Indianapolis, IN: Indianapolis Indians vs Louisville Bats Minor League Baseball (4/21/2014)

Last Monday night we drove up to Indianapolis with a couple of friends to catch an Indianapolis Indians minor league baseball game.


The weather had predicted occasional thunderstorms, but we decided to go up anyway on the off chance that it wouldn't rain too much. We lucked out and it only sprinkled off and on throughout the evening; we only needed an umbrella once and the game was never impacted.


The Indians, the Triple A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates, were playing the Louisville Bats, which is the Triple A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. Now you know why we chose to go up on a Monday night :) The Reds were playing the Pirates in Pittsburgh at exactly the same time ... and the craziest thing was going on. The inning and score were exactly the same until almost the very end. Every time I looked over at the scoreboard (the Indians have a separate board for flipping through the rest of the majors and Triple A scores), the exact same thing was happening: two on, two out; one on second; etc. We thought some kind of crazy history was being made as both games went into the 9th, until Pittsburgh won in the 9th and our game went into extras. (The Indians - Pittsburgh's affiliate - wound up winning in the 11th.) Both games wound up with a score of 6-5. Still crazy.


Victory Field is downtown with a view of three different Marriotts. There is plenty of parking nearby (we parked at the Government Center Garage) and it's all $6. Indians tickets are also really inexpensive. You can get awesome seats right behind the dugout for less than $20 each. I've never had a bad seat here (I went to several games in college), and the stadium is really nice. Mondays are also $1 night - we had hot dogs, popcorn, cracker jacks, peanuts, and soda all for $1 each. That is a steal, especially compared to normal ballpark prices. We didn't try any of the other food, but they have several other food and drink options as well.



We had, uh, pretty good seats!


We got a kick out of this truck with a target painted on it. There are certain times when the announcer would let us all know that if the batter hit this truck, one certain row from one certain section would win something. So specific! Nobody ever hit the target, unfortunately.


Minor league baseball is underrated. Not only can you afford to be closer to the action (being able to see pitches and hear the ball go by is pretty cool), but you can see prospects coming up and sometimes you get to see guys you know on rehab. We knew several of the Bats players who had played a few games with Cincinnati. Tucker Barnhart, below, was the starting catcher (you'll remember I even asked him a question when the Reds Caravan was in town).


Every baseball team needs to have some kind of race between an inning, and the Indians have Chick-Fil-A cows and Rowdy, the mascot, race around the warning track. Rowdy won.


Another Reds guy we knew got to pinch hit during the game - fan favorite Corky Miller.


The Indians cheerleaders (for lack of a better term) passed out several prizes throughout the evening, including baseball beach balls and t-shirts. Eric caught a t-shirt! It's very descriptive.


It's nice to have good baseball so close to us (Cincinnati baseball is about 3 hours away, which isn't awful but really demands a weekend trip rather than just a day). We'll hopefully go back and catch another game this summer!
Indianapolis, IN: Indianapolis Indians vs Louisville Bats Minor League Baseball (4/21/2014) Indianapolis, IN: Indianapolis Indians vs Louisville Bats Minor League Baseball (4/21/2014) Reviewed by Maria on 3:00:00 PM Rating: 5

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