As I am winding down my first season as a broadcaster in the Pacific Coast League, I feel that I have been honored to get a chance to see so many great ballparks around the league.  I’ve had the chance to travel to great cities such as Memphis, New Orleans, Albuquerque, Des Moines, Omaha, Sacramento, etc.

Some of these places are within easy walking distance from the hotel where the Sounds stay.  It’s always nice to be downtown since I can still walk around and also see the sights as well as see many fine points of interest.

Des Moines, Iowa, features one of the best ballparks in the PCL as well as in minor league baseball.  For years, Sec Taylor Stadium was the home of the Iowa Cubs, until it got replaced by Principal Park, which opened up in 1992.

Along the left field side, there are 12 skyboxes and approximately 85 Home Plate Club Seats,  The outfield walls are very high all around the ballpark and there is lawn seating beyond the right field wall and an area above the left field wall, where fans can flock and sit and watch a bird’s eye view of the ballgame.

One of the great features of calling a game is that way beyond the center field wall, I can see a nice view of the State Capitol of Iowa, with its gold color reflecting well off the sun.

I feel like I am in Wrigley Field or Fenway Park because despite its modern features, the line scoreboard is manual, where a person changes the signs on his own instead of electronically.  Only thing I don’t like is when there are balls and strikes called, it is marked by a small lightbulb instead of numbers.  In other words, you would see one light bulb on the ball column if it is “Ball One” and two lightbulbs in the strike column if it is “two strikes” and they are bunched together.

Prinicpal Park has a giant playland for youngsters in the concourse along the first base side.  They can enjoy this while in the shade instead of being outside where you could be behind the outfield wall and have to deal with the hot sun and heat.

One of the concessions is called Stu’s Barbecue, but nope, unfortunately, it doesn’t belong to me, so I can’t cut any special deals for anyone.  

Speaking of the outfield, one can find relieve from the heat as Principal Park installed a fountain in right field.  There is also a party deck in the area for group functions and anyone can enjoy visiting the fountain or running through it during the game.  I’m not sure how many would risk getting wet unless they had their bathing suits on.

So, if you ever visit Des Moines, I recommend not only Principal Park, but also visit the State Capitol, the Iowa Hall of Pride Museum (which is downtown) as well as the skywalk

Des Moines is a nice and friendly city and even though it can be a bit of a walk to the ballpark from downtown, it can be done.  I look forward to future visits and broadcasts to Principal Park.  .

Well, with all of the hustle and bustle of travelling in and out of Nashville to continue my first year in the Pacific Coast League, I’ve had the marvelous opportunity of continuing to vault into new cities and see new ballparks.

The first leg of this road trip was my first ever visit to Reno, Nevada.  It was two thumbs up…and more! I continue to be impressed with the West Coast ambience of seeing wonderful mountains and experiencing comfortable weather.  The Sounds stayed at the Silver Legacy Hotel in downtown Reno.  There are a lot going on in town while we were there from August 4th through the 7th.  The city itself had what was known as “Hot August Nights”.  In other words, there was a large display of vintage cars dating back to the 40′s, 50s, and 60s.  I couldn’t believe how these cars were in such tip top shape. They were lined up for about four blocks around the hotel and a lot of them were for sale.  Some were being sold for the same amount of a van at 2010 prices.  Of course, I am not in the market for a new car, but I couldn’t help but enjoy the enormous site of these cars.  I had no idea how many of these cars still existed.  However, they were there and lined up.  There was also a band playing and singing songs from the 1960s.  I felt like I was in a time warp.  People were everywhere and it was a carnival-like atmosphere.

As for the hotel itself, the rooms were nice and there were plenty of restaurants and needless to say…casinos! I am not the gambling type and didn’t bother to participate.  Still, it was nice to see the hotel flooded with people who are willing to risk their money, but at least they were having a nice time. 

