After seeing the
UK Baseball team playing their Regionals in Gary, my love for UK Baseball quickly grew to more than it already had been. I stayed diligently by my computer on draft day to see how the Bat Cats would fair. I was ecstatic when, at the end of the day, a record nine Wildcats had been drafted! UK Baseball season was over so I was adamantly able to follow not only these nine players in their minor league seasons over the summer, but also the nine players who either played for the prestigious Cape Cod League or the USA Collegiate National Team. It was a lot of baseball to keep up with and in the end I had to pick and choose just a few players to follow closely.
When I was trying to get some of the Wildcats to follow me on Twitter after Regionals, the first to do so was Senior Catcher/1st Baseman, Michael Williams. He had impressed me greatly during Regionals after not only catching the entire 21 inning game against Kent State, but also every single inning of the three games later that weekend. As I read his tweets, I learned one more thing...he was a man of great faith and he wasn't afraid to share it. Many times, he would tweet inspirational quotes or even Bible passages that seemed almost too perfect for my current mood or situation. I looked forward to his daily inspiration and he quickly joined the ranks with Brian Littrell as a Christian that I looked up to. As a still rather new Christian myself, it is great to see that dedication in others and have those people that can teach you how to become a better Christian.
I started to tweet him occasionally to thank him for his inspiration. Often times, he would happily tweet me back to thank me. Michael quickly grew to be my favorite player that had been drafted from the Wildcats. He not only was a great player, but he was a genuinely good guy. What was there not to like about that?
I started to follow Michael's minor league team, the Hudson Valley Renegades of the New York-Penn League (affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays), on a daily basis. Do you know what made this team even better than having one Bat Cat on it? How about having two former Kentucky Wildcats? Wildcat teammate, Luke Maile (a junior Catcher/1st Baseman), had also been drafted to the Rays and the two had been put onto the same team. It made my dedication of trying to follow all of the drafted Wildcats a little easier. I was very thankful for the technology that allowed me to listen to and follow their games on a daily basis online. My husband even began to make fun of me because I would come home from work to listen to the Renegades play. He told me I was like an eighty year old man listening to baseball on the radio. I wasn't about to let that stop me from listening and cheering on my team.
After the Kentucky baseball season was over, I did some research to see which players I could possibly go watch during the summer while they were playing with either their minor league teams or the summer league teams. Unfortunately, not a single player was playing on a team even remotely close to Northwest Indiana. It looked like I was going to have to just deal with listening to games and following all of the players through social media. Then one day, when I was looking at the Renegades schedule, I made a realization. They would be playing a series against the Tri-City ValleyCats in Troy, NY (where the ValleyCats are located) in early September. A good friend and sorority sister of mine, Michelle, just so happened to work for the ValleyCats and I hadn't seen her in years. I could go visit her and watch Michael and Luke play! The series just happened to start on Labor Day so that would be one less day that I would have to get off from work (in the end this didn't really matter because I left that job the month before and wasn't working at the time of the trip). I asked my husband if I could go on the trip and he agreed. I would be taking another trip in 2012 by myself.
As I started to make travel plans for the trip, I realized one thing. I would more than likely be coming back home on a Thursday and had scheduled to take my General GRE test to get into grad school for that Saturday. This meant that I was going to have to use a part of this vacation to study for the test. My friend had informed me that she would have to be at the ball park all day on game days so she would not make a very good hostess. I told her that would actually be perfect because I could then use that time to study. I then had to make a decision on how to get to Troy (located just outside of Albany). It would be a minimum 12 hour drive. A flight was going to cost me about $100 more than the cost of driving. Then I looked at a third option...Greyhound. The trip would be longer than driving (18+ hours) but about the same cost. Plus, I could use that time to study, which I would not have been able to do while driving. I made the decision that the Greyhound bus was going to be my way to Albany. It would be the first time taking this particular mode of transportation and I knew it was going to be an adventure.
