Safe at Home

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Austin Gisriel

After 15 days and almost 2,900 miles we arrived safely back in Williamsport around 4:00 this afternoon, but not before stopping by our “home” field at Rebel Park to play one more game of catch. We thought that doing so was the most appropriate way to conclude our sojourn. By the way, we appreciate the folks from New Market to Hagerstown arranging for the Florida-like weather for our homecoming.

Actually we felt at home for the final three hours of the trip. We stopped in Salem, VA for lunch at Mac and Bob’s which was one of our favorite places to eat when we would visit Becky at Roanoke College, and of course there were friendly milestones all the way down the Shenandoah Valley.

Within the next week (hopefully) I’ll post a link to a much more expansive photo album, as well as the second Off the Beaten Basepaths, which we shot at Twin Lakes Park.

One of the great joys of our trip was knowing that friends and family were following us. We joked about having fun in Florida because you couldn’t, but believe me, you were very much with us at every point. We eagerly anticipated reading the comments and thank each of you who did comment. Knowing that we would come home to share a great trip with special people made our Spring Training sojourn that much more enjoyable for us.

We found many diamond-shaped fountains of youth in Florida, but inevitably the effect didn't last.

Posted in Spring Training Trip 2012 | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

One Last Hoyt-Rah

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Austin Gisriel

We pulled into Huntersville, NC about 1:30 today, having left Jacksonville at 6:00 a.m. and having enjoyed a wonderful visit with the McClearys. After lunch, we set out to find a ballpark or an empty field on which to play so that we could add North Carolina to the list of states in which we’ve tossed around the old horsehide. As I mentioned yesterday, Huntersville is the birthplace of Hoyt Wilhelm, and we had a sense that there must be something around here somewhere named for the former Oriole. Therefore, we went down an exit, made a left, made a right, generally heading towards the local community college. We found the Huntersville Athletic Complex, which of course, contained a statue of a young ballplayer beneath which was a plaque detailing Wilhelm’s career. The entire baseball area was dedicated to Wilhelm. Let’s just say that we can find ’em like those guys who can find water underground with a divining rod. We played on one of the two synthetic turf baseball fields and furthermore, when we counted up the baseballs at the end of the day, it turns out we found another one of those, too.

Can we find 'em or what?

As you may imagine we discuss a variety of topics during our many hours in the car and we have reached a very important and insightful conclusion regarding performance enhancing drugs. They should be mandatory for all ballplayers 55 and over.

Perhaps our most poignant moment of the trip occurred this morning at a McDonald’s south of Savannah. In walked a boy perhaps four years old in his Oriole shorts and Nick Markakis tee-shirt. Dad was attired in his Oriole gear, while Grandpa most notably wore a proud smile. I was in one of my Oriole shirts and naturally, we got to talking. They were headed down to Spring Training as we were heading home. After one more day of travel tomorrow, home is where we’ll be spending tomorrow night. The closer we get to it, the more it tugs at us.

Posted in Spring Training Trip 2012 | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Squeezing the Last Bit of Juice Out of This Trip

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Austin Gisriel

This post is coming to you from a McDonald’s just south of Jacksonville. We told our high school friends Joe and Janice McCleary that we’d be there at 6:00 so we’d thought we’d stop and post for the day–and not sit in their driveway for 2 hours. We’ve been squeezing the most out of this trip even as we make our way home. We stopped again at Dianne’s Barbecue in Hawthorne and found out that Dianne is Sonny’s daughter and when Dad sold the franchise, Dianne kept her own restaurant under her own name. Good barbecue definitely runs in the family. Becky texted me that we’d have barbecue sauce running through our veins at this rate and it occurs to me that that’s a worthy goal.

Right where we made a turn onto US Route 17 in Palatka, we came across a great little ballpark with four diamonds. We took some BP and I took some grounders, but we do have an injury report: The ball comes off this Florida sun-baked hard pan with such terrific spin, that Al developed a bad blood blister on his pinkie just catching my tosses in from short. He’ll live.

