Baseball Roundtable, reporting again from Bleacher Bums XL … The Tulsa Culture Tour, which began on June 16. The trip will ultimately take our busload of 32 baseball fans and friends to six ball games (major- and minor-leagues), in five cities, in four states in eight days. Along the way, we’re taking in a number of cultural/historical sights, visiting a few breweries and enjoying the camaraderie of fellow baseball fans and friends. Over the next few days, I will continue to blog from the trip to give you an idea of what a Ballpark Tours trip is like. This post looks at Day Five. For Episode One of our journey, click here. For Episode Two, click here.
Day Five – June 20
Here in Tulsa, we continue to hear about the aftermath of the weekend storms – businesses and homes without power; lots of stoplights not operating; cooling stations set up in public buildings and businesses that have power (and, therefore air conditioning) as temperatures near 100 degrees are forecast; free ice pickup stations; many gas stations closed or running out of fuel. Fortunately. our hotel (Holiday Inn Express and Suites, Greenwood) has power.
Speaking (writing, actually) of the hotel. Another solid choice by the tourmaster. We’re located in the historic Greenwood District, just one block from the ballpark and easy walking distance to a host of museums, historic sites and monuments, specialty shops, bars and eateries – and, of course, there is that free Holiday Inn breakfast. Side note: A significant number of the local establishments are closed due to storm-related power outages.
This morning, our group visited the Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan Centers – just two or three blocks from the hotel. Kudos again to the tourmaster, who got the museums (scheduled to be closed) to open especially for our group.
The tours featured great stories and history, great film/video; and great music. At the Guthrie Center, our tour guide was the very animated “Sam.” I’d guess he was a theater (or theatre for hoi polloi) major. Before you complain about the missing “the,” in the Greek hoi polloi, hoi is “the.” Sam really brought the Woody Guthrie story to life – in a very touching presentation. (During his presentation, I think same patted, shook the hand of or hugged nearly every member of our group.
If you read Episode Two, you know we found the perfect Man Cave chandelier in the Bricktown Brewery. Well, we found another unique chandelier, see photo below, at the Woody Guthrie Center.
People went a variety of directions for lunch/early dinner. Red Light Chicken seemed a popular choice, with its southern fried chicken, catfish, shrimp and more. I opted for the JINYA Ramen Bar and Spicy Shrimp Wonton Ramen (backed by a Pinot Noir). I was not disappointed.
ONEOK Field proved to be a beautiful ballpark, with plenty to see – the Jackie Robinson mural in left field, the flaming oil derrick at the right field entrance and, of course, for our group, the Busch Scoreboard Bar – the largest outdoor bar in Oklahoma. One of the first things we noticed is that this was the first ballpark on our trip with no metal detectors at the gates.
As usual, great seats – along the first base line, which were fortunately in the shade. It was a blistering hot day in Tulsa – even at our 7:05 p.m. game time.
Maybe it was the heat, or the small crowd or the quality of Double-A ball, but this matchup between the NW Arkansas Naturals and hometown Tulsa Drillers seemed to drag on a bit. It also could have been the 12 walks (six by each team). Although, we should have seen that coming. Each starting pitcher walked the first two batters they faced. In poker that would be a “tell.”
Adult beverages at Oklahoma’s largest outdoor bar.
The big blows in the 6-2 Naturals’ win were a two-run home run by DH and cleanup hitter Jorge Bonifacio (his fifteenth of the season) in the first inning and a three-run shot by number-five hitter – C Luca Tresh – in the fourth (his seventh long ball of the year). Those blasts gave the Naturals a 5-1 lead in the fourth and they coasted home to a win.
ONEOK Field’s Jacdkie Robinson mural.
Drillers starting pitcher Ben Casparius did seem to get a little fired up after giving up three-run homer in the top of the fourth. After starting the inning single-walk-home run, he fanned the next three batters. Casparius was promoted from High -A (where he was 4-0, 2.68 in eight starts) in late May. He is currently 0-2, 4.91 at Double-A.
Parking was apparently hard to come by near the ballpark … or maybe it was the tornadoes.
A few additional notes:
- While it was Double-A ball, the Drillers offer a major-league program/scorecard. Small game-day magazine-style, listing all the players and numbers, short bios on the Drillers, info on all the teams in the Texas League and more. For free.
- Happy Hour for one hour before the game – reduced prices on domestic beers and High Noon hard seltzers.
- Value-priced tickets $8.19 for good seats.
- The Drillers go with blue jerseys – and the vanilla soft serve ice cream is colored blue.
- The bacon-flavored popcorn got good reviews.
- We did see most of the ant1cipated game action; 12 hits (three home runs); 12 walks; 20 strikeouts; a pick-off; a 4-6-3 double play; two stolen bases; and seven pitching changes.
More to come from the road as our trip winds down. Two games to go.
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