For no particular reason, I decided to go to a baseball game in York today. I’d just been to a game in Aberdeen last week, it wasn’t like I needed to go, a game in York was my best option (and despite its closeness it’s also sort of my last choice), and I couldn’t say I cared one way or the other for their baseball hat giveaway…
But an afternoon with baseball is better than an afternoon without, so I bought a ticket online — the War of the Roses, the York Revolution and the Lancaster Barnstormers!
It was also, though the hat giveaway was unrelated, Harry Potter Day at the ballpark.
When I arrived at Peoples Bank Park, about ten minutes before the gates opened, the crowd was already decently sized. There was some trouble scanning my ticket on my phone due, I think, to the brightness of the sun and the reflectivity of my screen, but that got sorted. And I did get the free Revs hat.
Pre-game, a helicopter flew overhead and landed in the stadium. It carried a girl who had completed a local library reading challenge, and after the game (though I didn’t stay for this), the helicopter would do a candy drop for children onto the field.
This was followed by a parade of children around the ballpark who had also completed the challenge as well as a local little league team from New Oxford, I think.
Sparse crowd on a Sunday. It wouldn’t really get better.
Surprising even myself, I put on the Revs hat.
I did not keep the hat. Three guys sat behind me, shortly after the game started. They were on a baseball road trip — after this game they were driving up to Altoona to see an Altoona Curve game — and they were disappointed that they arrived too late to get the hats. When the left mid-game to make the Altoona game, I gave them the hat.
Of the game, there’s very little to say.
The Revs were terrible. The Barnstormers scored at will, early and often, and York dug themselves a deep hole.
In the late innings, the Revs clawed away at the Barnstormers’ lead. The Barnstormers brought in Bryan Harper, the brother of Bryce Harper, to pitch. (Last summer, I bought a piece of artwork done by Bryan Harper. It hangs in my office at work.) I was excited to see Harper pitch.
York’s late comeback fell short.
I don’t know what I expected from Harry Potter Day, but I expected something more than playing John Williams’ music on the PA system, some graphics on the video board, the on-field host dressing up in robes and, later, as Willy Wonka, and a costume contest with two or three kids.
It wasn’t a bad outing. The afternoon was pleasant, even if the baseball was not, and the growing storm clouds held off until the game was done.