Isotopes Field, Albuquerque (AAA #2 - Rooting for the Isotopes)

How could I not love going to a game of the Albuquerque Isotopes (and buying a polo shirt with their logo on it) when I spent much of my career studying isotopes?

I think they’re the only team named the “Isotopes,” but it’s logical. Albuquerque embraces New Mexico’s history with nuclear science and engineering, warts and all. The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in Albuquerque is part of the Smithsonian system, and is one of those great museums that provides enough information on both the good and bad parts of the history to make you rethink whatever you believe (we’re going there tomorrow, but no blog).

According to Albuquerque’s local visitor’s center, the name came about as follows. From 1915 to 2000, Albuquerque had the Albuquerque Dukes, for most of that time the Dodgers’ AAA team. But the Dukes ended their run in 2000. In 2001, there was an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer finds out that his hometown team, the Springfield Isotopes, are going to move to Albuquerque, and it did not go unnoticed in Albuquerque. When Albuquerque got a Triple-A team again in 2003, an online name-the-team contest had Isotopes as the runaway winner.

A new ballpark was built, whose official name is the awkwardly corporate Rio Grande Credit Union Field at Isotopes Park, but is better thought of as just Isotopes Park. It’s got a façade full of randomly colored glass windows reminiscent of the early 1960s, which somehow fits with the quirky name. 

 

It’s got lots of other nice touches, too. They saved a two- or three-foot diameter concrete baseball that sat in front of the previous stadium, and along one walkway, there’s a picture of a young couple standing at the baseball in 1956, and another picture of the same couple, not so young, standing at the same baseball in 2009. Although the town of Hatch, the center for the world’s best green chili peppers, is nearly 200 miles away, Hatch chilis are a source of pride for the whole state, so it’s appropriate that the ballpark has a stand selling “Green Chili Philly” sandwiches, which are about what you’d expect – delicious. Their margaritas are made with tequila, unlike El Paso (wine-based margaritas? really?). In other words, the park has a sense of New Mexico culture and history. Oh, and when they play the music for “Charge” to get the fans revved up, it’s “Marge” (Marge Simpson) that appears on the scoreboard, a nice nod to the team name’s history.  

The game:

Albuquerque lost to the Sugar Land Space Cowboys (Houston’s AAA team), 5-4.

For me, the story of the game was a player I’d never heard of before this evening. Quincy Hamilton is in his third year of professional baseball, and the Astros just moved him up from AA to AAA. Tonight was his first game at this level.

In his first at bat, he hit a home run to left field.

In his second at bat, he hit a home run to right field. At this point, his AAA career consists of two home runs in two at bats, plus a nice diving catch in right field.

In his third at bat, he walked, breaking the string.

In his fourth at bat, he finally made an out, when the opposing third baseman made a diving stop of a hard hit ball, and threw Hamilton out at first by a step.

It won’t be this easy for him every night (his AA statistics really weren’t very impressive), but he looks like he’s got a chance. Of course, for every Quincy Hamilton moving up, there’s someone moving the other direction. Luis Cessa pitched in the majors from 2018 until he was released by the Reds a few weeks ago. The Rockies signed him to a minor league contract, and he’s now pitching for Albuquerque – and gave up five runs in four innings to put them in a hole they never quite recovered from.