At The Plate-Yinz Goin' For Number Four

[Music] what is good good people you are now listening to another episode of at the plate with Danny Foxworth I am your humble narrator Danny Foxworth good to be back in the booth but we're going to talk about some just some some going on in the world of baseball and then I'm going to recap my trip in at uh PNC Park in Pittsburgh so first off going to get into this standing so in the National League not much has changed uh the the top dogs are still the top dogs uh Phillies are holding it down in in Al with a record of 86 and 58 the Dodgers with uh also had the same record of 86 and 58 being the top dogs in the in the NL West and the Brew Crew pulling it down basically since the beginning of the season in NL Central with a record of 82 and 61 however there 18 games left and the Wild Card race is it's a wild one in in the National League of course you got the Padre's and the Dbacks they've been the two hottest teams in the league since the SEC since the allstar break but don't look now but the Mets are are hot on their heels they're red hot and they're only a game behind the behind the Dbacks for the second wild card spot and MVP talk I mean look we could talk about sh Otani but you you you can't deny that Francisco Lindor isn't making this making a case for winning inl MVP and then in the American League New York Yankees still still at top the AL East with a record of 83 and 61 uh the Cleveland Guardians still in first place with a record of 82 and 62 and those damn Houston Astros they're in they're top the AL West with a record of 77 and 66 and then in the wild cards in the wild card scenario you got the birds of Baltimore in holding holding it down for the uh the first wild card spot and the Kansas City Royal ARS got the uh second bore spot right now with a two and a half game lead above the team that's right below them in their division the Minnesota Twins so again 18 games left anything can happen in that in that uh in that amount of time and while we're on to talk of VL MVP P got to talk about sh Otani possibly being the first member of the 5050 Club so 50 home runs 50 stolen bases in the same season he's currently sitting at 46 home runs and 47 stolen bases so I hope he breaks that Milestone because I think that would be that would be super cool to see something like that happen I mean the man is I'm out of superlatives for sh Otani he's just he's a man among boys and the fact that that he's doing all this you know while basically mending his elbow from Tommy know getting back on the men from Tommy John surgery that's an amazing feed in itself and speaking of Tommy John's surgery I got to take it to uh my squad the Beloved Texas Rangers and their top Pro one of their top pitching prospects is a guy from Vanderbilt by a pitcher by the name of Kamar Rocka who was the Rangers first round pick who's the third overall pick in the 2020 two MLB draft he was one of my favorite players to watch in college shout out to Black the Black Aces and he ended up having to get Tommy John surgery in 2022 and he missed the entire 2023 season well he's back on the mound he made his first appearance back in August for the daa squad of Frisco Ru Riders and it was like he it was like there was no rust just complete dominance in doua and the more they they slowly increased his workload and the the dominance did not did not die down so much that he got promoted to triaa and continued his dominance there and then the Rangers were like you know what he's been so he's been so impressive since coming back and let's give him a shot so he got a September call up and he's going to make his major league debut taking the mound on Thursday night against the Seattle Mariners so I'm I'm excited and I'm looking forward to see what he's going to do in on the major league level him and his fellow Vandy boy Jack ligher who was the who's the Rangers first round pick in 2023 he got called up to the Rangers back in August so we're g you know it's it's it's cool to see the Vandy boy sticking together and hopefully they can keep that that Commodore Mojo and continue that into their Major League careers because the future is bright for both of those arms now talking about the home team my Charleston River doogs they're in a they're on a quest for their fourth straight Carolina league title at the time of this recording game one of the first round of the Southern division of the Carolina League their matchup is against the Canapolis cannonballers and the the way they do their format in the Carolina league is they do their first round matchup as a best of three series and then the two teams that emerged from the Northern Division well the southern Division and the Northern Division which are the Frederick Fredericksburg Nationals they're facing the Carolina Mudcats so those four teams they're going to face each other in their respective divisions in the three- game series and then out of that three gam whoever merges Victors from that from that first round series they meet up in the champion in the league championship round which is also a best of three Series so best of luck to the RiverDogs hope they bring another Carolina league title so that'll be the the dog Dynasty continues for another year that'll be four straight League titles for the charston river dogs on a more serious note Hall of Fame aade bogs recently announced that he has prostate cancer and he's currently undergoing treatment to to uh make sure to eradicate that his um that prostate cancer so all prayers up to him best of luck I hope you a full recovery he was always one of my favorite players as a kid for the Red Sox and he also played for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays interestingly enough him and Derek Jeter are the only two players in major league history to get their 3,000th career hit on a home run it's wild and now I'm going to talk about my recent visit to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania know for many years PNC Park