Recap: Missions home opener
By john • Apr 12th, 2007 • Category: minor leagues, wolff stadiumThursday night marked the first home game for the Missions in 2007. It also was the first “Dollar Night” which meant dollar hotdogs, pizza, coke and beers. The seats were packed as well as I can remember. We bought $5 lawn seats but as usual sat closer to the field. Sadly with a darkened sky there weren’t a great deal of photo opportunities.
On the mound for the Drillers was number two prospect Franklin Morales. Morales pitched well enough but was shouldered the loss after allowing two runs, one earned and four hits over 6 1/3 innings. In the third Morales committed a throwing error on a bunt by Missions pitcher Sean Thompson that allowed a run to score.
Thompson on the other hand allowed just two hits in his 7 innings of work and none of them came after a single by Aaron Rifkin in the second. He also struck out six and walked just one to pick up his second win of the season.
Twenty-three year old Neil Jamison picked up his third save of the season, all against Tulsa, by pitching a perfect ninth.
Aside from the well played game, the biggest thing was a remodeled Wolff Stadium. The team report spent $1.5 million dollars in upgrades. The most notable tonight was a remodeled scoreboard equipped with video that allowed replays to be shown. While the camera work could use a lot of help I must admit that the scoreboard didn’t look that bad, minus the junky structure holding it together still being part of the stadium. There was also fresh paint on most of the stadium.
On the bad side was parking was $5 but we were able to get in without paying. That’s quite a bit of change that adds up if you ask me.
In all I’d say it was one of the more pleasant nights at the park. The game still started about 10 minutes late but moved along quickly enough so we were able to see the whole game before we had to leave for work.
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