Cheap Seats: Binghamton Rumble Ponies
Exploring America through the lens of Minor League baseball.
Amos and I hit the road on the evening of June 26, 2024 in route to North Adams, Massachusetts for Wilco's Solid Sound Festival. North Adams is over thirteen hours away via car for us, so we decided to break it up especially since there are basaeball ballparks along the way.
You come to a fork in the road and the choice you make could lead to another dimension: a dimension of strikeouts, a dimension of homeruns, a dimension of seventh inning stretches. You’re driving into a land of both carousels and hotdogs, of sunflower seeds and foul balls. You’ve just crossed over into…the Twilight Zone or as the locals call it Bing, the hometown of Rod Sterling and “Carousel Capital of the World”.
Our visit to Binghampton, New York was less than twenty-four hours but we were able to ride the Recreation Park carousel, an inspiration for the Twilight Zone episode, “Walking Distance”. The carousel was built in 1925 and put on the National Register of Historical Places in1992. After a nice afternoon walk around town, we headed to Mirabito Stadium to watch the Double-A Binghampton Rumble Ponies (New York Mets) take on the Portland Sea Dogs (Boston Red Sox). For a Thursday night, they a had decent size crowd with several families in attendance. It was also “Bark in the Park” night, so there were plenty of furbabies in attendance as well.
After a quick walk through Rumbletown and around the park, we grabbed a couple pints at The Southern Tier Brewing Party Deck before heading to our seats located just behind the Visitor dugout. We had a great view of the field with rolling hills in the background. After the fifth inning, the Rumble Ponies were up 1 nil and we were getting hungry. Regrettably, we did not think about a spiedie, the culinary pride and joy of Binghampton. It’s basically marinated meat that’s cooked on a skewer then served on a bread roll. Instead, we got the Rumble Ponies Cheesesteak from the Cheesesteak Boss which satisfied our need of savory meats on a bun covered in cheese and kraut.
We enjoyed a front row seat during the seventh inning stretch of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” with the score, Rumble Ponies two nil. It didn’t take long for the Ponies’ bats to get hot. By the end of the eight inning, they scored six more runs. It was pretty safe to say they were ending this night with a win. This was our cue to head to the team store for souvenirs. I picked up an official Binghamton Rumble Ponies New Era hat and Amos got a Binghamton Creatures1 t-shirt, a homage to Rod Sterling’s Twilight Zone which brings this story full circle and to the end.
Enjoy this video summary of our brief stay in Binghamton, New York.
Minor League teams will play as alternate identies throughout the season to hopefully bring in more fans. They will rebrand themselves as local food, industry and anything that is significant in their area. Binghamton Creatures are based on the Twilight Zone episode, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”. It’s a great episode. Check it out. It stars a young William Shatner.