Road Trip: Hickory

The final day of the road trip saw a return to L.P. Frans Stadium for the first time in 12 years.

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!

Road Trip: Tennessee

Day three saw our trip move over to Tennessee (Every time, I think of that I keep hearing Jimmy Hart screech "Memphis, Tennessee Babay!) and our almost annual visit to Corey White and the Tennessee Smokies.
Fred, of course, had met Corey a few times in the past, but Lefty had yet to have the pleasure.
I told Corey later that he had met all of my autographing friends, but one (Mike Oravec) and I will have to take Mike to Sevierville soon to finish the set!

When you go over to Tennessee from Asheville (about 90 minutes away), you have to plan how you'll spend your day.
You either stay in Asheville and go closer to game time or spend your day in the Knoxville area to kill the time because doing something in the middle of those choices aren't an option.
The choice made by Fred was to visit Knoxville and check out Neyland Stadium for some Tennessee Volunteer items.
This followed his choice not to last year and he's regretted it ever since, so I knew that this was going to be the outcome!

Fred wanted to go inside Neyland and look around or at least grab some swag.
The problem that there is very little parking around the stadium, even when school isn't in session and after some failed attempts to find the parking lot and a memorable exchange with a passer-by ("you can park here, but if they catch you-they will tow you"), I dropped Fred off and while he looked around in the store, Lefty and I stopped in a space, ever vigilant for the parking czar to avoid a ticket!
After a handful of minutes of this, Lefty began to look for Fred in the store as I waited outside.
Fred and Lefty emerged with a beaming Fred with a new Rocky Top shirt among others and we wove our way out of Knoxville and back towards Kodak, home of the Smokies.
I snapped a picture of the Sunsphere, the symbol of the 1982 World's Fair that was held in Knoxville, as we sat at a traffic light.
I could not tell where any World's Fair has been located since 1982, but if you were alive in 1982, the relentless pounding of constant commercials for that World's Fair was constant and with the Sunsphere being the symbol, I remember that to this day!


With still plenty of time to kill, Smoky Mountain Knife Works obviously sells about every kind of knife that you can imagine among other gimmicks for hunters and fans of various genres like Game of Thrones, but the highlight for me was the Relic Room with tons of collectibles from many many countries.
Now how many of the items are legitimately what they say they are is open to conjecture, but there are lots of interesting display cases that would take a significant amount of time to see everything and even just looking can be fun.
Fred even bought a limited edition Tennessee Volunteers Swiss Army Knife.
I've always been a fan of the multiple-use knives with Swiss Army and other companies and I'm pretty sure that had they had an Ohio State version, it may have been going home with me!

We hadn't eaten lunch yet and we began to process of looking for lunch and riding through the strip of Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge was very similar to riding through that of Myrtle Beach.
The same types of touristy stores (Everything 9.99!), gaudy hotels, things to do, and tons of places to eat in a long traffic line on both sides of the street.
It was kind of fun to see all the stuff and even though I still wonder about a large number of pancake eateries around the area, it was cool just looking around.
Still, I had seen a billboard or two for some interesting places and I just wasn't seeing them, although some of the places did make me consider them, I wanted something different.
Finally, I saw it in Captain Jim's Seafood Buffet.
I pondered and looked at the buffet and reluctantly chose the non-crab leg version over the more expensive with crab legs.
It was very good and Lefty graciously paid for everyone's meal over Fred and I's objections.
Very nice of him to do and I must admit it was fun going to these places and looking them over.
Sure, it was everything cliche' that you can think about "tourist trap', but there is a reason people travel to areas like this- because they are fun.

After our drive back through Pigeon Forge etc to the home of the Smokies after a stop at the beef jerky outlet, where surprisingly I didn't buy anything for me, although I did buy some pepperoni sticks for the ladies at home, my good friend Corey White was waiting for me with the cards that he had worked on me throughout the season.
Lots of great stuff that included several additions to the top 100 sets and a team set of the Mobile Bay Bears (Angels), who are in their last season before moving to a suburb of Huntsville, Alabama and change their name to the Rocket City Trash Pandas among many great cards.
As we sat in the parking lot, I ordered two team sets of the next team to play in Smokieland, the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (Marlins).
I usually buy one set for me and one for Corey for him working on them.
Not sure how many times I can do that each year due to expense, but I'll certainly try for that for the initial season of the ahem Trash Pandas next year.

