Tagged: chad james

July 10, 2010

GSO v LAK Game 3 (7/6/2010)

Game 3 of the Greensboro Grasshoppers – Lakewood BlueClaws series came Tuesday evening, July 6. The Hoppers fell to the BlueClaws again, on a close 6-7 game. My Rally Cap was out and in force, but must have been just too little, too late. This brings my Rally Cap record to an even 2-2 since I started keeping track. It was an exciting game, though, especially towards the end when the Hoppers were starting to rally.

The Hoppers highlight of the night goes to Chase Austin, who hit two homers. One came in the 3rd inning and the 2nd came in the 9th inning, putting the Hoppers just one run short of tying. Pitching for the Hoopers was Chad James (2.1 innings, 4 hits, 4 runs (3 earned), 4 strikeouts), Natividad Dilone (2.2 innings, 4 hits, 3 runs, 1 strikeout), and Ramon Benjamin (4 innings, 1 hit, 3 strikeouts). I love watching Benjamin pitch — he’s so efficient.

The highlight of the game for me was off the field, collecting autographs. Before the game started, I was thrilled to find Carlos Paulino (catcher) signing autographs at the table by the playground area. I had a couple of baseballs I’ve been carrying around to get Paulino to sign — the only Hoppers game ball I have is a foul ball Paulino hit that I scrambled to pick up about a month ago when it went into the stands, and the ball I threw when I threw the first pitch last month. Paulino caught my pitch, and I thought it would be cool to have his autograph on the ball I threw. So I took them to the table and he was happy to sign them for me. When I told him where each ball came from, he seemed to get a kick out of it. After getting Carlos’ autograph, I headed over to the Hoppers bullpen area to watch the team warm up in the outfield. There, I got both Michael Pasek (2B) and Erick Carrillo (P) to sign their cards. Later in the game, I spotted Curtis Peterson (P) in the stands and got him to sign his card, too. I’m hoping to get all the cards in the team set autographed before the season’s out.

Promotion Results
Sumo (between 2nd and 3rd): won by Red Sumo.
Sausage Race (between 8th and 9th): won by Hot Sausage. Hot entered from center field instead of by the Hoppers dugout with the other two sausages. It was kinda weird.

The “Fry Guy” Strikeout promotion was in full effect today. Here’s Spaz encouraging the third base side to coax BlueClaws batter Buschini into a strike:

Remember earlier when I said I saw Curtis Peterson in the stands? Guess what he was doing. He was filming Ramon Benjamin pitching. I guess they analyze the tapes to see how they can improve.

Check out the complete recap and box score on the Hoppers site. There’s also a game story over there.

I used iScore to score the game. Here’s how I had it (click each picture of the scoresheet to embiggen):

All of my pictures from the game are on Facebook.

See ya at the ballpark!
hoppersfan@gmail.com
twitter.com/HoppersFan

June 27, 2010

GSO v WVP Game 3 (6/26/2010)

Put another game in the WIN column!

The Hoppers treated everyone to another great evening of baseball, and delivered another win. That keeps them undefeated in the 2nd half of the season, and secures their spot as the only undefeated team in the division right now. Let’s hope they can keep the momentum going. It’s not too early to ask for a sweep of this series against the West Virginia Power, is it? They’ve already secured the series win, and if they can win the next two games, they’ll sweep.

The Hoppers won the game 2-3, but didn’t get their first run until the fourth inning. The Power got on the board in the second, and I was beginning to wonder if I needed to get my rally cap out. I didn’t. Going into the fifth, the score was tied 1-1. The Power scored a run in the top half of the inning. The Hoppers responded by scoring two in the bottom half. The rest of the game was scoreless, but continued to be exciting, with great batting and fielding from both teams. Left-handed pitcher Chad James gets the win, allowing 2 runs on 5 hits with 4 strike-outs. It’s his second win of the year, bringing his record to 2-4. After five innings, James was replaced by Erick Carrillo, who allowed one hit in two innings with no strike-outs. Arquimedes Caminero pitched the seventh and eighth innings, also allowing one hit, but coming through with five strike-outs and getting the save. I love watching Caminero on the mound. As he’s preparing for his pitch and taking the signs from the catcher, he strikes an intimidating figure, stiff and leaning slightly forward. Just before his wind-up, he relaxes and quickly goes through a smooth delivery of the pitch.

In addition to securing the win, Chad James encountered a wardrobe malfunction. At one point (maybe the fourth inning?), his belt apparently failed and he had to get a replacement (click each picture to embiggen):

Promotion Results
Sausage Race (between 2nd and 3rd): won by Country Sausage. Sage came out first, but left the field at the visitor’s dugout before even getting to first base.

