my trip to kane county

Living as an NRAF in Chicago usually means very little exposure to A's baseball (except when you go to the game at US Cellular and Colby Lewis gives up 10 runs). So, to get my fix, I rented a car this last weekend and my girlfriend and I drove deep into the western suburbs to check out the Kane County Cougars, Oakland's low-A affiliate team in the Midwest League.

It pretty much rained all weekend, so we were worried that the game might be canceled. Fortunately, the rain turned to drizzle just as we arrived and pretty soon the grounds crew was pulling the tarps off the field.

I guessed correctly that the game would not be sold out, but I was still pleasantly surprised that our tickets, bought at the gate for $12 each, were in the second row, directly behind home plate (see the light blue rain jacket at the bottom of the above photograph).

During the game, we chatted with a married couple who were sitting in front of us. They are season ticket holders with the Cougars. Also, since their seven kids have all grown up and moved out, they put up some of the baseball players (5 at a time!) in their house. After I told them that I was an A's fan, they mentioned that previous boarders at their house include Joe Blanton, Huston Street, and Travis Buck (share your slumber party fantasies in the comments). I bit my tongue and held back from asking about the grocery bills back when Kentucky Joe was their guest.

There were lots of pre-game activities involving boy scout troops, sky divers, and some little leaguers throwing out the first pitch. Also we were introduced to Ozzie Cougar, the team mascot. Could he have been named as a jab at a certain somewhat controversial figure in Chicago baseball?

The game was against the Beloit Snappers, who are a Minnesota affiliate. They are also a couple games up on us in the standings.

Henry Rodriguez was the starting pitcher for the Cougars and he was dealing. He struck out 5 of the first 6 batters he faced, mostly just blowing fastballs right by people. The stadium radar wasn't working, but scouting reports say that Rodriguez can get up near 100 and it showed. The fastball seemed pretty straight, but low-A batters still couldn't touch it. Of course, he is an Oakland organization pitcher, so, in the sixth inning he tried to barehand a bouncer hit back to the mound. His hand was clearly in some pain, so the trainers came out but Henry stayed in the game. He also lost all command at this point, throwing a couple of wild pitches (and several others that the catcher barely caught). Two batters later, he left the game, with a final line of 5.1 IP, 2 H, 2 R (0 ER), with 8 K and 2 BB.

The game went into the 11th, thanks to some nice relief pitching from Nick Walters, a side-arming lefty (see picture above) and a 2-run HR from Alex Valdez.

The Cougars won it in the bottom of the 11th. Jermaine Mitchell hit what really looked like a walk-off home run to lead off the inning, but the home plate umpire ruled it a ground-rule double, for some reason (the second base umpire called it a HR). After a failed sac bunt (the second bunt pop out of the game for the Cougars!), Michael Massaro drew a walk and he and Mitchell executed a double steal. Josh Horton was intentially walked to load the bases and Greg Dowling drew the walk-off walk on a 3-2 count!

Some hilarity occurred in the 10th inning. After two bad calls at first base against the Cougars (the first one was a Cougars hitter who got tagged out after running through first base because he looked like he maybe made a little turn towards second; I forget what the second one was), the Cougars manager came running out of the dugout. He proceeded to kick dirt all over first base and then pulled the bag up out of the ground to wave it around in front of the ump. Naturally he got kicked out of the game.

I was also happy to see the how aggressive the Cougars were on the basepaths. Jermaine Mitchell, in particular, is very fast. He turned a single into a double early in the game and stole third as part of a double steal in the 11th. In general, there was a lot of going from first to third on singles. I'll just try to forget about the two popped-up sac bunt attempts.

Finally, if anyone decides to go out and catch some Cougar baseball, definitely go to nearby St. Charles and check out the really cool looking Municipal Building (above). Or you can take a similarly short jaunt to see the highest energy particles on earth! (at least until LHC comes fully online)