We enjoyed the game as I worked on the visiting Biloxi Shuckers, the AA team of the Brewers and
one that even though they didn't have a top 100 card for the set as Corey Ray was promoted a few days before the trip, I still had the team set and some cards from the Carolina Mudcats set that I didn't finish for various reasons.

I was able to get most of them finished, but I did leave a few for Corey to finish up for me and we waited outside for quite a while for rehabbing pitcher Brent Suter, who now is back with the Brewers.
Suter took over an hour, but once he left the locker room, he was very accommodating, signed everything for everyone and talked for a bit as well.
However, I got Suter's cards signed and talked to him, but the conversation that I really enjoyed was with Shuckers batting coach Chuckie Caufield.
Caufield had played for the West Virginia Power back in the early days of my autographing hobby back in 2007 with players that still play in the bigs today such as Michael Brantley and Jeremy Jeffress, and prospects of the time such as Matt LaPorta.
Chuckie and I must have talked for about fifteen minutes about that team, their players, the SAL and of course his memories of Hagerstown.
It was really cool talking about those times and I got the feeling that Chuckie enjoyed being remembered too.

We didn't return to the hotel in Asheville until about one in the morning, but what I carried with me is Lefty telling me that no matter the autographing in Tennessee, the trip still would have been a great one because he met Corey and Corey's other friends Wayne and Delmar.
That's always the fun part of doing anything- being with your friends and the people that you meet on the way.

Next time, we move to Hickory North Carolina and my return after 12 years.

Road Trip: Kannapolis/Asheville

Since my original plans for today (A trip to Mahoning Valley) have gone awry (Fred Landucci's having vehicle issues, best wishes there, my friend), I have some extra time to write and decided to work on another road trip installment.

Tuesday would be the only two-game day of the trip and it started with me meeting Skylar at the desk.
Skylar had been so helpful on the phone in getting us an extra day at the hotel without having to switch rooms and I wanted to thank her for her helpfulness.
After a few minutes of chatting with her, which I would wind up repeating each day after this during our stay, Our day would begin and it would start with an early morning goodbye to the hottest ballpark that I've ever visited.

A trip to the "Gates of Hell" in Kannapolis for the last time to Fieldcrest Cannon Stadium and an 11;00 start time gave me a chance to work on the Intimidators team set.
Kannapolis is in the process of building a new stadium for the 2020 season, so this is the last time I can have the privilege of setting my rear on fire and having my sandals melt.
Usually, I'm sad to see a stadium go and I'm also usually not a huge fan of downtown stadiums, but I'll make an exception in this particular case!

Kannapolis had not released a 2018 team set in a befuddling decision, so I was pleased to see the team decide to have one for this season.
Kannapolis had already visited Hagerstown before the set came out, so everyone on the team was a need.
I decided to do Kannapolis rather than visiting Lexington (at Kannapolis, you have to pick one side or the other) mainly due to the Carolina League schedule for 2020 (Both team's affiliates have their High A teams there) which could repeat the 2019 one, which saw the White Sox team in Winston-Salem open in Frederick and never return, while the Royals team in Wilmington come to Frederick throughout the season.

And it was one of those typical draining hot days that seem to be 10 degrees hotter on concrete without shade.
Because of the heat and its effect on Fred, Lefty and I made sure Fred was in the area of some shade, which shrinks rapidly as the morning moves on, and descended to the field to start working on Kannapolis, who made the strange decision to wear their black jerseys on a day like this.
I did pretty well, only missing the starting catcher and a coach or two.
However, the two highlights had nothing to do with autographs.
The first was when we walked along a grassy berm that you need to traverse to reach the Kannapolis bullpen and walking down we saw a drainage pipe that leaked water and made a small area quite muddy.
I managed to see this on my way over, but the klutz that I am, slaps both feet into it as I chase a player to sign.
I had mud all over my legs and sandals, so a restroom stop to get as much as I could off of me was a must, and a shower before the second game in the evening was as well.
As for my sandals? Well, I always try to buy the type that is worn by fishermen and beachgoers that are made to deal with water, mainly because in this hobby, you can be caught in thunderstorms and downpours very quickly, so that was as easy as rinsing them out in the shower to be as good as new.