Michelle contacted me a few months before the trip to inform me that she was looking at taking a trip to Brooklyn on the Sunday that I was to get into town. That made the gears in my head start to turn. Why? Another drafted Bat Cat, Tim Peterson, just so happened to be on the Brooklyn Cyclones and they just so happened to be playing on that Sunday! I contacted her to see what her particular plans were for this day and suggested that we might go to this baseball game. She happily replied back that that had been the plan! I was super excited because I was going to be able to see three former Wildcats on my trip now!
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| Personalized Renegades Gear |
If I was going to be cheering on the Renegades, I was going to need Renegades gear. Once I got the gear, I knew I needed to show my support for those Wildcats for which I was making the trip. I also made sure that both Michael and Tim knew that I was making the trip for them (unfortunately, Luke does not have either a Facebook or Twitter account).
Saturday, September 1, 2012 - It was finally time for my trip! I had been looking forward to it all summer as I followed the Renegades online. If there is one thing my readers should know by now, it is that I just don't sleep, especially when I have something exciting going on the next day. I remember still being awake and making a trip to Walgreens at about 3am on this morning so I am sure I probably only got 2 or 3 hours of sleep. At least I was going to be able to sleep overnight on the bus ride (or so I thought). To start the trip, I had to take the train to get to the Greyhound station in South Bend. Luckily, the Southshore train runs right by my house and to the South Bend regional airport, where the Greyhound station is also located. The rain outside kept me from walking the few short blocks to the train station on Saturday morning but while I waited for the train, I did what I was going to have to get used to doing all week...studying for the GRE. Once I got to the bus station, I did more waiting and studying. It was already turning out to be an interesting travel choice as I did some people watching, as well. The bus finally pulled up and I was going to start the long trip to Albany.
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| Michigan City, IN -> Albany, NY -> Brooklyn, NY - 919 miles |
First, this particular bus was one of the older Greyhound buses. This meant there would be no WiFi access and much smaller seats. This particular bus was packed solid! I had found a seat all the way in the back but gave it up when I saw a family with a small child looking for three seats in the same vicinity. My backpack was full of GRE study material and wouldn't even fit in the luggage rack above our heads or under the seat in front of me. Therefore, I had to sit with my feet propped on the backpack. There was barely any room to move, let alone drag out the study materials. I seriously started to regret my decision of this mode of transportation. While I couldn't study, I at least got some entertainment of the people sitting around me. The guy that had been with the small child that I had given my seat up for had started discussing his drug using days with a fellow passenger. The guy sitting in the seat directly next to me (I was in the window seat) and I started chatting. I had managed to get out some of my study material and he started to question what I was studying. When I started talking about taking the GRE, he asked how many years of school I had left. When I told him I had been out for four years, he seemed surprised. He informed me that he would have only guessed me to be 21. I was very flattered, especially since he was the first of about three people I talked with that weekend that thought I was much younger than I actually am. There were also several people who just could not grasp the concept that I was traveling alone.
It was still raining as we drove. Remember how I said that this was an older bus? Imagine every one's surprise as the emergency exit in the roof of the bus started leaking and rain began to stream down into the bus from the leak. I was so happy that I wasn't sitting there. Eventually the bus started to empty. However, I always had someone sitting right next to me. The next person to sit next to me was a guy, who I later discovered was 21. He had a thick southern accent and I discovered he was from Kentucky. Not only was he from Kentucky but he was a University of Kentucky fan! I found out that he had served overseas (I'm pretty sure it was Army but I don't remember off hand) when he started telling me a very detailed story about the first enemy he had shot when he was over there. That was interesting to hear. It was even more interesting when he pulled out a bottle of Kaluha and started drinking it straight from the bottle. What in the world had I gotten myself into?!
