A Homecoming
After the 2007 Major League Baseball draft, Caldwell County's Madison Bumgarner will be in Hickory this week. He won't be carrying a bat though. Madison will be in the pitching rotation for the Augusta GreenJackets in this week's series in Hickory against the Hickory Crawdads. Madison is scheduled to pitch in Thursday night's game at L.P. Frans Stadium. It will be interesting to see what sort of crowd shows up at the game on Thursday night. I'm expecting a larger base of fans for Bumgarner than for the Hickory Crawdads :)
Welcome back Madison!
10,000 Milestone
Milestones are always fun to note. Today provided an interesting opportunity for another entry into the My Town collection as a new milestone was set by the Hickory Crawdads at L.P. Frans Stadium. The Hickory Crawdads started play in the South Atlantic League in 1993 as a single-A farm club of the Chicago White Sox. They are now a single-A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Today's game against the Lexington Legends (single-A affiliate of the Houston Astros) was the 14th game of the 16th season, and during today's game, Hickory first baseman Miles Durham scored the team's 10,000th run.
During the bottom of the sixth inning, Miles Durham doubled on a line drive into right field. The next batter to the plate, Erik Huber, reaches on a fielding error and Miles Durham advanced to third base. Hickory's Andrew Walker grounds out to Lexington's shortstop, but Miles Durham scored on the play to bring Hickory to the 10,000 runs scored mark.
Hickory lost the game by a score of 5-4, but the milestone was still fun to witness!
Dirt Sandwiches
I wonder how the infield dirt tastes? I didn't stick around to ask. I wanted to get home in time to watch the NCAA finals.
Stepping Out
I was out at L.P. Frans Stadium tonight for Hickory's second attempt at kicking off the 2008 South Atlantic League minor league baseball season just to be rained out for the second day in a row. There were only a few fans in attendance, because the weather was bad before game time. As I was wandering around the stadium looking for a couple of decent 'rain out' feature type photos, I saw this lady sitting in the stadium having a bite to eat while waiting for the rain delay announcement. I have seen her at the park regularly during the last few years I have been covering the Hickory Crawdads. She probably attends more games than I do. I decided to step out from behind my camera and introduce myself and ask for a quick photo. This is a rather rewarding experience in most cases, and it's also the foundation of my 1000 Faces photo project that I have been working on for the last few years (at a rather slow pace sometimes.)
Her name is Doris Mayes, and she has been attending a large majority of all Hickory Crawdads home baseball games since the inaugural season in 1993. She's been a season ticket holder since 1996. I listened to her tell me stories about may Hickory Crawdads baseball players who have gone on to play major league baseball during the past 15 years. She was wearing a Crawdads baseball cap with a rather impressive collection of Crawdads hat pins that covered the history of this team through affiliation with the Chicago White Sox and the Pittsburgh Pirates. We talked about the weather, the new team, and what's going on in Hickory with the new management at L.P. Frans Stadium as well.
This experience was quite rewarding for me. I highly recommend it :)