Road Trip: The Rain, A Park and Other Things..

We expected rain on day two and lots of it.
Rain that in the amount that we expected could cost us several stops on the trip.
Rain is part of the risk of baseball road trips and you know that going in, so you cross your fingers and hope for the best.

It had started to lightly rain as we checked into our hotel the night before.
When I woke up, it was pouring and when Fred and I talked, we thought there was absolutely no way the Lexington-Asheville game was going to be played that night.

We figured that the game was going to be called, but I wanted to see McCormick Field for some pictures and some shirts for my ladies here, while Fred had never visited the home of the Tourists and he wanted to put it on his list of "Been there but not for a game".
My list of those used to be very long, but I've whittled that list down to one- Myrtle Beach.

We drove to McCormick Field, where the forecast was dire and asked the Tourist employees if we could walk around, take some pictures etc and then stop at the team shop.
They said sure as long we didn't step on the field, which we were happy to follow that direction!
We wandered around the field, snapping (old school term) pictures and looked at a park that is older than Hagerstown's, yet had the charm that the Muni has always seemed to lack.
The right field wall still read Ingles just as it did eleven years ago in my first visit to Asheville with Ryan and Battlin' Bob and there didn't seem to be too many difference since then, although McCormick Field has been well maintained and shined up a bit as all old parks need to shown care for and it comes across as such a neat throwback to the past with enough of the present to get you through.
McCormick still has their concessions away from the field (nothing short of a complete reconstruction would change that) like Hagerstown which doesn't allow you to watch the game while waiting for your food.

We walked back to the souvenir area, where we talked to the employee about Hagerstown, showed them some pictures of the Muni and talked about the other stadiums in the SAL.
This is where I saw a really cool baseball with the Tourists that looked like it was made of wood (it wasn't) and with another recent baseball from Lexington (full Kentucky Blue) in mind, it hit me.
What if I bought a logo ball from each stadium that I visited?
The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea and I gave myself a few parameters.
The first was that I had to have visited the stadium and the second was that (with an occasional exemption given by me) that I would have to return to the stadium to purchase.
I gave myself two immediate exemptions-Buies Creek (last year as a team and no plans to go there this year) and Delmarva ( a real pain to get to and I'm not sure I'll get there again), purchased the ball and I was off.
I bought the ladies at home some Tourists shirts (I try to ask them before a trip which team that they would like to have an item from), so it was time for lunch for Fred and I as we laughed in the rain, but did not hold hands as longtime Battlin' Bob favorite Neil Sedaka once sang and the decision was Rocky's Hot Chicken Shack.

Rocky's was the type of local place that I always try to look for whether on the road with Fred or any of the other travel buddies that I hit the road with.
A local favorite with various degrees of heat for their chicken, I tried a sample of their hottest spice and while it was plenty of hot, I didn't find it all that flavorful, so as I do at wing/chicken place went with the second hottest chicken, ordered the daily special (jalapeno chicken pot pie) and two sides (Potato Salad and Cole Slaw).
The Potato Salad was quite good, a subtle mix between an Amish style and mustard version, but the slaw was a little bland.
The pot pie was shaped like those Hostess fruit pies and was good, but not nearly as hot as I expected.
The chicken was very good but wasn't nearly as hot as anticipated.
In hindsight, if Rocky's had combined the flavor of their second hottest, with the heat of the top-notch burner, they might really have something!
We returned to the hotel through the rain resigned to a night that would be highlighted by evening and I sat around for a while wondering where the time had gone from the first time I visited Asheville.

However, as I dozed off for a nap and woke up, I wondered about the weather in Kodak, Tennessee.
The next day, we had planned a noon game with the Tennessee Smokies hosting the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp.
Fred called the Smokies (on the other side of the mountain and about 90 minutes away) and they had lighter rain throughout the day but planned to play.
With a schedule adjustment, we moved the Smokies into the evening slot and we were on our way on an hour and forty-five-minute drive to Sevierville.

Arriving in Sevierville, we sent an email to Corey White, who was scheduled to meet us the following day at Smokies Stadium about the change and hoped he'd see it.
I had cards to send to Corey and Fred wanted to meet one of the people that I trade with that he has heard so often about.
In the meantime, with an early arrival, we had time to check out the Beef Jerky Outlet.
This store has all sorts of unique jerky's, sausage's and "meat sticks" and a few hot sauces.
I settled for a package of their hottest jerky "The Reaper" (it wasn't THAT hot, but had some heat), package of maple jerky for Rachel and a package of Elk meat sticks (think Slim Jim's) that I ate some of on my trip to Charleston.
Corey called us back, said he would be at the game and had a friend of his (Again, I cannot remember his name) allow us to go in with him early with the season ticket holders.
Very kind of them to help us out and I've always thought it was so cool to be inside an almost empty stadium and just watch the scrambling and prep work to have the stadium ready for a game night.

I didn't have a lot for either team, I had sent a few things to Corey earlier, so most of the heavy lifting was finished, but Fred doing the Shrimp (Doesn't that sound like a dance from a 60's surf movie?) added former Brewers and current Marlins (acquired in the Christian Yelich trade) Isan Diaz and Monte Harrison for me.
Too bad the Top 100 was a few days away from being released because Harrison is in this year's set.
Diaz was in last season's (I added him in Winston-Salem last year) but missed the cut this year.
I worked on a few Smokies with Corey with the most important being Eddy Martinez on his Carolina League top prospect card.
The Carolina League is always the league prospect set that comes out latest and that works against getting some of the players signed.
That set sometimes is so late that graphers pass on buying it due to that fact.
It started to rain in the third inning and we watched a few innings from the concourse before we decided to make the drive home.

Back at the hotel and the closer that we traveled to Asheville, the more rain fell on the roof and we looked at the forecast for the return home, the forecast didn't look great.
Normally, I would add a final day post, but considering things with the inbox etc, I'm going to condense the final day as follows.
We expected lots of rain and got it as we traveled north, passed Johnson City, Tennessee and Fred was gracious enough to stop by and allow me to buy a Johnson City Cardinals baseball, stopped in Bristol Tennessee for another Mad Greek stop and a Yee Haw beer stop to bring home for Miguelito as we rolled towards Lynchburg, Virginia for the Winston-Salem Dash and the homestanding Hillcats.

Lynchburg is about an hour off I-81, so it's two hours of extra traveling round trip.
We were hoping to either play the game or call it early,
The Hillcats did us that favor and called it early, so we saved that time and rolled on up the road to go home.

All things considered with the forecast getting three games in the books wasn't so bad and traveling with Fred is always a good time.
Fred's a great person to travel with because he always asks for an opinion and listens to what your opinion is.
I really enjoy our trips together.

Now, I still have a day trip to Charleston for the Giants Low A team, the Augusta Greenjackets and the Giants top pick in 2017, Heliot Ramos, but that will have to wait for a little bit because we still have Cavalier playoffs (I saw the game one win on delay after returning from Charleston) and that bulging at the seams inbox to try to whittle down.