THAT'S MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL IN APRIL FOR YA!

It was Thursday night after a long week and the prize- opening night at the Trenton Thunder with my son at its newly tooled Arm and Hammer Park .   As you know, the Trenton Thunder is the Double A feeder club for our very own New York Yankees.

The front page of the very first score card of 2013 dons Thunder veterans’ Melky Mesa, David Phelps and Adam Warren.  We are definitely off to a good start.  I should also say that the Alumni Spotlight article features new Yankee Kevin Youkilis who will be “immortalized on May 10th” with his very own bobble head.  After all, you haven’t made it big until you get sculpted into your very own bobble head.

Now like most people who are avid baseball fans, there’s a routine or ritual that you follow when you enter the park.  For me, at the Thunder, it’s a bee-line to Chickie & Pete’s for some Italian hot dogs and a bucket of their infamous crab fries.  Now, I am ready for some baseball.

(In Photo: Zach Nuding with the River Dogs)
My son, Chris, and I head to our seats just behind third .  Pitching prospect Zach Nuding is on the mound for the Thunder.  Nuding pitches well against the San Francisco Giants’ club, the Richmond Flying Squirrels.  Nuding gives up six hits in six innings and only allows one run for his opening day outing against Richmond.  He’s a big guy, with some bulk to him- 6’4” and 240 pounds.  I have to say he looks like a Joba Chamberlain who I also saw pitch in Trenton only about five years ago.  Nuding is taller than Chamberlain, but he has that look, the hungry for the majors’ look and that’s what we need in our future stars.

I also got a good look at catcher JR Murphy, outfielder Slade Heathcott and shortstop Walter Ibarra.  Ibarra made a crazy snatch at the deepest part of shortstop just shy of third base and hurled a strike to first base to nab the runner.  Awesome, play as one of the fans yelled, “Yeah, you are ready for the Bronx, kid!” 

It’s not baseball weather at ballpark tonight.  Anyone who’s been to a game in April at night knows that it’s not a picnic- it’s raw, windy and cold, but that’s baseball in April for ya!  Even though Nuding pitches a stellar game, the Thunder could not hold down the Flying Squirrels who picked away at the 5-1 lead to tie the game at the top of the 9th. 

As fans beg for a walk off in the bottom of the 9th, they would have to wait in the cold until the bottom of the 11th for a 6-5 win thanks to a tremendous triple by Slade Heathcott followed by a sacrifice fly to win the game.  That’s the first game in the books for 2013. 

Some takeaways from tonight’s game and win: starting the season with a walk off is a great sign of things to come.  I’m a little superstitious like that, in a good way and I like what I felt at the ballpark tonight in Trenton, NJ.   I felt passion.  The team has some heart and some talent in first baseman Kyle Roller up from Tampa, Heathcott, Nuding, and perhaps even the shortstop from Mexico Walter Ibarra.

Good things are in the making in Trenton folks and we already have many of their stars in our major league club in Derek Jeter, David Robertson, Robinson Cano, and Brett Gardner to name a few.  Let’s keep the momentum going and invest in our guys in the farm clubs.  The future is ours, if we take the time to grow the garden right now. 

--Suzie Pinstripe, BYB Opinion Columnist
Twitter: @suzieprof




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