Kevin's Baseball Stadium Blog: Heritage Financial Park

Jersey Shore BlueClaws (PHI) @ Hudson Valley Renegades (NYY)

August 2, 2024

Renegades 7, BlueClaws 1

W: Cam Schlittler
L: Mitch Neunborn

HR: Kiko Romero (HV)

Attendance: 2,486
Time of Game: 2 hours, 3 minutes

Stadium Facts

Location: Wappingers Falls, NY
Opened: 1994
Capacity: 4,500
Level: High A
League: South Atlantic

After spending an extra day in Massachusetts, it was back to New York on Friday, but a much different part of New York. The Hudson Valley Renegades play at Heritage Financial Park which has a postal address of Wappingers Falls, but is really located in the town of Fishkill, just about a mile east of the Hudson River and 60 miles north of New York City. It would really be unfair to compare either this ballpark or its surrounding area to any of the other stops on this trip because it is so much different. This is a very traditional lower level minor league park in a relatively small town.

Heritage Financial Park is located just off of I-84, so it is pretty easy to get to. There just isn't a lot going on in the area. Other than the parking lots, the only things surrounding the park are trees. It is a pretty run-of-the-mill park built 30 years ago. It doesn't have a true exterior wall to it. Basically all of the concessions are on the concourse below the single level seating bowl that is pretty much only separated from the exterior of the park by fencing. A walkway splits the main seating bowl that extends just beyond first and third bases. A handful of luxury boxes sit atop those sections. There is a club/party area that wraps around the left field foul pole, which I believe is a recent addition to the park. Besides that, there are no outfield seats. Both of the High A ballparks I visited on this trip, Brooklyn being the other, have artificial playing surfaces.

Unfortunately, my rainy week continued. For the second time in three days, I was at a game that started in a delay which lasted about two hours. But the good news was, this time they waited it out and got the game in. Apparently in the minors, they can opt to shorten games when there is a significantly delayed start. So this became a seven inning game that started around 9 p.m. Not surprisingly, the weather and long delay meant there was a pretty small crowd on hand for this one. Credit to the Renegades fans though, they brought the energy. A group of fans sitting behind the Renegades dugout did the player roll call chant in the first inning, like the big league affiliates' bleacher fans do at Yankee Stadium.

More than three months removed from seeing the Phillies' High A affiliate Jersey Shore last play at home, it was not surprising that only one player remained from that April starting lineup, Hendry Mendez. But new to the lineup was one of the top Phillies prospects, shortstop Aidan Miller, their '23 first round draft pick. On the other side, while I've seen a bunch of Yankees affiliate games this year, this was my first look at Hudson Valley. These teams are currently locked in a tight race for the South Atlantic League North Division second half championship, which would earn them a playoff spot. On this night though, Hudson Valley was the much more impressive team. Their starting pitcher, righty Cam Schlittler was pretty dominant. He went five innings, allowed six hits, one walk and struck out nine. He was promoted to AA soon after this game. The Renegades scored first in the bottom of the second, an unearned run after Garrett Martin reached on an error, stole second on a play where he was actually tagged out but was ruled safe due to fielders interference, and then scored on a single by Anthony Hall. Hudson Valley doubled their lead on a solo homer to right by Kiko Romero in the fourth. The only BlueClaws run against Schlittler came in the fifth. Miller sliced a two out double down the right field line and scored on a single by Keaton Anthony. Jersey Shore failed to score a leadoff double in the top of the sixth and then things got out of hand in the bottom half. The first three batters reached base safely, including a RBI double by Antonio Gomez. The next two runs scored on a passed ball and a wild pitch. Then Romero added a triple to his earlier homer. He too would score when a throw home on a fielder's choice hit him in the back. One more run scored after that. The five run frame gave the Renegades a 7-1 lead with just one half inning to play in the shortened game. Jersey Shore went down in order to end the game.

I was supposed to make one final stop on this trip in Aberdeen, Maryland on my way home the next day. But the weather wasn't any better in Aberdeen Friday or Saturday. Their Friday night game was suspended part way through and the forecast for Saturday was dicey. Since I was going to be driving through Aberdeen on my way home regardless, I decided to play it by ear. As I got near, I made the decision to skip the stop and drive the rest of the way home. That proved to be a wise decision. While they did complete the suspended game, the regularly scheduled game that evening was postponed. So what was originally supposed to be an eight game in eight city tour turned into eight games in seven cities, with three of the games being of the seven inning variety. I decided to wait a couple weeks to make the relatively short drive back up to Aberdeen when they were hosting the White Sox High A affiliate Winston-Salem. That was just a few days ago, so I will be writing about my final minor league visit of the year very soon.

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