That means over the next few days, I have to write an Ohio State preview up and the return of the PPM with this year's selection as "host" as part of that process before the weekend.
However, before that, I still need to get some road trips stories finished and I'll start with day one in Asheville, North Carolina accompanied by the Landucci's and McCormick Field, which is one of the few stadiums in use for minor league baseball that is older than Hagerstown's Municipal Stadium.
The original plan was for us to do batting practice, hit both teams and then drive to Greenville S.C for the Hickory Crawdads and the Greenville Drive.
That plan went awry when road construction on I-81 slowed us down enough to make that plan less than feasible, so since Greenville was the backup plan anyway, it was the game that was easiest to jettison.
I hadn't been back to Asheville since my first trip there with Ryan and Battlin' Bob years ago other than Fred and I's rain-drenched stop earlier this season.
I had the Tourist team set to do since they did not make an appearance in Hagerstown this season (Asheville will appear in Hagerstown in 2019) and a few cards for the Greenjackets, who I had been able to work on earlier this year in Charleston.
The bigger issue at McCormick Field for graphers is that you have to pick which team that you want to work on so I couldn't do both.
Fortunately for me, I had Michael, who happily picked Asheville to help with after losing a bet on the travels.
I think he would have helped anyway though!
While Michael worked on the Tourists, I filled in a few Greenjackets from the team set and worked on Mike Oravec's set for him.I also was able to see Heliot Ramos again with a few nice refractors and limited cards that I had been able to acquire over the course of the year.
I told Heliot that I had seen him in Charleston and that he had shown me how to switch my Ipad camera for a picture of us.
Heliot laughed and said "I remember that!'
Whether he did or didn't, Ramos ranks with Triston McKenzie of the Indians as the nicest prospects that I've met this year ( I first met McKenzie last year though).
McCormick Field has the problems that so many old stadiums have to deal with- concession stands without a view of the field, some obstructed views, less than comfortable seating and limited parking.
Add that last one with the stadium being built into a hill and you have some issues to deal with.
Still, McCormick did have a decent amount of food offerings, even though I didn't eat any (I did have two Minute Maid frozen lemonades) and our seats were decent enough behind home plate, but one pet peeve of mine did occur in Asheville.
One thing that I HATE about minor league baseball is this- Most parks that I visit don't sell out.
Even more often, they don't even come close, yet a surprising amount of the time, a person or a few people will have seats next to you and because that ticket says Section B Row g Seat 5, by golly they are going to sit right next to me in seat 4, no matter their comfort or mine, even if there if the rest of the row is empty.
When I'm in that situation, I try to find seats in the area and if someone has those seats, I'll move, but I'll never understand in a two-thirds empty stadium, someone has to put their shoulder next to mine.
I can't imagine why someone wants to be crowded next to my bulk or listen to my conversation, but it happens more than you think and it happened in Asheville.
So, I crawled into the row behind our seats and sat in those seats so the guy with the hat that reminded me of Don Ameche in Cocoon could have his space, more importantly, I could have mine.
The game itself was pretty dull and for a game that ended 2-1 (Augusta getting the duke as Vince McMahon used to say) with neither team making any errors, it was insanely long- Three hours and thirty-five minutes for a game without errors, delays or extenuating circumstances is just nuts.
The only thing that stood out about this game was that when I moved to the back row, I sat near a young couple (No, I moved a few seats down from them!) and we struck up a baseball conversation.
The young man said his grandfather was a former big leaguer and when I asked his name, he quickly responded Gil Coan, who played in the '40s and '50s with several teams, but mostly for the Washington Senators.
It seemed legit to me, a young man of that age would be unlikely to make someone up that quickly, let alone select someone that retired in 1956!
I asked about Coan and his career (Coan is an NC native and is one of just five players to ever hit two triples in the same inning), which I found very interesting.
Asheville allows fans/graphers to remain in the stadium by the front gate concourse to nab players from both teams after the game and we took advantage to knock some extra players off the sets.
After a while, we were all tired after a long day and went back to the hotel for a rest before a two-stop Tuesday.
I like McCormick Field and I am never against visits there.
It's a good, not great graphing site and a solid, well-kept older stadium to watch a game in.
I would definitely return for future visits and being that in SAL there are always teams that don't visit Hagerstown, I'm sure that should occur.
Not sure what I'll be writing about next, but I'll try to write about day two before Friday's Ohio State preview and the PPM.
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