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| The end of my 22 hour bus ride with no sleep |
Boy was I thankful when we got to Cleveland, where I was scheduled to transfer buses. I hoped that we would be getting one of the newer buses, which we did! I was finally able to stretch out with the larger seats on this bus. There were also not very many people on it. I started studying away but could only do it for short periods of time before I started to get nauseous from the movement. It was something that I had not accounted for when I made these plans. The frequent stops on the route helped so that I could take some study breaks. During one of the stops, a young college guy behind me asked to borrow my phone so he could find someone to pick him up from the Syracuse station. This led to a long, late night conversation. We talked about many different things. He talked about how he hadn't always made the best decisions in his life but that his faith had helped him to change his ways. I talked about how my faith had been influenced by Brian Littrell. He is one of the few guys that didn't mock me when I had told him who Brian was. As a matter of fact, he was very interested in looking at all of the pictures of me with Brian and the rest of the Backstreet Boys. We were still talking at about 2am and would get several different people int he bus who were trying to sleep telling us to "shhhhhh." I was kind of disappointed when he had to get off in Syracuse while I continued my journey. Needless to say, I wasn't able to get much studying done in the dark but I also couldn't sleep. I still had hours of my trip to go but I was just too excited for the days ahead of me. This was when a twitter conversation started with one of my followers that used to live in the Syracuse area since the new bus had WiFi (albeit not very good WiFi).
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| Freedom Tower under construction |
Sunday, September 2, 2012 - We pulled into the Albany station early on Sunday morning. I had gotten zero sleep on the bus, was on about 3 hours of sleep from the night before, and had been travelling for 22 hours already. Michelle picked me up at the station and wanted to hear all about my Greyhound adventures. She had known I would come away from that bus with some good stories to tell her. She took me back to her apartment where I showered and changed so that we could make the three hour drive to Brooklyn, more specifically Coney Island. I was exhausted and it was pure adrenaline from the excitement of the game that was keeping me going. Michelle and I caught up with one another during the three hour drive and she showed me all of the sites of New York as we went through the city. From the car I got to see Ground Zero, Freedom Tower, and the Statue of Liberty. Maybe one day I will return to actually visit the sites on foot. Before we knew it, we were pulling into the parking lot of the baseball stadium with plenty of time to play at Coney Island.
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| The Cyclone |
Since we were going to be seeing the Brooklyn Cyclones that evening, it was a must for us to ride the Cyclone. This historic wooden roller coaster was opened to the public in 1975, declared a New York City landmark in 1988, and put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. We made the decision to ride in the very back cart even though the ride operator warned us that it was an extremely bumpy ride in that particular car. Wow, was he right! Both Michelle and I had bruises the next day from the ride on our arms. It was a fun ride though even though I was asking if it was over about half way through the ride.
We walked along the boardwalk and took in all of the sites of Coney Island. We couldn't help but laugh at the huge, bent nails sticking up among the boards of the boardwalk along the way. We visited a small shop to learn some Coney Island history and walked by the The Parachute Jump, a defunct ride since 1968, where riders were once strapped into a two person canvas seat, hanging below a closed parachute. The riders were hoisted to the top of the ride, where a release mechanism would drop them and the descent was only slowed by the parachute. Shock absorbers at the bottom would cushion the landing and each parachute required three cable operators which made labor costs high for the ride.
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| 1. Historic Fun 2. Parachute Drop |
Walking down the boardwalk, I saw some cool architecture (guess my husband's architecture schooling has worn off on me slightly). The building pictured below was once a Childs Restaurant, one of the first national dining chains in the US, peaking in the 1920s and 1930s. This particular building was built in 1924 and is considered a New York Landmark, although it is now empty.
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| 1. Childs Restaurant 2. Me with Coney Island in the Background |
Finally before heading to the game, we had to make sure to stop at the original Nathan's Famous for some hot dogs. Built in 1916, this is the location of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest since the early 1970s.
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| Nathan's Famous - Yes, that would be bacon on my hot dog! |
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| My signed Tim Peterson photo |
After filling our tummy's, it was time to head to the ball park to see the Brooklyn Cyclones play. Unfortunately, Tim Peterson is a relief pitcher so I wasn't sure if I was going to actually get to see him play or not. Even if he didn't, I was still going to have a great time and I hoped that I would get to meet him before or after the game. After we found out where our seats were, Michelle and I headed to the bullpen area to see if I could catch a glimpse of Tim. I did but I was not able to get his attention. As we headed back to our seats, Tim and the rest of the pitchers were joining the team for the National Anthem and he was signing autographs as he walked along to the dugout. I was able to get him to sign a photo I had taken of him pitching during regionals in Gary. I wasn't sure at that time if I would get to actually meet him after the game or not.
