Louisville Slugger Field (AAA #6 - An uninspiring end to the new ballparks for the year)

 

This was our final ballpark stop of the year, and it felt like an anticlimax, in so many ways. 

First, the good. Louisville Slugger Field is typical for the AAA ballparks we've been to this year. It opened in 2000, a little on the old side, but it's still nice. It's in downtown, walkable from our hotel across the street from the convention center, which is a definite plus. Over the scoreboard, you can see one of the bridges across the Ohio River - I like a ballpark with a view. You can also see the traffic on the interstate, but it's far enough away that you don't hear it, so it's not really a problem. It was a beautiful evening for baseball, temperature in the 70s and a little overcast.

So what's not to like?

Mainly, the place just seemed to lack any buzz. We've been to an afternoon game at the likely-soon-to-be-ex-home of the team with the worst record in the majors (the Royals), and it felt livelier than this. But how can you quantify buzz?

Louisville Slugger Field has one of the largest seating capacities in AAA baseball. At 13,131, only Albuquerque (13,500) has a larger capacity among the parks we've been to. But it was the smallest crowd we've seen, at 4025. The combination means that it felt very empty. The picture was taken about 30 minutes before game time, and while outfield seats are often pretty empty, this was striking.

I always walk the concourse before the game to see how many people are wearing the gear of the home team. In a full circuit of the stadium a half-hour before game time, I saw only 9 people (other than the staff) wearing anything that indicated "Louisville Bats." The only place I saw less than that was in Des Moines, but there I saw 35 people wearing the gear of the parent team, the Chicago Cubs. Here, there were only three people wearing Cincinnati Reds gear, even though the two ballparks are less than 100 miles apart, the closest parent team to any AAA team we've seen. So the total wearing the gear of the team or its parent team was 12, the only place I've counted less than 20. Wearing a T-shirt advertising the visiting team, which I'd caught in Omaha, I felt barely outnumbered.

The public address announcer needs to learn how to pronounce Hispanic names, although I do have to give him credit for getting better as the game went on. He didn't get either name of "Adeiny Hechavarría" right at the start, but kept getting a little better each time until he nailed it on the fourth at-bat. And he pronounced the "q-u" in "Velázquez" as "kwah" until the last at-bat. I'll grant that Adeiny Hechavarría is tough to pronounce if you don't know the rules of Spanish pronunciation, but you can look it up on the web, and c'mon, if you're getting paid to announce names, it's only polite to get them right.

The "in-game host", the person who announces the various between-innings contests for spectactors, needs to learn to add some inflection when she speaks. 

And the mascot really should pay attention one of the times he/she walks by a little kid and his father who keep asking for a picture.

Was I just in a hyper-critical mood? Perhaps, but it wasn't that I was in a bad mood. After all, it was a beautiful evening at a baseball game, and I basically enjoyed myself. It just seemed like it could have been better.

The game:

Louisville beat the Omaha Storm Chasers, 5-4, when a Bat batter was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the 9th inning. Although it was a walk-off, it seemed like it was an appropriately anticlimactic way to end the evening. I thought the Bats were going to win in dramatic fashion a couple of batters earlier. They had a runner on 2nd base when the batter hit one to the wall in right-center. The rightfielder came close, but couldn't catch it, so I assumed the runner would score, but he got thrown out at the plate pretty easily on a nice relay from the centerfielder (who hustled to back up the play) to the shortstop to the catcher. It was a great defensive play, but I suspect there was a baserunning mistake. Without the benefit of instant replay, I can't be sure, but I'd guess the runner on 2nd thought the outfielder was going to catch the ball, and decided to tag up on the catch (which would have been the second out) and go to third. But the difference between being on 2nd and 3rd with two outs isn't that great, and if he'd gone "half-way," as Little Leaguers are taught, I can't believe he couldn't have beaten the throw home.

Besides the runner getting thrown out at home, the best defensive play was a double-play, where the Bats' second baseman caught the ball moving past the base, then backhanded to shortstop José Barrero, who came sprinting over from halfway to third to catch the flip, touch the base, and make a strong throw to first. 

The most memorable defensive play was one where Storm Chasers pitcher Max Castillo made two errors on the same play. It started when the runner broke from first with the pitch, and the batter hit a bouncer between the pitcher and first. Castillo got there easily, but dropped the ball, allowing the batter to reach first. Error #1. The runner kept running, and when Castillo picked up the ball, he threw to 3rd base to try to get the runner. It would have been too late to get the runner anyway, but the throw was wild, so it was another error, and the runner, who started the play at first, trotted home.

What's next?

We won't be going to any more games this year other than in Phoenix, but we'll continue the ballpark quest next year. It will start with a trip to see the remaining Texas teams (Houston, Round Rock, and Sugar Land) in the first half of April, coupled with a trip to see a total eclipse of the Sun on April 8. We're hoping to get in a trip to the California and Nevada teams, but whether and when depends on the details of the schedules. And we'll probably do some short flying trips to cities that don't couple well with others (Salt Lake, Seattle/Tacoma) or where we don't want to have a car (New York City). The MLB schedule is already out, and I've got it loaded into my trip-planning spreadsheet), but the AAA schedule is probably still a few weeks off. Last year, it came out Aug. 31, so I'm eagerly awaiting it.  

Until then...