08.13.09 #23 Gary Railcats vs. Winnipeg Goldeneyes

I finally have made it to a game in Gary, the home of the Northern League's Gary Southshore Railcats. I have driven by this stadium more times than I can count on my travels on the Indiana Tollroad. I have always thought the stadium looked like a really nice ballpark and I must say, my visit did not disappoint.

My visit started off by picking up a complimentary ticket at the box office and being admitted to the park early. It pays to know people. The ticket even had my name printed on it, that's a first of the summer.

Let me back up a minute. This picture is of me and Bryan Van Den Bosch. Bryan is a Phi Kappa Psi fraternity brother of mine and is a senior at Valparaiso. He also happens to be interning with the Railcats and hooked me up for the evening. While on vacation a few weeks earlier, Bryan texted me with an offer to throw out the first pitch when I came to the game. He had already lined this up with the GM and completely surprised me with the offer. Seeing as I had thrown a last pitch already in St. Paul, I jumped at the opportunity to throw a first pitch. In addition to the pitch, Bryan offered to give me a tour of the ballpark if I got there early on game day. Must say an office tour is pretty cool when your office is a ballpark.

We headed up to the suites and took a look in most of them and Bryan gave me all the details on the options. Seems like he has been paying attention to the sales staff this summer.

Then me headed up to the PA booth. The booths here were more spacious than those at my last ballpark tour, Wrigley Field.

We headed down to the home team dugout while the visitors were finishing batting practice.

A rack of batting helmets. Notice the minor league standard helmet with the double ear flaps. I assume this is due to not everyone having an individual helmet and the need to be flexible, or maybe every guy on the team is a switch hitter.

The view from center field. It was nice strolling around the park during batting practice. This was actually the first game where I got there early enough to take in batting practice and the relative calm of the park before the festivities involved in the game begin to take place.


During the tour Bryan told me about the scoreboard and how if you look closely at the second "E" in Steel Yard you can see where two balls have busted the "E". Christian Guerrero, Vlad's cousin is responsible for both of them. As you can also see, they scrolled my name across the board several times during the game. Kind of cool.

The tour continued and then Bryan had to get back to work. The promotion of the day was the Railcats own Stimulus Plan. They gave away envelopes of money to the first 1,000 fans ranging from $1 to $1,000. I headed out of the park to meet more friends and get in line for the chance at $1,000. Sadly when I opened my envelope, I only got $1. However, that was enough to buy half a beer since they were only $2.

As it got closer to game time, I had to head down to the field to throw out the pitch. Little did I know it was Valparaiso night at the park. I mingled with a couple other people throwing pitches and waited for my turn. I was going third out of four. As I was getting ready to walk out to the mound the on field announcer warned me to wait until he ready the whole blurb about me. Apparently Bryan wrote up a paragraph or two about my summer trip for the announcer.


Without further ado, here is the first pitch at for the Gary Railcats game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Eh_xHBQVY

People in the crowd claimed it may have been a little bit short, but I personally am experiencing a bit of short term memory loss and can't recall the exact moment as I was overcome with emotion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArE-8Nq6dPg
My dear friend Jeremy Swindle giving a little post pitch commentary. With friends like this who needs critics.

You may have wondered who got the last pitch, oh yeah, it was Mayor Jon Costas of Valparaiso. He entered in relief of me. While my pitch may have been a little short, the catcher was able to handle it. The Mayor then whipped one in all the way to the backstop. Even the best of us have a bad pitch every now and then.

Oh Canada! The US and Canadian national anthems were both played as a Canadian team was visiting today.

Here's the view from our seats. Like most minor league ballparks, there is probably not a bad seat in the whole park.

View from behind home plate during batting practice. I-80, the Indiana Tollroad runs right beyond left field with US Steel on the other side of the highway.

This is the most unique set-up I have seen for the radar gun. They have it mounted to the top of a bat.

Rusty

Rascal

Christian Guerrero in the on deck circle.

Guerrero at bat. We did not see him hit the scoreboard tonight, although we did see the Railcats win 6-2 and move into a tie for first place.

Attendees:
Front Row: Angela Baker, Officer Dave Byers, Jeremy Swindle, Jason Holy, Greg Mack
Back Row: Kevin Marks, Olivia Dumas, Marc Dumas, Daren Ellefson

The team hat and lucky me, it was 30% off all hats that day. What a deal.

I must say this was a great game and I want to really thank Bryan for making all the arrangements and showing me around. If you have a chance to catch the Railcats in the playoffs, do so.

Finally, I am not sure what this has to do with the minor league team, but apparently it was inundated with visitors after the King of Gary died. This monument is in the right field corner near the world's largest Bennigan's Restaurant which looks over the field from the right field corner.