Tomorrow we start the serious journey home and we have reservations at the Sleep Inn in Huntersville, NC. That town sounded familiar to me and after looking it up, we discovered that Huntersville is the birthplace of Hall of Famer Hoyt Wilhelm. We’ll see if there are any places related to the former knuckleballer and if so, that’s where will play in North Carolina, blood blister or no.

Our next post will be from Huntersville tomorrow night.

Posted in Spring Training Trip 2012 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Great Day with a Brace of Rebels!

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Austin Gisriel

Al, Chris, and Austin outside the Braves clubhouse.

We made it to Lake Buena Vista today and visited with former New Market Rebels, Chris Masters (’07) and Blaine Sims (’10).  Both are southpaws and both are making their way through the Atlanta Braves system rather quickly. Our boys are working hard and look to be in great shape. They certainly have the mental toughness to go far. We spent 90 minutes watching them and other Braves hurlers work on fielding drills. (Yes, we can spend 90 minutes doing that because that’s the way we roll.)

Austin & Blaine.

Now, if you ever intend to watch the Braves minor leaguers work out, be advised that their camp is located in the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex  that is part of the Walt Disney World Resort. In other words, you are at the most corporate minor league facility in the world. You also may have to pay $15.50 to get in. I say “may” because we sure had no intention of paying, and rather than take the long way around the complex to see if there was a way to get in legitimately for free, we took the road behind the baseball fields on which was posted a sign that read, “No Unauthorized Vehicles.” Well, we didn’t have a vehicle, unauthorized or otherwise, so we walked up the road. A guy in a golf cart looked at us suspiciously, but since we had on matching Rebel hats, he must have figured that we left our authorized vehicle out in the parking lot. We then came to a bullpen gate that was open and there was no sign that said, “Do not enter.”  So, we entered. We also found a baseball taking this route.

Now, what did Al and I learn from our adventure? We learned this: Don’t take your wives on a Spring Training sojourn if you might be sneaking into a ballpark. Ours interpret signs broadly and would have kept us from going down the “No Unauthorized Vehicle” road in the first place, whereas clearly these signs needed to be taken literally.

Tomorrow, we spend the night with high school friends in Jacksonville and then we start the journey for home. Please make sure that it’s warm when we get there.

Posted in Spring Training Trip 2012 | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Today’s Game Banged; Streak Ends at 7

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Austin Gisriel

Our consecutive days with at least one game attended streak ended at 7 today, when the Astros and Tigers were rained out in Kissimmee. Originally, we were heading out to see Atlanta, but after checking the Braves’ ticket prices ($19.00 for “seats” on a grass berm) we decided to head to Kissimmee ($15.00 for seats along the left field line) and see the Astros. As it turned out, we made a 130 mile round trip to have a McDonald’s salad. We hope to hook up with Atlanta minor leaguers and former New Market Rebels, Chris Masters and Blaine Sims, but we haven’t been able to confirm those plans yet.

We’re meeting an old high school buddy on Tuesday before heading home Wednesday morning, and we’re trying to work in one more game, but that’s not looking good. The University of South Carolina plays at home Wednesday night, but that doesn’t put us far enough north. UNC Charlotte is home every night but Wednesday. If anyone knows of a college baseball team that is just north of Charlotte and plays at home this Wednesday, please let us know.

Though our plans for today were stymied, we still have two tips of the day: First,Steak and Shake restaurants are a great place to eat if you like gourmet hamburgers and milkshakes. Second, Florida drivers don’t do well in the rain. We saw three cars that had skidded off US 301, including one Corvette that ended up in the woods.

As we experienced nothing but rain today, here’s a nice picture from yesterday of Lake Parker in Lakeland.

Posted in Spring Training Trip 2012 | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Another Game and More Barbecue

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Austin Gisriel

The world of baseball has always been a small one, a fact proven again today when Al and I spotted former New Market Rebel General Manager and current 50-50 salesman, Tom Linski ushering at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland. We had a nice chat, of course. The game between the Tigers and the Nationals ended in a 5-5 tie after 10 innings before some 6,600 fans. Detroit played its starting lineup for the first half of the game, which included Justin Verlander who threw 4 shutout innings before being relieved. Those Detroit folk are enthusiastic and we enjoyed witnessing such passion for a simple exhibition game. Winning does wonders for fans. (Peter Angelos take note.)

