Bees take winning streak on the road

Any way you slice it, yesterday was a great day for Bees baseball.
The weather was perfect.
It was Dollar Monday.
We had a good crowd, full of energy, having a good time.
And the Bees treated the fans to another win.

Not just any win, but a dominating performance, a 7-0 victory over Kane County that makes it five wins in a row for your Bees. They pulled it all together last night: one-hit pitching by Harold Mozingo and Yovany D’Amico, home runs by Jase Turner and Marc Maddox, and errorless defense.

In this morning’s Hawk Eye, manager Jim Gabella called it “one of the better games we’ve played in a long time.”
You can get the full story here, or by visiting www.gobees.com.

Off to their best start in recent memory, the Bees look to continue the winning streak on the road. It was an early morning for the guys, who got on the bus at six this morning. They’ll be in Fort Wayne the next four days, then Dayton for four more.

The series against the Wizards (2-6) starts tonight at five o’clock central time. You can catch all of the action by tuning into “Voice of the Bees” Randy Wehofer on the Bees Radio Network: 1490 KBUR and 1360 KBKB The Ticket.

While the team’s away, I’ll be posting photos from the recent home action, and I’ll try to get in the habit of regularly updating this site with other info that might be of interest to our fans. Once the team gets back, you can expect some features that help you get to know the personalities of your 2007 Bees.

Weekend winning streak: Bees try to make it “High Five” at The Hive

Post-game high-fives were the norm for your Bees over the weekend, as they picked up four wins in less than 48 hours.

With the temperature pushing 70, we’re hoping for a good crowd tonight as your Bees try to push the streak to five straight wins. It’s Dollar Monday, and it’s the last chance to catch the team at home for about 10 days.

Let’s look back at the weekend’s highlights:

Friday: Bees 2, Peoria 0
Jim Gabella became Burlington’s all-time winningest manager in the Midwest League, as the Bees spoiled Ryne Sandberg’s home managerial debut.
Starter Angelo Morales struck out nine Chiefs in seven innings, and Brent Fisher took over the last two innings, fanning four en route to picking up the save.

Saturday: Bees 8, Peoria 5
Outfielder Alvi Morel’s two-run home run sparked a a four-run third inning that put the Bees up for good. It was sweet payback for your Bees, who earlier in the week lost a pair to the Chiefs at The Hive.

Sunday: Bees 1, Kane County 0
Back at home for a doubleheader, your Bees picked up their third shutout win of the young season, as Mario Santiago and Tyler Chambliss combined on a two-hitter. Chambliss picked up his second win, fanning four in three hitless innings. Catcher Brady Everett and outfielder O.D. Gonzalez delivered the offensive heroics in a game originally scheduled for seven frames. Brady led off the ninth with a double, and was replaced by Jarrod Dyson, who scored on O.D.’s single to center.

Sunday encore: Bees 5, Kane County 1
Your Bees made it four in a row, as Matt Campbell allowed just one run over six innings in his first start since 2005. Infielders Marc Maddox (two-run homer) and Scott Lucas (two RBI) were the offensive stars.

As always, you can head to www.gobees.com to get the full game stories, box scores, stats, and all that jazz.

Great shot!

Michael Thompson hit this two-run shot in Tuesday’s 8-3 loss to Peoria. Thompson went 3-for-7, appearing in two games in our first homestand.

This photograph by Jacob Boyd, a graphic designer with The Hawk Eye, beautifully captures the Bees’ first home run of the season. Though it wasn’t printed in the pages of the newspaper, we’re more than happy to post this photo on our blog, with Jacob’s permission! It’s a credit to Jacob, who was here in the rain, wind, and cold during his spare time. We thank him for sharing his work with us.

A nice note

Isn’t it amazing how much a nice letter or e-mail, or a few words of praise can make a person’s day?

From time to time, we receive unsolicited compliments from fans, usually from out-of-town. It’s one of the best parts of our job.

Here’s the first such note of the 2007 season. It arrived in our staff e-mail box (staff@gobees.com) last night. The letter’s from Jay Thorpe, who made the two-hour trip Monday afternoon with his wife and daughter. The Thorpes were the first fans through the gate for Sandberg’s first game here in Burlington.

Jay wrote:

Hello,

My family and I came up monday night to see the Bees and Ryan Sandberg and had a great
time, the staff was very friendly and the signing with Mr. Sandberg was handled well with everyone getting in an organized line. The man in charge of the line an off duty police officer was really nice and dollar monday was and is a great promotion!

This was our first time at a Bees game, but we plan on coming back again this summer. Keep up the great job!

Jay Thorpe

Hannibal, Missouri

Thank you for those kind words, Jay! We look forward to seeing you and your family back here at The Hive in the near future!

(The police officer Jay mentions is none other than SuperFan Jeff Klein, one of the ball park’s many friendly, familiar faces.)

Our office and game-day staffs take pride in doing our best to give our fans friendly service with a personal touch. It’s always gratifying to receive this kind of nice feedback that tells us we’re doing a good job!

