After connecting with family and friends on Easter Sunday, Rachel and I decided to catch our first baseball game at Norfolk’s Harbor Park. Sunday’s game was the final game of the opening weekend for the hometown Norfolk Tides vs the Durham Bulls. The Tides feature a bevy of top prospects armed and ready to support their parent club, the Baltimore Orioles. Many of these Tides players will be playing for Baltimore this year. Many will play several years in the Major Leagues. Few have the hype of one particularly special player, Jackson Holliday, the number one prospect in all of the Minor Leagues. Holliday, in the lineup Sunday, was just one of the many stars I was looking forward to seeing on Sunday.

If you caught my opening line, I mentioned “our” first game at Harbor Park. I used to go to Harbor Park back in the late 1990s (previously lived in VA Beach) to see the Tides when they were the Mets AAA club. I had a friend who worked at the park so I had free tickets to home games. I used to sit with a Mets scout behind home plate and chat baseball. I even contemplated being a scout at one point back then. I was really excited to get inside and see the ballpark once again, some 25 years later.

What do I like about minor league baseball? What do I like about attending minor league games? How much time do you have? Smaller ballparks equal more baseball intimacy with the players, the atmosphere, the sights and sounds of the game of baseball. Fans are entertained by quality baseball without paying an arm and a leg for tickets. Many of the players come out and sign tons of autographs. Even the mega-stars sign. I’ve seen it. Most minor league stadiums feature under 15,000 total seats and typically there is never a bad place to sit, stand, congregate at a minor league ball park. The players on the field are professional baseball players, in this case one step away from the Major League Baseball dream just about every kid has who plays youth sports. For Harbor Park, a $20 ticket can get you a seat behind the visitor’s dugout on Easter Sunday. You get to meet friendly fans, have a great view of the game, soak in some rays, and have an amazing baseball experience. Here was our view on Sunday, Section 107, Row L.

After an inning or two, Rachel and I vacated our seats and walked around the stadium. The sun was super hot and we needed a little break from its intensity. Don’t get me wrong, it felt great, we just need to pace ourselves now that its 80 degrees in March. We found a hot dog stand, each grabbed a cool souvenir cup and a dog, and found a spot along the first base line to enjoy our lunch. Not really counting here, but still way under $100 for two people at a baseball game, which included the $6 parking fee to park across the street. Along the way, I captured a few photos of the stadium.

The game was moving along at a pretty good clip despite the lopsided score. I think at one point it was 17-1, Durham Bulls. The Tide’s Jackson Holliday had not recorded a hit yet out of 5 at bats. Hey, can’t go 5-5 every day, right? Rachel and I moved from hot dogs to conversation, as we met a nice couple from Virginia Beach who were actually seated near us when the game started. The four of us chatted about Boston (he was wearing a Red Sox hat), the Navy, VA Beach restaurants, my baseball knowledge of the area, their pretty famous baseball friends from the area (Hampton Roads), and so on. We probably watched a total of 2 innings in the seats we paid for and the other 7 from various spots in the stadium. My kind of game!!!

One interesting thing happened at the game. A minor league player can ask the umpire to see if his strike/ball call was correct. A minor league catcher can do the same. Real time check on the umpire’s ability to call balls and strikes. Here is how it plays out. The batter taps his helmet after a questionable strike is called. The umpire paused the game and announces to the crowd that the batter is challenging a called strike/ball. The replay is then shown on the huge screen in right field. You see the familiar strike zone rectangle that you might see on a national baseball broadcast. The ball travels towards the rectangle and is captured at or around the rectangle’s perimeter. The crowd cheers, it was a ball. The umpire then gets back behind the catcher for another try. Very interested. Whole thing took about 1 to 2 minutes to resolve itself. Stay tuned for this instant replay of balls and strikes coming to an MLB game in your neighborhood in the not so distant future.

Local Hampton Roads native and Mets star David Wright’s photo was all over the stadium. Here are a few photos of the local star who played HS baseball in Chesapeake, minor league baseball in Norfolk, and professionally for the NY Mets.

Located on the concession stand level was the POW/MIA commemorative seat. I have seen this seat now in several stadiums and ballparks and just love the tradition of it. Fenway Park, Portland Sea Dogs, that I have personally photographed, just to name a few have a designated seat to honor our fallen military heroes. Here is the one I witnessed at Harbor Park.

Rachel and I had a blast on Easter Sunday checking out the Tides vs Bulls at Harbor Park. There was a lot of game action, although most of it was coming from the Bulls’ batters in a mostly lopsided game. The Tides did stage a somewhat rally in the 9th inning with a few runs but ultimately fell to the Bulls 17-5. We finally reached and surpassed the $100 threshold with ice cream and some swag from the Tides Team store, but who’s counting??? It was still an incredibly affordable and super enjoyable baseball experience at Harbor Park. I am really looking forward to seeing the Tides all summer long. The top prospects from Sunday’s game may not be around for long in Norfolk, but there are plenty of others waiting for their chances in the lower levels of the Orioles minor league organization. Maybe another Holliday will emerge this summer and play at Harbor Park? I know one thing, I will be there to witness it.