Baseball Road Trip 2018: West Virginia Power, or Toast Valuable Player

As I mentioned a little while ago, I'm on a baseball road trip this week, scouring the midwest and northeast for parks, major and minor league, that I'd never been to, and that'd be worth a treat.

We designed the trip around the three MLB games (the recap of the first one will be up tomorrow morning, and oh is it a nice one), so in between the major parks, we picked a few MiLB parks along the way that seemed nice.

This one, in Charleston, West Virginia, seemed interesting if anything. This is an A-Ball affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates, which is nice, as that meant I had a hat to bring with me.

If you zoom in, which I encourage, you can see all the MLB players who've started out in Charleston, including Lorenzo Cain, Ryan Braun, Michael Brantley, Alcides Escobar (as this used to be a Brewers affiliate), Jameson Taillon, Starling Marte and Nick Kingham. So...not a bad lineup of alums. The current Power player that was on the minds of everyone was Cal Mitchell, a high-drafted prospect who was being heralded by everyone, even the team's programs.

Because my father was nice enough to ask for the best seats they had (and for 10 bucks, no less), this was our view. Front row, pretty good sightline. You can tell that Charleston is a very in-progress type city, as there's a lot of buildings and businesses in the background, and this stadium was built right in the middle of this city.

The team was up against the Lexington Legends, an A-affiliate of the Kansas City Royals, managed by former Braves 1st-baseman Scott Thorman. Funnily enough, we were sitting next to Thorman's parents, who were very nice Canadian people that seemed to enjoy the game as much as we did.

As the game progressed, we noticed how...spirited the fans of the West Virginia Power were. At every strikeout, an energetic middle-aged man sitting behind home plate would stand, hold a peace of toast, and lead the surrounding fans in a chant of 'YOU! ARE! TOAST!'. It happened every time. Every time.

My mother, ever the receptive one, turned to me at multiple points after this and went "...why do I smell toast?"

This wasn't exactly a pitching battle, though, as Deon Stafford hit a grand-slam in the first inning, Cal Mitchell had several hits throughout the day, and most pitchers (save for a rogue submariner the Lexington team employed) were futile compared to the range of hitting. Some players weren't the best at their positions, as a career shortstop was playing first for the Power that day. But it was still a smooth enough, laid back enough game.

Not much else to say for this one, though...to be honest, I'm saying my typing fingers for the writeup of the game I witnessed earlier today...because OH my god.