Dunkin' Park - Hartford Yard Goats

Harrisburg Senators (WAS) @ Hartford Yard Goats (COL)

July 27, 2024

Yard Goats 5, Senators 2

W: Carson Palmquist
L: Andry Lara

S: Zach Agnos

HR: Braxton Fulford (HFD), Yanquiel Fernandez (HFD)

Attendance: 7,319
Time of Game: 2 hours, 6 minutes

Stadium Facts

Location: Hartford, CT
Opened: 2017
Capacity: 6,121
Level: Double A
League: Eastern

On Saturday, I drove from New Jersey around New York City and to Hartford, the capital city of Connecticut.  I am almost positive this was the first time I had ever been outside of my car in Hartford.  Despite being Connecticut's largest city and a sports haven located right between New York and Boston, Hartford did not have an affiliated professional baseball team for 65 years until the team from nearby New Britain was relocated and renamed the Hartford Yard Goats in 2016 and moved into brand new Dunkin' Park a year later.

Since their inception, the Yard Goats have perennially been at or near the top of the Eastern League in attendance, despite being affiliated with a MLB team with no local ties in the Colorado Rockies.  It is easy to see why that's the case though as Dunkin' Park is a gem of a ballpark.  Quite frankly, it is overqualified as an AA facility.  I predict Hartford will be upgraded to AAA within the next decade whether it be due to MLB expansion or relocation of teams to cities that currently have AAA clubs.  Dunkin' Park has everything you could want in a modern minor league stadium.  It is located just a few blocks north of downtown Hartford making it easy to get to via a variety of transportation methods.  There is seating all around the ballpark, even including a second deck in right field.  There is luxury seating field level as well as the suite level upper deck.  The concourse is spacious, circles the entire park and provides views of the field from most locations.  The concession options are plentiful.  This was the first game I've attended this year where I actually had to secure a ticket well in advance because it was a sellout and then some with just standing room only tickets being sold on game day.  The Yard Goats always draw well, but this was an especially large crowd due to it being Hartford Whalers Alumni Weekend.  Since Hartford no longer has a NHL club, they celebrate their former team at baseball games.  It was quite amazing to me how much interest there still is for this team which departed for Carolina 27 years ago.  Several former Whalers were in the house for this game, including Joel Quenneville who won the Stanley Cup three times as the head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks.  The local passion for the Whalers has seeped its way into the Yard Goats who share the same green and blue color scheme.  The Goats wore hockey themed jerseys for this game in front of a packed house.

This Eastern League tilt featured a pretty strong Hartford lineup containing a couple of the Rockies top prospects against a somewhat depleted Harrisburg team which had its two best hitters promoted to AAA since I saw them play at home in June.  One of those top prospects for Hartford was second baseman Adael Amador, who got a brief cup of coffee in the big leagues earlier this summer, suffered an injury, and then once healthy was returned back to Hartford where he had been prior to the promotion.  Amador got things started for the Yard Goats in the third with a double and came around to score on a single by Bladimir Restituyo.  The Goats took control of the game an inning later with five straight two out hits, four of which went for extra bases.  Catcher Braxton Fulford started the string with a home run to left.  It ended with the third Hartford double of the inning, Amador's second double in as many innings.  The inning actually ended on that Amador double because a runner was thrown out at the plate.  But not before the Goats scored three to make it 4-0.  They added another in the fifth on an upper deck home run to right by Yanquiel Fernandez, who is another of the top Rockies prospects on this Hartford roster.  The promising outfielder has since been promoted to AAA.  All of this damage was done against Senators starter Andry Lara, who had been pitching very well this season prior to this game.  He was badly outdueled by Hartford southpaw Carson Palmquist.  Harrisburg did next to nothing against Palmquist in the first seven innings, with the only hits being a pair of singles by Dermis Garcia.  Palmquist was given the opportunity to pitch into the eighth inning when he hit a batter and gave up a double before being pulled.  Those runners came around to score putting a slight damper on his final line, which was still quite impressive:  7 2/3 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 8 K.  This wound up being his last start in Hartford as he was promoted to AAA after this outing.  The Yard Goats finished this one with a 5-2 victory.  Despite a fair amount of action in the middle innings, this game was played in a swift 2 hours and 6 minutes.  There were fireworks after the game, but I did not stick around for that because it seemed they were going to need to wait a while for it to actually get dark first.  Pretty sure I was back at my hotel before that display even started.

I thoroughly enjoyed this game and my experience at Dunkin' Park.  All things considered, I would probably give it the nod as my favorite park visited on this trip and certainly in the conversation for the best I've seen this year.  Yard Goats is also among my favorite team names and logos.  No rest for the weary.  I had an afternoon game to attend the following day up in Manchester, New Hampshire.

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Next ballpark:  Delta Dental Stadium in Manchester, NH

Maimonides Park - Brooklyn Cyclones

Rome Emperors (ATL) @ Brooklyn Cyclones (NYM)

July 26, 2024

Cyclones 12, Emperors 5

W: Kade Morris
L: Luis Vargas

HR: Christopher Suero (BRK), Omar De Los Santos (BRK)

Attendance: 5,068
Time of Game: 2 hours, 35 minutes

Stadium Facts

Location: Brooklyn, NY
Opened: 2001
Capacity: 7,000
Level: High A
League: South Atlantic

The second game of my late summer trip ended a streak of 11 straight games in the upper two levels of the minor leagues and took me back to the level I started with in April, a High A South Atlantic League game.  But this wasn't in some small town in the middle of nowhere.  No, it was in the largest city in America:  New York City.  More specifically, in the borough of Brooklyn.  I took a commuter train from New Jersey into Manhattan and then the subway down to Coney Island.  I've probably been to NYC at least a dozen times, but this was my first time at Coney Island, which feels like a whole different planet from the rest of the city.  I met up with a friend for this one and we explored the Coney Island boardwalk along the ocean beach, walked past a tightly arranged amusement park and visited the original Nathan's Hot Dog location, where the annual 4th of July hot dog eating contest takes place.  All of these spots are mere blocks from Maimonides Park, providing an atmosphere unlike anything I've ever experienced at a professional sporting venue.

While it makes sense that the Cyclones are a Mets affiliate, it is my understanding that Brooklyn baseball fans whose families have been there for generations aren't necessarily loyal to either of the New York MLB teams.  Many remain fans of the Dodgers even 65+ years after they departed Brooklyn for Los Angeles.  A statue of Brooklyn Dodgers legends Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese greets fans as they enter the park.  Maimonides Park is a unique place.  The ballpark itself is not particularly extravagant.  The open concourse is almost completely exposed to the elements.  Thankfully, this was a very nice night.  From most points on the concourse you can see the Atlantic Ocean well beyond the right field wall.  Beyond left field is the aforementioned amusement park, including the Cyclone wooden roller coaster for which the Brooklyn team is named.  Unlike a similar wooden roller coaster I saw in Altoona, this one is still fully operational and hearing its riders scream on occasion provides yet another unique aspect of taking in a game here.  This was the first, but not the last, minor league park I have visited which has an artificial playing surface.  Not sure if that has always been the case or if it is a somewhat recent development.  The Cyclones had been a short-season NY/Penn League team for the first ~20 years of Maimonides Park's existence.  It wasn't until the minor league re-org that went into effect in 2021 when Brooklyn became a full season affiliate.  There is so much to see and do in and around this ballpark that I would imagine even those who couldn't care less about baseball would still have a great time.

This Friday night game featured a matchup between the Cyclones and the Emperors from Rome, Georgia, making this by far the furthest a visiting team had to travel for any of the minor league games I've attended this year.  I would imagine most of the Rome players didn't mind spending a week in New York though.  It is certainly unlike most stops in the South Atlantic League.  While Maimonides Park is usually a great park for pitchers, that was not the case on this night for the Rome hurlers.  Emperors starter Luis Vargas didn't make it out of the second inning.  The Cyclones strung together six hits and five runs, sending 10 batters to the plate in the bottom of the second.  Vargas wasn't effective, but didn't get much help from his defense either.  An error and a somewhat generously scored infield hit greatly contributed to the five run frame.  The best hit of the inning belonged to Cyclones catcher Christopher Suero who doubled off the wall, missing a homer by just a couple feet.  He cleared the wall in his next at bat with plenty of room to spare, which was part of another big inning for Brooklyn.  Suero's two run homer was followed up by three more hits in a four run fourth inning, which was the second time in four innings in which every player in the Cyclones lineup came up to bat.  For good measure, Brooklyn added two more in the sixth on a two run bomb by Omar De Los Santos that gave the Cyclones an 11-0 lead through six.  Meanwhile, Brooklyn starting pitcher Kade Morris had not allowed a single base runner to this point.  He took a perfect game into the seventh inning.  However, the leadoff hitter in the seventh put an end to that drama with a base hit up the middle.  The next two hitters would also single on groundballs that found holes.  A couple batters later after Morris had been relieved, a triple knocked in two more Emperors runs causing Morris' final line to not look nearly as impressive as it should have.  He gave up three hits and three earned runs in 6 1/3 innings with no walks and six strikeouts.  This dominant performance wound up being his finale with the Mets organization.  He was traded to Oakland in exchange for Paul Blackburn a few days later.  The A's must have liked what they saw in this one.  The end of the perfect game attempt pretty much ended all remaining drama in this one.  A few more runs would score before the game finally ended in a 12-5 Cyclones victory.  I would love to see what the "time of possession" numbers were in this game because it seemed like Rome spent almost the entire game in the field.  The Cyclones recorded 15 hits and took seven walks.  The Emperors did rack up seven hits in the final three innings, but did not take a walk in the game.

