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4.21.2004
An evening with the Fisher Cats
I attended my first minor league baseball game in Monday night in Manchester, New Hampshire, and was thoroughly impressed. The New Hampshire Fisher Cats are playing their first season in their new home, having moved from New Haven (where they were the Ravens). The facility they're currently playing in is called Gill Stadium, which is about as large (in terms of seats for spectators) as some of the Little League parks I played in as a youth - I'm not sure quite what the capacity is, but I'd be surprised if it's over 5,000. My girlfriend's father informed me that the city of Manchester is in the process of building the Fisher Cats a new stadium, which will comply with with Eastern League regulations (all the league's teams need to accomodate a prescribed number of spectators - allowing the team to play at Gill Stadium this year is an exception). If you're interested in Manchester's project (the new facility will be called Riverfront Stadium), take a look here. As it stands, watching a professional game in such an informal environment was an odd experience. While I had never seen a minor league game before, I've been to other facilities (like Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St. George on Staten Island, P & C Stadium in Syracuse and Legends Field in Tampa), and this was completely different. Gill Stadium feels more like a bandshell - with the seats providing the shell - than any professional ballpark I'd been in. There are no tiers of seating, just fifteen or twenty rows up from the field, with bleacher areas down the foul lines. The view, sitting in the front row as I was, was phenomenal. The game itself was enjoyable, and particularly interesting for me because several players I'd heard of were playing, guys like John-Ford Griffin, Aaron Hill, Dominic Rich (who had a huge day), Carlos Valderrama (I explained to an usher that he's not the Colombian soccer player), Justin Knoedler and Tyrell Godwin all played. I unfortunately missed seeing Dustin McGowan by a day, but it's very possible I'll have a chance to get back up there for a start of his, as the trip up from Cambridge was fairly quick. - |