Duffy at least gave Rich Thompson to prove he is lineup worthy. I wonder what happens when both return to the lineup. There is no way Mayberry sits so could there be some transactions forthcoming?

Speaking of transactions… With Bastardo’s arrival in Allentown, RHP Jason Anderson flew to Portland last night to join the Reading Phillies. While he was struggling, and deserving of the demotion this time, Anderson has been a strong work horse for the Pigs over the past few seasons and I hope he can return to form and come back home to CCP.