Caravan vs Caravan

Monday,I attended the Pirate caravan at its first stop of the season in Cumberland Maryland with Battlin Bob,Ryan and Rachel and have a few thoughts.

The Pirates caravan added some stops this season,but decreased the time on the road from three weeks to two,which adds hectic days but at the tradeoff of less time on the road.
Cumberland also has the only Pirate radio affiliate and stop on the caravan in Maryland,so it is pretty clear why the Pirates stop here and the Orioles and Nationals generally ignore it.

Cumberland is a town of about 22,000 people and basically is the nucleus of the very isolated counties of Western Maryland.
It is also Pittsburgh country as the Pirates and Steelers rule the roost here by wide margins over the Baltimore and Washington teams.
If you walk through the Country Club Mall where the event was held,you would see very little merchandise from the Ravens or Nationals and only some of the Orioles or Redskins.
The Maryland Terrapins do have a core base here,but West Virginia and Pitt appear to have a similar foothold on the area.

The even was scheduled to be 11-1,but actually didn't get started until closer to 12.
We weren't at the lines front,but were closer to the front than the back,so we wound up getting our time around 12:30.
All the players were nice enough and signed all that we had,but some were better than others.
Manager John Russell seemed kind of out of his element in the format,he spoke when spoken to,but seemed like he was uncomfortable in the situation.
Sean Burnett was nice enough,but Andy LaRoche seemed to be distracted easily and didn't have much to offer.
Ryan Doumit was the star of the players as I spoke to him about Hagerstown at the Muni.
He pointed out to me on the Hickory card that I had him sign that on the card,they were playing the Suns.
I didn't notice it,but he was right,a Hagerstown base runner is clearly visible on the card.
Doumit asked "They still have a team there?Blue Jays? (which is who they were with when Doumit was here)".
I told him they were with Washington now,but the stadium hadn't changed much.
Ryan laughed and said "That's too bad"!
It is not hard to see why Doumit is such a popular player with Pirate fans.
Bob Walk was there as well and signed everything that I had for him.
Walk talked the most of anyone and chatted about his son John,who caught briefly for Hickory before retiring.
John left the game two days after our 2007 road trip and his dad told me about his talk with John after he was drafted.
"I told him to give a try and have fun with it,but I know what it takes to make it in the game and I don't think you have it,but by all means give it a shot,but be ready to move on if it doesn't work out".
Walk talked to just about everyone and was quite the gentleman and ambassador for Pirate baseball.

It was a good couple of hours and was worth adding some guys to the collection that fell through over the years and in the case of Andy LaRoche,a player that had never been to the area....

The Washington Nationals visited Martinsburg WVA today with their caravan and made little sense.
I didn't attend because it appears that only one player was going to be there,pitcher Joel Hanrahan and it doesn't make much sense to send just one player for the day,unless the player was the face of the franchise Ryan Zimmerman.
I don't have a problem with the Nationals going to Martinsburg,but at the cost of Hagerstown?
The Nationals have a minor league affiliate here and no stop?
Both towns are close enough to each other that two two hour stops in each town could have been easily done and the Suns could have set up tables at both stops as well.
The Nationals dropped the ball here.

I have seen no word yet on whether the Baltimore Orioles will be making a local appearance.

On the Signing front

Ebay:Boston winger Milan Lucic
Mail:Lowell Devil winger Jon DiSalvatore
Pirate Caravan
John Russell
Sean Burnett
Ryan Doumit
Andy LaRoche
Bob Walk

Back later with the Devil win over Montreal.

Photo Credits
Caravan:Steve Bittner;Cumberland Times-News
Walk:Fleer/Upper Deck