We are the mundane
The baseball park that was just built here was started through $2.5M in seed money by Anthony Lubrano, a former Penn State baseball player. As a result of his donation, the university choose to include his name when they named the ballpark “Medlar Field and Lubrano Park”.
So you would have thought that $2.5 million might have been enough to get people to pay attention to your name. Evidently not. Check out this sign from the concession area.
The new State College Spikes fell 5-3 to their “arch” rivals, the Williamsport CrossCutters. Starting pitcher Brad Furnish struggled earlier, walking the first batter, then hitting the second, as he fell behind 3-0 in the first inning. The Spikes tried to rally a couple of time but just fell short.
The real star of the game though was the ball park. It drew rave reviews from all. Doug Smith, a sportswriter from Grand Island NY said it best “I’ve been to 169 different professional ballparks but this one honestly is just different. It has this aura and feel with it that in my experiences is unmatchable.â€
Minor League baseball has been doing stories on ball parks around the minors and Medlar Field was their featured story last night. In this photo from their article how can see how much the real stadium looks like the artist rendition that I used in my previous post.
It’s Opening Day
For the last year or so, State College has been anxiously awaiting today. It’s Opening Day for the State College Spikes, a short season baseball team in the New York/Penn League. About 15 months ago, Penn State announced that they had structured a deal with a minor league baseball group (fyi – Jerome Bettis and Mario Lemieux are part owners) to build a new stadium that would be shared between the University’s baseball team and a, to-be-named-later, short season team.
That started a whirlwind of activity. Fifteen months ago, the deal to place a team here was announced. Thirteen months ago, they broke ground on the stadium. A year ago today, the site looked like this:
Six months later, things were taking shape:
Today we have this:
(ok – a slight lie – that’s an artist’s rendition but it does look exactly like it).
As hectic as building the stadium was, so was putting together a team. The plan wasn’t to put together a brand new team but rather to buy an existing franchise and move it to State College. Last summer was spent shopping around for the appropriate team and in December, it was announced that the group had bought the New Jersey Cardinals and would move the team from Augusta NJ to State College. The NJ ballclub is a St Louis Cardinals affiliate and the State College team will be also (at least it will be for one year, the duration of the contract that the team still has with the Cardinals – there is a substantial rumor going around that the Spikes will sign a new deal with the Pirates next year – that rumor is fueled in part by the fact that the Spike’s ball park dimensions are exactly the same as PNC Park, Pittsburgh’s home field – many think that’s no coincidence).
So by last winter we had a ballpark and its way and a team. Well, sort of a team – we had the rights to a team but really didn’t have any players. Short season teams are filled primarily with new players who have just been selected in Major League Baseball’s draft. This years draft was held Tuesday and Wednesday a week ago. Players were assigned to the team last week and started arriving in State College over the weekend. Stragglers are still coming in (example – tonight’s opening game starting pitcher arrived from California last night). The team’s actual roster wasn’t announced until Sunday night.
Everything culminates with opening night tonight and the town is abuzz. Tonight’s opener has been sold out for months (I have season tickets so I’m set) as have the next two weekends. The town definitely has baseball fever as witnessed by all these articles.
The excitement has been building, the tingling sense of anticipation turning central Pennsylvania baseball fans into kids on Christmas Eve.The State College Spikes open their inaugural season in a brand-new ballpark tonight.
League Absorbs Off Season Changes
The Renegades’ general manager, Dave Burke, said relocating the former Cardinals to the Keystone State will greatly benefit the league as a whole.”I think it was a fabulous move,” Burke said. “The hype in State College is unbelievable. They’re going to sell out most of their games.”
Pair of Spikes know how to adjust
Tulane baseball coach Rick Jones guarantees State College Spikes first baseman Mark Hamilton and outfielder Nathan Southard are prepared to handle the rigors of professional baseball.”There’s no question about it,” Jones said. “Baseball is a game of adjustments and these guys made the ultimate adjustment.”
Southard and Hamilton were forced to make the ultimate adjustment last August when Hurricane Katrina swept through Tulane’s New Orleans campus.
Spikes finally open season after whirlwind 13 months
Tickets were sold a month ago. Players arrived three days ago. The opponent will arrive sometime this afternoon.Yes, this professional baseball stuff in State College has finally become real.
Short season rosters constantly changing
The New Jersey Cardinals — the team the Spikes are replacing — used 51 players, including 27 pitchers, in 2005.Some players that appear in tonight’s opener against the Williamsport Crosscutters might not be here next week. Some players that are playing elsewhere this week could be here next week.
I’m hungry for baseball – even moreso after seeing the Spike’s concession menu. For dinner tonight I think I’m going to have a “Walking Taco” followed by a “Deep Fried Twinkie” for dessert. 🙂
We run an interesting competition on US Open Sunday at my golf club. We normally have a Sunday skins game that anywhere from 10-20 of us will play. On US Open Sunday, we toss an extra five bucks into a winner take all kitty. The winner is determined by the lowest score of your net handicap score combined with the score of an Open player of your choice.
I’ve been playing pretty well recently (other than today) which makes me think I’ll have a good chance tomorrow. I decided to pick Jim Furyk as my pro thinking that I can go low on my handicap score and just have to pick a pro that won’t go high on me. Furyk is pretty consistent and I expect him to shoot around a 72 tomorrow. I plan on netting out about a 69 myself.