The Brooklyn Cyclones play at MCU Park, which is a very cool park at night because of the amusement park in the background. Unfortunately, not only did the Cyclones lose to the Staten Island Yankees, but Tim did not pitch. I still had a great time watching the game and that is what is important!
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| Me and Michelle |
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| Tim Peterson - warming up |
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| Birds chilling on the field in the middle of the game |
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| MCU Park, surrounded by Coney Island |
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| Tim Peterson (RH Pitcher - Brooklyn Cyclones - #22) and me |
After the game, Michelle was a sport as she let me be my crazy self and wait for the team outside of the ball park so that I could have the chance to talk to Tim. It seemed like we waited forever as both teams slowly exited the ball park. One of Tim's teammates even asked me if I was waiting for him (he was obviously very observant of my UK sweatshirt and hat). Finally, Tim made his way out and I caught his attention right away before some other fan could snatch him. After a quick hug, I first had him personalize the photo I had asked him to autograph before the game with my name. Then, he happily took a photo with me. He brought up the subject that I would be going to go see Michael and Luke play the next few days, which meant that he had been reading my tweets and Facebook posts. He also asked me how long my trip had taken. He seemed shocked when I told him that my total trip had taken 25 hours to get to Brooklyn. We spent the next few moments chatting away, including him informing me he would be back in Lexington after the season to take some more classes (he had just finished his junior year when he had been drafted). Overall, it was a great exchange. Tim was incredibly nice, just as Corey had been when I had met him during regionals. I could not have asked for a more pleasant conversation and Michelle had been great to let me have that experience.
Michelle and I headed back to Troy and I had to fight to stay awake. By that point, I had been up for almost 36 straight hours. However, you better believe I perked right up when "I Still" by the Backstreet Boys came on the radio on the trip back to Troy. I was super excited because, believe it or not, it was the first time I had ever heard that song on the radio! I was a little more awake after that. By the time we got home and we finally went to bed, I had been up for about 39 straight hours!
Monday, September 3, 2012 - Since Michelle works for the baseball team in which the Renegades were playing against, she was required to be at the ball park all day. We had decided that I would go to the park with her in the morning and study at the local college that literally shared a parking lot with the ball park. Since it was Labor Day, no classes were in session. I found a nice gazebo with picnic tables and set up shop to begin my studying for the GRE. It was an activity that I was going to have to get used to while I was there. I joined Michelle for lunch in the ball park, which is provided to employees on game days. I met a lot of her coworkers who made comments on the Hudson Valley Renegades shirt I was wearing, but they were all super nice to me. I then decided to stay in the park after lunch to study while I waited for the Renegades to get there. The park had a nice picnic area which I made my study spot from that point forward. Once the team got there, I stopped my studying and watched batting practice from my seat right behind the visitors dugout. Michael saw me while going into the dugout from his batting practice and said hi. Once batting practice was through, I grabbed dinner thanks to the fan appreciation picnic the ValleyCats were having and thanks to the ticket that Michelle had gotten me.
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Top Left: Luke Maile warming up - Top Right: Michael Williams warming up
Bottom Left: Michael Williams batting practice - Bottom Middle: Luke Maile batting practice - Bottom Right: Michael Williams infield practice |
The Renegades ended up winning this one in extra innings (2-1), but neither Michael nor Luke played this particular game. After the game, I headed out to the bus to wait with the rest of the few Renegades fans that happened to be there. Luke came out first and I got his autograph of the photo I had brought that I had taken at regionals of both Michael and him. I thought it was such a great photo of the two and it worked out perfectly since they had both been drafted to the same team.