If you are ever at Marchant Stadium, I highly recommend that you try the “loaded nachos” which you can order with a variety of toppings. By the time the concessionaire finished adding taco meat, salsa, green jalapenos, and cheese, I literally could not see any nachos. It wasn’t long before there were no nachos to be seen anyway.

These exhibition ballparks allow you to get close to the action even from the cheap seats.

Al and I also highly recommend buying the cheapest ticket available at any of these ballparks. They are so intimate that you are close to the action no matter where you sit. Furthermore, the cheap seats usually aren’t as crowded and we have been able to go stand under a palm tree or sit at a picnic table or wander here or there at will, thus providing ourselves with many perspectives on the respective park and game. After all, these are exhibition games and we feel no need to sit close enough to see the location on every pitch and note when an infielder spits a sunflower seed toward an opposing base runner.

Our day was complete when we found the Rainbow Restaurant in Mascotte, especially since Friday and Saturdays are the barbecue buffet nights. And by now, you know how much we enjoy barbecue.

The one sour note of today, well actually as of 2:00 a.m. Sunday is that we need to set the clocks ahead. That means that we’ve been cheated out of an hour here in Florida. I suppose that’s not that bad, however, since the only time that’s mattered since we left is game time.

Posted in Spring Training Trip 2012 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

We’re Now in Lakeland

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Austin Gisriel

Motel 6 left the light on for us last night, but not the wi-fi connection. We could have bought one, but we went to McDonald’s for a milk shake and free wi-fi. Then the computer battery died before this post was posted. Motel 6 has also obviously spent considerable time running over their pillows with a 2 ton pickup filled with cinder blocks in an effort to make them the flattest objects on the face of the earth.

Anyway, we witnessed a well-played game last night between Florida Southern College and St. Leo’s College at Henley Field in Lakeland. St. Leo’s Lions defeated FSU 4-2. We got to visit with former New Market Rebel, Jake Guengerich, as well as current Rebel T. J. Kuban. Jake did not pitch, but T. J. served as the designated hitter. Henley Field is quite the historic park having been built in 1925 and serving as the spring training home of the Detroit Tigers from 1934-1966. We’ll be watching the Tigers take on Charlie Dodge’s Washington Nationals this afternoon assuming it doesn’t rain as we are encountering the first cloudy day of our sojourn. We’ve already located Marchant Stadium, the Tigers current Lakeland home. Our GPS kept telling us to turn down “Alkaline” Drive. Stupid GPS doesn’t know baseball because we turned down “Al Kaline” Drive to the ballpark.

We kept the waves under control.

Yesterday morning, after consuming yet another Peach’s breakfast, we again supervised the waves at Holmes Beach on Anna Maria Island just west of Bradenton. Actually, we supervised the Gulf itself as there were no real waves to speak of. The water is really quite flat, and a beautiful emerald green just like most of Florida.

Bradenton proved to be a wonderful place to stay as it was convenient to everywhere we wanted to go and our EconoLodge accommodations were excellent. After today’s game it’s on to Lady Lake, Florida where we’ll stay with Al’s friend, Ken. If he doesn’t have enough pillows we can always use two sheets of paper; that way our headrest will be twice as thick as the ones we used last night.

Posted in Spring Training Trip 2012, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Old Home Week

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Austin Gisriel

Baseball has a funny way of bringing people together. As soon as we walked into Peach’s Restaurant this morning (for the third time this week) we heard a voice ring out, “I still want those shirts, guys!” It was a beer vendor from Ed Smith Stadium who was also having breakfast, and who had admired our tropical Oriole shirts, which we were wearing once again.

When we got to the ballpark this afternoon, we ran into two different people whom we had seen at the Orioles minor league complex in the morning and then I passed a guy wearing a “Krumpe’s Do Nuts” tee shirt. That’s a local Hagerstown do nut shop. Turns out, he was not actually from Hagerstown–he was from Williamsport.

