Day two continues with a stay in Greenville before we moved on to Johnson City and Greeneville.Confused?
Well,there two cities in minor league baseball named Greenville or Greeneville,if you please and we would be leaving one and entering another before the end of the night!
The day would start in South Carolina,where Fred had booked a private tour of us of the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum across the street from Flour Field.
The museum (and the house Jackson lived in) is on a side street,located directly across from where we had parked the previous day,so it was easy to find.
The home is only open for a few hours on Saturday,so you have to book things through them,if the need is on other than those days.
Our host Bill was both gracious and knowledgeable about Jackson and after his talk,we were given the run of the place for as long as we wanted.
It was interesting to see all the Jackson items and hear about Greenville's favorite son from such a nice gentleman.
It's a nice place and enough to keep the attention of an average baseball fan,but I think you could (if you had the place to yourself) comfortably see everything in a hour.
Thanks to Bill for opening the place up for us and to Fred for the legwork in hooking us up along with the twenty dollar donation for doing so!
After our time at the Jackson Museum,we decided on lunch in Greenville before leaving town and I gave Fred a list of four or five places that looked interesting on Trip Advisor for him to choose from.
I do the same with Mike Oravec sometimes and it usually seems to work out well.Fred selected Chicken Salad Chick,a specialty place that almost all of the main menu is featuring various Chicken Salads.
I loved it as you received a scoop or a sandwich as your main course and can select one of many sides to go with it or another scoop on the side if you wish.
I selected a scoop as the side choices didn't seem to be my style.
I had a sandwich on wheat with "kickin Kay Lynne" (you can click here for exactly what is in each one) with a side scoop of "Jalapeno Holly".
It was delicious and for lunch,Chicken Salad Chick was rockin with customers,so others must be fans as well.
If you see one of these-make sure you stop as it hits the spot for a light lunch!
Next stop was scheduled to be Greeneville,Tennessee,but Fred and I called an audible as we were going to go to Greeneville that night and Johnson City on the next day for an 11 AM game,but we decided to try to finish Johnson City and then hit Greeneville.
If this worked out well,we could clear out the next morning and have more open time on our way to Burlington,North Carolina,which was over three hours away,
The main target was former Cardinal first round pick Delvin Perez,who Fred wanted on a baseball and who had a top 100 for me,but we would be be quickly foiled as Perez had been injured two nights before and was no longer in Johnson City.
Fred waited outside for the visiting Elizabethton Twins,who appeared in uniform since they only traveled 15 minutes to get to Johnson City and was able to get Wander Javier,a player that the Twins signed to a four million bonus and coach Jeff Reed,who was a long time journeyman catcher in the big leagues.
As the rain began to fall in Johnson City,I was able to get a card signed that had been in my box for years as Cardinals hitting coach Brandon Allen signed his 2008 Carolina League top prospect card along with three more.
The rain was dropping harder and harder as we jumped into the car drove the 40 minutes or so to Greeneville Tennessee for the Astros against the visiting Kingsport Mets.
Kingsport never makes a team set and Greeneville skipped 2016 and 2017 sets,so I had just a few cards for coach and former Astro Cesar Cedeno and one for the manager Danny Ortega along with a Tri-City card for outfielder Reid Russell.
It was just as important to knock Greeneville off the stadium list as to get cards signed.
It was easy to find the stadium,but students were back in school at Tusculum College,where the Astros share the field with Tusculum and parking was in short supply.
We wasted several minutes riding around trying to find parking until a team employee told us to park in a certain area.
The game was in a rain delay and I was stunned to find such high prices for an Appy League team.
Food was quite high and four dollars for a program?
Give the Astros credit for a nice gift shop though that sold hats for all the teams in the league.
As we finally neared the field,warmups had begun with the rain stopping,but Cedeno and Ortega parked themselves in the dugout and never moved,but I did get Reid Russell as he walked to the dugout,so it wasn't a total loss.
We watched for a while,but with the late start,we realized dinner might be hard to come by in Greeneville,which turned out to be correct.
There was next to nothing open and we had to settle for a Mexican place,which is never my preferred meal.
Those of you that know me know that I love hot and spicy foods,but the soft bread that seems to be part of so many Mexican style dishes leaves me less than thrilled.
I ordered nachos that weren't bad,if they had more nachos.
They were the opposite of so many dishes-lots of toppings,few nacho chips.
A drive back to the hotel in Johnson City concluded the day with an evening with no television as some genius (not me) had disconnected it.
Combining that with the fridge being unplugged when I checked in and I wasn't thrilled with the hotel on this night.
The odd thing was of the three nights,I liked this room the best,it was just the other things that ruined it.
I'll be working on day three in Burlington and day four in Charlotte soon!!
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