Saturday night
Mobile, AL
with Marc and Erik
On the way to the game, I read a snippet on Wikipedia that mentioned that the Padres left Mobile a few years back due to "stadium deficiencies." Hmmmmm... what exactly did that mean?
Hank Aaron Stadium is only 13 years old but it felt kind of dumpy. Nice rainbow though.
A Listmaker at the end of the rainbow.
(photo by Erik)Or is it a Bud at the end of the rainbow?
(photo by Erik)We settled in our seats a little before the 7:05 start time. The rain had ended about a half hour earlier. But there was no sign of the game starting anytime soon. First they had to squeegee the field first. But there were only 4 dudes doing anything and they weren't squeegeeing all that vigorously.
It gave us some time to really study the dumb layout of the stadium. The lower deck was all suites which meant that the rest of the seats were pushed back further than you'd expect at a minor league stadium. Hank Aaron allowed his name to be put on this dump?
Squeegee already! There's a guy in the stands that is about to add his 40th state to his 50 State Baseball Adventure!
(photo by Balgavy)
A start time was announced but then nothing happened. Occasionally, the team president came out to the field to make an announcement letting us know that the field still wasn't ready.
So the Baybears' staff decided to kill some time by having kids come up to a microphone in the stands to ask the PA guy trivia questions. I'm sure they were expecting questions like "What is the capital of Alabama?" Instead, they got "How do you want to die?" Which then turned into a discussion about hanging before the kid was politely shooed away. The South is weird.
The teams continued to wait it out.
Finally at around 9 pm, the announcement was made. The game was postponed. But don't worry - kids were invited to come onto the field to run the bases!
As the team president finished his announcement, Marc stood up and yelled out, "This is why the Padres left you as an affiliate!" Well played Balgavy!
We went to the ticket booth to ask for our money back. It went like this.
Marc: We need a refund for tonight's game.
Ticket Girl: We don't --
Marc: (interrupting) Yes you do.
Yes she did.
I would have been devastated if this had been my only chance to see a game in Alabama but we still had Montgomery. It was a tough enough blow that I didn't get to see Rico Brogna manage the Baybears on this night. Very very sad.
This marked the second year in a row that a game was either called or moved due to lack of a proper drainage system. A new baseball trip tradition? I hope not.
Posted: 7/12
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