I had a chance to walk through downtown and couldn’t get over how laid back and friendly that people really are.  As far as Reno is concerned, it is not a bad place to retire and/or raise a family.  I also had the pleasure of having former Sounds Radio Announcer Duncan Stewart join me in the visiting radio booth at Aces Park for one game.  He had been in Nashville for many years, but decided to take the plunge and move to Reno.  He and his wife, Cheryl, really have enjoyed their time in the “Biggest Little City” in the country.  The day after I had Duncan in the booth, he was kind enough to invite me to lunch and he showed me around the town.  There was also a running stream of water where people were swimming and rafting and he showed me the scenery.  It was certainly breath-taking and I couldn’t get enough of Reno.  Although I still consider my an East Coast Kid (having grown up in New York City), I couldn’t help but really enjoy Reno.  I’m not sure if I will ever retire to the West Coast or what have you, but it’s nice to come back and visit once in a while.  I recommend the city.

As for the four-game set against the Aces, the Sounds had no chance.  They ran into a buzz-saw as the Aces swept the Sounds in four games.  They just came out with guns blazing, bats swinging and swept the Sounds four straight.  As for my broadcast facility, I was right below the skyboxes and just about at field level.  Fans were sitting in front of me and at first, I wasn’t sure how they would react listening to me.  The Aces’ booth was right next to mine.  The booth was rather small and I had to leave a kickstand next to the door because if the door was shut, it would lock and the only way I can get it to open again is to have an Aces’ staff member to unlock the door or otherwise, I had to go into the stands and climb through the window into the booth (which I was able to do at one point).  The Press Box was in the upper deck and down the right field line.  The broadcasters were isolated away from the press box, but at least we had a speaker system where we can hear of any scoring decisions, pitching changes, etc. 

Aces Park kind of reminded me of Fenway Park and they have a high wall from the left field foul pole to the batter’s eye in straightaway center.  A much smaller wall was in right field with both bullpens behind a plexy glass in right field.  Well, not quite completely Fenway Park, but close.  Still, the view behind the netting and home plate was clear and great, although I prefer to be elevated.

Another feature at the ballpark is the “Triple Play Barbecue Sandwich”.  I was determined to give it a shot.  It is a humongous sandwich and it has three pieces of bread and in between, was cole slaw, barbecued brisket and pork and on top of both halves of the sandwich were meatballs held together by a skew.  Somehow, I managed to eat half of the sandwich, but didn’t have time to eat most of the other half since I had to get “on the air” for the broadcast.  I ate part of it afterwards, but didn’t have time since it was our last night at the ballpark.  I did manage to take a picture of half the sandwich for the world to see what it looks like.  If you ever go to Aces Park, I highly recommend the sandwich.  You better have a big appetite and NOT eat anything else before or after the sandwich.  Otherwise, you will dearly pay for it.

It’s a shame that this was our only series against the Aces and our only trip to Reno this year.  It was a great one, but I wish the Sounds could have had better luck against the Aces.  Oh well.  Better Luck next time.  I will talk about my first experience at Cashman Field coming up. Again, I hope you get to visit Reno, Nevada one of these days.  The trip will be worth it!

The title of this blog was certainly appropriate on the previous Monday, July 26, 2010.  I apologize to the 1960s Rock Group, The Cowsills because this was the title of one of their biggest Top 40 hits in late 1967. 

 

However, the reason why I am using this title is because of what I experienced on that late July day.  The Nashville Sounds were scheduled to play at 12:05PM game (Albuquerque time) at Isotopes Park and it was the final game they would play this season against the Isotopes. 

The Sounds had lost a rain shortened game the night before and it was the same game when the Isotopes belted three 3-run homers.  The Sounds took two of the first three games and of course, we were all looking forward to getting home after the game.  It was nice to know that instead of waking up early the next day to leave at 4AM for an early morning flight, we would be taking a 6PM flight back to Nashville (with a connection through Dallas) that night. 

While I was getting ready to leave my luggage bag in one of the conference rooms at the hotel where we were staying, I ran into Sounds’ reliever David Johnson and I said, “Nice to have a day game and a flight home this evening”.  He replied, “Yep, let’s hope it is a quick game and that things will work out!”.  Little did we know!

I took the shuttle to the ballpark and saw it was cloudy, but it didn’t appear to be any rain at first.  I was doing my usual pre-game preparation until it was noon and the game would get underway.  Chase Wright was starting for us and I know how badly he wanted to face the Isotopes again, especially after he gave up 4 home runs in an inning against them during his previous start at Greer Stadium.  If you can also believe this, the noon game was the eighth consecutive game against the Istopes after the first 4 games were played in Nashville and then the scene shifted to Albuquerque.

