Camden Riversharks, NJ: 9/18/11

At the end of every summer, we meet friends from Philly for an evening out, at a local minor league ball park.  It's cheap, and it's great for the kids because you sit right next to the field.  Parking $2, hot dogs $2, merry-go-round $1. And it's really cheap. (Did I mention that it's cheap?)  

Usually we connect at our hometown Trenton Thunder's Waterfront Park.  The Thunder is a AA affiliate of the Yankees and has hosted notables like Derek Jeter and Roger Clemens on rehab stints.  At one point the Thunder was an affiliate of Red Sox, and Nomar Garciaparra came up through the organization. (Interesting to note that the team was actually founded in 1980 as the Glens Falls White Sox as an affiliate of the Chicago franchise of the same name.)

I digress.

This year, the only game we could find that worked with all of our schedules, was down in Camden, NJ at their Waterfront Park, home of the the Atlantic League's Riversharks.  The Riversharks are an "unaffiliated" or independent team. It's a bunch of guys who have real jobs during the day, and some of them seem like pretty average players.  We did see some awesome plays, and a three-run dinger in the sixth.

The field is right on the "South River" (the Delaware) in the shadow of the awesome and beautiful Ben Franklin bridge....



... it's really a nice place to see a game...



...we took advantage of all the facilities...



...and wandered past the kiddie playground area to check out the bridge...



...and the Philly skyline...



... the game ended and they blasted off some fireworks..



Camden is a bit of a tough luck town, with a few well-heeled benefactors, including Cambell's Soup and Rutgers the state university.  Nice to see this oasis of revitalization right in the center of town — ballpark, aquarium, museum and a few other improvements. Nice night.

Good tale. Nice pics.

Glens Falls is very unique, sports wise, for a small town. It has a minor league baseball team, hockey team and has/had a football or basketball team also I believe.

Very unusual.

The downtown central has alot of nice restaurants for a small area and art galleys and museums.