Games Attended: Game 1: Tri-CityValley Cats vs. Lowell Spinners, June 21st, 7:05PM, LeLacheur Park, Lowell, MA
Game 2:Buffalo Bisons vs. Pawtucket Red Sox, Aug. 15th, 1:00PM, McCoy Stadium, Pawtucket, RI
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Summary:
Last summer, I did a “Yankees Fan Minor League Baseball Roadtrip” and at that time suggested that a similar type of trip could be planned by fans of the Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, or New York Mets. This year the focus of our baseball roadtrips has been on the minor leagues of MLB and independent baseball leagues. With this Blog Post I am summarizing the “Red Sox Fan Minor League Baseball Roadtrip.” This roadtrip was not done as a series of consecutive days; instead games were attended on days that were quite far apart. This permitted me to conduct a number of other baseball trips in parallel.
Just like the Yankees, the Boston Red Sox have a single-A, double-A, and triple-A minor league affiliate conveniently located to permit their fans that reside in the Northeast to attend games at their home stadiums. The Red Sox minor league teams that are easily accessible from the Boston area:
Lowell Spinners, New York-Penn League, Short-season Single-A (A)
Portland Sea Dogs, Eastern League, Double-A (AA)
Pawtucket Red Sox, International League, Triple-A (AAA)
These three teams reside in the cities of Lowell, MA, Portland, ME, and PawtucketRI, respectively. Each of these destinations is within a day trip distance (approx 2 hr drive) of Boston. In fact, the one-way drive to Lowell and Pawtucket both take slightly less than 1 hr.
Though I reside in northern New Jersey, my daughter lives outside Boston and I attended the Lowell Spinners game with her. 2010 is the 15th season that the Lowell Spinners have been the single-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. Some of today’s stars of the Red Sox, when working their way up through the minors, played for the Lowell Spinners. They include Kevin Youkilis, Jonathan Papelbon, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Clay Buchholz.
I was accompanied to the Pawtucket Red Sox game by my brother and we actually traveled from New Jersey as a day trip (approx. 4 hrs each way), instead of Boston. The Pawtucket Red Sox (or PawSox as they are affectionately known) have been an affiliate of the Boston Red Sox since 1970. During the first three seasons, they were the Red Sox AA team in the Eastern league, but in 1973 they moved up to the International League to become their AAA team. Over the years an endless stream of home grown talent has passed through Pawtucket on their way to the majors. The list of Boston Red Sox stars that played for the PawSox includes Jim Rice, Fred Lynn, Roger Clemons, Wade Boggs, Nomar Garciaparra, and Jason Varitek.
Due to the fact that Portland is slightly over a 2 hr drive from Boston (more than 6 hrs from NJ) and time constraints while in Boston, we skipped the Sea Dogs as part of this trip. Therefore, on our Red Sox Fan Roadtrip we only attended games at two stadiums,LeLacheurPark, Lowell, MA and McCoy Stadium, Pawtucket, RI. We will try to add a stop in Portland, ME on a future trip to Boston.
Who goes to a minor league game? Well the answer to that question is a real lot of people. Both games we attended were overflow crowds and effectively sold out-include standing room tickets in Lowell (Total Seating Capacity 5,030/Official Attendance 5,194) and left field berm tickets in Pawtucket (Total Seating Capacity 10,031/Official Attendance 12,154). Actually, the game we attended was the Spinners home opener. Sell outs in Lowell are not unusual. In fact, the Spinners sold out every seat in the stadium for the nine consecutive seasons from 2000 though 2008. The visiting team in Lowell was the Tri-City Valley Cats, which is the New York-Penn League affiliate of the Houston Astros. In Pawtucket, the fact that Dustin Pedroia was making a rehab start for the PawSox may have impacted the size of the crowd. We saw the PawSox play the New York Mets AAA team, the Buffalo Bisons.
His name sounded familiar, like I had seen him recently play for another team. When back home, I searched his name on Google and found this comment that was placed on a Blog by former Mets manager Bobby Valentine on Feb 03, 2010 at 10:39 am. “With Pascucci and Mike Hessman in Buffalo this year it should be fun for the fans. I’d have to look, but I’m sure between the two of them they must have like 2,000 minor league home runs. Have to give credit to AAAA guys like this. They really love the game and certainly can’t hurt to have them around our young guys coming up.” See this Blog post at http://www.tedquarters.net/2010/02/02/breaking-news-pascucci-returns/ and scroll down to find comment by Bobby Valentine.
In addition, I searched through my Tweets from games I attended earlier this season and found this Tweet on my Twitter Feed: “Score update: Riversharks score 2 runs to extend their lead. Chris Malec singles to left and DH Val Pascucci homers to center.” Thursday, April 22, 2010 7:59:42 PM via web. Was this the same Val Pascucci? Apparently yes. Further web research showed that Val Pascucci played 14 games for the Camden Riversharks of the Atlantic League during the first weeks of their 2010 season. In the Newark Bears opening night game I attended on April 22nd, Pascucci was the DH for the opposing Riversharks and hit a 2 run homer to center filed in the 5th inning. Click here to see the box score for that game: http://atlantic.bbstats.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=6843. You can see Val’s 2010 stats for his short stay with the Riversharks here: Team Stats:http://www.riversharks.com/team/stats.cfm.
Val Pascucci began his professional baseball career in 1999 and since has played for a number of teams at the single-A, double-A, and triple-A levels of the minor leagues of MLB. Moreover, Val did play for the Montreal Expos in the Major Leagues during the 2004 season and spent two more years playing for the Chiba Lotte Marines of the Pacific League in Japan.Finally, Pascucci was a member of both the 2006 and 2009 Italy National Team that played in the World Baseball Classic. Find more detailed information on Val Pascucci’s career at this web-link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentino_Pascucci.
Summary of the Red Sox Fan Roadtrip Games:
Game 1:7/21/2010
Tri-City5R4H0E
WP: David Martinez (1W:0L)
SV: None
HR:None
Lowell0R4H3E
LP: Randy Consuegra (0W:1L)
HR:None
Game 2: 8/15/2010
Buffalo1R4H0E
LP: Raul Valdes(1W:1L)
HR:Val Pascucci (14)
Pawtucket3R2H1E
WP: Rich Hill (2W:0L)
SV: Fernando Cabrera (15)
HR:Gil Velazquez (1)
Twitter Roadtrip Information:
Similar to earlier Twittered Baseball Roadtrips, I have tweeted pregame information, such as the record and standing of the home and visiting teams in their league, probable starting pitches and their current won/loss records, information about the stadium and the travel route, and post-game results: winning team, final score and stats, winning/losing pitchers, and game highlights.
After graduating from New York University with a Master of Science Electrical Engineering Degree in the early 70’s, I embarked on overlapping career paths that lead me through a 25+ year career in the semiconductor/electronics industry and a 15+ year career as an educator of Electrical Engineering and Electronic Technology students.
Early on in my teaching career, I identified that my strength was in the area of course development and design. With this in mind, I created a number of unique courses on the topics of logic design and microprocessor technology in the late 1970s. At that moment in time, these areas of electronic technology were leading the way in changing the world of computing and computers. Eventually, I used these course materials as the basis for writing books on these subjects. In this way, I established a third parallel career (30+ years) as an author. Since the late 70’s, I have authored more than 25 text and reference books (including editions) for the field of Electrical Engineering. Today, I am semi-retired and teaching Electrical Engineering courses based on my textbook.
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