August 22, 2008

Carolina Mudcats

I didn't end up waking up at 6 a.m. because I realized last night that the NBC Olympics Web site videos wouldn't work with my computer. The extra sleep was nice and I felt better about the dilemma when the US team ended up losing the game anyway.

I didn't miss much. I headed into work a little early because Friday mornings are pretty busy. That's because Fridays at BA always mean it's time for the weekly Prospect Hot Sheet, where we take a look at which prospects had the best weeks. It's really fun. We start looking over the prospects for each of our respective leagues on Thursdays, update their stats Friday morning to reflect what they did Thursday night, and then have a meeting to discuss who makes the cut. Quite a few of my rookie leaguers had great weeks, which was awesome because that means I got to do more writing! Here's a link to this week's Hot Sheet. I wrote up Jaff Decker, Jack McGeary, Nico Vasquez, Jordan Lyles and a kid that jumped out at me yesterday when he tore it up for two games in the Pioneer League, Delta Cleary. Dad, you'll want to keep an eye on this kid! I also wrote up Cleary for today's blog post. So, that was a lot of fun.

I headed home for lunch and on the way to my car I saw something that you never see in Washington — a little lizard was zipping along the sidewalk. It caught my eye because it was moving so quickly. I stopped and watched it for a little while and it was about two inches long and was kind of blue with a red stripe. I have no idea what it was, but it soon dove into a crack in the sidewalk and disappeared. I went home and tried to make a tuna sandwich, but I broke the rinky-dink can opener that's here, so that sucked. I tried to go ask the old Hispanic woman (there's at least one, Fernando!) across the street if she had one I could borrow, but she said no even before I finished my question. I think she was either scared of me or didn't understand what I was asking for. Maybe both ... I am pretty scary! :) So, I ended up making a PB&J instead. I need to buy a can opener this weekend. I'm sure this is just thrilling information.

Anyway, headed back to work and it got pretty quiet toward the end of the day. At about 5:30, one of my co-worker's girlfriend showed up and four of us carpooled out to Zebulon to watch the Carolina Mudcats take on the Mississippi Braves. The reason for the excursion was to see Tommy Hanson pitch for Mississippi. BA ranked Hanson as the 9th-best Braves prospect heading into the season and he'll surely rank higher this winter. But we got out there and it turns out Hanson was pushed back because of a recent rainout. Boo! Adding to that, Cameron Maybin didn't play for Carolina. Double boo! But it was still a good time and I was pretty impressed with the pitcher who did end up going for Mississippi, Kris Medlen. Plus, we got to see Braves top prospect, center fielder Jordan Schafer hit an opposite-field home run and lace a triple off the center field wall. He looked really good.

A funny thing happened before the game even started. We got into the stadium with some general admission tickets that were given to us by the media relations department. But, BA goes out there frequently enough that the usher behind home plate knew my co-worker by name and told us we could sit anywhere, so long as we weren't in someone's paid seats. No problem, right? Well, before the game starts I go to get some food and end up coming back down a different aisle, actually in the section next to the one we originally set up camp. Here's the conversation I had with the usher as I was trying to head down the aisle...

Chuck: Whoa, whoa, whoa ... where do you think you're going?
Me: I'm going to my seat, right there.
Chuck: Well then let me see your ticket.
(I show him my ticket)
Chuck: Do you know where these seats are? They're waaaaay out there! (points to outfield bleachers) You can sit anywhere you want out there, but you can't sit here.
Me: Oh, well we got those tickets from the media department. I write for Baseball America and we wanted to sit behind home plate to get a good view of the pitcher.
Chuck: Son, I don't care if you wrote The Bible, these seats here are $10.50.
Me: (blank stare)
Chuck: I want you to have a good view, but it's not going to be from my section.

I ended up going back down the right aisle and didn't have a problem at all, but I couldn't believe I was hassled by a minor-league ticket Nazi! The game was fun and usually I don't care for mascots too much, but I have to say that Carolina's mascot, Reggy, was pretty entertaining. There were some good between-inning skits and events and he actually had me laughing out loud on a few occasions. Check out his YouTube page, I'm sure there's something funny there. Mississippi beat Carolina 8-2 and, unfortunately, nothing triggered a psychotic rampage by Mississippi Braves manager Phillip Wellman like this epic ejection from a couple years ago...



Now I'm back home, I'm tired and I'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. When your biggest plan for the day is, "buy a can opener," you can sleep in as long as you want! I do think my roommate may be moving in tomorrow though. We'll see. Tomorrow night I'm heading to the DBAP to see David Price in action again. Hopefully he'll be better than last time!