The other was encountering a local nicknamed "Radar Rock".
This guy had something to say about everything.
"Where are you from"?
"Maryland"
"Why are you wearing a Mets hat?"
"It's not a Mets hat, it's a New York Giants hat"
"It's not the Giants, they are blue and white"
"New York BASEBALL Giants"
"Why not the Brooklyn Dodgers"
"I don't like the Dodgers, I like the Giants"
"Why do you root for them, they aren't from where you are".
FAR FAR too much time listening to this guy, while I am trying to work on players to sign.
The guy never shut up and I just couldn't get away from him fast enough!
Maybe it was trying to get away from him that caused me to hit the mud! Ha Ha!

It was getting hot and Fred was beginning to wear out, but before we left, Fred ran into Blair Jewell, a former employee of the Harrisburg Senators and now with the Intimidators.
While Fred talked to Blair, Lefty and I went down to field level and added the two pitchers that were charting.
Fred reports that the Intimidators' upcoming name change will be a "more normal name than the goofier names" that have been more prevalent in minor league baseball over the last few years.
The day after our visit, the team announced that their new stadium will have netting that will run the entire length of the grandstand.
The addition of more and more netting to stadiums will not only affect my hobby, but it could also affect how other fans decide to spend their dollars.
It will be very interesting to follow over the next few seasons how the new netting at the parks that implement netting affects attendance either positively or negatively.

We returned to Asheville from Kannapolis for lunch and some downtime at the hotel before a trip to McCormick Field for the evening.
The food was a return to Rocky's Hot Chicken after a successful debut during Fred and I's trip in 2018.
I ordered a chicken sandwich this time and even though I still don't think Rocky's has the heat that they advertise, it's still top-notch chicken.

After some hotel time, we went to McCormick Field for the Tourists and the visiting Lakewood Blue Claws.
Since Lakewood comes to Hagerstown fifty times a season, Lefty and I concentrated on the Tourists.
I was surprised to see a very big crowd on a Tuesday without a strong promotion.
The crowd was so strong that every time (Three in fact) that Lefty and I got into a bit of a roll getting players to sign, we would have to move because someone needed their seats.
I didn't mind moving because the seats were paid for and the crowd was large.

The only time that moving bugs me is in this situation that occasionally happens in Hagerstown- no one in the entire three-row area and here comes a dude with seat 1,2,3,4 who wants to show his wife/girlfriend/kids how he made these guys move because he paid for these seats.
Of course, you move for them, but there are only 75 other seats with no one in them (if there were said people, you wouldn't be able to walk up and buy front row, seats 1-4 would you?) would it kill you to sit in row two for 15 minutes until the game starts?
It really wasn't a problem though under these conditions and the usher was very nice each time, so other than not getting a lot of cards signed, it wasn't so bad.
I did get the often-injured and not-expected-to-be-in-town Riley Pint to sign his SAL top prospect card, so a disappointing total, but not a complete defeat.

The post-game didn't bring a lot of success either as there was an absence of local graphers and being that Asheville made one visit to Hagerstown and the one game that I managed to see was rained out, I just didn't know many of the players facially.
I'm not sure that I added more than two or three players tops.
All and all, the Asheville trip was the most disappointing trip from a graphing perspective although it was fun being in a crowd that was excited about baseball rather than Paw Patrol, bobbleheads, or fireworks!

Road Trip: Johnson City

The biggest road trip of the year began in the morning as Fred Landucci and Lefty Koch picked me up from my house to start a five day, four-night and numerous ballpark trip.

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.