Expansion
by James on Apr.26, 2008, under Minor League Baseball
This is often a bad thing in sports since, though it brings new fans to new areas, it often dilutes talent. In my case, it’s a very good thing.
While most of the games I’ve shot featured affiliates of the Oakland A’s or San Francisco Giants, I’ve begun to branch out in covering other teams as well and I expect to continue that over the next month in particular. In this case, Lancaster is a High-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox while Modesto is with the Colorado Rockies.
This was another Wednesday morning game and it stayed overcast most of the way with brief periods of sunlight. While it makes for easier shooting in the sense that shadows aren’t as severe as they are on a cloudless day, I do have to shoot a little slower so things don’t come out too dark to clean up later.
John Thurman Field in Modesto is unique in the sense it’s right up against a golf course so there’s a high screen behind the home/third seating area to help keep balls from landing on the course, but a number go over anyway. It’s also got a very deep left-center field power alley: 393 feet. Dead center tops out at a more traditional 400, but it’s even easier to hit home runs than usual closer to the lines as the foul poles (fair poles to me) only reach between about 310-320 feet from the plate. The jump from 312 to 393 in left is very quick. The facility itself has seen various renovations over the past decade or so and it’s not bad for a site that first hosted baseball in 1955. Personally, I like the trees that are prevalent mainly beyond the right field wall.
Continuing my trend of low-scoring games this season (2-1 and 3-0 before this), Modesto pushed across single runs in the 6th, 7th and 8th innings to take a 3-0 victory over Lancaster. Australia’s Shane Lindsay went 6 innings for the win while Mike Paulk, Cole Garner and Daniel Mayora each picked up 2 hits apiece for the Nuts. One of Paulk’s was a triple.
