On Opening Night this past Friday, it was “standing room only” in a packed, and I mean packed, pressbox as the Bisons opened their home season. By Saturday and today, things had settled down to the regulars… On the media side, Mike Harrington from the Buffalo News, Jon Splett from here at WNY Media, Dave Ricci and Mike Haim from Metro Source. In the upper tier… Kevin Lester the official scorer, Jon Dare doing the gamecast on milb.com and PR Director Brad Bisbing.

So as the game wears on, and todays was almost a three hour affair, the discussion in the box usually evolves into other things baseball and other stuff going on around the sports world. Today’s highlights…

–The Yankees have located and unearthed the Red Sox jersey encased in concrete in the new Yankee Stadium. It had been buried there by a construction worker and admitted Sox fan. Criminal charges might be filed against the renegade employee. The jersey will be auctioned and proceeds go to the Jimmy Fund.

–The Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs are now 0-11 to start the season. Mike Harrington couldn’t be happier. The organization has made a real mess of things since moving the team from Ottawa after last season. Mike H says an 0-20 start would be a real lesson in humility.

–So when’s a no-hitter NOT a no-hitter. My partner Pete is still yearning to see his first no-no live, and in pressbox tradition, once both teams on the field record their first hits of the day the “see ‘ya tomorrow Farrell” refrain gets called out. So… Brian Slocum pitched five hitless innings for the Herd on Saturday before being pulled, since he was on a strict pitch limit. I’m texting Pete, who was working yesterday, letting him know that the Bisons are 4 innings away and he’s not in the building, at which point the posse chimes in. NO! Slocum is out and so is the no hitter. I argue back… but what about a combined no hitter by the Bisons pitching staff? “Doesn’t count” is the reply.

So I checked the IL information book, which we received with our media pack on Opening Night… the last IL no hitter was by Scranton/WB’s Jeremy Cummings on 9/3/06… Before that, Jason Hammel AND Juan Salas of the Durham Bulls no-hit Columbus on 7/16/06. How ’bout that!

I didn’t touch this one with a ten foot pole today. I will let Pete argue his case with the posse at his next ball game.

–Toreyisms… Win or lose, Manager Torey Lovullo always throws out positives, happy thoughts and sprinkles fairy dust in the air in his postgame comments. Today was no exception, after a 6-4 loss to Toledo, and now the Bisons have lost 5 of their last 6. Said Lovullo “All in all I’m pleased. We just need a break to go our way. We need to get the ball rolling on our side.” Funny thing is… Dave R and Mike H are wizards at nailing just what Torey is going to say before he says it. Today was no exception.

–Someone brought up the topic of serving beer in the pressbox. I think Jon S jumped on that idea (gee how shocking!) At that point I brought up that there was one location in our USRT travels where indeed a beer tap was available to the media in a working press situation: it was Ho-Ho-Kam Park, the spring training home of the Chicago Cubs in Mesa Arizona, and yes, all you can drink draft beer was available in the media room, free of charge. “I’ll see what I can do about that here” quipped Brad B, rolling his eyes the whole time. Yeah I won’t hold my breath for that anytime soon, but a dessert tray would be nice (So where has Judy Kelly, wife of alternate Official Scorer Mike Kelly, been anyway? She frequently brought in fresh baked chocolate chip cookies last season.)

–Down in the clubhouse, Mike Haim pointed out that Torey Lovullo was wearing some sort of device that is purportedly recording his own press conferences. Perhaps to better improve his own speaking skills, we wondered? We’ll be paying closer attention to that one to be sure.

Just three home games into the year and already having a blast. Doing the media thing at Bisons games is an awesome environment… great camaraderie among the media folk and the team staff. It’s gonna be a fun summer for sure!

RSS 2.0 Respond Trackback