Winston-Salem Dash (CHW) @ Aberdeen IronBirds (BAL)
August 24, 2024
Attendance: 3,215
Time of Game: 2 hours, 38 minutes
Stadium Facts
Location: Aberdeen, MD
Opened: 2002
Capacity: 4,000
Level: High A
League: South Atlantic
Time of Game: 2 hours, 38 minutes
Stadium Facts
Location: Aberdeen, MD
Opened: 2002
Capacity: 4,000
Level: High A
League: South Atlantic
My 2024 Minor League ballpark tour ended the same way it started: with a High A South Atlantic League game at a ballpark just off I-95 that I had driven past many times before but had never actually visited. Those parks in Wilmington and Aberdeen are only separated by about 40 miles too. Having missed out on stopping in Aberdeen at the tail end of my New England trip, I drove back up there a few weeks later for a Saturday night game between the Orioles' affiliate Aberdeen IronBirds and the Winston-Salem Dash, my first (and only) time seeing any White Sox affiliated team in 2024.
The IronBirds are owned by the Iron Man himself, Cal Ripken Jr and his brother Billy, natives of Aberdeen. While the town of Aberdeen is quite small for being the home of an affiliated squad, the location is ideal for Orioles fans who want to make the quick trip up from Baltimore, or from anywhere else in Maryland for that matter. I-95 runs just a little ways beyond the right field wall. Ripken Stadium is just one part of a huge sports complex appropriately named the Ripken Experience. It was one of the few parks I attended this year that had ample onsite parking that was free. The stadium has a brick exterior that closely resembles Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Another nod to the parent club is an on premise hotel that looks an awful lot like the Eutaw Street Warehouse at Camden Yards. But this hotel is not located within the ballpark perimeter and is actually in foul territory beyond third base rather than right field. The main seating bowl extends most of the way around the park in foul territory with party areas down each line. There are no outfield seats. There is a spacious concourse above the main seating area. This was the third straight High A park I visited with an artificial playing surface, which was installed when Aberdeen was upgraded to this level from the defunct NY/Penn short season league in 2021. Judging strictly by the park and not its surroundings, it is a tough call between this stadium and Jersey Shore for my favorite High A stadium I visited this year. Maybe a slight edge to Jersey Shore for having real grass.
There have been very few games played by any team associated with the White Sox that have been worth watching this year, and especially over the past couple months. But I lucked out with this one. Earlier in the week, the Sox announced that their first round draft pick, fifth overall pick in this July's draft, Hagen Smith would be making his professional debut with Winston-Salem in this game in Aberdeen. The left handed pitcher out of the University of Arkansas was on a very limited pitch and innings limit as they eased him into pro ball following an extremely impressive season on the mound for the Razorbacks. He did not disappoint. He pitched three scoreless innings, allowing two hits, no walks and four strikeouts. His most impressive moments came in the third after a couple of groundball base hits put two men in scoring position with just one out. Smith then proceeded to strike out the final two batters he would face, one on a nasty chase slider and another on a fastball looking. This was quite a pitchers duel throughout. IronBirds starter Trey Gibson doesn't have the prospect hype of Smith, but he has been one of the best pitchers in the Orioles system this season splitting time between Low A Delmarva and Aberdeen. Gibson allowed a couple hits in the third inning and one of those runners scored on a wild pitch. But other than that, he was pretty much perfect. He pitched four innings with just those two hits and one run allowed, no walks and eight strikeouts. The Dash had trouble putting the ball in play against the IronBirds pitchers who would follow Gibson as well. They wound up striking out 14 times in the game. Aberdeen scored a run in the fourth to tie the game at one. Neither team came particularly close to scoring the next several innings. Winson-Salem blew what should have been a golden opportunity to pull ahead in the eighth inning. Leading off the inning, diminutive second baseman Rikuu Nishida lined one into the right-center field gap that the right fielder took a very poor route towards, allowing the ball to roll all the way to the wall. Nishida would have had an easy stand-up triple, but the third base coach waved him in to attempt the inside-the-park home run. He was thrown out by at least 20 feet. Considering the score and situation, tied game top of the 8th with no outs and the heart of the order due up, it was one of the worst sends home I've ever seen in a professional game. And wouldn't you know it, it proved to be quite costly. Winson-Salem didn't score again, including in the top of the tenth inning with a free runner starting at second. Then the second thoroughly frustrating moment occurred for me as someone interested in seeing a Dash win. They opted to use a position player to pitch the bottom of the tenth inning. While I understand they had their hands tied with a starting pitcher limited to just three innings, I'm still not sure how they could run out of pitchers in a game in which they allowed one run in the first nine innings after having thrown a shutout the night before. Anyway, with infielder Bryce Willits on the mound, you can probably guess how this one ended. A bunt single moved the free runner to third and then Aron Estrada hit a sacrifice fly to center to walk it off for a 2-1 IronBirds victory.
And thus concluded my 2024 Minor League Ballpark tour. I managed to make it to 20 different ballparks covering pretty much the entire Northeast corridor of the country. I saw a lot of really cool stadiums with not a single one that I decisively disliked. I got to visit a bunch of fun cities that were mostly brand new to me. And I was extremely lucky to see a lot of thoroughly entertaining baseball games. In total, home teams went 14-7 including an incredible six walk-off victories. There were very few games that weren't in doubt in the final innings. Seems unlikely I'll be able to repeat that in future years, but we shall see! I absolutely intend to continue this tour of the minors next year, but have not decided where I will be going other than a likely trip to North Carolina to see most of the White Sox affiliates. Until then, perhaps I will go back and publish a post or two to document my 2021-2022 MLB Tour at some point this winter. Don't expect that to be anything other than links to photo albums and scorecards though.
Next ballpark: TBD 2025
