Oh I Have Seen Things

The Baseball Trip 2018

Day 2 Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Chicago to Des Moines was 332 miles. Today we travel 392 miles from Des Moines to Wichita, Kansas. That's a lot of scrub land.

Random observation from Randy: It's 20 miles to the next town. That's twenty miles of nothing.

However, we did see a real Sinclair dinosaur at a Sinclair gas station:

Favorite sign: Please don't climb on me.

We took Rte 39 all the way into Wichita.

Random observation from Randy: Rte 39 was the old main drag between Des Moines and Kansas City. It's a squirrely, squiggly road, and lots of people died on it.

The Wichita Wingnuts are part of the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball, which is a fancy way of saying they are not affiliated with any major league team. Tonight they play the Lincoln Saltdogs. Why is a team from Lincoln called the Saltdogs? I had to look it up. According to Chris Creamer at Sportslogos.net, the Lincoln, Nebraska area was covered in salt when the town was just being settled in the 1850's. But, "The salt mining industry would never really pan out in Lincoln, but the town took root and continued to grow. More than a century after any serious attempts at salt mining in the area, the local baseball team brought that history back to the forefront." There you have it.

Wichita is a major aeronautical center, hence "wing." But the "nuts" part is beyond me.

Here's me and Spinner, the Wingnut's mascot:

Random observation from Randy: Management found an old mascot costume and told him to wear it.

The Saltdogs took it to the Wingnuts, 11-4, They scored 10 unanswered runs during the 4th, 5th, and 6th innings.