A Tale of Two 4th Place Teams at Season End

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1st Pitch

Fun & Games before the Game

You'll go run around the field and I'll stay here all day.

It was a hot day two days before the season ended and both teams had and "E" next to their names on the GB part of the standings. The game started at 3pm and about 1,300 people were in attendance as the second worst logo in the Carolina League hosted the worst logo in the Carolina League (Lynchburg Hillcats v. Winston-Salem Dash).

Honestly, I was surprised at how many people showed up. The crowd was decent for the hot Sunday- particularly considering that football has started back up and it is so easy sit at home and be a football zombie. The people working at the stadium were working hard to make it a good experience. If you sat in one of the places where there was no shade they would come out and make sure you knew that you could go to the reserved seats and sit in the shade. In other words, I could have bought a general admission ticket and sat in the reserved area anyway - not that I sat in my reserved section seat anyway. I went around the first and third base sides where I could get a seat outside the netting and get a good view of the game. There's not really a bad seat in the park; there's just some without shade.

As for the game itself, the high point was probably before the game started when the Dash sent a kid out to exchange lineups and meat with the umps and his teammates were razzing him the entire time he was out there. The first few innings were pretty solid, but the Hillcats absolutely self destructed in the 4th with runs allowed on a wild pitch and an errant throw by the catcher to try to get a batter stealing second. After that, the Lynchburg team seemed to check out while Winston-Salem kept playing. In the end the Hillcats lost 3-10.

Tomorrow I'm going to Salem to watch the first place Salem Red Sox play their last regular season game of the year.