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Toledo Mud Hens vs Indianapolis Indians

Fifth Third Field, Toledo OH

Game Time Temperature: 79°F

Today’s game started at 10 am so we left early this morning. The drive to Toledo was an hour and a half, which offered lots of time to think about the differences between the games we’ve seen. As Dale and I chatted, I said I need to learn to watch baseball without a scorecard, without a team, without a favourite player. I have no idea how to watch baseball other than just to watch and see what I see.

Instead of having all-stars’ names or retired numbers painted on the walls like most ballparks, Fifth Third Field has cartoons of two fictional characters: Crankshaft, the curmudgeonly school bus driver from the comic strip who allegedly played for the Mud Hens, and Corporal Max Klinger from M*A*S*H*, who was a loyal Mud Hens fan. Having grown up with M*A*S*H*-loving parents in Canada, much of my knowledge of the US comes from watching TV. I text a smiling selfie beside the portraits to my parents, and my dad writes back, “Klinger!” as I knew he would. I know when we stop for lunch at Tony Packo’s after the game that I will text, “I’m at Klinger’s favourite lunch place!” and that my parents will be excited again. Dale nods, knowing exactly why I am gleeful. Undoubtedly, he remembers the road trip detours I made him take so I could go to Ottumwa, Iowa, where M*A*S*H*’s Radar is from, and to Needles, Arizona, where Snoopy’s brother Spike lives. It still seems strange to wake up, drive an hour and a half, and find myself in Toledo, Klinger’s hometown.

In my wanderings around the park, I notice there aren’t veggie dogs nor anything remotely healthy at the concessions. I ask two ushers about vegetarian options and they shrug. “There’s always popcorn,” they suggest. I’ve added “veggie dogs” to the tallies I’m keeping at the back of my notebook and so far there’s only one tick: Comerica Park.

The early start is to accommodate school field trips and the park is filled with kids, undoubtedly grateful for the opportunity to flee their classrooms and enjoy this gorgeous day in a baseball park. The kids’ chatter sounds like Sandhill cranes landing for the night.

We’ve barely taken our seats behind home plate when Christopher Bostick doubles off Ryan Carpenter. In fact, it seems like I’ve barely had my first cup of coffee. We were on the road again before 8:30 this morning. It’s only fifty miles from Detroit to Toledo, but you always have to factor in an hour for the border, just in case. We usually end up with time to kill.

Today that extra time meant that we could be leisurely as we walked from the car to the ballpark, taking in the new development since we were last here almost ten years ago. It’s a gorgeous park, everything a minor league field should be, built in a way that feels organic to this neighbourhood of former warehouses. In the right field corner, the architect even incorporated one of the old buildings, complete with seating that juts into the park from the second and third floors. Outside the main entrance is a square named for Moses Fleetwood Walker, who played for the Toledo Blue Stockings in 1884. Walker was one of the first African Americans to play major league baseball, and the last to do so before Jackie Robinson started for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

As we approached the park, we weaved our way between busloads of students, ranging all the way from elementary to high school. They streamed past both the sign and the plaque erected in Walker’s honour, beneath the warehouses that mark the history of Toledo as a manufacturing and transportation hub. The Mud Hens know that baseball fans are an aging lot and that early games like this one, which cater to school field trips, are a way to get younger people into the park. Will that mean they come back on their own or ask their parents to take them to another game? That, of course, is the hope.

Bostick on second and Kevin Kramer squares to bunt. The ball is completely deadened, rolling along the fringe of the grass, just inside the third base line. Carpenter can only watch, hoping it will roll foul. It doesn’t. It’s a textbook bunt down the third base line, the kind of fundamentally sound play that both Kurt and my father would love. Runners at first and third with no one out.

I’m wondering how bad the ballpark coffee will be and whether that outweighs my need for it when Jordan Luplow homers to left center. Carpenter seems unfazed, however, just takes a new ball from the umpire and walks behind the mound, rubbing it until he’s satisfied. The next three batters all strike out swinging. 3-0 Indianapolis after a half inning.

A woman a few rows ahead of us is having the game explained to her by her two male companions. I’m having trouble believing she doesn’t know you’re out after three strikes, but it’s possible. A promotion for Toft’s Ice Cream just encouraged kids to scream—it was a sound only dogs could hear. I start to wonder if it’s easier for the woman in front to just nod and let the mansplaining blend into the roar of screaming children.

The ballpark is clearly trying to make this event “educational” by highlighting science activities happening at the Imagination Station in the concourse. Last inning, they broadcast an experiment on the scoreboard that involved liquid nitrogen, a garbage can, and a hundred brightly coloured balls. Currently, I’m watching an experiment involving methane bubbles and open flames that, I have to admit, makes me wonder if it’s really suitable for children—especially since someone lit the methane on fire as it was sitting on the hand of a segment host.

