Our first stop was in Johnson City, Tennessee for an Appalachian League encounter between the Burlington Royals and the hometown Cardinals.
However, you have to eat and on the way, we stopped at a favorite from earlier this season- Mac and Bob's in Salem, Virginia.
We loved our stop in Salem for lunch at Mac and Bob's in April so much that when our lunchtime arrived and with Salem the nearest town available, it was the easiest selection of the entire trip.
I decided on a Buffalo chicken hoagie and as par for the course, it was tremendous!
Mac and Bob's might rank at the top of my favorite places all season and if I'm ever around Salem for various reasons, it's going to take a lot of doing to talk me out of a different food establishment than Mac and Bob's.
After Mac and Bob's, we stopped by Pulaski, Virginia and the Yankees as Lefty and I each needed to grab a Pulaski team set.
The Yankees were on the road, so we figured this should have been an easy stop, especially with the gates to the stadium being wide open.
It wasn't as no member of the front office was available, although I did speak to the grounds crew about Calfee Park, which is barely distinguishable from the place that Ryan, Battlin' Bob and I visited all those years ago.
The parent Yankees have spent a lot of money on Calfee Park and visually it has been a huge upgrade, but it looks to be a far more difficult place to autograph with more netting, new seating and lesser access.
Pulaski has consistently been my favorite place to go in the Appy League with great management through the years, a charming older park and Calfee always had the small town "baseball like it used to be" feel to the stadium.
For all the upgrades and they are upgrades, I'll miss the old Calfee Park.
I'll have some pictures later in the road trip series for our return to Pulaski.
And onto the new kingpin of the TRS Appy League standings, Johnson City, where they have taken a stadium that was horrible for autographing twelve years ago and made it an excellent place today, but
it's more than that makes TVA Credit Union Park the new champ as they retained their covered grandstand, added more space to move around the stadium, renovated their clubhouse area and added more concessions, plus they sell Dr. Enuf!
Enuf said and pun intended!
Our trip twelve years ago to the then-named Howard Johnson Field didn't see us watch a game there, but we did walk inside and look around and I'm glad we did or I wouldn't remember the infamous right field hill, which made the Hagerstown Municipal left field area look like a small speed bump.The picture from that day shows the hill in its glory and although I'm a big fan of quirky features in stadiums, I can understand why the parent club insisted that the hill be removed as the stadium was improved.
If you didn't know it had been there previously, I'd bet you could look to the outfield and be unable to tell what once was a key part of the alignment.
As far as graphing goes, the access is far easier than in the past as now the first base side has an area for fans to buy beer, mill around and not be closed in and since that area was created, lots of space opened up.
I worked on the Burlington Royals team set (Sadly Johnson City still doesn't make one), while Fred took the few cards that I had from players that had Peoria and State College, including Malcom Nunez, an 18-year-old Cuban third baseman, who was in the Midwest League's top prospect set and was a player drafted in our fantasy league by someone.
Fred was able to quickly knock those out with the help of a child that Fred reports all the players know and regard as a superfan/team mascot.
I managed to add most of the Royals except for some of the relievers that didn't need to come all the way to where we were with the bullpen close to the clubhouse.
Lefty is a beer connoisseur and would order beer from the various parks that we visited, but this one was interesting as the beer server was from Hagerstown and worked for the Suns for a few years before moving to Johnson City!
She was involved with the Suns food operations, which is likely why I don't remember her, she was very nice and we enjoyed talking to her at various points in the game.
The game was nothing special with the Royals crushing the Cardinals 13-0, but we slogged through because we needed Daniel Lynch, a top Royals prospect that spent most of the year at High A Wilmington and made the Carolina League all-star team before a minor injury.
Lynch was making a rehab start for Burlington in the series and I thought he'd be more likely to sign in the more laid-back locale of Johnson City.
Lynch was very nice as he signed all three of my cards-Wilmington, Carolina League prospect, and all-star and chatted about the graphing experience in Frederick.
We then drove back to our hotel in Asheville to check-in and where we would be stationed at for the next four nights.
It was a good first day in Johnson City and elsewhere to start the trip and we still had three days of baseball to go.
I'll be working on the second day soon, but likely next week after the football previews for the opening of the college season this weekend.
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