Cheese!

This afternoon, these students from Sunnyside Elementary’s after-school program (pictured in the Bees’ dugout) visited The Hive for a tour of the stadium. I’m happy to report it was a well-behaved group of Bees fans. Sunnyside Elementary is an active participant in the Buzz Reading Club, and it showed today: every last child in the group claimed to have been to at least one Bees game!

We do several tours a year. It’s fun showing people around behind the scenes of the stadium: the press box, the clubhouses, the hitting tunnel, the field. Any group can set up a tour by calling our office: 319 754 5705. We’re happy to host groups of all sizes.

You can’t play baseball in the snow
For the second day in a row, the Bees and Kernels are snowed out. For the second day in a row, the team didn’t even leave Burlington.
Hopefully, the weather’s more cooperative in Peoria, where your Bees are slated to play Friday and Saturday, both 6:30 starts.

Eggs, cold temps, Bees wins, and Ryno

With the first homestand behind us, the Bees are supposed to be aboard the bus en route to Cedar Rapids.

Needless to say, those plans have changed.

With more than an inch of snow on the field at Veterans Memorial Stadium, today’s noon game has been postponed. Your Bees and the Kernels will try to play a doubleheader tomorrow up there.

All things considered, we were relatively fortunate to make it through our first home action the way we did. This crazy weather affected every team around the midwest, and we’re lucky that we were able to play four of the five games on our schedule. Thank you, all of you half-crazy fans who joined us at the ball park these last few days!

The first homestand of 2007, in numbers and photos:

5,000 Easter eggs

The Burlington Rotary Club sponsored this year’s Easter-egg hunt. The event was a success, drawing approximately 350-400 area youth, despite Saturday’s noon wind-chill temp of 18 degrees!

2,397 fans

The Southerlands, from nearby Stronghurst, Illinois, were among the nearly 2,400 fans who braved the cold and the rain to come to The Hive and support their Bees during the opening home action.

2 Bees wins

Your Bees got off to a good start, opening the season with two wins against Kane County.
Opening Day starter Brent Fisher (pictured) struck out three and gave up two runs in the first three innings of the season. Third baseman Marc Maddux (pictured, right) singled home the go-ahead runs in the seventh inning, giving the Bees a 6-3 win over the Cougars in Thursday’s opener.
After Friday’s rainout, the Bees shut down Kane County 4-0 in seven innings, behind the arms of Everett Teaford and Tyler Chambliss.

1 Hall-of-Famer

Ryne Sandberg – that’s 10-time all-star, the winner of nine gold gloves, and one of the Cubs’ all-time greats, Ryne Sandberg – obliged many happy fans’ autograph requests.
Sandberg’s Peoria Chiefs took two games from the Bees, winning 2-1 on Monday in front of 991 fans, and 8-3 in a rain-shortened game Tuesday.

Check out The Des Moines Register’s coverage of Ryno at The Hive!

Introduction

Greetings from Community Field — “The Hive” — the home of Burlington Bees baseball.  

A quick intro: My name is Adam Small, and I am the Bees’ assistant G.M. of sales and marketing.  I’m grateful to have a job that I enjoy, doing something I truly believe in. I’m a big fan of Bees baseball, and I take pride in doing everything I can to help grow and promote our organization.

 We’ve got a great thing going here in Burlington, Iowa — the smallest market to host full-season professional baseball:

•      A great staff that I get to be part of. 
•      Awesome fans who loyally support their Bees.
•      A proud history that goes back to 1889: Nearly 200 Burlington players have  gone  on to play in the major leagues, and 25 have been big-league all-stars.
•      A decade-long agreement with our parent club, the Kansas City Royals.

In recent years, we’ve made the leap into the 21st century, taking the steps to ensure a bright future for our organization’s continued success:

     Renovating our stadium before the 2005 season, transforming our outdated ballpark into a modern stadium that’s a community source of pride.

     Giving our Web site – www.gobees.com – a major facelift.

     And, perhaps the most noticeable change for this season, changing our logo, a move that’s been met with an overwhelmingly positive reaction by our fans and the media.  In its current issue, Baseball America rates our new logo as the “best of the best” of Minor League Baseball’s new logos for the 2007 season.  Just two years ago, the same publication rated our outdated logo as one of MiLB’s worst 16.

 This blog seems like the next natural step in this direction, as we continually try to find new ways to share our story with our fans.  I’ll do my best to regularly update this page with content that’s of interest to our fan base.

Among the plans for this blog:

•      profiles of the players, fans, and staff around The Hive
•      photos that share the fan experience
•      alumni reports
•     Bees-related links
•      flashbacks of Bees history
•      promotional details

     and so on…

If you’re looking for up-to-date scores and game stories, your best bet will always be www.gobees.com  This blog is just a supplement to our Web page, a place where fans can find content that tries to capture what Bees baseball is all about.

Thanks for checking out our blog. Come back often, and always feel free to drop me a line on ways we can improve this site, and the Bees baseball experience.

-Adam