We're reaching the point in GABA 2010 where my wife reaches over and slaps me upside the head for scheduling games in the Deep South and Florida as the summer's heating up. Grab your beach sandals and bingo cards... we're heading south and into Florida for Week 9:
Monday, May 31st:
Augusta, GA (192 miles from Kannapolis)
Augusta Greenjackets (A Giants) vs. Asheville Tourists (A Rockies)
We go from a racing hotbed to a team named after the prize for winning a golf tournament. Lake Olmstead Stadium doesn’t come with its own practice green, but it is next to an actual lake. No word if a homer hit into that lake means a one-stroke penalty. I might find out by the 7th inning, since it’s two-for-one beer night.
Tuesday, June 1st:
Charleston, SC (182 miles from Augusta)
Charleston RiverDogs (A Yankees) vs. Hickory Crawdads (A Rangers)
Charleston’s next on the GABA restraining order list - three RiverDogs games in six days in three different cities. I’m not sure what a RiverDog really is, and it’s even more confusing since Charleston’s near something much larger than a river. But I’ll bet vacationing celebs on the Carolina coast drop by. Snoop RiverDogg!
Wednesday, June 2nd:
Savannah, GA (107 miles from Charleston)
Savannah Sand Gnats (A Mets) vs. Asheville Tourists (A Rockies)
We’re done with the Carolinas, and we’re heading toward Florida just as summer’s starting. Uh-oh… at least Savannah’s a cool town to visit. Borat once sang his national anthem at Grayson Stadium, billed as the oldest working minor-league park in America. Plus, seeing Tourists try to fend off Sand Gnats is a perfect metaphor for our trip at this point.
Thursday, June 3rd:
Jacksonville, FL (140 miles from Savannah)
Jacksonville Suns (AA Marlins) vs. Carolina Mudcats (AA Reds)
Our first home-and-home! We saw these two teams in the Carolinas back on May 15th. Now they’ll meet on the Suns’ turf, which is appropriate since we’ll be spending the next 15 days baking in the Florida sun. This stadium was actually our first as a married couple back in ‘07 – second row, next to the Suns’ dugout. Did my wife have any idea what she was getting into?
Friday, June 4th:
Lakeland, FL (195 miles from Jacksonville)
Lakeland Flying Tigers (A Tigers) vs. Bradenton TBA (A Pirates)
The whirlwind Florida State League tour begins. People showing us pictures of their grandkids and driving 30 mph on interstates for two solid weeks. By the time it’s over, we’ll be eating supper at Morrison’s at 3PM every day and complaining that stuff costs more than it used to. I actually caught my first MLB foul ball at Joker Marchant Stadium in spring training, and to this day, I still don’t know who hit it. I was near the concession stand and this ball shot through some trees and rolled to me. All my blind luck gone in one shot.
Saturday, June 5th:
Tampa, FL (35 miles from Lakeland)
Tampa Yankees (A Yankees) vs. Jupiter Hammerheads (A Cardinals)
Sharing a city with an MLB club? No worries for the Yanks. I’ll bet these single-A boys outdrew the Rays for the first 10 years of the MLB team’s existence. George Steinbrenner Field has a heavy Yankee Stadium influence, except seats behind home plate don’t cost seven months’ salary and Steinbrenner doesn’t come down to fire the manager between innings. Although that would be a great promotion…
Sunday, June 6th:
Dunedin, FL (26 miles from Tampa)
Dunedin Blue Jays (A Blue Jays) vs. St. Lucie Mets (A Mets)
Dunedin Stadium gets high marks from SI as the Jays’ spring home, but I give it high marks for dropping corporatized-name Knology Park last year. True story: when MLB wanted to use scabs during the ’95 strike, the replacement Jays would’ve played their home games in Dunedin because of Ontario laws about replacement workers. And because the scabs didn’t want to play baseball anywhere it snows in May.
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