15 great TinCaps moments from Parkview Field's first 15 years
The TinCaps are wearing special new uniforms for select home games this season. The fresh duds feature “TinCaps” written across the chest in gold and the usual TinCap logo on The TinCaps baseball team has been wearing special new uniforms for select home games this season to commemorate the 15th year of Parkview Field in Fort Wayne. The stadium, which opened in April 2009 at a cost of over $30 million, has been heavily invested into improving the stadium, including a $1.2 million renovation to its playing surface. The team's first game under its new name was held under the name of TinCap and opened its new home digs with a 7-0 victory over Dayton. Since then, the team has hosted numerous events including a Midwest League championship team, two levels of minor-league baseball, and a Midwestern League All-Star Game.
Pubblicato : 4 settimane fa di Dylan Sinn | The Journal Gazette in Sports
The TinCaps are wearing special new uniforms for select home games this season. The fresh duds feature “TinCaps” written across the chest in gold and the usual TinCap logo on the hat is also ringed with gold. On the side of the hat is a silhouette of Parkview Field with the number “15” overlaid across the top.
The new uniforms commemorate the 15th year of Fort Wayne’s downtown baseball stadium, which opened in April 2009 after being constructed for a cost of just more than $30 million. In the years since, the ballpark has played host to a Midwest League championship team, two levels of minor-league baseball, a Midwest League All-Star Game and hundreds of future big-leaguers.
Along the way, significant time and effort have been invested into improving the stadium and keeping it among the best in its class across MiLB. Among the improvements this offseason was a $1.2 million renovation to the playing surface.
”I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say the ballpark looks nicer and maybe even newer than it did when I started (as an intern with the team in 2013),” said John Nolan, the TinCaps’ broadcasting and media relations manager. “It’s a testament to (team ownership group) Hardball Capital, the city of Fort Wayne and the leadership of (team president) Mike Nutter and the rest of the staff that has continued to maintain Parkview Field as a top venue in all of minor-league baseball.”
Here is a look at the 15 best moments from the first 15 years of Parkview Field, set in chronological order:
New name, new stadium
The rebranded Fort Wayne franchise played its first game under its new “TinCaps” moniker and opened its new home digs with a 7-0 triumph over Dayton in front of more than 8,000 fans, the first of 10 consecutive victories to begin the campaign. A pair of F-16 fighter jets from the Fort Wayne Air National Guard christened the stadium with a flyover.
Catcher Robert Lara snapped an 0-for-15 slump with a game-winning, series-winning home run in the bottom of the 10th inning against Great Lakes to send the TinCaps to the Midwest League Championship Series.
The TinCaps celebrated the lone Midwest League title in franchise history with more than 2,000 fans a day after clinching the crown with a three-game sweep of Burlington. They finished the season with 101 wins (including playoffs), tying a MWL record set in 1978.
Parkview Field hosted the Midwest League All-Star Game for the first time ever and Fort Wayne did so for the first time since 1994. TinCaps pitcher Jerry Sullivan struck out Mike Trout, then of the Cedar Rapids Kernels, in a key spot to lead the East to a 6-2 win.
Four pitchers, led by future Atlanta Braves All-Star Max Fried, who struck out eight in 5 2/3 innings, combined to pitch the only nine-inning TinCaps no-hitter in Parkview Field history. Then, Brian Adams drew a bases-loaded walk in the ninth to give Fort Wayne a 1-0 win over Great Lakes.
During a game against Great Lakes, play was halted for 18 minutes in the fifth inning after Fernando Perez stepped on a hose connection in the right-field bullpen while chasing a foul ball. The misstep sent water gushing 15 feet into the air.
In the midst of a dominant second-half run to help lift the TinCaps to the playoffs, 6-foot-8 right-hander Michel Baez set a Parkview Field record that still stands with 14 strikeouts, one shy of LaTroy Hawkins’ franchise record of 15. He did not walk a batter over 6 2/3 innings in a 4-3 win over Dayton.
Future Padres All-Star Fernando Tatis Jr., then 18 years old, set a Fort Wayne single-season record with his 21st homer in a win over Bowling Green. The record-setting blast traveled 420 feet and was witnessed by more than 7,800 fans. The previous record, by Jake Patterson, had stood for 20 years.
Marcus Greene Jr. matched Lara’s feat as the TinCaps’ catcher hit a game-winning, series-clinching two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth to beat Bowling Green 6-4 and send the TinCaps to the division championship series. In the top of the inning, Bowling Green manager Reinaldo Ruiz was ejected and threw a trash can on to the field in disgust before departing.
TinCaps manager Anthony Contreras won his 227th game with the team, tying Doug Dascenzo’s franchise record, set a decade earlier. He got the win on a ninth-inning Tucupita Marcano single against Lake County. Contreras eventually won 310 games in five seasons leading the club. He played for Dascenzo with the Fort Wayne Wizards in 2008.
Down 11-2 in the fifth, Fort Wayne rallied for the biggest comeback in TinCaps history and beat the Peoria Chiefs 12-11 thanks to a pair of home runs for outfielder Jawuan Harris, including a game-tying grand slam in the eighth. Ethan Skender scored the winning run in the ninth on a double steal as The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz producer Michael Ryan Ruiz looked on – TinCaps fans convinced him to visit from Miami.
After the 2020 season was canceled during the coronavirus pandemic and the 2021 campaign was pushed back a month to permit minor-leaguers to have a separate spring training from their MLB counterparts, the TinCaps played their first game in 610 days and beat West Michigan 8-0. It was Fort Wayne’s first game as a High-A ballclub after the team was promoted in December 2020.
Second baseman Nerwilian Cedeño turned a 7-6 deficit into an 8-7 win over West Michigan with a two-run single off the wall in right-center in the ninth inning. A crowd of 8,516, the 17th-largest in the stadium’s history, was on hand to see Fort Wayne continue a red-hot start to the second half of a campaign that ended in the postseason.
Graham Pauley ripped his 16th home run in his 45th and final game with the TinCaps, bringing to a close one of the best stretches of power hitting in team history and leading Fort Wayne to a crucial 6-1 victory over fellow MWL East playoff contender Dayton. Pauley was promoted to Double-A San Antonio the next day and made the Padres’ season-opening roster this year.
Playing their first postseason game in six years, the TinCaps blanked Great Lakes 5-0 in Game 1 of the East Division Championship Series behind a three-run home run from Sammy Zavala. More than 3,600 fans attended on a few days’ notice after Fort Wayne clinched a playoff spot on the last day of the regular season.