06.11.09 #7 Rockford RiverHawks vs. Windy City Thunderbolts

Headed out to my first independent league game of the year and went to see the Rockford RiverHawks vs. the Windy City ThunderBolts of the Frontier League. Independent professional leagues are not affiliated with a specific major league team, but do have players that have either played in those leagues, or are hoping to someday make it to those leagues. As with most minor leagues, there was a theme night. Thursday was Jimmy Buffett night, $1 beers, $2 cheeseburgers and lots of Hawaiian shirts.


The RiverHawks play in Road Ranger Stadium in Loves Park, Illinois. Loves Park is a "suburb" of Rockford. Who knew Rockford had suburbs.


View from behind home plate. Road Ranger Park is a newer park and was built by a local business man. It replaced the old park, just a couple of miles away. Both parks are near the construction field office I worked from during the I-90 reconstruction project earlier this year.

The view down the right field line. Pretty good crowd for Jimmy Buffett night. $1 beers do not hurt minor league attendance.

View down left field line.

The view form out in right field looking back toward home plate.

While the RiverHawks were stretching, I noticed the tarp was rolled up around a giant baseball.

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

Both teams were choosing to wear their dark colored alternate jerseys. Usually you don't see such similar looking uniforms on both teams.

Rearing back with a split finger.

The most unique food I could find was the deep fried quesadillas. Not really recommended as they were pretty bland and three of them went for $5.

Rocko the RiverHakws posing for the camera.

In addition to the usual moon walk, the RiverHawks had an area where you could throw and get your pitch timed. Not wanting to hog the time, I opted to lets the little kids throw and am still left wondering what I top out at with the fast ball.

Second game in a row, I got a foul ball and third overall. Truth is, my co-worker Paul actually got the ball on a ricochet off the concession stand while in line. I missed the whole incident while in the bathroom. As Paul had already heard the story of giving the ball away to little kids at each of the first two games, he chose to give this ball away to me. One Frontier League ball now sits at home on the shelf.

Sumo wrestling promotion drew big laughs when two guys ran at each other at full speed and crashed into each other and hit the ground. One guy then dominated the other with a body slam to finish him off. Yep, minor league promotions.

In case you are at the game and don't really care what is going on, you can play cornhole in the outfield with set-ups supplied by the home team.

The Windy City team, two time defending league champions were too strong for the RiverHawks and are seen here scoring a run. Windy City prevailed 6-2 in a rather non-descript game that was never really in doubt.

The ballpark at dusk. Really enjoy taking in these games when the weather is perfect. Hard to beat a nice laid back minor league game.

As I stepped toward the field to get a picture taken with the game going on in the background, a fan, apparently of the website and tour jumped into the picture. This thing must be getting bigger than I thought. Either that, or she had enjoyed too many of the $1 beers which is much more likely. I did run into several Phi Psi's form North Illinois University that I knew, as it was unofficially the place to be for the college kids recently home for the summer.

Paul Grassly, myself and Rick Kipp. Apparently, they did not get the obnoxious Hawaiian shirt memo.

Home team hat. Again, not a New Era 5950, but instead they are provided by Zephyr. Good fitting hat, but not a big fan of the logo. They do have the Frontier League logo on the right side and Rockford in block letters on the back.