After this very fun afternoon and evening in Brooklyn, I embarked on what became a very long night's journey back to New Jersey.  That's a story for another time, however.  The next day, I drove to Connecticut for my first real visit to Hartford.

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Next ballpark:  Dunkin' Park in Hartford, CT

TD Bank Ballpark - Somerset Patriots

Portland Sea Dogs (BOS) @ Somerset Patriots (NYY)

July 25, 2024

Sea Dogs 7, Patriots 6

W: Zach Bryant
L: McKinley Moore

HR: Nick Decker (POR), Alexander Vargas (SOM), Rafael Flores (SOM)

Attendance: 4,721
Time of Game: 2 hours, 51 minutes

Stadium Facts

Location: Bridgewater, NJ
Opened: 1999
Capacity: 6,100
Level: Double A
League: Eastern

My last multi-stop minor league trip of the year took me through New England by way of the New York City metropolitan area.  This is one region of the United States where baseball is still very much at the forefront of the sports scene.  Pretty much without exception, all of the stops on this trip featured passionate fanbases, not only for the local minor league team, but in most cases for the affiliated big league club as well.  I got the trip started with a renewal of the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry at the AA level in New Jersey.

TD Bank Ballpark is located in Somerset County, New Jersey.  Situated pretty much in the middle of the Garden State, this is very much part of the New York City metropolitan area, and a hotbed of Yankees fans.  Interestingly enough though, the Somerset Patriots have not always been an affiliated team.  They got their start in the independent Atlantic League and were such a success at the box office that the Yankees eventually moved their AA squad from Trenton to Somerset in 2021.  I'm sure most people arrive to the park by car, but there is a train station just beyond the outfield wall, which I visited the next day to catch a ride into the city.  While I have nothing to compare it to, I assume TD Bank Ballpark was overqualified as an independent league stadium because it is a very nice home for an AA team.  The red brick exterior of the park provides a classic look.  While there are no outfield seats, standard seats surround most of the foul territory with the concourse above providing views of the field from most locations.  The second level is mostly suites, but there is a uniquely situated party deck on the upper level down the third base line.  Another distinct feature of the ballpark is the enormous U.S. flag beyond the wall in straight away center field, a nice touch for a team named the Patriots.  There was a very nice crowd on hand for this Thursday evening game.  A common cheer throughout the game would be started by one boisterous fan yelling "SOMERSET", followed by the rest of the crowd chanting back "PATRIOTS".

This was my second look of the summer at the Somerset squad and the first of two Portland games on this trip.  Prior to the week I'm writing this, the Sea Dogs might have had the most elite prospect talent in all of Minor League Baseball.  Three of MLB.com's Top 25 prospects were on their roster at the time, although the top rated of the bunch, shortstop Marcelo Mayer did not appear in this game.  Outfielder Roman Anthony (DH in this game) and catcher Kyle Teel did though.  Mayer, Anthony and Teel were all promoted to AAA Worcester together this week.  For Somerset, just as was the case when I saw them play in Binghamton in June, outfielder Spencer Jones was the Yankees top prospect in the lineup.  And just like that previous game, he was the leadoff hitter and in the DH slot for this one.  It did not go well for him.  He went 0 for 5 with four strikeouts, continuing a season long problem for the tall left handed hitter.  To be fair, his one out was a flyout to the wall.  Jones' teammates got the Patriots into a good spot early though.  In the bottom of the second inning, Portland starting pitcher Isaac Coffey couldn't find the plate, walking three consecutive hitters to load the bases with one out.  That brought up #9 hole hitter Alexander Vargas who belted a grand slam homer to right to give the Patriots a 4-0 lead.  It was just Vargas' second homer of the year, but amazingly I have seen both of them in person as he also hit a homer as a late inning substitute in the game in Binghamton in June.  He maybe ought to get me to drive up to Jersey more often.  A few innings later, the Sea Dogs answered with four of their own in a bit less dramatic fashion:  four singles with one walk mixed in.  Anthony knocked in the first two with a single to right and Teel tied the game with a single of his own.  The Patriots regained the lead in the bottom half with a run and doubled their lead on a mammoth home run by catcher Rafael Flores in the eighth.  Portland had something left for the ninth though.  After a leadoff walk, the Patriots made a pitching change.  McKinley Moore was rudely greeted by Nick Decker who launched Moore's first pitch over the center field wall for a game tying home run.  After a hit batter and a stolen base, the first of three Sea Dogs steals in the inning, Anthony delivered another run scoring single through a drawn in infield, giving Portland a 7-6 lead.  Vargas got another hit in the bottom of the ninth, but was erased by Teel attempting to steal second.  Somerset did not score, so Portland hung on for the ninth inning come-from-behind victory.

That was quite a ballgame to get this trip started.  It would not be the only exciting finish to a game.  Not even the only exciting game involving Portland.  Up next was a trip into the Big Apple and my first ever visit to Coney Island in Brooklyn.

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Next ballpark:  Maimonides Park in Brooklyn, NY