Our first stop today was to see the Charlotte Knights—and being a morning game, you know what that means—Education Day. More kids. More buses. The SpongeBob SquarePants theme song blasting over the ballpark speakers. Today, there was a wide range of grades attending the game. One of the older classes actually had an assignment during the game—they had to keep a box score. Before the game a group of 75 kids huddled in front of the starting lineups board posting to make sure their box scores were filled in correctly. Although Education Days are great for the kids, they aren’t the best venues for fundraising money. Thanks to Tim O’Reilly (no relation, of course) for trying his best for trying to accommodate us at the park. Did you know… the Charlotte Knights are named for the city of Charlotte, NC but play their games in Fort Mill, SC, which is just a few minutes across the state border of North and South Carolina.

Later that night, we arrived in Greenville. The Greenville stadium was built last year and is a replica of Fenway Park, complete with the Green Monster and Pesky’s Pole. The only difference with this Green Monster is that it measures 30 feet in height, as compared to Fenway Park’s, which stands at 37 feet tall. New condos are being built behind left and center field, and you can buy one with a balcony that essentially gives you a perfect view of the whole stadium. If there are any Greenville Drive die hard fans out there, you might want to consider it. As for the game, the Asheville Tourists starting pitcher had a no hitter working until the 7th inning. I thought he was going to pull it out, and I would witness my first no-hitter. (The closest I’ve come to seeing a no-hitter was Eric Milton falling short of a complete game no-hitter by two outs.) After a few questionable calls, the Greenville Drive manager Gabe Kapler (formerly of the Boston Red Sox) decided he had enough of the umpires and was promptly thrown out of the game. Chris and I thought for sure that the first manager to snap would be Joe Mikulik of the Asheville Tourists. Does that name ring a bell? If it doesn’t check back next week after we visit the Asheville Tourists in their home ballpark.

First quasi-celebrity sighting at a baseball game—Chris, the curly-haired American Idol contestant from this season who wanted “to make David Hasselholf cry” was spotted taking in the game from a suite behind home plate. No sign of Sanjaya anywhere.