"Class A Baseball and Major League Wineries: A Week Through New York"
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I'm not entirely sure there's a need to explain the context for this little travel essay.  You may read this as the record of a regular sports fanatic and this trip is just the most recent manifestation of that obsession.  But I am not normally thought of as a "sports person."  Few of my private conversations involve sports, I can't tell you what's going on in most sports, and I generally don't spend more than five minutes reading the sports pages each day.  Yet there are times when sports have played a significant role in my life. 

In the late 1980's I went to a New York Mets game with a group of friends.  I had been to baseball games before, but not for several years.  It was a lovely summer evening and although we did not have especially great seats (upper deck somewhere in left field) I had not been to a professional baseball game in years and was struck by the beauty of a panoramic view of a baseball field, in contrast to the closeup perspective of television broadcasts.  There's a large difference between baseball is in person and confined to a box. The conversations and company replace commercials and play-by-play announcements.  The crowd replaces the confines of a living room.   This realization led to a friend and I sharing a pair of Mets season tickets for three years, until the Mets' performance began to seriously deteriorate and friends were no longer interested in taking some of the tickets.  But for those three years I was going to about 15 games a year, perhaps more.  I still occasionally go to Mets games, but not with the frequency of those years.

Similarly, I had lost interest in basketball by the time an old friend invited two of us to a New York Liberty game in 1999 or 2000.  The WNBA (http://www.wnba.com) has its stars but none are the kind of prima donas  men's basketball seems to have developed. The game still comes first with the WNBA.  Further, since many of the best players are not seven feet tall, the basics of the game:  passing, execution of plays and shooting  are central to the action, rather than actions based primarily on a player's height.  So, I've been going to at least eight Liberty games each year.

About ten years ago I became curious about Minor League Baseball and I spent several days one summer staying in Binghamton, New York.  During the day I was exploring the wineries and vineyards of the nearby Finger Lakes region and I spent evenings watching the Class AA Binghampton Mets.

Since then, the independent Atlantic League established the Long Island Ducks (http://www.liducks.com) and the Mets and Yankees established Class A teams within New York City: the Brooklyn Cyclones (http://brooklyncyclones.com) and the Staten Island Yankees (http://www.siyanks.com).

What drew me during that week watching the Binghampton Mets was that every seat in the ballpark was great, there was much greater intimacy between players and fans and there was something about that smaller field in a smaller city that seemed to capture some of the feeling of baseball as it was originally played.  Plus, professional baseball was alive and available in smaller cities.  A revelation to someone who lives in a major city with two Major league teams.  What's more, if I lived in Binghamton (or Auburn, or Troy/Renselear, or Oneonta) attending local Minor League games would mean as much as a Major League game.  Baseball is baseball.

I'm not sure exactly what set me off, but this year I planned a week travelling around New York State, based partially on which teams had home games in a sequence which would allow me to tour several ball parks on sequential days, ending in Auburn, New York, which lies just outside of the Finger Lakes.  My second goal was to spend at least one day driving along Senaca Lake visiting  wineries and gorging my truck with their produce.

A Bit About Minor League Baseball

I don't know much about Minor League Baseball, so please visit the links I've included in this essay, rather than asking me.  The Major League teams are required to sponsor Minor League, or "farm" teams at four levels: Rookie, Class A, Class AA, and Class AAA.  The Minor League system is designed to develop and test young players for possible careers in the Major Leagues.  Each Major League team sponsors one Class AAA, usually one Class AA and usually three Class A teams as well as one Rookie League team.  The Class A teams in New York State are part of the 13-team New York-Penn League. This large number of Minor League teams means that live professional baseball exists in many smaller cities throughout the country, not just the large cities which host Major League teams.  For more information on Minor League baseball, go to http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com and click on "History."  The New York-Penn League has its own site, http://www.nypennleague.com. The Binghampton Mets are a Class AA team in the Eastern League and the Syracuse Sky Chiefs are a Class AAA team in the International League.

Minor League teams, and particularly Class A teams, may change their Major League team affiliation over the years.

During this one-week trip I visited the ballparks of the Hudson Valley Renegades (affiliated with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays), the Oneonta Tigers (Detroit Tigers), Tri-City Valley Cats (Houston Astros), and Auburn Doubledays (Toronto Blue Jays).  While each team has a very distinct connection with each Major League sponsor, each team is a local home team first and a training division of the Major League team second.  Having said that, Minor League baseball uses the theme "catch them on their way up" or variations, as one of their selling points.

 

 

 

 

 

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Hudson Valley Renegades
August 9, 2004
 
My first stop was Newburgh, across the Hudson River from Wappinger's Falls, home of the Dutchess County Stadium and the Hudson Valley Renegades. I was checking into a Comfort Inn near the west end of Newburgh, but before that I planned to have lunch at Macchu Pichu, a Peruvian restaurant I found near the city centre ( http://www.machupicchuperuvian.com ).
 
I was late for the start of the Renegades game, since they started at 5 p.m. when I thought they were starting at 6 p.m.  I didn't miss much of the game and avoided having to pay the $2 parking fee.  The Dutchess County stadium set the pattern for what I would generally see everywhere with the exception of Oneonta: a modern stadium.  Everyone drives here since unlike Oneonta or Auburn, the ballpark is located on land which is not within easy walking distance of most residential communities.
 
The park is clean and very modern.  There's a full-featured TV screen scoreboard beyond the outfield and although the games are not televised, they do use TV cameras to project closeups.  They also have a roving camera crew to catch those always-popular shots of fans in the stands.  A three or four-second installment of my fifteen minutes of fame resulted from my sitting next to a mom and her three very bubbly very young daughters.    
 
The roving camera crew says something about the folks who run this team, something you're aware of throughout the visit: these folks are willing to spend a bit of money.  This was the most elaborately-staffed stadium I visited, possibly including the St. George Stadium where the Staten Island Yankees play.  The Renegades have lot of ushers, lots of vendors circulating through the stands, souvenir booths in the stands along with one on their concourse, and lots of side entertainment.
 
They also have a large supply of mascots and mascot-like characters running about.  The Rascal, their raco

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