has been at the top of my sports bucket list and I had I was like you know what I already went to Cincinnati checked out their ballpark why not knock Pittsburgh off the list too and oddly enough shout out to Breeze Airways that's the airline I use to fly to Cincinnati they also do non-stop flights to Pittsburgh so as soon as I saw that I pull the trig on getting the air buying that ticket immediately and so so we fast forward to this past Saturday leave the chareston airport at about noon and it's a non-stop flight so I got into Pittsburgh um little after about about 1:20 that afternoon and as soon as I touched down I had the pleasure of reconnecting with my former High School PL classmate Victoria Bennett who is an incredible photographer she actually gave me one of her photography prints in exchange for a picture that she wanted made as a print that she that she requested and so we did a we did a a picture swap that was real cool you know it's it's cool having you uh having art of your local friends hanging up in your house and she picked me up from the airport and we made our way down to downtown Pittsburgh be oh my God the it's so that's such a beautiful city just it's the pictures do not do it justice like when you're going through the fort pit tunnel then as soon as you emerge from the tunnel boom there's the skyline and this big strikingly yellow Bridge it's just it's just a It's A Feast for the senses and so we make our way downtown and we pull up to the Andy Warhol Museum which is he's one of my favorite artists of all time like he's like top two top three for me and I've always wanted to visit the museum and so we did that and that museum is in it's super sensory overload in the best way possible all of his works of art talking about his history he's from Pittsburg talking about I'm talking like seven the build the museum is literally seven stories tall and all of it is just all of his all of his personal works and just like his his handwriting like like his journals no pictures he took I mean the the archive is extensive if you're Pittsburgh I highly recommend visiting the Andy Warhol Museum ad mission is $25 and that's a good way to spend it's a good way to spend a couple hours in there which is what we did and we took some pics and stuff and had a good old time and then we left the museum and then she we uh walked around the riverfront which is beautiful it's right on the it's right on the alany river and we just know just talked and no C caught up on old times I hadn't seen her literally in 26 years so it was it was a treat to uh catch catch back up with her then we walked back to the Museum parking lot and you know we we gave each other the our pictures and then we hugged and we went on went on our separate ways you know Vicky great to see you won't be the last time I come to Pittsburgh that's for sure and after I left the par after she left then I made my way to PNC Park which is only really it's only about two or three blocks from the Warhol Museum but I wanted to take this more scenic route so if you don't know Pittsburgh has three really three art style bridges there's the Rachel Carson Bridge there's the Roberto Clemente Bridge that's the bridge that leads you to PNC Park and then the Andy warhall Bridge which is naturally on the same road where the Andy Warhol Museum is and they all run parallel to to each other going over the alany river so I make my way across the Warhol bridge and walk a couple of blocks down to the Clemente bridge and the cool thing about the Clemente bridge is on game on Pirates game days they shut that bridge down and this a and it it becomes a pedestrian only Bridge which is super cool I got to go take some pictures on the bridge and I made my way across across the river and walked into PNC Park no it was a huge Gathering outside of the stadium before the gates opened and every you could just smell you could smell the food grilling in the air and know they had a live had a couple of live DJs and food trucks outside and it was it was such a dope setup and everybody was just super friendly and as the gate wait I stood in line for the gates to open and as I walk through know they check my bags scan my ticket and I make my way up and I'm I'm like man I'm I'm inside of the castle and then when you actually walk inside of PNC Park and get to the center when you get to the Concourse and then you look out and you just see that panoramic panoramic view of the Pittsburgh Skyline and the alany river and the Clemente Bridges the backdrop pictures do not do it justice in the slightest you've I I implore you You' got to once at least once in your life you got to make a visit to PNC Park because that that view is just absolutely stunning and I mean stunning in all caps and you know just taking in the atmosphere and went to go get my after then the next order of operations was going to get my concessions so the first move I made was to the Perman Brothers Stand and for those that don't know Perman Brothers is a huge is a it's basically a it's a staple it's an institution in Pittsburgh with the with the style of sandwiches it's like a Pittsburg style of sandwiches where they actually put french fries in their s in the bottom of their sandwich so I got the cacola sandwich which I I enjoy that uh that particular cut of cold cut it's it's a real spicy cold cut and with the sandwich it had that the caola with klaw and then the fries under at the bottom of the sandwich that thing was busing only thing I would recommend only thing I think that would have really made that sandwich just like just take it to another level is if they added banana peppers to it that would have been out of this world and also at PNC park if you buy the souvenir size the souvenir size cup like this one the refills are unlimited so make take advantage of that opportunity and then after I uh went to panny Brothers I went to the next concession stand over and they had popcorn the it's probably as far as food and value wise it's probably the