In addition to entertaining the fans with a great ballgame, the Hoppers brought in Myron Noodleman, the hippest nerd in da’ biz. Myron provided great entertainment between several of the innings. He did some solo dancing. He led the crowd in the chicken dance and the YMCA dance. He did a very clever “dueling signals” dance with Hoppers manager Andy Haines while “Dueling Banjos” played over the PA. My favorite dance was when did a little dance with Hoppers players Terrence Dayleg and Alejanero (A J) Ramos. They started by approaching Myron as though the were going to fight with him, but Myron countered by hypnotizing them and getting them to dance with him. The players looked like they were having a great time with him, and the fans loved it. During the game, Myron wandered throughout the ballpark, signing autographs and posing for pictures with the fans, and just generally being funny. He posed for a picture with me, and while my shirt says that I’m proud to be awesome, I was thrilled to be hanging with Myron. If he’s going to be performing at a ballpark near you, that alone is reason to go to the game. Check out his schedule to find out when you can see him in your town.

Check out the complete recap and box score on the Hoppers site.

I used iScore to score the game. Here’s how I had it (click each picture of the scoresheet to embiggen):

There are two more games in the series before the Hoppers hit the road again. I’m planning on being at both of them. Tomorrow’s game is an afternoon game and they’re giving away a set of baseball cards to the first 1,500 fans in the gate. I’m definitely planning on getting a set. Monday’s game is a day game. I’ve been putting in overtime at my day job so I’ll be able to take a really long lunch and attend the game. I love day games, ’cause we get to play BINGO. The only downside I see so far about the next two games is that since they’re in the middle of the day instead of the evening, I expect it to be tremendously hot. It’s OK, I’m the Hoppers Fan. I can deal with the heat in order to watch the boys play baseball.

All of my pictures from the game are on Facebook. Most of them are of Myron Noodleman having a blast and entertaining the fans.

See ya at the ballpark!
hoppersfan@gmail.com
twitter.com/HoppersFan

May 13, 2010

GSO v HIC Game 1 (4/12/2010)

Hoppers Haiku
The Crawdads are good.
They took us to school tonight.
Tomorrow? Game two.

Tonight was the first game of a 12-game homestead for the Greensboro Grasshoppers. They’re playing the Hickory Crawdads right now, who are really good. The Hoppers fell to the Crawdads, 11-3. Regardless, it was great to be back in the ballpark after a week and a half of away games.

I got to the park a little bit early, before the gates were open, and the Crawdads were still taking batting practice. I took a few pictures through the gate. I could tell within a few seconds of watching that the Crawdads were good and I expected we’d have a tough time with them. It was neat watching a little bit of BP through the gate. I wish the Hoppers would open the stadium a little earlier (maybe just for season ticket holders?) so that we’d be able to watch some BP from within the park.

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When they opened the gates, I headed on in and took care of my usual pre-game activities: I signed up for all the contests (I didn’t win anything tonight), I set the starting lineup in iScore so I’d be ready to score the game, I chatted with some of the regular people I see every game (both Hoppers staff and other fans), and I headed over to the autograph table to see who signing autographs today. Today’s player was Chad James (#33, Pitcher) and I hadn’t got his autograph yet, so I had him sign my team ball. Chad was a first round pick last year, so he should be exciting to watch when he plays. I saw him pitch against the Shorebirds on April 14, where he got the loss. The current roster lists him as on the DL, and I don’t know what’s up with that. My team ball is getting full — I might have to get a 2nd one soon.

After meeting Chad and getting his autograph, I stopped by the Taylor Made Kettle Corn booth to get a bag of corn before heading to my seat. It was great to chat with the guys there again. Here’s the picture they put on the scoreboard when they advertise the “can of corn” pop-up or fly play.

Promotion Results
Susage Race (between 1st and 2nd): won by Hot Sausage. Sage gave up before even rounding first base.
Sumo (in middle of 2nd): won by Blue Sumo
Morrisette Home Run Derby: Someone won $500 when Kyle Skipworth hit a home run in the 4th inning. That’s the first time I’ve seen that happen, and it was pretty cool.

The taunting of opposing players was in full force tonight. Matt West took the brunt of it with 3 different images of Adam West making their way on the scoreboard. (I only managed to photograph 2 of them, missing the cartoon Adam West from The Simpsons.) Jared Prince was replaced with an image of Jared, the Subway spokesman. Leury Garcia was replaced with a parody pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream. It’s hard to see the scoreboard with the small versions I’ve included in this blog entry, so you’ll need to click to embiggen the photo in order to get the full effect.

From a Hoppers Fan perspective, this was a tough game. In the top of the first inning, Erick Carrillo just got beat up, and the team never recovered. After the first inning, the Crawdads had 3 runs on 3 hits, with one Hopper error. Crawdads scored another run in the second. After a Hoppers pitcher change (Anillins Martinez took the mound) the Crawdads scored a monster seven runs in the sixth, with four of those runs coming off a grand slam. When the Hoppers took the plate in the sixth, they were down 11-1, and we knew it was more and more hopeless. The Hoppers managed to score a run in each of the sixth and seventh innings, but that wasn’t near enough to put a chip in the ten-point deficit.

At the end of the night, the Hoppers had 3 errors. They need to tighten that up. They’ll have 3 more games against Hickory. At this point, I’m just hoping that they break any sweep that the Crawdads might be trying to muster.

Check out the complete recap and box score on the Hoppers site.

Here’s a four-photo series of Erick Carrillo warming up before the first inning. I especially like the third picture, where I managed to capture the ball shortly after it left his hand.