SideshowBob
<font color=green>Oil Can aficionado<br><font colo
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2001
Sad, sad, sad... no more professional baseball in Orlando.
Check closely, and you might notice some quotes by a DIS'er...
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/spor...p02,0,5248753.story?coll=orl-sports-headlines
The final inning
By David Whitley
Sentinel Staff Writer
September 2, 2003
LAKE BUENA VISTA -- They came to say goodbye Monday. But after more than 80 years in Orlando, it was as if baseball did not want to let go.
One extra inning, two extra innings, three extra innings. By the time Terry Shumpert made it to the plate in the bottom of the 12th, the stands were emptying and thunderclouds were rumbling.
It wasn't quite The Natural, where lightning struck and sparks flew as Robert Redford hit a home run. But with two outs, two strikes and two men on, Shumpert singled to left field to give Orlando a 2-1 win over Carolina.
In one quick stroke, professional baseball ended in Orlando.
"Wow, that's something," Shumpert said. "Everything in baseball means something."
Now Orlando is left to figure out just what having no minor-league baseball means. The Orlando Rays are becoming the Montgomery Biscuits next year, and there are no replacements in sight.
When it comes to America's pastime, the City Beautiful is now the City Invisible. It was easy to get misty about it Monday, as fans remembered players and games dating back to 1919.
Well, nobody remembered that far back. Except for a couple of brief blips on the calendar, that's how long Orlando has had a team to call its own.
Baseball really was king for most of those decades. A farm system wasn't just a place to grow prospects. The sport cultivated fans, as fathers and sons spent summer nights watching some hotshot on his way to the big leagues.
Throw in peanuts, Cracker Jacks and Mighty Casey and you had a Norman Rockwell palette. Only the colors never truly adhered to Orlando.
"It baffled me when I got here," said Randall Dobson.
He moved to Orlando seven years ago from Chicago, and immediately started going to games at Tinker Field. He named his son Branch, after Branch Rickey, and remembers talking about that once with a young Orlando fireballer named Kerry Wood.
You can do those kinds of things over a chain-link fence in the minors. Especially at places like Tinker, where the girders creaked, the bleachers gave you splinters and it seemed at any moment Shoeless Joe Jackson would appear out of a cornfield.
That may have sounded romantic, but a player can only take so many cold showers. When the Devil Rays couldn't get anyone to fix up Tinker Field, they moved their Class AA affiliate to Disney's Wide World of Sports in 1999.
Norman Rockwell, meet Buzz Lightyear.
"There is a different kind of aura," Dobson said.
Fans generally liked the comfy seating, the acres of parking, the clean, bright and antiseptic park. The big complaint was it would have taken 30 minutes on the bullet train to get there. And there was no bullet train.
The 9,500-seat stadium is often packed for Atlanta Braves spring training games. But once the major leaguers left and the scalding sun moved in, only true baseball believers usually showed. The Rays were Orlando's by name, but not by psyche.
They averaged about 2,000 fans this season, which was near the bottom of the Southern League. There were big nights, like the 9,186 who showed up this past Saturday for a big farewell party. There were also crowds of 484, 390 and 291 this year.
If the great Mouse can't make minor-league baseball work around here, who can? A couple of groups are interested in bringing a team back to Tinker Field, but that at least is one major refurbishment and a couple of years away.
There is no guarantee Orlando will ever get another baseball team, making it the probably the largest city in America without one. And to think it was just more than a decade ago the city was hot for a major league expansion team.
Those went to Tampa Bay and Miami, where they have all but died of neglect. Maybe Orlando is just ahead of baseball's declining curve. Just don't tell that to Nicholas Roberts.
Decked out in his O-Rays gear Monday, he was just the kind of person Bud Selig would love to clone. Nick is 8 years old and wore his uniform to more games than he could remember.
"At least 60," he said.
What's he going to do next summer?
Nick put hands over the bill of his cap and sighed.
"I don't know," he said.
Neither do the Tumels. The 60ish couple sat by the O-Rays dugout one last time Monday. They couldn't count how many times they'd been there, but Helen knows she has a collection of 150 foul balls at home.
All those games turned into a happy blur long ago, but there was nothing routine about Monday's doubleheader. That's why Dobson had his son Branch and 8-year-old daughter Rebecca in tow.
It was one last chance to do what his father had done with him. Take the family to a ballgame and get change back from your $20. The Dobsons love baseball so much, they add a kicker to the prayers they say before bed every night.
