Mapping the path

CAROLINA BASEBALL: GAME 5

Winston-Salem Dash

The ballpark outfield is quirky: The short wall in the right-field corner jumps up in height several times before extending out into the field at the bleachers.

Thoughout the concourse, placards recall the greats of baseball who have played in Winston-Salem over the past 70-80 years.

The first baseball clubs in Winston-Salem were the Twins, a reference to the "Twin Cities" of Winston and Salem. The Twins played in the Virginia-North Carolina League in 1905, the Carolina Baseball Association from 1908-1917 and the Piedmont League from 1920-1933 and again from 1937-1942.

The current franchise joined the inaugural season of the Carolina League in 1945 as the Cardinals and are the only franchise in the circuit to have operated continuously ever since. They later had stints as the Red Birds, Twins again, Red Sox, Spirits, and Warthogs before becoming the Dash in 2009. The name refers to the hyphen in Winston-Salem, but Hyphens is not exactly an exciting, highly marketable brand.

Winston-Salem has had 10 different Major League affiliations and has been with the White Sox since 1997. The franchise has won nine league titles, but the last was in 2003.

After finishing my initial route around the ballpark, I stepped into the Team Store. Displays near the front featured the gear of the Dash’s Copa de la Diversión persona (which they would take on today), the Winston-Salem Rayados (or “Lines,” another play on the city’s dash-hyphen). The Copa de la Diversión (“Fun Cup”) program is aimed at promoting the sport in the country's Latin and Hispanic communities. In 2021, 76 Minor League teams participated, with colorful alternate brands and jerseys.

That included the Dash’s Sunday opponent, the Hudson Valley Renegades (a New York Yankees affiliate), who would take the field as Fenómenos Enmascarados del Valle de Hudson (“Hudson Valley Masked Phenoms”).

Rayados starter Karan Patel began loosening up in the bullpen. He would pitch 33 1/3 innings in 2021 — in Rookie ball, with Low-A Kannapolis, and with High-A Winston Salem — finishing with a combined 5.94 ERA.

It was our third game with last-place White Sox affiliates in just two days. The first two games, in Charlotte and Kannapolis, had been losses for the home team. The outlook here was no brighter: The Dash and the Renegades had mirror records, with Winston-Salem tallying a 38-62 mark, while Hudson Valley had gone 62-38 and were battling Greensboro for a spot in the High-A playoffs.

Bolt, the Dash mascot, braved 88-degree midday temperatures with high humidity to carry out his appointed duties.

The game began with two top Yankees prospects coming to the plate for Hudson Valley: the current (2022) #1 prospect in the organization, shortstop Anthony Volpe; and the #4 prospect, catcher Austin Wells. Patel induced a pop-up from Volpe. Wells walked, but Patel picked him off with two out to end the inning.

Rayados shortstop Jose Rodriguez blasted a 2-1 pitch over the wall in left center field to begin the bottom of the first. But the Fenómenos Enmascarados answered with two runs on three hits in the top of the second.

The announced crowd for this game was 3,886, a number that belies my voluminous photographic evidence. It was a very hot Sunday — we moved out of our front-row seats and into the shade for a few innings. The team was struggling. And it was still that weird, in-between time in the summer of 2021 when it seemed like COVID-19 was on the wane, but things were still uncertain. The crowd in any case was quite sparse, and that meant the concessions options were as well.

I had heard the legends of the Cheesy Pig Dog, which comes with macaroni and cheese and North Carolina BBQ topped with cheddar cheese. You can add Texas Pete hot sauce for a “flaming” Cheesy Pig Dog. I found the “Cheesy Pig Style” stand, checked the menu, and saw… no dogs at all. Another specialty sausage stand was closed as well. This left your standard hot dogs and hamburgers, a bit of a letdown on a trip like this. But with a hot dog, a beer, and a ballgame, you can’t really go wrong.

The teams traded zeroes for a few innings. The Renegades starter, Anderson Munoz, gave up just one run on two hits in six full innings. He finished his year with Low-A Tampa and High-A Hudson Valley with a combined 6-1 record.

Meanwhile, Winston-Salem began to leak runs, giving up one in the fifth, two in the sixth, one in the seventh, and three more in the top of the eighth, leaving the score a hopeless 9-1 in favor of the visitors.

I took another stroll around the stadium to capture a few final views of Truist Stadium. As I did, the Rayados kicked off a rally in the bottom of the eighth that just kept on giving, putting up five runs with just one out, including a two-run shot to right by right fielder Luis Mieses, who had hit .305 in Kannapolis before a mid-season call-up to Winston-Salem.

The lead had been trimmed to 9-6 Renegades.

Alas, the rally ended, and the Renegades shut the door in the ninth, taking the game 9-6.

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