Banana Ball – Allentown – Party Animals vs Firefighters
This Allentown trip was a bit of a circus. Initially I was supposed to go with another group, but when their vacation plans clashed I turned to plan B – having the Group Chat come to watch a game together instead of via text. One had to bail out a few days before so it was just going to be 2 of us.
I got to the hotel Thursday night thinking my friend would be flying in at 11pm. I also was told that the street outside the hotel was going to be closing down and valet (in a ‘valet only’ hotel) would be ending at noon. My friend’s flight just kept getting more and more delayed and then ended up canceled in the wee hours of the morning. Her only other option at that time was to fly at 6am and have a 5 hour layover in Philly – which I could have gone to pick her up and gotten back faster. She decided she too wasn’t going to come, until a flight coming in at 4:30pm became an option. I went to pick her up, but the sky was getting darker by the minute and while I was in the cell phone lot waiting there was ridiculous amounts of lightning, thunder that I felt throughout my whole body and an absolute downpour. I was just hoping that she’d be able to land without incident (the Party Animals flight got struck by lightning the day before as they were landing). She notified me that she had landed but since there was still lightning the grounds crew couldn’t get them to the gate and get their bags off the plane. About 45 minutes later she was off the plane and we were on our way to the game. All we really missed was being huddled in the concourse avoiding the storm – so we did pretty well for ourselves there because we would have been miserable.
The pre-show was already underway when we got to our seats which kind of threw me off a bit from our normal routine. We also were on the Firefighters dug out near 1st base which ends up being incredibly distracting for me. For the home run hitter they had a girl who used a wheelchair so more than just my seat was wet. (The Bananas Foster was also a pretty emotional one. There may be no crying in baseball, but there sure is in banana ball!)
I had told my friend that whatever Jake did in his first at bat would set the tone for the rest of the game and he had a lead off double. Garett Delano was pitching and had a great game and needed that bounce back after his weekend previous in Boise. In the 4th the Party Animals scored on a Trick Play miss double and a sac fly, then again with an RBI single in the 5th, and again with a Sac Fly in the 6th and again with an RBI Ball 4 Sprint in the 7th and AGAIN in the 8th – although this play was wonky – Reece Hampton hit what appeared to be a home run caught by a fan (only foul out catches count as outs) but it was then challenged by the fan challenger only to realize the fan who caught it reached OVER into the stadium to catch it – which is a big no no. They ruled it a ground rule double which put him on 2nd and Swan on 3rd instead of 2 runs having scored. Tanner Thomas had a Sac Fly (again) making it 5-0, but the Party Animals also got the equalizer point and ultimately ended up winning 6-0. Caden Green and Jake Skole fouled out to fans and Tyner Hughes hit a home run in the 8th for the only Firefighters run. We hung out and chatted with a few players after the game but were both pretty exhausted from the day. Jake’s foul out was the 100th fan caught foul ball of the season.
We got back to the hotel and I showed my friend how much of a (literal) circus it was. The shower curtain was the big top, the floor outside the elevator was the big top, there were circus performers on the carpet… and a clown on the wall.
Saturday we decided to head to the Dunkin appearance which was probably one of the least organized and in one of the smallest locations I had been to. Party Animals had Chase Achuff and Jason Swan and Firefighters had Johnny Hummel and Corey Pye. We ended up having a really nice chat with Chase about trick plays, how the weather was affecting them in Boise and some other game chat. We had a much shorter chat with Jason and didn’t end up chatting with the Firefighters.
For Saturday’s game we met up with another friend we had not seen in a while for her first banana ball game and tried to get in early enough to chat with some Party Animals. We ended up seeing Andy and he defended our honor against a rather loud fan who was being, in his words, disrespectful. The rest of the time we spent waiting in Bronny’s line knowing it probably wasn’t going to end up happening for us and it did not. We hung out in the K-Club area, got some ice cream helmets with dippin dots and made our way to our seats.
We may have gotten a little too cocky about Bret pitching… although the Party Animals scored 2 runs in the first and 2 in the second taking a quick 2-0 lead. Mason Maxwell had a homerun in the 3rd cutting the lead to 2-1. In the 5th, Bret got his 200th strike out and then there was a weird play where we thought a couple of runs scored but then there was a late foul ball call. The fans tried to challenge it but were told they couldn’t (which it should have been allowed to be challenged) but there ended up being an RBI anyway – which tied the game up and shifted the momentum. Party Animals did not score again, Lamar Sparks had a home run in the 7th to give the Firefighters the 3-2 lead, the Party Animals did not earn the equalizer point and Firefighters ended up winning 3-2. It was quite a game though and both teams really battled!
After the game we said hey to some more players and stayed until a lot of the area was broken down. It may have been my last regular season Party Animal game, so I had to say some ‘see you later’s – until the playoffs!