"What is it, Rebecca?" the father implored.
She just shyly shook her head and stuck her fingers in a box of quickly melting Junior Mints. Her dad said they thank God, "That we're baseball fans for life."
Amen to that, the couple hundred people who were left by the ninth inning would have said.
Doubleheader games are seven innings, but Monday's finale reminded everyone how timeless baseball can be. That presented a problem at the lone concession stand.
The beer was running out. You could tell when the taps started spewing foam. But concession managers did not want to tap a fresh keg, since there truly was no tomorrow.
"If they open it, they can't return it and get credit," vendor Leo Pacil said.
Disney had marked O-Rays T-shirts from $19 down to $9.50, but there was no need for a going out of business sale on suds. Then there were the smoky gray clouds building in the distance, the occasional crackle of lightning and gust of cooler air.
If there is a baseball god, it seemed he was shaking his fist at the elements and saying he wasn't going until he was ready. The rough math indicated it was probably the last of about 5,000 minor-league games since 1919.
That's about 275,000 outs. A million pitches. Two million swings.
Countless memories.
"I wish they wouldn't go," Helen Tumel said. "I wish they would change their mind."
It's too late for that. There just weren't enough Helen Tumels or Randall Dobsons or Nicholas Roberts out there.
Maybe in a few years, somebody will again believe there are. If not, remember the name Terry Shumpert.
The 37-year-old was sent down from Tampa Bay to get sharp again after injuring his hamstring. He'd hit the first home run into the new bleachers above the Fenway Park scoreboard earlier this year. He hit the last anything for Orlando on Monday.
And to think he was guessing fastball.
"It was a slider," Shumpert said. "It fooled me."
Not enough. As Danny Massiatte crossed the plate, 84 years of baseball ended.
The final hit went to Shumpert. The final beer went to Robert Hewston, who got his just before the taps went dry.
Like Shumpert, he did not at first realize his contribution to Orlando baseball history.
"Wow," he said.
"I'd better not say how many I had today."
With that, he raised his glass toward to the diamond as the O-Rays celebrated at home plate. It was a silent final toast, a la Casey at the Bat.
Somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout,
But there is no joy in Orlando --
Mighty baseball has struck out.
David Whitley can be reached at dwhitley@orlandosentinel.com.
Copyright © 2003, Orlando Sentinel
Check closely, and you might notice some quotes by a DIS'er...
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/spor...p02,0,5248753.story?coll=orl-sports-headlines
The final inning
By David Whitley
Sentinel Staff Writer
September 2, 2003
LAKE BUENA VISTA -- They came to say goodbye Monday. But after more than 80 years in Orlando, it was as if baseball did not want to let go.
One extra inning, two extra innings, three extra innings. By the time Terry Shumpert made it to the plate in the bottom of the 12th, the stands were emptying and thunderclouds were rumbling.
It wasn't quite The Natural, where lightning struck and sparks flew as Robert Redford hit a home run. But with two outs, two strikes and two men on, Shumpert singled to left field to give Orlando a 2-1 win over Carolina.
In one quick stroke, professional baseball ended in Orlando.
"Wow, that's something," Shumpert said. "Everything in baseball means something."
Now Orlando is left to figure out just what having no minor-league baseball means. The Orlando Rays are becoming the Montgomery Biscuits next year, and there are no replacements in sight.
When it comes to America's pastime, the City Beautiful is now the City Invisible. It was easy to get misty about it Monday, as fans remembered players and games dating back to 1919.
Well, nobody remembered that far back. Except for a couple of brief blips on the calendar, that's how long Orlando has had a team to call its own.
Baseball really was king for most of those decades. A farm system wasn't just a place to grow prospects. The sport cultivated fans, as fathers and sons spent summer nights watching some hotshot on his way to the big leagues.
Throw in peanuts, Cracker Jacks and Mighty Casey and you had a Norman Rockwell palette. Only the colors never truly adhered to Orlando.
"It baffled me when I got here," said Randall Dobson.
He moved to Orlando seven years ago from Chicago, and immediately started going to games at Tinker Field. He named his son Branch, after Branch Rickey, and remembers talking about that once with a young Orlando fireballer named Kerry Wood.
You can do those kinds of things over a chain-link fence in the minors. Especially at places like Tinker, where the girders creaked, the bleachers gave you splinters and it seemed at any moment Shoeless Joe Jackson would appear out of a cornfield.