Reid Guengerich takes a pitch before singling in the first inning of a 10-3 victory.

After the Oriole game, a 2-1 victory over Atlanta we headed to Dwayne and Sherry Guengerich’s house. Their middle son Jake played for the New Market Rebels for three seasons and they invited us to dinner–and another ballgame. This contest featured Jake’s younger brother Reid who plays in the 13-14 Sarasota Babe Ruth League. Reid was 2 for 2 with 2 walks and his team won 10-3. After the game, it was back to the Guengerich’s for some outstanding barbecue. To share a meal and a ballgame with this family was to expand our own family. It was definitely the warmest time that we’ve had in Florida so far and it had nothing to do with the temperature.

Tomorrow we leave Bradenton and head for Lakewood and Florida Southern College where we’ll see Jake and current Rebel T. J. Kuban play. It’s hard to say how many more friends we’ll pick up on the way.

Posted in Spring Training Trip 2012 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bulls and Birds Are Winners

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Austin Gisriel

It’s been a very busy 24 hours for us. Last night we traveled to Tampa to watch the University of South Florida Bulls beat Jacksonville University 8-0. We took the scenic route across the Sunshine Skyway Bridge and went right past Tropicana Field. This morning we checked in on the Orioles’ minor leaguers out in Twin Lakes Park, and this afternoon we took up our left field seats and saw the Birds beat the Minnesota Twins 6-0. To top it off, this evening we supervised the sun to make sure that it set properly in the Gulf of Mexico. It did.

DH Todd Brazeal singles in the 2nd to start a 4 run rally for USF.

Along the way, we have spoken to Todd Brazeal from USF who played for the Staunton Braves in 2009, said hello to Oriole minor leaguer Tyler Townsend who played for the Winchester Royals in 2008, and passed along reader, Randy Buchman’s best wishes to Frederick Keys’ pitching coach, Blaine Beatty.

Checking out the hitters at Twin Lakes Park.

Naturally, we walked the outside of the fence at the Orioles minor league complex and found a baseball, which we added to our bucket. Thanks to one we found yesterday, we’re now up two.

The end of another day of having fun on behalf of our friends everywhere.

Posted in Spring Training Trip 2012 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

An Exhibition of Awful

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Austin Gisriel

When in Florida . . .We attended the Orioles official spring opener last night and had a wonderful time until the Orioles took the field. They lost 10-3 to the Pittsburgh Pirates, gave up 18 hits, and never retired the Bucs in order in any inning. It even got cold, going down to 62 degrees by game’s end. . . . I’m detecting a lack of sympathy among my northern readers . . . Anyway, Oriole fans were loudly cheering our shirts. Many people asked where we obtained them and we didn’t even have to ask the usher to take the photo at right; she asked us. They also attracted the attention of a sports reporter from FM106.9 in Sarasota and so, he interviewed us as “serious Oriole fans.”

The view from our seats during the first inning.

Ed Smith Stadium, where the Birds play in the spring, is a bright and beautiful park. If you have a chance to see a game here, you should. We really enjoyed our seats out in left field as we had individual chairs and sat at a long bar. We were a ways from the action, but that was good last night.

We returned to Central Park this morning for some more batting practice, but playing two days in a row might have been questionable judgment. Al is icing his knee by the pool and I’m looking for my coordination for I seem to have lost it. We certainly see why there are a set of golf tees on every course for people 55 years and older.

Tonight we’re off to see the University of South Florida take on Jacksonville, while tomorrow we’re going to the Orioles’ minor league complex at Twin Lake Park, followed by the Orioles versus the Twins at 1:00. Thursday not only includes an Oriole game in the afternoon, but Reid Guengerich’s Babe Ruth League game in the evening. Reid’s brother, Jake, is a 3-year New Market Rebel and mom, Sherry has invited us to spend some time with the family and enjoy a home-cooked meal. It’s always nice to feel at home, so far away from home.

Oh, yeah, we're on a road trip!

Posted in Spring Training Trip 2012 | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments