Baseball Review // Binghamton Rumble Ponies 3, Hartford Yard Goats 4, at Dunkin Donuts Park, Hartford CT, August 28th 2024
The official box score for this game can be found here :::
https://www.milb.com/gameday/rumble-ponies-vs-yard-goats/2024/08/28/750894/final/box
Additional photos can be found here :::
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1552495432147339&type=3
Even though the GHTBL Playoffs had come to an end, there was still baseball left to play for the Hartford Yard Goats. Being that this was 90's Night and it came with a special trucker hat design, I knew we had to go to this if only to get the hat. The funny thing about this all is that for a 90's themed night it wasn't very 90's. I'm not sure if it was the timing of it, as kids just started going back to school or what, but this didn't feel like a 90's Night other than the hat and a few songs they played.
The biggest factor which made this feel like the 90's Night (aside from the hat giveaway) was the music. But the Yard Goats only had maybe eight songs (definitely less than 10) that they played in a loop before the game started. We heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit" once, "Ice Ice Baby" several times and a few others like "What Is Love?" but they could have had this huge playlist of songs from the 90's and instead to focus on the same few.
One of the biggest problems with this 90's Night as well was that once the game started everything 90's theme seemed to end. Would it have killed them to have the players select walk up themes from the 90's? Some players weren't alive in the 90's though, so, yes, it might have been difficult, but you make it work. I'm not sure what else they could've done to secure that 90's theme but I'm also not working for them in a creative manner so no free ideas here.
Things I noticed from this game that I don't normally notice in baseball games included the following:
- If you have more than one person throwing out a first pitch (there were three or four different people here) they can't all be the first pitch. Only one- the first one- is the first pitch. We need to do away with this multiple first pitches idea and just have it going back to being one person per game so it feels more special.
- The Yard Goats have a strict policy on keeping your language clean, and yet at one point we heard a presumeably drunk fan yell "You gotta swing the bat ya fuckin' idiot". This was also at a home team player, so that was interesting.
- Baseball should be about baseball and not all these little clauses that they have tied to seemingly everything. If a Yard Goats player walks, money gets donated by someone to somewhere. This also happens with strikeouts. There was also a deal where you get a free Chic-Fil-A sandwich is a Yard Goat steals a base. I'm all for charity, but donate the money because you are able to and want to not because some athlete did something. Soon it's going to be "And with that balk, the fine people at T.D. Bank are going to launch a puppy into space".
- And just because of all of that, I will say that there was a coupon to be given out for Buffalo Wild Wings if the Yard Goats scored five runs. Technically, the game walked off on a two run homerun, which should have made the score 5-3, but since it's a walk off once that fourth run scored the game was over. Seems like a pretty cheap way to not give me some free B-Dubs.
Overall this game was enjoyable and what happened on the field in terms of baseball kept me interested for nine innings. Even though it wasn't really 90's themed, the stuff that happens in between the innings and all of the clauses added onto each play is just something I could do without.
Speaking of things I can do without from in between innings, they had this one competition where you had to spin around a bat five times and then ride an inflatable horse or whatever to the finish line. They put a brother against a sister and the brother only went around the bat once when he was supposed go five times. He lost, but can you just imagine, twenty years from now, they're arguing about it still at Thanksgiving dinner? I'm not sure these are the lasting memories the Yard Goats want to make but they aren't my kids.
We saw two interesting plays in this game which were both very much challenged by the Binghamton manager. In one play, a Yard Goat was being run down between first and second but was ultimately given second base because I think the defense player stepped out of the base path or blocked him or something. I'm not sure, but far be it for the person who has the ability to tell the entire stadium what is going to let us know what's happening.
There was also a play where a Yard Goat slid head first into third base and was seemingly out by a mile. We were sitting on the third base side, so I could see the play fairly well and still have no idea why it was called safe. Again, maybe instead of all of the theatrics the announcer could tell us about the actual game. (Even both would be fine, but it just seems like they've forgotten about the art of baseball in itself)
Look, I don't want to sound old and mean, but the fact is, this was a great game of baseball. The Binghamton starting pitcher got into trouble early on, but got out of it. The game was tied 1-1 and a Binghamton player hit a two run homerun to put them up 3-1. It didn't seem like the Yard Goats were in it, but then they put up one more run, slowly chipping away at that lead, and by the bottom of the ninth a sac fly brought in the tying run which was just a huge moment for this game.
To end it, to walk it off, on a two run homerun straight out to center field was just magical. This game was almost three hours long but because of how close the score was and the hope that the Yard Goats could come back and win it, I never once thought about leaving early. Going into this, I knew these two teams were close in their records and this would be a good game, but it was much more than that and despite everything else I still cannot recommend going to a Yard Goats game enough.
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