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| Autographed Luke Maile and Michael Williams photo |
I also gave Luke a little photo album of all the photos I had taken of him at regionals. Since he didn't have a Twitter or Facebook account, I couldn't share the photos with him like I had been able to with the rest of the team. I wanted to make sure he had the opportunity to see them as everyone else had been able to see theirs. He thanked me and got onto the bus. I hadn't even thought about getting a photo with him!
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| Me and Michael Williams (C/1B - Hudson Valley Renegades - #35) |
Michael eventually came out and made his way over to me as soon as he saw me. He gave me a hug right away and thanked me for making the trip. He truly was a complete sweetheart! I had him sign the same photo that Luke had and then he asked me if I wanted a photo with him. For once, it was the player doing the asking and I thought that was way cool. I found someone to take the photo and Michael made sure I looked at it to make sure it was okay. It was taken from a bit too far away so we decided that another photo was needed. After the photo we chatted for awhile. He asked if I had talked to Luke already, he asked how my meeting with Tim had gone the night before, and we talked about my wish to go to the University of Kentucky for grad school. Right before he got on the bus, I gave him a gift as a thank you for being such an inspiration. I knew from past tweets that he listened to some Christian music so I thought I would share with him the man who had inspired me to become a Christian in the first place. I made a copy of Brian Littrell's
Welcome Home album and wrote in a card why I was giving this to him. I honestly don't know if he's ever listened to that album or just discarded it, but I at least gave it a shot.
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Before Game 2 of the series in my right behind the
dugout seats |
Tuesday, September 4, 2012 - This day was not so different from the day before, except that I did my studying in the picnic pavilion in the ball park. It was such a quiet place to study and overlooked the ball park. I truly was amazed at exactly how much studying I got done before the teams went out onto the field for batting and fielding practice. This game, both Luke and Michael would be playing, with Luke behind the plate and Michael at first base. I actually met a few other Renegades fans that were sitting just down the row from me so I moved to an empty seat next to them...don't worry I was still right behind that dugout! We started chatting about my trip out there and they wondered how in the world I had become a Renegades fan being from Northwest Indiana. I informed them of my love for Kentucky baseball and that I was there to see Luke and Michael. They were amazed at my dedication. I had also chatted with the people behind me who were just at the park to have a good time...they were drinking quite a bit. At one point, one of the guys saw my photo of Brian Littrell on my phone and commented that I had a Backstreet Boy on my phone. He then started singing "Show Me The Meaning of Being Lonely." I was incredibly impressed with the fact that 1) he knew it was a boy band member on my phone, 2) he knew this specific boy band member was a Backstreet Boy and not a member of that other 90s boy band that I refuse to name, and 3) That it was "SMTM" that he started to sing and not "I Want It That Way," since that is the go-to BSB song. That guy stole a little piece of my heart by knowing this information AND singing my favorite BSB song.
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| A very happy Renegades team |
Michael has an amazing game this evening. He was hit by a pitch, had two doubles, and walked. He also had an amazing scoop at first base and attempted some pretty difficult defensive plays. I was so incredibly happy that I had gotten to see him have such a good game.
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| 1. Michael Williams holding a fellow Wildcat alumni, Neiko Johnson, at first 2. Michael Williams to bat 3. Michael Williams at first after a walk |
Luke's game wasn't nearly as fantastic but he still made an impact. While he struck out on his first at bat, he threw out a ValleyCat stealing third base. He then singled at his second at bat. He then grounded out, but received an RBI in the process. Luke did reach 1st base during his fourth at-bat, after having his hit lead to a force out for his teammate at second. As always, his catching abilities were top notch.
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| 1. Luke Maile to bat 2. Luke Maile on Second 3. Luke Maile behind the plate |
Unfortunately, the Renegades ended up losing this particular game, 3-9. The Renegade's pitching coach was also thrown out during this game, as the umping behind the plate was NOT great that evening. Actually, it was just flat out bad.
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| Me and Luke Maile (C/1B - Hudson Valley Renegades - #21) |
After the game, I got my photo with Luke that I had forgotten to ask for the previous evening. Then I got a photo with both Michael and Luke, "my Kentucky boys," as I called them while getting ready for the photo. What really made this photo special was the fact that after I had put it on my Facebook page, Michael then put it on his with the caption "Our biggest fan." That truly made me feel special and I was so happy to get that recognition from him.
