I don't often get melancholy a lot when I go to ballparks, but I did for a bit going into the home of the Hickory Crawdads.
A lot had changed since that day in 2007, my travel partners had changed, Ryan had moved out of our home as a young man to a married adult and I don't see Battlin' Bob nearly as much as I used to, although it's a rare day that we aren't in touch and Bob, if you are reading this, I hope you'll consider making a trip with us in 2020!
The blog was a mere three months old in 2007 and now it's going to be turning into a teenager before the next baseball season starts.
Only three players from this game are still in the major leagues with Hickory's Jared Hughes (Phillies) and Tony Watson (Giants) along with Columbus pitcher Jeremy Hellickson (Nationals).
Columbus, Georgia no longer has a minor league team and the affiliate of the then-Catfish (Tampa Bay) is no longer in the South Atlantic League.
The technology is different too as the pictures shown in that recap were taken with this funny box looking item then known as a digital camera, where we now take photos with cameras and tablets.
It just made me think and reflect a little as I walked around and that is usually a good thing.
We didn't have nearly as much to do on our final day and decided to start with lunch in Asheville before we would leave for Hickory.
Being that we had only stopped at Rocky's Hot Chicken, we needed to figure out what would be a good stop for lunch.
Needing local advice, that meant another stop in the morning to ask Skylar for her advice and we sifted through the three options that she graciously offered to decide.
Skylar's help was invaluable throughout this trip and hopefully, she'll be at the hotel for our 2020 trip.
She'll likely be running a hotel someday, so she could already be at another job by then!
Our first choice was extremely busy as in a wait of near an hour as told to us by the hostess, so we moved to our second.
Universal Joint had an excellent scouting report from Skylar, but we were warned about it being difficult to find parking, which with me driving again was something to keep tabs on.
It was as difficult as advertised and I parked in the bank parking lot across the street before running into Universal Joint to ask about parking there.
The person I asked said the vehicle would likely be OK but keep an eye on it, so I made sure to sit in a spot that the vehicle was in my sight range.
Universal Joint is located inside what appears to be a very old house from the '30s that has fitted a restaurant into two rooms for an inside eating area and an outdoor patio arrangement for the fresh air lover as well.
I don't mind eating outside, but it's not anything that I have to do, so I was happy to go along with Fred's hatred of alfresco dining!
I ordered their "Firecracker" burger with some tater tots with hot sauce and scallions.
It was very good, but the parking was a concern, I kept worrying about the car and couldn't quite enjoy the meal as much.
I suppose that's part of being a worrier!
The drive to Hickory is pretty uneventful, 75 miles across I-40 and after we found the stadium, we still had time to kill and no one felt like sitting in a hot car, so we drove to a Jack in the Box to sit in the AC.
I had only ever visited Jack in the Box on my other visit to Hickory and if you go back to that trip, all three of us were dealing with what was likely mild food poisoning, so it was not only hard to enjoy then, but hard to even remember!
After a small burger to try and avoid eating at the park (and the rest of the night), we returned to L.P. Frans Stadium to work on the Crawdads (Rangers) and the Charleston River Dogs (Yankees).
The autographing access isn't quite as good as twelve years ago, but it's pretty close and you can try to get players from both teams.
You can stand near the left-field clubhouse by a fence and there is plenty of space for anyone trying to autograph.
I needed very few from the Crawdads after two visits to Hagerstown, so even though I bought the team's update set, I decided to toss that in the bag and save it for next year's Down East (Rangers High A) visit to Frederick in order to concentrate on Charleston, who did not visit Hagerstown this season.
I did make an exception to add the Rangers first-round pick Josh Jung of Texas Tech on a USA card to add to the "Corey White" pile to send to Tennessee, but other than Jung- it was all Riverdogs.
I had the most for Josh Stowers and Josh Breaux, as they all had mainstream cards and I was carrying stuff for others too.
Both players had been named to the SAL all-star game, but due to injuries, neither player traveled to Charleston.
Both Stowers and Breaux signed a few and said they would finish the remainder after the game and both did indeed finish my cards postgame.
It's not always the case when you ask postgame, but I was pleased that both lived up to their word.
Roansey Contreras was the top pitching prospect for the Riverdogs (in record anyway) was a player I had plenty for in Charleston and SAL prospect cards, well I had only one of each and the others were for others.
Contreras signed one and handed the rest back, I asked if he could hit one more (so I had the SAL and Charleston wiped out), he did but seemed less than pleased.
I don't like to do that and rarely do, but the Yankees High A team is in Florida and by the time I'll see them again in AA Trenton, the signing habits are even worse, so I occasionally make an exception.
I added Brandon Lockridge on a few cards and talked to him about the Home Run Derby in Charleston WV that he finished second place to Hickory's Curtis Terry.
Lockridge discussed that the event took so long, yet was cut shorter than expected and still took a physical toll on him after participating.
I still had plenty of team set cards to work on (as well as Stowers and Breaux) as did Lefty, so postgame graphing was an easy sell to make.
Fred was invaluable to Lefty and I post-game as he asked players for their name and we did very well in getting players- except one.
Luis Medina had a Topps Heritage card among others and was the only RiverDog that walked by during pregame without stopping, so he was the main player that I really needed.
Fred asked Medina for his name (It was very dark and hard to see faces) and Medina walked by, said Medina as Fred then asked him to stop.
Medina then pointed somewhere and kept moving- I won't be looking forward to seeing Medina in Trenton.
Oh, well this happens at times.
The drive home was quick and after checking back at the hotel, it didn't take long to hit the bed after packing all my things for the drive home.
The final day was leisurely paced with stops in Bristol Tennessee for lunch at the Mad Greek, where they would redeem themselves with Fred for their problems last year and dessert at Cootie Brown's for their vaunted Key Lime Pie, which was beyond words as always!
We would return to Pulaski on the way home, where with a home game for the Yankees that evening, we were able to buy the team sets that eluded us on the first day.
We didn't stick around for the game because we would be getting home late and with the new setup at Calfee Field, working on the team set would mean staying after the game and that was just too much time to drive after a long day.
What a great trip!
Great company and lots of fun equaled a very successful trip.
Thanks to Fred Landucci and Lefty Koch for going along and helping to make it such a terrific week.
I take these things one year at a time for financial reasons and every year I'm able to do it, I'm grateful for the chances to see different things and do them with my friends.
Only one more road trip left to write about and I'll try to do that soon on a slow day!
Back later with the Buckeyes against Miami Ohio from the Big Horseshoe!
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