Day Four: The Canton Crocodiles and on to home  In the southern West Virginia news was this story taken off the  AP and placed prominently in the top right column of Sunday's Daily Telegraph: "Mars photos: Is that Texas or is there alien life?" It seems that some skeptics now suspect that the government is faking the  Pathfinder mission to Mars. "The images are obviously fake," one source said. The terrain on Mars, it seems, looks suspiciously like the red deserts of New Mexico. ( Hmmmm. Maybe we're still in Toledo and this  paper I'm holding is the Blade, and Lonesome Bob put moonshine in the flask instead of bourbon...) Another headline reported that "Newspaper claims Glenn Miller died in a brothel, not in plane crash." The  source for this story is the German tabloid "Bild-Zeitung" which Lonesome claims is the equivalent of the National Enquirer.  Later that morning, over another non-descript breakfast, we planned our  itinerary for the last day. Unable to make it to Akron for the afternoon double header, we decided to go head for a 6:00 game with the single A, Frontier League, Canton Crocodiles. This would give us plenty of time to  travel at least part of the way on the blue highways. We got off Interstate 77 in Marietta, Ohio and drove along Rt. 26 through Wayne National Forest. We found this to be a very agreeable ride; there was no traffic at  all for miles, the road was very windy, and the terrain hilly. The mountains were much less steep than in southern West Virginia but we still gained nice elevations as we traveled over the foothills of the Allegheny  Mountains. We encountered four covered bridges within about 30 miles of one another-- one was even still in use. Campgrounds and hiking trails were evident along the way. For a Sunday afternoon in July-- peak vacation  time-- this National Forest was remarkably quiet. We arrived at the Thurman Munson Memorial Stadium in Canton early enough to get the promotional Rock 107 FM mouse pads. Since this was to be our last  game, we decided to treat ourselves to box seats (only $5 instead of the general admissions $4 cost) and sat along the third base line-- about in the same place we had sat in the other three parks. The scale of Munson  stadium was quite a bit larger than those in Pulaski or Bluefield, and about the same size as the Toledo and Columbus fields. Unlike the other three parks we visited, the view over the outfield fences was nothing  special. Looming over the centerfield fence is a large warehouse and again, billboards decorated the fencing. An unusual feature of the park was the all metal structure. Not only were all the structural elements made of  steel but the flooring was also steel-- it had a sort of aircraft carrier feel. The metal seats were ultimately not very comfortable but the floor really rocked with stomping feet whenever the scoreboard and the Crocodile mascot exhorted the fans to  stomp it up.  Each ballpark had its own way of dealing with between inning lulls. We preferred the tasteful music played in Columbus and, a little surprisingly, in Pulaski. In Bluefield there wasn't  much music and what they had they only played sporadically leaving time for promotional events and (surprise!) quiet. Canton's between inning antics, however, were

			over the top and actually diminished our experience. They had promotional events led by a young female staffer who worked way to hard to try to get the audience involved in  watching old guys ride trikes; or the required spin-around-in-a-circle-with-your-forehead-on a bat and then run to first base routine; or the T-ball homer contest; etc. It wore us out. Even more annoying was the crowd noise played  over the sound system. We decided that it was too much like professional basketball and that they were working too hard to make watching the game like watching TV. Relax, Canton, enjoy the sun, the baseball, and a little beer  between innings-- which is exactly what we did.  After falling behind early, the Crocs went on a swingfest, defeating the Chillicothe Paints soundly, 9-5. We noticed in this game, as well as in all the games that we  watched, that the pitchers are often left in the game beyond when they would have been pulled in the majors. We speculated that since there is less at stake, these pitchers are being given more leeway to work their way out of jams.  Occasionally we felt sorry for the guys out there struggling to survive, as we did for the Paints' Sam McAnnich who not only was left in to pitch to the entire order and gave up five runs in the fourth, but was brought back to face  them again in the fifth inning.  The game was over by 9:00 PM. We drove the final three hours on the interstate, arriving home by midnight. Three and a half days after leaving Toledo, $250 dollars lighter each, full of bad  food and good baseball, bad hotels and great countryside, and deprived of live music but enriched by a large slice of American culture, we returned home.   This tale is, of course, an entirely  true account of our minor league baseball trip. If anything we recounted didn't actually happen as we have told it, then it should've happened that way. If you would like to comment to either of the voyagers, please feel free to  e-mail either Gardog or Lonesome Bob .
			If you want to keep up on the Bluefield and the Orioles you should check out the Bluefield Daily Telegraph .  Daily statistics for all of the minors are at Baseball Weekly or more specifically the Appalachian League are available on-line. The best way to keep up with the Columbus Clippers is to check out the Columbus Dispatch . Although we can keep up with the Toledo Mud Hens at Ned Skeldon Stadium or our local paper, you can find them in cyberspace. Back to the beginning of our story
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