On August 14, 2010 I read online that Chase Utley of the Philadelphia Phillies would be playing his first rehab game with the Clearwater Threshers of the Florida State League. Luckily for this Tampa Yankee fan, the Threshers were playing my Yankees at Brighthouse Field just over the bridge. I knew this was going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity so I knew I had to go. I called my friend and asked if she wanted to go with me and she said she would.
Brighthouse Field is located at the end of a shopping plaza next to a very busy highway, not the place you would think to see a baseball field but once you are inside you really forget whats on the outside. My first impression of this field was that it smelled really good. They have a restaurant behind the left field fence called Frenchy's and throughout the whole game the smells of food wafted through the stadium. Brighthouse field is a smaller more intimate field with nice luxury boxes that still keep fans close to the action. The only mistake we made on our visit was that we bought tickets on the Home side of the field. oops. They check tickets to make sure you are sitting in your section so we weren't able to move but it turned out okay. We are both Bradley Suttle fans and since he played third base we got an up and close view, it is also the side of the field where they do their fan involved activities.
Bradley Suttle(#36)
The game itself was a pretty awful game. Here is a link to the box score:
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=t587&gid=2010_08_14_tbyafa_clrafa_1&cid=587&t=g_box
It took forever us to get even a hit while the Threshers were just racking them up, as a fan in enemy territory it was not fun. The worst moment, was when Shaeffer Hall, our pitcher for the game, went to cover first on a ground ball to the right side. As he got to the bag he tripped...over the bag.... and just fell to the ground, I personally was wondering if he was okay but all I could hear around me was laughter. Now I agree that it was kind of funny but only after he got up and shook himself off. I had forgotten how Philly fans were.
We watched Utley play the field without making any errors which I guess was good for him. We also got to watch him strikeout which was good for me. We missed his triple because we had gone to get drinks but he wasn't able to score so it was okay. At the end of the game, which we luckily didn't get shutout or no hit(Suttle had 2 of the 3 hits) they had a fireworks show which they do after every night game, we decided to beat the foot traffic out and left as it started but sat in the parking lot to watch before leaving.
Overall it was a fun trip. I enjoyed visiting another minor league field even though my team did not win. If you are ever in Clearwater or Tampa I would recommend visiting this field. Tickets are (or were) $6.50, sit on the first base side if you want to be in the visiting team section. Parking on the day we went was $2.00.
No comments:
Post a Comment