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| Michael Williams, Me, and Luke Maile |
Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - Wednesday brought more of the same...studying and then watching batting practice. I ran into Michael quickly before the game as he was getting something from the concession stand and asked him if he was going to be playing that game. He informed me that neither Luke nor he would be starting that game. I was super bummed. I had traveled all that way to see the two of them play and I was only going to get to see them play the one game. Don't get me wrong...it was an amazing trip but I know it would have been SO much better if they would have played more than the one game.
Michael ended up catching in the bullpen that evening and Luke did eventually go in to pinch hit, where he grounded out to the second basemen. The Renegades ended up winning 3-2, which gave them the league's best record that season at 52-24, only one game above the ValleyCats. This record also meant that they would have home field advantage for the playoffs, which started just two days later.
I didn't get to talk to Michael as much after this game, as I had the previous two because there were some other people he knew that were there. I did get a chance to tell him goodbye and he wished me a safe trip home that evening (my bus was leaving at about 11pm that night). I still feel so incredibly happy to have had the experience I did to meet and talk with Michael. He is just a genuinely good guy that deserves all the success in the world.
Since this was the last home game for the ValleyCats, Michelle brought me to the little get together that the staff was having before she had to take me to the bus station. She was ridiculed a bit for bringing in "the enemy" but, overall, everyone that worked for the ValleyCats were extremely friendly people and made my experience a great one.
Thursday, September 6, 2012 - I pretty much slept on and off the entire bus ride home. Luckily, we had one of the new buses for the entire journey and since it was a week day, the buses were not nearly as full as they had been on that bus I had first taken on Saturday to get to New York. I got absolutely no studying done on the way home and I also did not have the opportunity to meet some characters, like I had on the trip there. So, while I had taken full advantage of studying time once I got to NY, I did very little studying on the bus trips to and from my destination. So, in retrospect, I probably could have driven to my destination without much of a negative impact on my studying. However, then I would not have had such fun tales to share here!
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Michael William's game-worn Hudson Valley Renegades
away jersey |
Post-NYC Trip - As discussed in my
2012 Birthday post, the Renegades went on to win the 2012 New York-Penn League Championship, where they met up with the Tri-City ValleyCats once again. At the end of 2012, the Renegades revealed a new color scheme and logo for their team. This meant that they would be getting new uniforms and were selling off the old uniforms for a charity, Pitch for Kids. It took some time but eventually a #35 jersey was finally put onto the site to be bought. I wanted it so badly but I couldn't exactly afford it at the time that I saw it. By the next day, the uniform had been bought. I was so incredibly sad about this, as I had wanted it so badly. Not only had it been Michael's jersey, but it had been the away jersey that they had worn when I had seen them play. I really wish people could have seen my face when on Christmas morning I unwrapped the gift that had been sent from my mom. Within the package, contained that #35 Michael Williams jersey! I was beyond excited, so much so that words cannot even begin to describe how happy I was. The only thing that could truly make it even better is if I could get Michael to sign it for me. That piece of sport's memorabilia will truly remind me of that wonderful week in New York, watching some great ball players as they climb up the ladder of success!
Some of you may be wondering how I ended up doing on my GREs. My verbal and written portions went really well. My math, which is what I had studied the most while in New York was about average. Math is my worst subject so I was incredibly happy with what I did get. I had planned on applying to grad schools in the fall...until I got this new job. One of the main reasons I had been thinking about going back to grad school was because I had been so unhappy in the line of work in which I had been. This new job, even though it is just part time, is MUCH better and I am happy doing what I am doing. GRE scores are good for five years so there is still a chance that I might just make that decision to go back to school after all. For now, I am happy doing what I am doing.
Well, this entry actually wraps up the last of my 2012 events. It only took me 3 months into 2013 to catch-up! However, I have some 2013 adventures coming up that I can't wait to write about.
