The Regina Red Sox beat the Medicine Hat Mavericks 12 to 9, with Zander Oudie-Senger as the winning pitcher, coming on in relief of Daniel Crabtree. Brady Bye was the consensus player of the game, going three for four with two home runs. He also got hit by a pitch, one of five such instances for the Red Sox. As far as my scoring shows, only one Maverick got hit. The beer batter was Josh Stark, who struck out once, walked three times, and singled once.
1. Before opening day, the Red Sox had sent out an email hyping up all the improvements at the field. I knew it wouldn’t be like walking into a new ballpark, but I was wondering if some of the smaller details would be wiped away. In practice, a lot of that stayed. They’re still playing “The Joker and the Thief,” still doing a speed run of classic closer songs before and during the last inning. They had the same Simpsons sound clips for the beer batter, and there was still a beer batter, and some people in the crowd still laughed when they heard Homer.
2. The video screen in left field is a work in progress. Not all the text was particularly legible, and it seems like there are some kinks to work out with what gets presented up here. I feel like I’m going to hear the words “scan the QR code” a lot more than I have in years past, even if I can’t scan the codes from my seat with the home plate netting in the way. It is nice to have visual confirmation that a pop fly to first was brought to me by Save-on-Foods.
3. Cocktails and the Mexican food truck have a nook along the third base line. We generally like Tropezon. We like the AI images of their meals on their menu board less. We did not test out Queen City Distillery’s cocktail menu, even if they offer all of them as mocktails and changing the listed paloma to a glass of grapefruit juice didn’t sound bad.
4. While we were grabbing food at the Tropezon truck, a kid in a Sox hat was bugging a Mavs coach, seemingly trying to bargain for future foul balls. That’s likely enough to recur that you could probably call that a feature of this section.
5. When we came in, we saw they had blocked off the area under the stands, which used to be open. In years past, kids would climb through all the metal bars, presumably avoiding falling sunflower seed shells. New ownership might have seen that as a nuisance or safety hazard. It didn’t take long, though, for someone to drop their phone, though, and without any access from the ground, adults had to try to squeeze underneath the seats to get in. By the end of the game, someone had brought out a drill to remove a panel for access.
6. If I had to put money down, I don’t think the mini truck races are coming back. They used to have a pair of kids race in small, electric cars between innings. They weren’t exciting contests, even by the standards of racing children. Routinely, the lightest child would win, and sometimes one of the cars would fail to move at all without an adult pushing to get them started. We’ve moved on to costume and potato sack races, which at least feel fairer.
7. A woman behind me was following baseball bingo in the programme, marking off plays as they happened. Her question about whether a hit by pitch is also a wild pitch is one you could consider. If not for there being rulebook definitions of each, it would seem to be a Venn diagram situation — not all wild pitches are HBPs, but most HBPs are wild pitches. But then we could start reading intentions into it and it gets complicated.
8. There are a lot of factors working against WCBL teams working as a unit. The season is short. They get together and have to start playing right away. New players are still coming in as the season starts and players sometimes leave before the season is over. The batting order in this game also only had two returning faces from last year, and one was in a different position, with Bye now playing third instead of catcher. Those difficult circumstances were felt on occasion in this game. There were a couple of blown pickoffs to first, a fumbled grounder to short, and, most notably, a failed toss from the catcher back to the pitcher.
9. The Mavericks had two of the Vulcano brothers back from previous years in the lineup for this game. Unfortunately, Johnny fouled a ball off his knee hard enough that he couldn’t see his at bat through.
10. In the fourth, there was an impressive sequence of events with Sox outfield Alex Roux at second and playoff MVP Bye at first. On one pitch, Roux stole third, while Bye stayed at first. On the next pitch, Bye tried to steal second, only for the batter to foul the ball off. By the third pitch, Bye had finally stolen second. After that, the pitcher balked in Roux, making that the first Red Sox run at home this season.
11. It was a windy day, knocking around pop flies and pushing everything out towards right field. That and the famously short fence in right field no doubt helped the Sox come back from a large deficit. Justin Simard, who was also picking at second base, hit a grand slam, followed by a two-run home run by Bye and a second of the same from Bye later in the game. There isn’t a score that you could feel secure with in this league.
12. Rehearsals are needed for the seventh inning stretch. Rehearsals and an explanation. The singing on mic was completely misaligned with the music, but that was hard to process as, on the video screen, there was pre-recorded footage of Slyder, the Red Sox mascot, alongside a second, unidentified mascot, also in a Sox jersey. Trying to figure out who this purple monster was while going through an audio assault was disorienting. If you’re going to toss a new mascot into the mix, you gotta do an introduction.
13. My most chaotic scoring was for Sox DH Ty Martinez in the seventh inning. He singled to the third baseman to get on then advanced to second on a single from catcher Rhett Hodgins. He moved to third on a third single, this one from shortshop Mason Canter. His little square in my scorebook was already getting full when I then had to mark an out for a 3-2-3 double play to force Martinez at the plate and Simard at first. The woman behind me had been looking for a double play for baseball bingo. I hope she caught it.