Day 16 - Clinton

Start: Wheaton, IL
Stop: Clinton, IA – Alliant Energy Field – Beloit Snappers (Twins low-A minor league) at Clinton Lumberkings (Rangers low-A minor league)
Finish: Galesburg, IL

After getting back from the game last night, we got our things together and went to bed. We slept for a while and then woke up to go to brunch at the Egglectic Café. It was more like lunch time, but most of us had breakfast food. Actually, all of us had some sort of eggs or pancakes, except for Jason, who had the Barbeque Bacon Cheddar burger. We all enjoyed the food very much, so we decided we needed to work it off. We packed up the bats, gloves and balls and went off to the baseball field. Kyle, Jason, Duncan, Eean and I went to go play some baseball and Aunt Diane came along to watch. The McNaughtons had some wooden bats, and we had never used wooden bats before, so we all took a few hacks with the lumber. We all got a couple of good hits, and then around 2:30, we went back to their house to cool off before we had to leave.

We left town around 3:30 to make the drive to Clinton. We got there around 6, and we were one of the first people there. We got our tickets (2nd row behind home plate on the 3rd base side) and went in to the stadium. We walked over to where the team was warming up and tried to look out for a couple of the top prospects. We saw a catcher running some blocking drills (the coach was throwing the ball down a few feet in front of the catcher, and he had to block the ball), a few guys doing some laps, and a few guys playing a game of hot potato with a baseball. We were standing over the dugout, and there were some balls sitting on top, so when a coach walked by, he picked one up and threw it to Jason. Not exactly the way we envisioned getting a ball at a game, but it’s the best we’ve got so far.

Once the game started, we watched in our seats. At this stadium, there was netting running from one dugout to the other to keep foul balls out of the stands, so we had to watch the game through the net. This made it a little hard to take pictures, but we made the best of it. Nearly all of the Lumberkings starters are top prospects in the organization, and tonight’s starter, Kennil Gomez, isn’t quite at the top of the list, but he’s pretty good. He pitched 7 innings and only gave up 2 runs, which isn’t bad, but the best part of the evening was the top of the third inning, where Gomez struck out all three batters in order.

As you know from our first game, minor league games have various on field activities in between innings. Tonight Birdzerk, “the craziest show in sports”, entertained the crowd between innings with his crazy hijinks. At one point, he tricked the opposing team’s third baseman into taking off his glove, then he stole it, jumped in a go cart and drove to the outfield fence and threw his glove over the fence. He did some other crazy things, but that was the best. One other quick note from the game was that the opposing team’s third baseman was very short. I saw him warming up with the team and thought he was a batboy or something, but then I looked at their roster and saw a 5’3” infielder, and sure enough, that’s who it was. Really odd seeing someone that short.

After the game, we started driving south to Galesburg. The highway we were trying to take was closed for construction, so we had to go around, but since we were in the middle of nowhere in Iowa, we had to drive 4 miles west, a few miles south, then 4 miles back east to get around the roadblock. Now we’re at the hotel, getting ready to store up on sleep for the next few days.

Result: Lumberkings lose 2-0
Record: 6-7