9.1.01 ROCHESTER RED WINGS vs BUFFALO BISONS
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The Red Wings’ final home game of the season proved almost poetic in its full-circle symmetry. The difference in the 3–2 loss to division-champs Buffalo was a two-run error by Eddy Garabito, an easy double-play ball that sailed past Ivanon Coffie at first into the Wings’ dugout. The more things change…
Not that the evening was without its surprises. Notably absent was season MVP (and doesn’t that say it all?) Calvin Pickering, traded a couple days earlier to the Cincinnati Reds organization “for future considerations.” More bafflingly and hilariously still, after playing a few games in Louisville and riding the pine for a week or so in Cincinnati, Pickering would again be released, only to be picked up by—get this—the Red Sox! Perfect! Fear not, Boston—you’ve finally filled the fat malcontent slugging first baseman role that’s gone empty since Mo left! Amazing.
The equally worthless Steve Sisco also asked for, and was granted, his release, signing a day later with the playoff-bound Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons. Whatever, dude. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
True to form, the crowd of nearly nine thousand finished their season by singing, for the seventy-second time this year, “So let’s root, root, root for the home team” during the seventh inning stretch. Stupefying.
The Red Wings’ increasingly tenuous relationship with the Baltimore Orioles became an issue of some discussion in the days following the season’s close, with head of operations Naomi Silver expressing no little consternation that for several years running now, Peter Angelos has failed to deliver on promises to field a competitive team in Rochester, or even to sign the token free agent or two that would give them some veteran leadership in a clubhouse in dire need of same. While stopping short of an outright ultimatum, Silver made it clear in an interview with our local Gannett franchise, the Democrat & Chronicle, that renewal of the Red Wings’ current contract with the Orioles—which expires at the end of next season—would be anything but automatic.
And while threatening to sever one’s ties with quite possibly the single worst-run organization in professional baseball is hardly a decision I can find my way to criticize, I must admit that something about the idea saddens me. Not just because, going back more than forty years now, it’s the longest-running affiliation in the game. There’s more to it than that.
I got down to the Hall of Fame last week. My Rochester expatriate friend Scott, whom readers might remember from my introduction to the Red Wings last year, was in town for the holidays, and he and I and his brother borrowed the family minivan and made the three-hour pilgrimage. Just beyond the museum’s entrance there was a huge exhibit commemorating Cal Ripken, Jr.’s career, and one of the many display cases contained a collection of memorabilia from his last game, number 3001. Among the items, an official line-up card. And there, penciled in alongside the future Hall of Famer, were the names Rick Bauer, Jorge Julio, Tim Raines, Jr., Geronimo Gil. Congratulations, guys. You made it to Cooperstown.
FINAL SCORE: BISONS 3, RED WINGS 2
FOOD CONSUMED: No recollection whatsoever.