CAROLINA BASEBALL: GAME 3
Charlotte Knights
After a morning stop at the Levine Museum of the new South, it’s on to Truist Field in Uptown Charlotte, North Carolina, to see the Charlotte Knights -- the Triple-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox -- and to admire one of the finest views in Minor League baseball. The Knights’ opponent on this afternoon: the world-famous Durham Bulls!
Levine Museum
Not many people two-city, day-night doubleheader day by going to a museum, but Dad and I are both those people. So in the morning, we stopped in at the Levine Museum of the New South, an attractive museum with exhibits on post-Civil War Southern history.Traffic cones have become a symbol of the Queen City, inspiring the Charlotte Knights to appear earlier in the season as the Charlotte Traffic Cones.
Truist Field
Next we headed to Truist Field, home of the Charlotte Knights, the Triple-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. Before the ballpark opened in 2014, Knights fans had to travel 30 minutes south to see their team, across the state line in Fort Mill, South Carolina. This led to the worst attendance figures in the Triple-A International League. It took decades for the new stadium to gain approvals, but the result is one of the most spectacular ballpark views in baseball, with the gleaming towers of Uptown Charlotte dominating the view over right and center field.Acting!
Dad had settled on a routine for our entry to the ballparks: He would go straight for the team shop to secure a logo baseball and would consider a new hat. This time, he chose an alternate hat the Knights wear when they appear as the Charlotte Traffic Cones.
I continued my stroll around the park as Dad found his seat, admiring the views and endeavoring to stay out of the warming sun.
Professional baseball in Charlotte goes back to 1892 when the Charlotte Hornets were a member of the South Atlantic League. In 1976, the Asheville Orioles of the Double-A Southern League were moved to Charlotte, and in 1988, they became the Knights, a new Cubs affiliate.
Five years later, Charlotte was awarded an expansion Triple-A spot. The Double-A team moved to Nashville and eventually wound up in Mobile, Alabama. The new franchise in Charlotte took the Knights name and became affiliated with the Indians, then the Marlins, and beginning in 1999, the White Sox. The Knights won International League titles in 1993 and 1999 but were having a rough year in 2021 with a 37-61 record, a full 26 games behind today’s opponent and in-state rivals, the Durham Bulls.
Alex McRae
I walked down to the field on the Charlotte side, where players were stretching out and Knights starter Alex McRae had started throwing in the bullpen. McRae had spent four seasons at the Triple-A level, first in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization and now with the White Sox, and had only brief call-ups to the majors in each of those years. His 2021 season in Charlotte was not making the 28-year-old’s future look much brighter. He would finish 2-9 with a 5.38 ERA and was released at the end of the year.
On my way over to the Durham dugout, I ran into Knights mascot Homer the Dragon, who had connected with me on social media and was prepared for my arrival.
Starter Phoenix Sanders, who would finish 5-2 with a 3.38 ERA.
Center fielder Josh Lowe, who hit .291 with 22 HRs in 2021.
The Bulls would give the ball to Shane Baz, a 22-year-old fresh off a start with the U.S. Olympic Team who was having a meteoric year. A first-round pick of the Pirates in 2017, Baz had gone from Low-A in 2019, to no action (due to COVID-19) in 2020, to Double-A and now Triple-A in 2021. He started 10 games for the Bulls — we would see two of them — putting up a ridiculous 1.76 ERA with 11 walks and 64 strikeouts. Later in the year, he would end the season with two dominating starts for the Tampa Bay Rays, earning him a spot in the starting rotation in the playoffs against the Boston Red Sox.
Our afternoon game would be a seven-inning affair, and the teams would play again at night. Our matchup had been originally scheduled for the night before, but a Carolina Panthers exhibition game (the team plays next door, with huge crowds) forced a pair of seven-inning games here the next day.
We had nice seats in the lower bowl, but the heat was withering. It may have been 88 degrees but felt like 98, like we were the target of a concentrated ray of pure heat from a huge magnifying glass placed over the sun. So, yeah, pretty warm. My iPhone slowed down, then gave out, overwhelmed by the heat. We retreated to open seats further back in the shade.
McRae didn’t have a bad day, giving up two earned runs in four innings. But the Knights were no match for Baz, who cruised through his five-inning start, giving up no runs on just two hits.
For lunch, we both chose Homer’s Citrus Dog, with brisket, orange soda slaw, green onions, and horseradish sauce. “A winner!” reported Dad. Indeed, it may have been the best item we ate at any ballpark on the trip.
The game floated by for the next few scoreless innings. Then Durham tacked on two more runs in the top of the seventh, and the whole affair ended quietly. Bulls 4, Knights 0.
We got to our car and headed straight for Kannapolis for our second Minor League game of the day.