Yesterday was beautiful to look at, with clear, blue skies and enough bright sun to warm your skin – so long as the wind did not blow. But blow it did, pretty much all day, the swirling remnants of a nor’easter that spent the weekend felling trees and waylaying the east coast’s power grid. It was a hand numbing wind that carried a chill several layers deep; I felt fortunate to find a long-sleeve shirt in my back seat, adding another layer to the t-shirt and light jacket I wore to Schuerholz Park. I was there to watch my first Towson Tigers baseball game and to meet head coach Matt Tyner.
I have to admit I was rather surprised when Coach Tyner reached out to me. I had started writing about Towson baseball on a whim (and a slight nudge from Tim Huwe of thezygote50.com) and it had only been a couple of weeks. I did notice that a few players had started following me on Twitter, and then the coach had as well, but I wasn’t expecting this.
“We would love to have you at a game. In fact I would like to give you an all access pass. Contact me personally if this is something you’d like to explore.”
I immediately donned my sable fedora and responded. A few emails later and here I was, standing at the bottom of the bleacher section of Schuerholz Park and shaking hands with the head coach.
Matt Tyner, at least by my first impression, is a coach through and through, but as we walked into the press box to escape the cold, it became clear he has more than just coaching on his mind. Towson is a program near the ground floor that needs to be rebuilt, a project that is clearly already underway. There are new batting cages down the left field foul line and the coach spoke of more improvements to the facilities already planned. For this, they will need funding, but there is one advantage that immediately stood out to me – location.
Schuerholz Park sits literally at the bridge between Towson University’s residential and academic sides, and the brick walkway overlooking the stadium from the left field side gives the whole park a striking appearance. Down the right field line is a hill that, even on a chilly March day, had a number of people sitting at the top. On a warmer day, it was easy to envision it covered with families and students sitting on blankets.
These shots don’t do it justice, I’ll try to get better ones next time.
The idea of making Towson baseball a family friendly environment was something Tyner mentioned several times. It’s clear he has a vision for this program. When I mentioned growing up as an LSU fan, his eyes lit up and he told me that he had played for Skip Bertman at the University of Miami and had kept in touch with him over the years. He told me of walking through Alex Box Stadium and the feeling of seeing so much history and success in one facility. He wants his players to have that experience. He wants this to be a destination, for fans, athletes, and the community.
After we talked for a bit, I don’t think it was more than 20-25 minutes, the coach and his staff left to prepare their team for the game and I was left to my own devices, with full rein of the stadium, press box, and dugout. After jotting some notes down, I immediately grabbed my camera and went down to the field. Most of the players were warming up, but there was plenty of activity all around. One player raked the pitcher’s mound. A coach and another player attempted to start the heater in the dugout. Michael Adams, the starting pitcher for the day’s game, warmed up in the bullpen. I did my best to stay out of the way and document as much as I could.
I was told that I was welcome to spend the entire game in the dugout, but I elected to head up to the bleachers before the start of the first inning. The cold made it an easy decision, as the dugout was covered in shadow, but for this first game I also wanted to soak in as much of the experience and sunshine as possible. For future games, especially once I get to meet a few players and not feel like such a sore thumb, I look forward to doing some embedded reporting.
I think it was the right choice. I would guess there were forty to fifty people in the stands, plus another thirty or so lining the top of the hill down the right field foul line, and it was a knowledgeable crowd – if you’re at a game on a day like that, you probably love baseball. Between encouraging the players and cheering (or jeering) plays, I heard lots discussion of the current team’s prospects for the season. The consensus was that the team is pressing. A group of students behind me discussed some local high school players and their favorite pros. The umpire heckling was on point. On one play, Towson’s catcher appeared to clearly pick a runner off first – he was halfway to the dugout before he realized the call was safe. Coach Tyner came out to argue and, as he strode towards first base, the home plate umpire started brushing the dirt off the corners of the dish. “Hey!” came a call from the stands, “Why don’t you dust off first so that guy can see it!”
The people who run the Tiger’s PA are clearly into it as well. Between a decent selection of hip-hop and rock songs, samples from the Simpson’s skewered every strikeout and error made by the visiting team. Even if some of the stuff veered towards cheesy, it all contributed to the atmosphere. The day may have been cold, and the home team may have been struggling, but it was still a day at the ballpark. It was fun. I recalled what the coach had told me earlier. “This is baseball in it’s purest form.”
I’ll go into the game itself more when I recap the Tiger’s weekend, but it was a thrilling, walk-off victory for the home team. Standing in the bleachers, watching the players celebrate on the field, it was hard not to feel like this was the start of something, maybe even something a little special, for this team and this program. And to make it a little personal, a month ago I never expected to be here, getting ready to attend games, to meet and talk to the players, to get to know a college baseball program from the inside out. It is an opportunity to be around a game that I love in a way that I never really imagined.
It’s going to be a fun spring.
