6.2.02 LAKEWOOD BLUECLAWS vs HICKORY CRAWDADS
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I stopped by the Batavia Muckdogs website last week to check on the impending
start of short-season A ball here in upstate New York, and was pleased to
find a news item about a couple of my favorite Muckdogs from last year, first
baseman Ryan Howard and outfielder Rod Perry. Both, it seemed, were enjoying
success at the next level this season, playing for the Lakewood BlueClaws
of the single-A South Atlantic League. Lakewood is Lakewood, New Jersey, some
further research revealed—an hour and change from Philadelpia, and, as
luck would have it, the BlueClaws were home for the weekend.
I’d not logged much time in New Jersey that wasn’t spent on the New Jersey
Turnpike, that most depressing stretch of this country’s national highway
system, from which, inevitably, most people’s conclusions about New Jersey
are drawn. Curious, then, to sample whatever else might be on offer, I left
Philly midmorning and headed out toward the Jersey shore on the two-lane.
The suburban business districts of Camden gradually thinned out and receded
behind me, and after a while I found myself on a very long, very straight,
very flat highway lined with trees of a certain height and just about nothing
else. Signs pointing the way to Toms River, home of Little League champions
past, appeared and vanished into the woods.
I never did get to see any of Lakewood itself. The ballpark sits in a clearing
off another road outside of town, seemingly miles from anything and surrounded
by a parking lot the vastness of which made me wonder if I hadn’t somehow
lost my way and ended up back at Chavez Ravine. It’s a newish facility,
as one might guess from the name—“FirstEnergy Park”—and
it looked attractive enough on first approach and even as I made my way inside,
got some food, and settled down to see how the BlueClaws matched up with their
rival crustaceans, the Pittsburgh Pirates–affiliate Crawdads of Hickory,
North Carolina. Still, it seemed a little weird to be paying $8 to get into
a single-A ballgame, and not just because I’d paid the same amount two
nights running to see the Phillies.
It’s a good comparison, though, because whereas the Vet seemed so refreshingly
old-school, if not quite old-fashioned, the 6500-capacity FirstEnergy Park
was an ominous display of just how quickly the 21st century ballpark experience
has found its way down to the lowest levels of minor league baseball.
Advertising was everywhere one looked. And while this is hardly a new development,
or even at all unusual in the minors, where much of a ballpark’s charm
frequently derives from the myriad ads for local businesses lining the outfield
fence, this was not that. This was more like the kind of balls-out commercialism
that results in public high schools signing exclusive rights deals with soft
drink companies. I mean, there were freaking ads—slick, glossy ones,
for I don’t remember what—plastered to the vertical face of every
step of every aisle. Let not the significance of this go unnoticed: You
literally cannot look down to watch your step while going for another beer
without being subjected to a pitch. And not the baseball kind.
They pipe in applause. I repeat: They pipe in applause. Crowd noise is augmented
by canned cheers through the ballpark P.A. I swear to god.
The mascot was so unbelievably annoying that I felt myself literally wanting
to kill him. Top of the eighth, home team down 4–2, bases loaded with
two outs, and standing atop the dugout is Buster Fucking BlueClaw, trying
to get people to do the wave. And, of course, they’re doing it. Kill
me now.
At least the Philly Phanatic only comes out between innings. At least he’s
actually kind of funny, instead of just being straight-up cloying and insipid.
At least I didn’t want to literally kill him.
But whatever. Last year’s Muckdogs comprised about half the BlueClaws line-up, and while Howard managed only a sac fly and third baseman Sean Walsh posted an oh-fer, I did get to see Rod Perry make a couple outstanding plays in right, nailing Hickory shortstop Jeff Keppinger at the plate in the aforementioned, tumultuous eighth. The BlueClaws rallied in the bottom of the ninth with three runs, but, with the tying run aboard, Erick Rivera grounded to first to end it.
FINAL SCORE: CRAWDADS 7, BLUECLAWS 6
LIFE DURING WARTIME: No “God Bless America” here, but we were treated to a stunning seventh-inning innovation courtesy the Lakewood, er, FirstEnergy announcer. “Okay folks,” he warned by way of an introduction, “We’re going to try something a little different today. Instead of singing, ‘Let’s root, root, root for the home team,’ we’re going to sing, ‘root, root, root for the BlueClaws!’” It was absolute bedlam. The Rite of Spring, Elvis on Ed Sullivan, the Sex Pistols on London Today, all rolled into one. Will life ever be the same.