The Brooklyn Trolley Blogger: Road Trips 2017 Part IV: Hudson Valley Renegades

Monday, October 23, 2017

Road Trips 2017 Part IV: Hudson Valley Renegades

I'm glad to finally present you with Road Trips, Part IV. This chronicles my Labor Day weekend adventure through my home state of New York. The wife and I made stops in Hudson Valley/Fishkill, Troy, Cooperstown, and Binghamton. I took 1,062 pictures, so it took some time for me to get them properly filed way.

Road Trips 2017:

Part I - Pittsburgh Pirates, Pittsburgh Part II: Forbes Field, Philadelphia
Part II - Baltimore Orioles, Wilmington Blue Rocks
Part III - Hartford Yard Goats

We escaped the city after work with surprisingly little resistance. It then dawned on me while driving through Hudson Valley that the Renegades were hosting the Vermont Lake Monsters. The Renegades were involved in a late season race for the McNamara Division title against the first place Staten Island Yankees. And so I made a last minute decision to stop at Dutchess Stadium in Fishkill to catch the game.

I originally planned on driving straight through to Cooperstown, and we prepared a cooler filled with stuff for the trip. But we also grabbed some last minute heroes, which got me thinking ... lets make a mess of ourselves at the game, instead of trying to feed our faces in the car.

What a good decision! We left in the seventh inning or so, continued the drive up to Cooperstown with a full belly, and checked in later than night as planned.

That's the great thing about road tripping; I get to make the rules as I go along.

DUTCHESS STADIUM

home of the

HUDSON VALLEY RENEGADES

New York-Penn League Affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays

Established in Fishkill, N.Y.

1994

Little did I know that my visit to Dutchess Stadium would serve as a sneak preview to the New York-Penn League championship series.

The Baby Bombers wound up edging out Hudson Valley to win the McNamara Division title.

Staten Island ended the regular season with a league best 46-29 record, and 2.5 games ahead of the second place Renegades, whom closed out the season with a 44-32 record, which earned them the Wild Card.

The Renegades would turn the tables on Staten Island in the first round of the New York-Penn League playoffs. After the teams split games One and Two, the Renegades rolled to a 7-1 victory in Game Three.

Hudson Valley faced the Vermont Lake Monsters in the New York-Penn League championship series. After claiming a slim 2-1 victory in Game One, the Renegades completed the sweep with a 6-0 whitewashing of the Lake Monsters in Game Two, to capture Hudson Valley's third NYPL championship in their 24 year history.