That may have sounded romantic, but a player can only take so many cold showers. When the Devil Rays couldn't get anyone to fix up Tinker Field, they moved their Class AA affiliate to Disney's Wide World of Sports in 1999.
Norman Rockwell, meet Buzz Lightyear.
"There is a different kind of aura," Dobson said.
Fans generally liked the comfy seating, the acres of parking, the clean, bright and antiseptic park. The big complaint was it would have taken 30 minutes on the bullet train to get there. And there was no bullet train.
The 9,500-seat stadium is often packed for Atlanta Braves spring training games. But once the major leaguers left and the scalding sun moved in, only true baseball believers usually showed. The Rays were Orlando's by name, but not by psyche.
They averaged about 2,000 fans this season, which was near the bottom of the Southern League. There were big nights, like the 9,186 who showed up this past Saturday for a big farewell party. There were also crowds of 484, 390 and 291 this year.
If the great Mouse can't make minor-league baseball work around here, who can? A couple of groups are interested in bringing a team back to Tinker Field, but that at least is one major refurbishment and a couple of years away.
There is no guarantee Orlando will ever get another baseball team, making it the probably the largest city in America without one. And to think it was just more than a decade ago the city was hot for a major league expansion team.
Those went to Tampa Bay and Miami, where they have all but died of neglect. Maybe Orlando is just ahead of baseball's declining curve. Just don't tell that to Nicholas Roberts.
Decked out in his O-Rays gear Monday, he was just the kind of person Bud Selig would love to clone. Nick is 8 years old and wore his uniform to more games than he could remember.
"At least 60," he said.
What's he going to do next summer?
Nick put hands over the bill of his cap and sighed.
"I don't know," he said.
Neither do the Tumels. The 60ish couple sat by the O-Rays dugout one last time Monday. They couldn't count how many times they'd been there, but Helen knows she has a collection of 150 foul balls at home.
All those games turned into a happy blur long ago, but there was nothing routine about Monday's doubleheader. That's why Dobson had his son Branch and 8-year-old daughter Rebecca in tow.
It was one last chance to do what his father had done with him. Take the family to a ballgame and get change back from your $20. The Dobsons love baseball so much, they add a kicker to the prayers they say before bed every night.
"What is it, Rebecca?" the father implored.
She just shyly shook her head and stuck her fingers in a box of quickly melting Junior Mints. Her dad said they thank God, "That we're baseball fans for life."
Amen to that, the couple hundred people who were left by the ninth inning would have said.
Doubleheader games are seven innings, but Monday's finale reminded everyone how timeless baseball can be. That presented a problem at the lone concession stand.
The beer was running out. You could tell when the taps started spewing foam. But concession managers did not want to tap a fresh keg, since there truly was no tomorrow.
"If they open it, they can't return it and get credit," vendor Leo Pacil said.
Disney had marked O-Rays T-shirts from $19 down to $9.50, but there was no need for a going out of business sale on suds. Then there were the smoky gray clouds building in the distance, the occasional crackle of lightning and gust of cooler air.
If there is a baseball god, it seemed he was shaking his fist at the elements and saying he wasn't going until he was ready. The rough math indicated it was probably the last of about 5,000 minor-league games since 1919.
That's about 275,000 outs. A million pitches. Two million swings.
Countless memories.
"I wish they wouldn't go," Helen Tumel said. "I wish they would change their mind."
It's too late for that. There just weren't enough Helen Tumels or Randall Dobsons or Nicholas Roberts out there.
Maybe in a few years, somebody will again believe there are. If not, remember the name Terry Shumpert.
The 37-year-old was sent down from Tampa Bay to get sharp again after injuring his hamstring. He'd hit the first home run into the new bleachers above the Fenway Park scoreboard earlier this year. He hit the last anything for Orlando on Monday.
And to think he was guessing fastball.
"It was a slider," Shumpert said. "It fooled me."
Not enough. As Danny Massiatte crossed the plate, 84 years of baseball ended.
The final hit went to Shumpert. The final beer went to Robert Hewston, who got his just before the taps went dry.
Like Shumpert, he did not at first realize his contribution to Orlando baseball history.
"Wow," he said.
"I'd better not say how many I had today."
With that, he raised his glass toward to the diamond as the O-Rays celebrated at home plate. It was a silent final toast, a la Casey at the Bat.
Somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout,
But there is no joy in Orlando --
Mighty baseball has struck out.
David Whitley can be reached at dwhitley@orlandosentinel.com.
Copyright © 2003, Orlando Sentinel
