Take Me Out to the Mudcats

Only only does the Triangle have the Durham Bulls, but they have the Florida Marlin's Double A team the Carolina Mudcats. Our church decieded to have an outing to see a game so I though I'd give them a shot.

The first big difference from the Durham Bulls is that the Bulls are in an actual city. The Mudcats... not so much, they say it's in Zebulon, but truthfully Zebulon is currently a blip on the map of eastern Wake County. I'm guessing that's why the team uses Carolina not Zebulon, and to be honest Carolina sounds cooler, unless you went with the Z-town Mudcats. When you get to the statium it is very plain on the outside, most of the time when you go to a newer minor league park they have a front of the station, here they have kind of a side entrance that is not well marked. Inside it's not too bad, nothing special just your run of the mill park. We have seats on the third baseline near the outfield.

Once we get to our seats I realize I'm the only one interested in the actual game, which is fine yet odd. I know there will be a lot of socializing, but the last time I did something like this was in Columbus and the Senior adults were harassing me for wearing my Mudhens jersey (The Clippers just happened to be playing the Hens). I start watching the game and the girl, Sommer, who set this whole thing sat down and after five minutes I realized that she knew nothing about baseball. I had to explain everything to her. The hardest part was explaining Double A ball. For those who don't know baseball has levels: The lowest levels are Developmental and Rookie leagues, next is Single A, then Double A, Triple A and finally the Major Leagues. The best part was when she was asked, "Why are the Braves playing the Mudcats?" She didn't realize that the team from Mississippi and happened to be apart of the Atlanta Braves farm system.

I finally made some head way and started to watch the game. I had never seen a Double A game, I've mostly watched the Majors and Triple A, while in West Virginia I did shoot a couple of Single A games, but I still try and block that year out. The first thing I realized is that... this is not very good baseball, it also doesn't help that the Mudcats are below .500. From what I gathered from this one game is that Double A is like the adolesence of the baseball world. You're not ready for the Majors, but too good for Single A, but not quit ready for Triple A as well. There were four errors, a couple of passed balls, bad throws to the catcher and not so good pitching all the way around. The worst baseball of the night was on a bunt the shortstop Chase Lambin makes contact and the ball rolls down the line and could go foul, so he stands just outside of the batters box watching the ball. The third baseman charges the ball and it stays fair, he grabs teh ball and throws... it... over the head of the first baseman. FINALLY Chase starts to run and barely beats out the second throw. I hope he got reamed for his laziness, you always run on the play, you never know when a ball will stay fair or there is an over throw or both.

Even though the Mudcats lost and I may be a little harsh on the play, but a night of baseball is still a good night.