The game started off on a blazing and positive note as the Sounds promising center fielder, Lorenzo Cain smacked two triple in the same inning with him driving in three runs during the first inning as the Sounds took a 7-0 lead against the Isotopes.  Then the ‘Topes struck back against Chase Wright with a run in the bottom of the first.  I prayed that not very much would happen after that.  I was wrong.

When the Sounds came to bat in the top of the 2nd inning, the rains came down and came down hard.  It would be a 50-minute rain delay before play would resume.  I’m thinking, “Oh boy, this will be interesting!”.  The rain delay finally stopped but the offensive barrage continued on both sides.  The Sounds would have another big inning in the top of the third when they scored at least three times, but the Isotopes responded with three runs of their own in the bottom of the inning.  Somehow, I kept saying to myself to “stay calm and relaxed and not worry about anything I can’t control”.  By the time the 6th inning ended, there were a combied 18 runs and the game kept dragging.  I said to myself, “there is no way I can do the post-game radio show”.  The game was on the internet that day and I had total control on what I decided to do.  I never like to diss a post-game show, but I got a text message from one of my colleagues in the Sounds office, telling me that our General Manager, George King, had warned me to hurry up quick since no one will wait around since we had to go to the airport immediately afterwards.’  Then I got another text message from the Sounds’ Trainer, Dave Yaeger, telling me, “No post-game radio, we are going to dash out to the airport!”.  I responded by telling him that I was way ahead of him. 

Well, LaTroy Hawkins came on to relieve Chase Wright after the sixth and pitched well for a couple of innings.  Still, the game was moving along slowly when I saw the clock was at 4PM.  It was going into the 9th and I said to myself, “please let’s get this game going!”.  Then, it happened again! The rains came down once more! I said, “OH NO!” since I thought for sure we would miss our flight.  Only thing I could hope for was this rain to be longer than the first.  Well, it kept pouring and pouring down and I’m just thinking, “LET’S BANG THIS SINCE WE NEED TO BE AT THE AIRPORT SOON!”.  I started packing whatever I could to be ready.  Then suddenly, the game was finally called.  I breathe out a huge sigh of relief.  The game was official and we won.  I was almost packed when the game was banged.  I said goodbye to my fellow broadcaster, Istopes’ voice Robert Portnoy and we wished each other the best.  I got everything packed in my equipment bag and chose to WALK DOWN the stairs instead of taking the elevator.  Even though the elevator worked properly, I was not going to risk getting stuck in the elevator and missing the bus and the flight. 

I dropped off my equipment bag with the rest of our equipment as the Albquerque clubbies were loading it on the truck for the trip to the airport.  I saw the bus and got on it.  Whew, I made it! The rain was still coming down, but it was letting up.  The bus finally took off and we made our way to the airport.

We made it through security and there was still one hour to spare.  It was nice to finally relax.  We travelled from Albuquerque to Dallas for a one hour layover.  Then we connected on our flight to Nashville.  The weather was not the greatest as I was flying home, I noticed that lightning was crackling through the clouds below.  We were thankful to be away from those clouds.  The weather was still not all that great when it was really cloudy when we flew through the clouds.  The next thing I knew was the pilots were asking for the flight attendants to prepare for landing.  I knew we were just about home.  We finally touched down at midnight, but now I can see what can happen in Triple-A with us not having a bus to take the leisurely stroll back or a charter plane (like they have in the major leagues) to have a leisurely stroll as well.  Since AAA teams flight on commercial flights, it’s like you hope you have no rain delays, missed connections, etc., or otherwise you are stuck.  You can be late or the equipment gets late.  Luckily, things have worked out well on every road trip we’ve had so far.

I have continued to enjoy my first year in Triple-A and in the Pacific Coast League.  Hopefully, we won’t have too many days like this to sweat out, but this sure made a great story.  As they say, “things tend to work out well for the best” and they do.  Not always smoothly, but they do. 

Side Note: Tonight is Game 2 of a 4-game set between the Nashville Sounds and the Round Rock Express (Astros’ AAA affiliate) and the game will be broadcast on 104.5 The Zone and on nashvillesounds.com.  Sounds look to end a four-game losing streak. Hope you tune in.  Otherwise, enjoy the rest of your Sunday and have a great week!