Red Sox, Mets and Cyclones Win

Last night I attended my first Brooklyn Cyclones game in 2007 at KeySpan Park with my father. We have a seven-game mini plan, and last night was a game against the crosstown rival Staten Island Yankees.

It started to rain just as the game got going, and there was a one-hour delay before the game began. (I ran into my friend Andrea, a devoted Red Sox fan from Professor Thom's, during the rain delay. That was a nice surprise.) KeySpan is a beautiful place to watch a game, and there are always tickets available. (The Cyclones draw very well, the best in the New York-Penn League. But like MLB, they count the number of tickets sold, so there are always seats to be had.)

My dad and I stood and watched the first inning, as it was still drizzling. We stood in front of a few knuckleheaded Yankee fans, who were basically talking trash about the Mets and Cyclones, and not at all intelligently. (Big shock, eh?) It made me want to get down to the seats, even in the rain. Which is just what we did.

The Yankees jumped out to an early lead in the second, but the Cyclones tied it in the bottom of the inning on a home run by Jason Jacobs, 1-1. As the game progressed, I followed the Red Sox-Devil Rays game with updates on my cell. (Boy is that ever an addiction!) I sure picked some night to miss a Red Sox game, as every update saw the Sox pound out more runs: 6-0, 9-0, 9-2, 13-2. (My dad, who follows the D-Rays a bit since he spends the winters in the Tampa Bay area, calls them "The Little Sisters," as in "they couldn't beat the Little Sisters of the Poor.") It was a night the Red Sox pulled out the whoopin' sticks, as Coco Crisp and Mike Lowell hit homers and the Red Sox went on to a 15-4 win.

I was also following the Mets-Astros game on the radio. It was all Mets, all-night. They jumped out to a 2-0 lead, and kept adding runs behind John Maine. (The Mets cruised to a 6-2 win to break their four-game losing streak.) Back at KeySpan, Cyclones mascot "Reggy," who suspciously looks and acts like the Philly Phanatic, entertained the fans all night and was a hit. He did a rountine in the second inning with the "Yankees first base coach." (He really wasn't, just a guy pretending to be even though he was wearing a Yankee uniform.) It was in the middle of the game, and he was bugging him and the coach even "slugged" him. I'm surprised they allow this to go on while a game is happening, even in the low minor leagues. Well, if the fans like it and the teams don't mind...

The Cyclones scored a run in the sixth on a triple and a sac fly to make it 2-1. In the eighth, the Yankees tied it up, but the Cyclones came back with three in the bottom of the eighth on a bases loaded walk and a single to bring in two more. The Yankees went without incident to give the Cyclones fans a win, especially rewarding those fans who stuck it out all night. The Cyclones are now 12-5, in first place in the McNamara Division of the NYPL, three games ahead of Staten Island.

The Red Sox, Mets and Cyclones all came away with victories last night.

And it's always a nice night when any team called the Yankees goes down to defeat.