Tag: ballparks

(Upstate) New York state of mind

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s kind of weird for me to mentally go back in time a little bit to be writing this post, but it was a pleasant enough of a trip to where I knew I was going to eventually write something about it, but time permitting, I simply didn’t have the opportunity to write when I got back.  However, being the reminiscing nerd that I am, I actually jotted down notes and blurbs about my recent travels through upstate New York that I figured I wanted to address when I had the opportunity to.

As for all the pictures I took in New York and Pennsylvania, I’m not sure how many people would be remotely that interested in what were primarily baseball photos, except for maybe some scenic stuff in Rochester, but anyway, I actually back-dated the posts to the dates of their original trips, and posted them as well.  Obviously, they’re also available in the “photos” section of my site, but to be perfectly honest, I’m not entirely sure how many people actually use that function.

The weekend prior to the insanity that was Dragon*Con, I actually spent four days traveling through upstate New York, on my annual baseball road trip with my boy Huzzard, a tradition that has gone on strong for the last six baseball seasons now.  In lieu of an expensive Major League road trip where we could see like, one new ballpark in a major city, we decided to traverse the lesser-driven roads of America and see several minor league ballparks, which we both tend to agree are more rewarding, and frankly more economically efficient.

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Hello World

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So, to cut to the chase, Dragon*Con has come and passed, and it’s back to whatever we consider “normal life.”  Either it’s me beginning to show my age, or the fact that the temperatures within the proximities of Dragon*Con fluctuated from sauna to meat locker, but I have unfortunately come down with something pretty brutal and I’ve actually been home sick for the last two days.  Like real, debilitating sicknesses don’t occur to me very often, so this is somewhat notable for me.

But anyway, since I’m trying to keep it somewhat chill and just trying to cope through with rest and nothing strenuous, it’s afforded me a lot of time to catch up on the most arduous of tasks following any sort of event – processing of pictures.  Over the span of the last two weekends, I went to four new baseball parks, and then there was Dragon*Con itself, so in all that’s almost 600 photographs for me to sort through and try to make somewhat presentable.

Going outside of my normal OCD protocol, I’m actually going to be releasing Dragon*Con photographs and posts before I get to the baseball ones.  Considering that pretty much nobody other than me cares about my baseball ramblings, and the unwritten notion that there’s a general limited window of time following a Dragon*Con in which attention spans are at their most piqued, it’s a decision made for optimum social reasons over chronological order.

That being said, I welcome myself back to my beloved brog, and I look forward to sharing my picture takin’ with the rest of the internets.  Hopefully everything is received with fond reminiscing and plenty of laughter.

Marching through Triple-A Baseball: Lehigh Valley

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Lehigh Valley wasn’t a part of the itinerary.  The last ballpark that we were going to visit was going to be in Auburn, New York, but since 2013 has been the rainiest year in the history of mankind, much like everything else has been at some point, Auburn was rained out.

But instead of tucking our tail between our legs and accepting an unexpected baseball-less evening, quick thinking on Huzzard’s part opened the gates for us and immediately after finding out the cancellation in Auburn was official, we were already on the road, headed south into Pennsylvania, since we needed to be going in that direction anyway.

Apparently the Lehigh Valley IronPigs were home on this particular evening, and because of a prior rainout, they had a double-header that needed to be played, because of where they stood in the standings.  Which meant that it was just enough time for us to get down to Allentown, PA to catch an official game, at a new park that neither of us had been to before.

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Marching through Triple-A Baseball: Syracuse

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Syracuse was one of the marquee places on our itinerary because my boy Huzzard is a Nationals fan, and the Syracuse Chiefs are the Nationals’ AAA affiliate.  He had actual incentive to seeing Syracuse, as it put him one step closer to being able to say that he had been to every single Nationals affiliate, and obviously I can relate, because I’ve seen all of the base minor league affiliates of the Braves as well.

I’d actually been to Syracuse a few times in my life, since it’s where my sister went to school back in the day.  Although my memories of the place often involve cold, or really cold weather, but I did remember the gigantic mall there, that used to be called the Carousel Center, based on the fact that they had a carousel in the center of the mall.  Apparently at some point, it was renamed “Destiny USA,” and almost threw me for a loop when looking for it, because I’d never heard of a mall called something like that.

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Marching through Triple-A Baseball: Rochester

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s funny, when I know I’m going to minor league parks, I have this mindset that I’m going to be going into the tiniest dregs of civilization, and expecting to be the only Asian guy on their planets and expect to be treated with discrimination and prejudice.  Although such horrible treatment has never happened to me before (although almost in Jackson, MS), there’s kind of a general standard that is associated with the minor leagues.

That being said, it wasn’t until this trip got closer did it really dawn on me that Rochester is actually kind of a big deal of a city.  It’s not like a name I hadn’t ever heard of before like Zebulon or Fort Mill or Aberdeen; Rochester was a name that I knew as one of the more notable cities in the entire state of New York that seemed to flourish and exist outside of the general perception that NYC is the center of not only the state but the entire planet.

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Marching through Triple-A Baseball: Buffalo

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The first stop on a multi-day minor league baseball trip was Buffalo, New York.  Buffalo’s actually a city that I’d been to a few times in my past, as I used to have family out there, as well as used it as a cheap hub in order to get to and from Toronto.

But anyway, as terms of a place to watch baseball, Buffalo kind of misses the point.  Either they were trying to prove to Major League Baseball that the state of New York actually needs more baseball teams, or they simply don’t really get that minor league baseball is kind of supposed to be small potatoes, in order for the players to grow and develop, but then again the way Triple-A baseball is nowadays, that’s kind of out the window now that I think about it.

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Impending brog hiatus

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I feel the need to write something before I embark on a four-day weekend a week before the craziest four-day weekend of the year.  Needless to say, between the events of this weekend, and the events of next weekend, there really isn’t going to be much time for me to actually makes posts to my beloved brog, unless it is of the mobile and fluffy variety.  I take pride in my ability to maintain commitment to my brog, and refusal to let it become one of the millions of blogs out there that have gathered dust and been abandoned by disillusioned posers from all walks of life.

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