best bang for your buck is just the jumbo box of popcorn I mean it is it's probably about probably about this big and it's maybe I think it's like $6.40 and they load that sucker down then took my seat finish my uh finish my sandwich and my popcorn and then around the well I'll get into that a little bit later the Usher oddly enough the Usher that was in my section looked at my shirt my shirt said heavy I have a shirt that says heavy on the Carolina and she kept looking at my shirt and then she approached me and she was like Carolina she like I like that shirt you was like is that North Carolina or South Carolina I'm like the South Carolina she's like really she's like my daughter lives my daughter lives amongst corn corner I was like I live in monst corner it's just man wherever you go Carolina you always you're going to find somebody from Carolina I thought that was that was I was like Wow small world and we got to chitchatting and stuff and then know the game the game took place I gotta say the lady that sung the National Anthem and I had to go pee real bad too she really took her sweet time sing it lit it literally took her damn near five minutes to finish singing the National Anthem she was like an opera style singer and she was just real slow and deliberate with their singing method and my bladder was not feeling that at all but anyway they played the Washington Nationals which was cool because James Wood was one of my top prospects to was one of my favorite prospects to follow this year and he got called up about a month ago well might have been about two months ago so I was excited to see him and then they recently called up their first round pick this year was his uh Dylan Cruz from LSU and James Wood he had a he had a pretty good game I believe he had two hits uh Dylan Cruz he didn't get a hit but he got a he drew a walk and I believe he scored a run and I really wanted to see Pirates Ace Paulk take the mound but it wasn't his day to start so instead they got uh Mitch Keller taking him out and he had a really strong outing he threw six Innings uh gave up I think two runs uh no walks and he had eight strikeouts and um he did his thing on the mound which was he held it down up until it was time to bring out the bullpen reinforcements and then not spe specifically a RIS Chapman who I I mean if you know who you know if you know who he how he operates at this point he throws he's going to throw to a 600 mph fast ball but sometimes that fast ball won't matter when he's just giving up runs and which is exactly what he did he only made it two he only pitched two-thirds of an inning and that fool gave up four runs and the Pirates ended up losing 8 to six all because of him but also another concession that I forgot to mention is uh there's a spot called uh krabbies and pets and they have this thing called crab fries which is basically crinkle cut fries it tasted like they sprinkled old Bas seasoning on it which I'm 100% okay with cuz I love old Bas seasoning and once they give you the they serve you the fries with the seasoning and they also give you a cup of this this melted white cheddar sauce that thing is a beast man that was some that's some good it some good eating at that PNC part it's a it's a little the fries were a little pricey I warn you it was probably it was like 17 or $18 for those fries but you if you ask me if I would do it again I would absolutely do it again and another thing I I failed to mention is I really played Myself by not looking at the forecast because it got down to 49 degrees that night and it was chilly as it was chilly as all get out I want to say chilly as hell but hell ain't really chilly it's hell but that water that wind coming off of the off of that River it just made it exponentially worse but made my way out of the park got my Uber headed back to the hotel and next morning got back up and uh made my way back downtown to the Hines Museum I wish I would have got pictures but my phone my battery was just at it was on its last leg so I couldn't get any pictures but the Hines Museum they have archived like old props of stuff off the set of Mr Rogers Neighborhood which was that was that was such I'm talking my inner child was doing back flips because that was one of my favorite shows growing up as a kid and Mr Rogers is from was born and raised in Pittsburgh which made it even more special and I also I recommend the hin the hind Center as well which is where you can find all the Mr Rogers memorabilia and then got at Uber went back to the airport and I flew back had a layover had a five and a half hour layover in Northfolk and then I got to say that Northfolk hot that Northfolk airport is just it's just small and it's is extremely dated but oh well and after The Layover I finally was able to uh get in the get in the back in the plane and head back down to Charleston landed Sunday night about 11: then went back home so yeah that was that was my trip to PNC Park in a nutshell again highly recommend that if you're a baseball enthusi or if you're just a sports Enthusiast period I cannot stress at least taking at least just going there at least once to visit PNC Park because again the pictures do not do the stadium backdrop any justice you have to see it with your own two eyes and that'll do it for this episode of at the plate with Danny Foxworth make sure you like download And subscribe make sure you tell a friend to tell a friend I appreciate all the eyes and ears make sure you download make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel you can find it at Danny Foxworth 843 there you can find videos for all the episodes of this podcast as well as my other podcast since we last spoke with Danny Foxworth and other podcasts growing up L country with Liz and Danny and and my upcoming podcast which will drop next week which is a podcast all about candles entitled a wicked good time Inus and Wick but yeah that's that's going to do it for this episode and until next time y'all be good three strikes oh come on