The third and final game with Altoona Curve, which I understand is named after a rollercoaster but sounds like a pretty band name overall to me (It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue), was also the last week day-day game of not only the Rock Cats season but for the Rock Cats as a franchise at New Britain Stadium in general. They will be playing two more afternoon games on Sundays, but this was the last one on a week day that my son and I went to together, just the two of us. The Rock Cats had beaten the Curve in the first two games of this series so they were looking for the sweep but it was just not there for them today. They usually bring a lot of groups of kids out to these day games and though there were some there just were not as many as there have been at other day games with groups of kids.
This was one of those examples of the Rock Cats not being able to find their hitting but I was happy that it wasn't at least like the games they've lost to the B-Mets and Sea Wolves where they were giving up multiple home runs and just a lot of runs in general. At this game we also bought a small, replica of the New Britain Stadium (mainly because my son thought it was a cool toy) for $4, a full sized umbrella for $3.95 and as the deal of the day a Rocky as Elvis youth sized hat for $6, which my son did get signed by Rocky at this game. His other Rock Cats hat has so many signatures under the brim from Rocky and Rookie it's scary. After a bathroom trip while walking back up the steps, some other little kid- who was slightly older than Quentin- asked if we wanted a game used ball and when I asked Quentin he of course said yes. We had filled our quota (as far as I was concerned) with autographs for the Curve so we didn't really have any plans for anyone to sign before or after the game, but since we were given this game used ball I decided to stick around after the game anyway.
Those reading along from game to game know we have a few balls signed now but for individual players we have only a Ryan Carpenter ball and a Mike Tauchman ball. So I decided we would get this ball signed and create a Shane Carle ball. We also had Quentin take a picture with Shane Carle which was a lot of fun for Quentin. We didn't really get anyone else to sign anything though so we just mainly watched the players come out, Quentin gave them high fives and I talked with the other guys there waiting for autographs as well. There was also- for some reason- a lot of buzz going around at this game that David Wright would be doing a rehab stint when the B-Mets come to New Britain Stadium which was a little over a week away from this game. As I sit here typing this on the Thursday before the B-Mets series begins (So it starts tomorrow and yes it has taken me that long to type this up) there is still no definite word as far as I know but I will be attending all three games in the series with the B-Mets regardless.
It was certainly unfortunate for the Rock Cats to have lost this game. There was no reason why they shouldn't have swept the Curve, but regardless of the pitching by Matt Flemer (and he has pitched worse games than this one) the offense just wasn't there. I feel like a broken record at times typing that the Rock Cats couldn't string the hits together to turn them into runs and having that be under the pitching of Matt Flemer as well, but that's something which the Rock Cats really need to look at and not me. I'm also not sure whether more blame is to be placed on Matt Flemer or the offense, but that's not as important as the simple fact that there is room for improvement with both. Win or lose though, Quentin has had fun at all of these Rock Cats games we've been to this season. He has been known to say that he wants the Rock Cats to win and he's glad when they do, but it's not like he's upset when they lose-- he still has a lot of fun and that's really what this game is all about.
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| Carlos Estevez signing autographs for the kids. |
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| Our first time seeing Abel Baker as catcher. |
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