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     Note to travelers:  You can absolutely get a good deal staying in Wilmington on any weekend!  I got a very, very posh hotel for very cheap on Priceline for my one night in Wilmington. And once there, I learned why.  Wilmington is a credit-card financial capital that is completely vacated for the entire weekend.  I'm not kidding:  the hotel restaurant even closes down because it's not financially sensible to run it.  Cabs are nearly impossible to come by (and the ones I found had drivers who were fast asleep and didn't wake up easily...not the kind of guy I want driving me someplace).  And when I headed down to the riverwalk, figuring that would be where the action is, I found no action:  I walked the riverwalk on an absolutely gorgeous Saturday afternoon almost completely alone.  Don't get me wrong; the city was just fine, but it was a little creepy--in an I Am Legend or This Quiet Earth kind of way--to walk around it on the weekend. 

    Not far off that little rock is Judy Johnson Field at Frawley Stadium.  I like my ballparks with a healthy side of local baseball history.  Pictures of long-ago local teams, notes about the best players to pass through the place--that's entirely my cup of tea.  Throw in a museum, and you've got a friend in me.  I have never seen a better museum at a minor league park than the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame, which is on the grounds of Frawley Stadium in Wilmington.

    I got the sense that there's not much traffic through the museum, but I actually appreciated that, since one of the curators gave me a highly personalized tour through the park.  He asked me where I was from, and when I told him Washington state, he immediately escorted me to the parts of the museum where Delaware's greats intersected with the Pacific Northwest.  He found out I was a basketball official, so he showed me a couple of big-time college referees from Delaware.  Of course, I was able to find people I'd kind of liked from the past, where I said "Wow!  I liked this person!"  Like Steve Watson, a Denver Bronco receiver I remember well from my Colorado youth.  Or Val Whiting, who played for the Seattle Reign, my loved-and-lost ABL women's hoops team.  It was a celebration of big fish who swam in the small pond of Delaware, and I got wonderfully personalized attention throughout.  Minor league ballparks should think small and celebrate local, and this one did--it even had a plaque to commemorate Bill McGowan, a local boy who made it big as an umpire.  It was a great place to go--the kind of place I could spend hour after hour at.  I'd like to give a special thanks to my guide.  Sorry I've forgotten your name.

    Needless to say, this put me in a tremendous mood even before the ballgame began.  And I guess it was the best possible night for history dorks, because I happened upon Wilmington on the day they celebrated another favorite Delaware son Judy Johnson.  Johnson was a noted Negro leaguer, and the Blue Rocks celebrate him by naming the field at Frawley Stadium Judy Johnson Field.  Judy Johnson day turned out to be a full-on celebration of Negro League history.  It ranged from the kitschy (there was a Judy Johnson bobblehead giveaway) to the more serious (a pre-game ceremony that featured Josh Gibson's grandson).  The whole thing simply felt right, and kudos to Blue Rocks' management for finding the right tone for the evening.

    All of this is enough for me, but the Blue Rocks have a good ballpark on top of everything else.  It's a little big for high single-A ball, but I can forgive that since they mostly fill it.  It's a little metallic, and the only real view is of I-95, but since I don't have much of a preconception of Delaware, I can let that go too.  I had fine seats just a few rows back from the field, just a shade to the first-base side of home plate.  And I made a new friend along the way.

    Russ joined me for this game.  He's the third person I've met as a result of my association with the Network of Ballpark Collectors, which is basically a loose confederation of nerds like me.  He drove the couple of hours in to meet me, and we sat back and talked about ballparks pretty much the whole night.  Russ also saved my bacon on this evening; I had left my camera back at the hotel, and while I took the above pictures with a disposable camera from the Blue Rocks' gift shop, he took a few good ones he kindly is letting me use:

                                Josh Gibson's Grandson.                                                                 The game under the lights.

Both photos by Russ Silverstine.  Used by permission.

    It's only appropriate, that, at the end of a fun, topsy-turvy game, it came down to a bottom-of-the-ninth single to win it for Wilmington.  The batter who delivered the hit:  Josh Johnson, an African-American kid--one of a dwindling few in baseball of late.  That little echo of history brought an end to a night where history, for me anyway, was celebrated throughout the ballpark and the museum.

    Judy Johnson Field at Frawley Stadium was a great place for a sports and history junkie like me.  I'd love to head back next time I'm headed up the East Coast.

BALLPARK SCORE:

BASEBALL STUFF I'VE SEEN HERE:

    A back-and-forth, wild affair.  Wilmington blew leads of 4-0 and 8-4 before coming back from a 9-8 deficit in the 9th to win it.

    Brian McFall and Jeremy Cleveland each bang out three hits for the Blue Rocks.  Angel Gonzalez and Jamie Romak respond in kind for the Hillcats.

    Russ and I grow fond of the Hillcats' leadoff hitter, Pedro Powell.  He is listed in the program as five-foot-seven, but we think they're giving him at least two inches.  He was a tiny little quick dude...fun to watch.

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Written April 2008.