Because the Mud Hens are the Tigers’ AAA affiliate—the highest level in the minor leagues—I can’t help but think about the rebuild, about the prospects that might play in Detroit over the next few years. Dawel Lugo at second base. Christin Stewart in left field. Ronny Rodriguez at third base. Jim Adduci at designated hitter. Grayson Greiner behind the plate. And players like Mikie Mahtook, who was with the Tigers for almost all the 2017 season, but unexpectedly demoted to Toledo on April 11. He’s currently hitting .194, still struggling to find his form as a hitter, but in the leadoff spot today he gets hold of a 1-0 pitch, homering to left center to make the game 3-1 Indianapolis. Jim Adduci adds a two-run home run in the bottom of the second to tie the game at 3. Good signs.³

Two outs follow before Pete Kozma walks, bringing Mahtook to the plate once more. He stands in, as always starting in the center of the right batter’s box before striding towards the plate to take his swing. This time, though, he’s hit on the hand, an inside fastball—maybe a message pitch because of the home run in the first—that gets away from Austin Coley. Watching Mahtook flex his hand as he makes his way to first base, I think about fear and hitting and how the two are always intertwined. Leonard Koppett, in his book The Thinking Fan’s Guide to Baseball, sums up this relationship when he writes, “Fear is the fundamental factor in hitting, and hitting the ball with the bat is the fundamental act of baseball.” Fear. At the center of the game, another piece of the daily routine, a detail that can never be far from a player’s mind. The key, of course, is what the player does with that fear when he steps in the batter’s box. Will the next batter be wary of Coley, think he doesn’t know where the ball is going? Will he be able to stay in the box on an inside pitch? Get close enough to the batter’s box to hit a pitch on the outside corner? Conscious or not, fear lurks behind the confrontation between pitcher and hitter, and every at bat happens in the context of the events of particular games and earlier encounters between pitchers and hitters. But for the next at bat at least, Jason Krizan tamps down the fear. He does his job, and singles in Kozma, who is able to score on a good slide, just under the tag, on a throw the pitcher looked to be cutting off. 4-3 Mud Hens.

In front of us, a high school student tells his friends he’s on the waitlist at Michigan for the fall, with a full-ride scholarship if he gets in, community college if he doesn’t. Heidi points out that none of the kids are actually watching the game. Few of the adults are either. Getting young people in the park is important, but how do you get them to pay attention and appreciate the game? How do you get them to see what Dad saw, what those two guys at the Michigan game see, what I’m coming to appreciate more with every game we attend this summer?

Another experiment is on the scoreboard. This one also uses nitro and a trashcan, but welding masks and rain slickers are involved. The sound isn’t working so I’m not sure what exactly is happening but huge white puffy clouds just emerged from behind right field, so I’m assuming something blew up. The players meander around the field as if this happens every day. Maybe it does. It’s times like these when I wonder if the inter-inning activities supplement the baseball experience or distract from it.

Carpenter strikes out nine in six innings of work, but two home runs to Luplow mean he will not get a decision today. By the time Paul Voelker comes in to pitch in the top of the seventh, the game is tied at 5. His 0-1 pitch is a fastball straight at the head of Pablo Reyes. As he hits the dirt, the bat flies out of his hand. It’s an inside pitch with a purpose: to exploit that element of fear, to make Reyes wary of what might come next, to move him back in the box and away from the plate. He watches strike three go by, unable to swing, set up by the inside pitch on the 0-1 count. The radar gun puts Voelker’s fastball in the mid-90s, more than enough velocity to make the hitter think about what it would feel like to be hit by that pitch. More than enough to strike out Kramer and Luplow as well.

Scanning the crowd around me, I see it’s only Dale and two other guys who are actually watching the game. Ten percent are looking in the general direction of the field. At this particular moment, I cannot see a single child watching the field, but they’re still having a grand old time being at the ballpark. And that’s okay. My mind is wandering too. I’ve watched fourteen innings of baseball in under eighteen hours and there will be quite a few more before I sleep tonight. Dale’s focus, on the other hand, has never strayed from the play on the field.

When Rodriguez comes up to bat for Toledo in the bottom of the eighth, the score is 7-5 for the Mud Hens and Damien Magnifico is on to pitch for Indianapolis. The first pitch bends Rodriguez backwards. Fear. The catcher walks to the mound as Grover Washington Jr’s “Just the Two of Us” plays over the PA system. The count goes to 2-2. Rodriguez sets himself in the batter’s box. Foul. Sets again. Foul. And again. Foul. Again. Soft line single to left field. Overcoming the fear. The kind of at-bat you want to see.

Erich Weiss singles to lead off the ninth for Indianapolis. Reyes then bunts, but Greiner makes a diving catch in foul territory, full extension to get the out. After Bostick singles, Stewart is able to track down Kramer’s liner in left field. Two on, two out, but Luplow, who had already hit two home runs, is only able to manage a fly ball to right field to end the game. The prospects looked good today.

Final Score: 7-5 Toledo