Moving On...

The second leg of this excursion took us to Hickory, North Carolina.  The Pirates used to be affiliated with the Crawdads prior to 2009, so there are quite a few Bucco fans there.  It is always great to see Pirates garb in other cities, and this was no exception.  One of the first things I noticed about Hickory's L.P. Frans Stadium was the condition of the playing surface.

I know how difficult it is to grow grass in my own yard, and I have the utmost respect for grounds keepers and what they do.  It seems, though, that there is more work that needs to be done in Hickory to figure out how to fill in the dead spots.

The Hickory Crawdads do one thing well... very well.  They hit home runs.  Entering this series, they had nearly double the home runs that West Virginia did.  The Power took game one before losing the next two, including a game Wednesday morning where Hickory hit four solo home runs.  They are a home run derby contest waiting to happen and will threaten the league record for home runs in a season.

On Monday, I walked to a chain restaurant called Mellow Mushroom.  It is a pizza place with a few locations in South Atlantic League cities, but I had bypassed it for other options each time.  Rather than get a pizza, I tried their best sandwich- The Jerk Chicken (Jerk chicken, onions, mushrooms, green peppers and pineapple all grilled together. Topped with pesto mayo, Roma tomatoes, spinach and feta cheese).  This sandwich was very good but packed a punch.  I could barely finish it because of the spice.  I also had a bowl of their Magic Mushroom soup.  The soup was, arguably, better than the sandwich.

One last thing about Hickory...  I had the chance to run into more old friends from Appalachian Power Park.  During the 2012 season, Kari and Treye Kennedy moved (back) to the Hickory area.  You might have seen them at Power games over the years.  They have two boys that were always at our games.  They were some of the best young fans we had and they loved their home team.  Camden would occasionally stop by my broadcast booth to say hello or listen in.

We went to an Irish Pub after Tuesday night's game and caught up.  The family is doing well.  Both the boys are excelling in school and seemingly haven't missed a beat, replacing the Power with the Crawdads.  We will forgive them for that!

It's moments like these that make these trips all the more worthwhile.  

I'll never have another bad day.