Last year, the Pioneer League added two teams in Northern California: the Oakland Ballers and Yolo High Wheelers, who played in Davis, a town about 15 miles west of Sacramento. I saw the Ballers at Raimondi Park on my farewell trip to the Oakland Coliseum, but saved the High Wheelers for this season, as the Athletics would be moving to Sactown, thus requiring a visit for my Toronto on the Road quest. However, despite winning the championship in their inaugural campaign, the High Wheelers moved to Marysville, about 40 minutes north of the state capital, and became the Yuba-Sutter High Wheelers. Fortunately, they had a home series against Grand Junction during the Blue Jays visit to Sacramento, so I rented a car for the day and headed up to see Bryant Field.
Located just north of downtown, the ballpark has a very small parking lot that is reserved for players and staff, but there is plenty of free parking on nearby streets. General admission tickets are $10 at the box office; avoid buying via the QR code as there is a $2 fee added.
Just inside the gate are the starting lineups and the standings. You can see the High Wheelers logo above; they are named for the old-time bicycles since Davis is home to the US Bicycling Hall of Fame.
If you look closely above, you will see that the last place team is named the Colorado Spring Sky Sox, who didn't exist a week prior. This is because the Northern Colorado Owlz resigned from the league due to their inability to acquire occupancy certification for their ballpark, with the players and coaches forming a new team and sharing the stadium in Colorado Springs with the Rocky Mountain Vibes. The Owlz were one of three remaining independent league teams for me to see, now there are just two (Brockton and Glacier).
Bryant Field opened on this site in 1937, but baseball in Marysville goes back even further, with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig visiting in 1927. The news article below is from 1948 as the Chico State football game at Humboldt State can be found online (Chico State won 7-0).
Capacity is 4,000, with the team averaging just over 1,000 so far this season. On this night, there were only 529 announced with a few no-shows among them.
I found this place to be very similar to Mike Lansing Field in Casper, with six rows of green seats right next to the field and blue box seats directly behind the plate, separated by a walkway. General admission bleachers down both lines complete the seating arrangements.
Most of the seats are protected by netting, though foul balls do sometimes end up in the bleachers.
There is a spot down the first base line where you can stand if you want a clear view of home plate for pictures
It was Thirsty Thursday and one stand had local craft beer for just $5. Recalling my experience in Casper when I bought my beer before the beer batter struck out, I waited until the beer batter made his first appearance in the second inning. My patience was rewarded when he went down swinging and all beers were $2 off for the rest of the inning.
That's really all there is to it. Bryant Field is a simple ballpark that I would have enjoyed quite a bit more if the game didn't drag out so long.
The Game
The High Wheelers were 29-15, a full ten games better than the Jackalopes, with the teams having split the first two games of the six-game series. The Pioneer League uses the appeal system with ABS, and there were quite a few during the game, which slowed things down.
Yuba-Sutter scored in the first on a sacrifice fly and added a pair on a homer by River Orsak in the third. Starter Brett Wozniak was perfect through three, but yielded a run in the fourth when Zeb Roos walked and stole second, coming in on a Mason Minzey base hit.
The home side plated two more in the fifth on a walk, triple, and sac fly, while Grand Junction added one more off Wozniak in the sixth on a double, a balk, and an infield single. In the seventh, Andrew LaCour (who played four years at UC Davis) replaced Wozniak and gave up a couple of singles which put men on first and third. Preston Shelton then hit a grounder to second where Kirkland Banks tried for the double play but his throw was off. No error was given, though there really should have been an out on the play, and when Roos followed with another fielder's choice, the bases were loaded. LaCour then got two outs to bring Minzey to the plate, and he delivered, crushing a grand slam to give the Jackalopes the lead. All runs were earned, but really, only the first was the LaCour's fault.
Grand Junction added two insurance runs in the ninth and held on to win 9-6 in a game that took way too long at 3:23. There were 14 walks out of 84 batters, which didn't help matters, but there was also lots of mound visits and other discussions, as if this was the 7th game of the World Series. With 335 pitches, the PPM was 1.65, quite a slow pace these days. To compare, the following night's Blue Jays game had 333 pitches in just 3:01, a PPM of 1.84. I'll write more about that in the next post.
Notes
The full moon rose directly behind centerfield and was orange, making for a cool sight, though tough to capture with a phone camera.
Best,
Sean
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