Root, Root, Root for the Home Teams

Evening clouds at PNC Field in Moosic, Pa.
One or two drops fell before the first pitch, but there was no real threat of rain.

A lot of times, I find myself at a baseball game where I don’t really care who wins. In most of these instances, I come down on the side of the home team. Other times one of the teams might be a rival of a team I like, and I quietly root for them to lose.

Tonight my two good baseball friends Marge and Charlie and I are back at PNC Field to see our AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Railriders play the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs. I’ll be cheering for the Railriders, but next month I’ll be rooting for the Iron Pigs when the two teams meet again at Coca-Cola Park in Allentown. My loyalties are divided because I live exactly halfway between the two ballparks. I think of them both as my AAA home teams. Thanks to them, and to Marge and Charlie who first brought me to a Railriders game, I’ve come to love minor league baseball.

New names on the starting lineup for the Railriders and a familiar one at 2nd base from years past at Marlins Park in Miami. At right, me and Champ the noodle-headed Railriders mascot.

I go to a lot of baseball games. I go to baseball games when I’m on the road to a destination. I go on trips just to see baseball games. I once drove from Miami to Rhode Island for an engagement party and saw five baseball games in five states along the way. Once when I offered to pick up Charlie and Marge at Newark airport, I took in a Lakewood Blue Claws game before their arrival. The game was running long, but lucky for me, the flight was delayed and I was able to stay through to the end. (The team is now called the Jersey Shore Blue Claws.) 

I once flew into a hurricane disaster area, and was able to see a baseball game on the night the emergency curfew was lifted. That game in Houston completed my tour of all the major league ballparks, a journey that began 30 years before when I was on a vacation trip to the San Francisco Bay area. Along the way teams relocated, they adopted new names, cities built new stadiums, and new teams were born. One of those expansion teams, the Florida Marlins, captured my imagination because Major League Baseball had arrived in South Florida, where I grew up without a home team of my own. 

I was living in New York City at the time, so the best way for me to see my new home team was to follow them on the road. I saw the Marlins play in New York, in Philadelphia, in Pittsburgh, and in Boston. When I moved to Albuquerque, I drove 450 miles to see them in Denver. On one trip to Baltimore, it occurred to me that I’d been to a number of the major league ballparks and that I could probably visit all 30 if I set my mind to it.

Souvenir pins from the parent teams of the Iron Pigs and the Railriders.

From that point on, whenever I was on a business or personal trip, I would make sure I designated at least one night for a baseball game. For a conference in San Diego, I took a flight to Phoenix for a game, drove to San Diego for the conference (and a game), and took one free evening to drive to Los Angeles to see the Angels, then drove back to Phoenix for the flight home.

Before long I was making that trip to hurricane-ravaged Houston to complete my journey through the majors. Since then, I’ve managed to keep up-to-date as new ballparks are built, but I need a trip to Texas for a game in the new Rangers ballpark.

Meanwhile, I’m now working on the minor league ballparks. Major League Baseball has made it easier for me this year by narrowing the field from 160 teams to 120. I’ve been to about 30 so far. The journey continues.

Friday fireworks from beyond left field.

The game was long, 3 hours and 51 minutes, after a slow start from the pitchers. Aggressive base running and solid hits made the game worth every minute, and the late-night fireworks after the game were worth the wait. Marge, Charlie and I even made it to the scoreboard during the 7th inning stretch. Final: Railriders 6, Iron Pigs 4.