the Autograph Corner
A NEW STADIUM & SOME WEBSITES
TO CHECK OUT
Living in the Midwest League, I
write my column from a Midwest League perspective. The
excitement in the MWL this April has been the razing of and
the reconstruction of Davenport's John O' Donnell Stadium.
Alright, I was skeptical. Especially when they announced
the new name for the team. The "River Bandits" was sleek,
visually appealing and had sort of a hard-nosed macho appeal
to the name. "The Swing of the Quad Cities leads one to
think of sushi, fern bars and yuppies. Oh yeah, and the
orange road uniforms are the worst baseball uniform I've
seen since the Astros of the mid 70's. Given this start out
of the gate, I had a right to be skeptical about the new
stadium. Let's be brutally blunt here. New stadiums aren't
built for fans. They are built to accommodate skyboxes for
corporate parasites who use them as tax write-offs. The
fans end up usually paying more in higher ticket prices,
higher concessions, parking, etc, to get a poorer view of
the same game they had before the new stadium was built.
I have to admit though, the
Swing management hit a home run with the stadium. Autograph
access has not been affected, if anything, its better, and
the seats are roomy and comfortable, and aestetically, the
stadium is the best in the league. Unlike Peoria which
charges $5 for parking now, the Swing have kept it to $2 or
free if you park in the dirt across from the stadium and
their box seats are cheaper than Peoria's by a buck. They've retained the
sport's dignity too. At least you're not watching ads on
the big scoreboard TV between innings. The players are
raving compliments about the new clubhouse too. A "well
done" to the Quad Cities. Their opening night Rod Carew was
guest of honor and he threw the first pitch. I was lucky
enough to catch him that night and get his Hall of Fame
plaque postcard signed.
My Bees are struggling. They're
getting great pitching. Dusty Hughes, after 4 starts has a
no-hitter to his credit and an ERA of close to 0.50, and the staff is 3rd in the
league in ERA, but 13th in hitting. Preseason hype had it
forecasted to be the other way around. I was there that
cold April night of Dusty's no-hitter, but when my wife came
back in the 6th inning and said "I'm not even sitting down,"
I'll confess that I was only too ready to go home with her
(yeah, I can hear you all out there screaming "Wimp!).
Burlington has 2 1st round picks in Chris Lubanski and Mitch
Maier, and so does the Swing with Matt Moses and Denard
Span. Cedar Rapids looks to me to be the team stocked and
loaded for bear with Kevin Jepson back pitching, Micah Posey
off to a great start and Team USA's Bob Zimmerman on the
staff and 1st round draft pick Brandon Wood along with Sean
Rodriguez and Blake Balkcom to manufacture runs.
SOME GOOD WEBSITES TO CHECK OUT
Given the lack of cards for many
of the kids playing at this level, I usually run a "search"
by punching in names to see if I can pull up any pictures
that I can make into cards or collages to sign. In doing so
I ran into the Alaska Goldpanners site. Check it out. They
guy who has put this site together has done a labor of
love. The pictures are superb. I downloaded some nice
8x10s of Emerson Frostad who is with Clinton now from his
playing days at both Lewis and Clark University (Idaho) and
his time with the Goldpanners. I found pictures to use of
Brandon Ryan (Peoria) and Chris Dunwell (Kane County) as
well. There are card sets for sale at the site too. I
availed myself of the past 3 years sets plus a yearbook.
It's baseball in the Land of the Midnight Sun. It's a neat
perspective. Check it out! I was also able to download
pictures from the U of Washington website that allowed me to
put together an 8x10 collage of Tila Reynolds, and from the
Stanford site I downloaded enough for 3 8x10 collages of
Tobin Swope, who has gone from participating in the college
World Series to getting a chance to play professionally now
in Clinton, Iowa. I even discovered a guy who had three
2003 University of Arkansas sets left. I scarfed those up
quickly for myself and 2 friends from Peoria, as Andrew
Wishy from that set is with Clinton now. Get creative, surf
the net and you'll find all sorts of items that will lend
your autograph collection a sense of uniqueness.
A couple Twins farmhands notes.
I was talking to Denard Span of the Swing as he was signing
cards for me, and he asked me if I'd noticed who was sitting
next to him on his Just Minors card. No, I hadn't. I know
now though. If you look closely at the card you'll see that
it has two
Twins first round picks on it.
Yes, that's Joe Mauer sitting behind him. I've also got to
put in a plug for Pat Neshek's website, entitled, on the
road with Pat Neshek. A fun read and interesting
perspectives from a player who is also an autographer and
collector. My only complaint
about the site is that black
print on red it REALLY a strain for me to read, but then, my
eyes aren't 100% anyway.
QUIZ! QUIZ! QUIZ!
Rather than ramble on any
further, I figured I'd reward 3 of my readers. How well do
you know, or can you guess which Midwest league franchise I'm talking about from
my warped perspective?. I need the team that's in the city
I'm talking about. Each team will be used only once.
The 1st 3 readers to give me the
14 teams in the order that I refer to them will recieve a
2004 Burlington Bees schedule magnet featuring 2004 HOF
inductee and former Bee Paul Molitor, the autographed Denard
Span card I mentioned above (with Joe Mauer in the picture)
and a UDPP card autographed by Tila Reynolds. Each winner
will receive all 3 items.
Here goes..........
1. "Honest, Abe. Johnny
Appleseed is buried here."
2. Next to the newspaper
complex there's a statue of 2 marathon runners and behind
them, a statue of a man sitting on a ledge with a trumpet in
his hands.
3. Conspiracy theorists would
have the Roswell wreckage stored at one time at the Air
Force base here.
4. Check out the Harry Houdini
collection if you can escape to this town.
5. You know I've got to work
some Civil War trivia in here. Major General John Corse,
the Hero of Allatoona Pass, is buried here. There is an
equestrian statue of him in the town's Crapo Park.
6. A statue of the Great
Agnostic, Robert Ingersoll, stands in this town's Glen Oak
Park (which allows me to but in a plug for Susan Jacoby's
book "Freethinkers" which I just finished and highly
recommend.)If this clue is too "off the wall," try "dying
palm trees."
7. Fighting Irish and
Studebakers (this one's a gimme)
8. Think Quaker Oats and the
"Corniest" (not to mention "uglyist") mascot in the MWL
9. My baseball buddies and I
call this "the town of a thousand odors," but its Art Deco
Stadium is a great place to watch a ballgame, it's
"garbage pail" concession
offering is the best buy in the league, and if the game gets
boring, the riverboat Casino is within walking distance.\
10. Too much of everthing,
including traffic and Cub fans, this capitol of Yuppiedom
earns my award for "gouge of the year." They had the
chutzpah to charge us $15 bucks for a 7 card Update Set, and
then added insult to injury by charging $6 shipping and
handling to send me three sets.
11. Remember Euell Gibbon's
"they taste just like roasted hickory nuts?" This city is
known for cereals and for being the burial place of
Sojourner Truth.
12. I toured the Gerald Ford
Museum when I was here.
13. Spelled a little
differently than the last name of the first person to fly
over the English Channel, this franchise is home to the
Midwest League President.
14. Yeah I'm a sucker for
graven images. Outside this stadium there's some beautiful
baseball statuary that includes a player signing for a young
fan. This stadium revitalized the city's downtown area.
E-mail me at
dnhanson@maplecity.com if you think you've got the right
answers. Good luck! Until next time have fun with the
hobby; I sure try to.
~Rich Hanson