Tomorrow I’ll report back on whether I managed to live up to my boast or not.
State College golfer pulls off rare feat
By John Dixon
For the CDT
OK – admittedly the headline isn’t about me. But buried down deep in the article is this blurb:
At Toftrees, State College’s Lanny Sommese collected his third career hole-in-one using a 25-degree hybrid club to ace No. 15, a 185-yard, par-3 hole. Playing partners were Tom Minisker, Larry Fall and Fred Riley.
Of course, as with most holes-in-one, there’s a story involved.
The hole is a long par three that’s fairly flat. As you can see, it’s well bunkered but there’s an open runway in the front of the green. The tee was located at about #3 in the photo and the pin was at the back of the green but centered so it was clearly visible between the two front bunkers.
Lanny thinned the shot and it never got more than maybe five feet off the ground. It just made the short fairway but was dead on line for the green. As it hit the fairway, Tom jokingly yelled “Get in the hole”. Amazingly, the ball kept rolling. As it got up onto the green, Tom remarked “You know, these are the kind that go in.”
Sure enough, it just kept rolling and rolling but it looked like it stopped right at the hole. We thought it was awfully close but we didn’t think it was in. Driving up the cart path, our view of the pin was hidden by the right front bunker until we actually got to the green. It was a real surprise when we got there and there was no ball in view – that’s when we realized it had gone in. It was pretty windy and I suspect that the ball was initially caught against the flagstick. Undoubtedly, the blowing wind shook the stick just enough for the ball to drop in.
When we got to the next hole, I turned to everyone and said “Any zeroes? No? I guess you’re up, Lannie.” I borrowed that line from my buddy Tod Jeffers who used it when he had a hole in one with me on one of our Florida Bowl trips.
I’ve never had a hole in one but I did hole out a 130 yard shot. I was playing a course in New York and hit my tee shot slightly to the right on a hole that had a blind landing area. The hole basically went out 180 yards, then went downhill into a valley. The drives collected at the bottom of the valley and then you had a blind uphill shot to the green. When I got down there, I couldn’t find my ball even though it clearly should have been in play. There was casual water near where the ball should have been and my playing partners said to just drop a ball. I said I wasn’t going to because technically my ball was lost and since I had a match going with a guy in the group behind us I was going to play it by the rules.
I went back to the tee and reteed. By the time I got to my ball my playing partners had all hit their second shots and were up around the green. Because I was low in a the valley my shot to the green was a blind one also. I took an eight iron and hit it pure right at the green. All of a sudden my buddies on the green started yelling “It went in!”. So the net result was a spectacular par (and, oh yes, I won the hole from the guy behind me that I had the match with).
Two friends of mine are playing in a local first round qualifier at Scotch Valley Country Club in Altoona for the US Open today so I’m headed over to watch them. There are 39 players contending for 3 sectional qualifier spots. The sectionals will be held June 5-6.
The two friends are Tom Koehle and RJ Porter. Tom used to be an assistant pro at my club Toftrees and has just taken the head pro’s job at Huntington Country Club which is about 25 miles away. RJ is the guy who I wrote about in some emails to a few of you last year who played against Michelle Wie in an US Mid Amateur qualifier.
I’ll be back later tonight to fill in details of their rounds.
I took some shots of interesting shirts that I found while I was out celebrating St Patricks Day on Friday. Here are some of them:
To see all my photos, click here.
While I know that State College can’t hold a candle to either NY or Chicago when it comes to celebrating St Patricks Day, we do quite well on our own.
I took these photos tonight as I left the Phyrst, probably the most Irish bar we have in town. I apologize for the quality but they were taken by my phone on a semi-lit street. The first photo is tomorrow’s band line-up. The bar opens at 7AM and they have bands continuously until they close at 2AM.
While I do know Scott Mangene (8AM-9AM) and Tommy Wareham (10:30-noon), I am probably going to hold off on starting my St Patty’s Day celebration until JR and Natalie play from 3PM-4PM.
But I just might be in the minority. This is a photo taken at 2AM of the line that has already started forming to get into the Phyrst when they open at 6AM. You can’t tell too much from the camera photo but there were about 25-30 people already in line.
Quaker Steak and Lube has just opened a new restuarant in town so I went there to celebrate my birthday last night. One of their gimmicks is a “Wall of Flame” where you can get your name posted if you eat six of their “atomic” wings. Naturally I had to step up to the challenge. The first wing had a definite bite to it. After I finished the second I had to take off my glasses because my eyes were tearing up. By the fourth my nose was running and I was having difficulty swallowing. I did manage to eat all six but I might not have been able to handle eight.
I did learn a little secret though. After I finished the wings, the bartender gave me a shot of Hershey’s chocolate syrup which substantially helped clear up the burning sensation in my mouth. I obviously couldn’t spread chocolate all over my face but the wetnap he gave me helped somewhat (still left a residual sting however). But I really didn’t realize that I hadn’t gotten it all off my hands. On the way out, I stopped in the bathroom to take care of all the Rolling Rocks I had had. Fortunately, this was about an hour after I finished the wings so most of the sauce had worn off my hands but there was definitely enough left to leave an uncomfortable tingling down there.
Went out celebrating Fat Tuesday last night. As usual I had a great time making new friends,
and meeting up with old (Grand Niece Natalie and her best friend Dana).
For more pictures, click here.