Card Of The Week November 12

This past weekend I made my way up to New York to see one of the "Titanes Del Caribe" games, a three game series between Águilas Cibaeñas and Tigres del Licey of the Dominican Winter League (aka LIDOM) that was being played at the Mets ballpark* in Queens.  I drove up to Northern Jersey on Friday afternoon and spent the night at my friend Chuck's house before heading to the ballpark yesterday morning.  I drove to a Park&Ride behind the Science Center in Liberty Park in Jersey City and used a combination of NJTransit Light Rail, a PATH train and the number 5 and number 7 lines of the New York City Subway to head out the Flushing Meadows.**

*I won't call it by its corporate name, especially since that particular corporation went ahead with their naming rights deal despite being bailed out by the US government at the same time.  I'd really like the name "Nuevo Shea" to catch on.

**I've been spoiled by public transportation in Japan and not in the way you might think.  Everything was reasonably clean and efficient but what was grating was the three separate services didn't have a common way to pay.  In Tokyo, I have been able to use the same Suica card to pay for rides on JR and Seibu trains and Tokyo and Toei subways.  In fact, I used the exact same card to ride subways in Sendai, Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka as well, along with the streetcars in Hiroshima and the Light Rail in Shizuoka.  For this trip, I used the NJTransit app to buy the light rail tickets, used the machines at the stations to buy single ride tickets for PATH and used ApplePay on my phone to ride the subway.  It would have been really nice to have been able to do that with a common payment system of some sort.

I arrived at the ballpark about an hour before the scheduled start time and spent a little bit of time checking the place out.  One of the attractions of this game for me was not just getting to checkout a Dominican League game but also being able to checkout the Mets' ballpark without having to actually watch the Mets.  After walking around a bit and picking up some lunch, I headed to my seat to await the start of the game.

I ended up with an extended wait.  For some reason, the start of the game got delayed an hour - it was supposed to start at 1:05 but it started at 2:05 instead.  There were DJs from a New York CIty Dominican radio station playing dance music around 12:30 and the crowd was very festive, dancing along to the music and reacting when they were shown on the big screen.  Finally around 1:30 or so the teams were introduced and the national anthems of both the US and the Dominican Republic were played.

There was a brief ceremony of some sort honoring Nelson Cruz before the game finally got underway.

I felt like the crowd was split maybe 60/40 in favor of Aguilas over Licey and those fans had a lot to cheer about.  Aguilas scored a run in the second inning on a wild pitch and then repeated the process again in the fourth on another wild pitch.  They added a third run on an RBI single in the fifth.  Meanwhile Licey was not able to get any offense going at all.  They got a couple runners on a couple of times with walks but could not generate a big hit to drive them in.  

In fact, they didn't have a hit of any kind and after a while, the crowd started to realize it.  The game went into the bottom of the ninth with Aguilas up 3-0 and Licey still looking for their first hit.  With one out, Orelvis Martínez hit a flare to right field where outfielder Alexander Canario attempted a shoe-string catch.  The second base umpire ruled that it was not a catch and the crowd sighed with disappointment.  But Aguilas manager Tony Pena requested a replay review and the umpires conferred while we all watched the replays on the video board.  The crowd got excited as the first set of shots seemed to imply that Canario had actually caught the ball but later replays pretty much confirmed the ball had hit the ground before he got his glove on it.  It ended up not making any real difference in the outcome of the game as Aguilas held on to win 3-0.

It would have been pretty embarrassing for Licey had they been no-hit as they were just no-hit by Estrellas Orientales last Tuesday night.

Aguilas pretty much dominated Licey all weekend,  They won the first game on Friday night 3-0 and won again today 9-6 (which sounds closer than it was - Aguilas led 7-0 after the first inning).  Aguila outscored the Tigres 15-6 in the three games which were basically exhibition games as they will not count in LIDOM's standings.

I was pretty cold by the end of the game and had a long trek back home ahead of me so I scrambled from my seat pretty much as soon as the last out was made.  I had a couple lucky breaks, catching an elevator down from the upper deck just before the doors closed and getting on the subway just before its doors closed as well so jsut about six minutes after the game ended I was sitting on the number 7 train heading back to Manhattan.  I reversed the steps I had taken to get to the ballpark from the park&ride and drove home, getting in a little before ten last night.

I knew there was only one Japanese player in LIDOM this winter and he wasn't with either of these teams (Kotaro Ueda of the Dragons is playing for Gigantes del Cibao) but I figured there was a pretty good chance I'd see a couple of ex-NPB foreign players.  If I'm not mistaken, there were three in all.

The starting pitcher for Aguilas was Ariel Miranda, who had spent 2018 and 2019 with the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks.  Miranda pitched 2 2/3 innings, giving up four walks but striking out seven(!).  Only one of the 12 batters he faced put the ball in play - Miguel Andujar popped out to make the second out in the bottom of the first.  Everyone else either walked or struck out.

Former Hanshin Tiger Mel Rojas Jr. was the DH for Licey and batted third.  Rojas spent two seasons (2021 & 2022) with the Tigers of Nishinomiya while he's been a Licey Tigre in half of the last ten winters.  He went 0-3 at the plate with two strikeouts and a walk.

Both Miranda and Rojas also played in KBO with Rojas playing for KT from 2017-20 and Miranda playing for Doosan in 2021 and 2022.  Miranda is actually one of only 24 players to achieve what CPBL Stats refers to as the "Pro Ball Grand Slam" - playing in MLB, NPB, KBO and CPBL.

Former Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighter Alen Hanson entered the game as a defensive replacement in the top of the seventh.  I had left my seat at that point to stretch my legs and pick up something warm to eat so I didn't realize he was in the game until he batted in the bottom of the inning.  He flew out in his only at bat - he was on deck when the game ended.  I didn't get any pictures of him.

I thought it'd be fun to share cards of these players this week but I ran into an issue with Hanson - I don't have any cards of him yet as there are only a couple so far.  He signed with the Fighters in early May after starting the season with the Ibaraki Astro Planets of the indy Baseball Challenge League so he was too late to be in BBM's Fighters team set.  He had an autographed card in the BBM 2nd Version set but not a regular card.  Other than that, the only cards I know of him are two different Epoch One cards although it wouldn't suprise me if he was in the BBM Fusion set coming out at the end of this month.

So no Hanson card (or photo) but here's cards of Miranda and Rojas:

2019 Epoch NPB #044

2022 BBM 1st Version #047