A trip to Morgantown (actually, Granville, W.Va.)

Monongalia County Ballpark, home of the West Virginia Black Bears.

With the Wild Things playing on the road last week, it gave me an opportunity to make the trip south and watch the West Virginia Black Bears, the Pittsburgh Pirates' new affiliate in the New York-Penn League, play at Monongalia County Ballpark and make some comparisons between that team and its ballpark and what we see at Consol Energy Park with the Wild Things.

While the Black Bears are said to be based in Morgantown, the ballpark is actually located across the river from Morgantown in Granville, W.Va., which has a population of only 2,508, which makes it one of the smallest communities to have a minor-league baseball team. Sauget, Ill., population 155, is home to the Frontier League's Gateway Grizzlies and the smallest town to have pro baseball.

The ballpark is easy to find. No need for a GPS or Mapquest. From Washington, just go south on Interstate 79 and exit at the West Virginia University/Star City exit. Take a left at the exit stop and then a right at the first traffic light. Like Consol Energy Park, Monongalia County Ballpark is located just off an interstate and close to a shopping area. When you make the right at the traffic light, you enter a shopping/restaurant area. Proceed to the top of the hill and just past the Wal-Mart, on the left, is the ballpark.

Monongalia County Ballpark has two parking lots, one a reserved area located behind the left-centerfield wall, and a general lot located across the entrance road from the reserved lot. The playing field is much like CEP. It's all turf except for a dirt pitcher's mound. One thing I noticed about the turf is it is much more springy than at CEP. That's probably because the ballpark opened this spring and the turf hasn't had snow sitting on for months and pushing down the rubber chips. Twice in the first inning of the game I attended, batters hit balls into the turf only a few feet in front of the plate that bounced on one hop over the third baseman and into left field. It happened again in the top of the 9th inning.

Some of the positives of the park are padded outfield and side walls, which gives it a professional look and feel. There are no exposed concrete walls. The outfield wall height is eight feet, but it goes up to 16 feet for a section in left centerfield in front of the ticket office and visitor's clubhouse. One thing you'll notice is there are only 12 advertising signs on the outfield wall.

If you don't mind standing or patio-style table seating, then the area down the right-field line is interesting. This area gives you a good bird's-eye view above first base and the right-field line. I can see these being popular.

There is only one seating bowl in the stadium and all the seats are located from dugout to dugout. There are no seats beyond the outfield side of each dugout. In other words, nothing like sections 101 and 102 at CEP. And every seat is located behind the backstop net, which extends to the outfield side of each dugout. If you don't like watching a game through the netting, then this isn't the place for you, unless you purchase the SRO or patio tickets.

As we know, CEP is divided into two seating bowls. The upper level has aluminum bleachers with aluminum backs, and the lower bowl has box seats that were originally in Three Rivers Stadium. The seats at Monongalia County Ballpark are aluminum bleachers that have blue plastic seats attached to the bleacher. There are no armrests and no fold-down seats that you would find in an arena, theater or major league ballpark. I didn't mind the plastic seats, though that might have been because nobody was in the two seats to my immediate left.

Another oddity of  MCB is that almost every foul ball that goes over the netting will hit the pressbox and fly back, at pretty good rate of speed, toward the fans in the seating bowl. In other words, if the ball goes over your head, turn around and watch it. If not, you might get hit in the back of the head.

The level of play was good. The night I was there, the starting pitcher for the Auburn Doubledays was Erick Fedde, the Washington National's No. 1 draft pick in 2014. West Virginia started Seth McGarry, a draft pick this year who was a reliever at Florida Atlantic. Fedde's fastball was sitting at 93-94 mph and McGarry got his up to 93 mph. Attendance that night (it was a Tuesday) was 2,077.

Kevin Newman, the Pirates' No. 1 draft pick this year, plays for West Virginia but he was not in the lineup that night. That's one of the problems with the expanded New York-Penn League rosters. You can see the team play one night, go back the next and find seven different players in the lineup. Kevin Kramer, the second-round pick out of UCLA, was in the lineup that night at shortstop. Nineteen players who were drafted this year by the Pirates have been assigned to West Virginia.

The player who impressed me the most was third baseman Mitchell Tolman, a seventh-round pick this year out of Oregon. Definitely a plus arm and he looks like he can hit a little. He's small for a third baseman (5-11, 195), so he might not stick at that position, though he definitely has the arm to play there.

The ballparks have about the same concession foods. MCB has a chicken sandwich and fries combo that CEP does not offer. CEP does offer combos with a drink. MCB's combos do not include a drink. MCB does sell one interesting item that CEP does not: wine.

The between-innings promotion edge goes to the Wild Things. The Black Bears' promos were fairly lame. They used the video board for canned promotions and had one on-field contest that was simply a person trying to hit a ball off a tee over the side wall down the left-field line.

Here are some other comparisons between the Wild Things/Black Bears, Frontier League/NYP and CEP/MCB:

	Wild Things	Black Bears
Stadium	Consol Energy Park	Monongalia County Ballpark
Capacity	3,200	3,500
2015 per game	1,907	2,351
League	Frontier	New York-Penn
Class	Independent	Short-season A
Roster size	24	35
Ticket prices	$15-$12-$10-$5	$12-$10
Parking	$5	$3
Hot dog	$2.50	$4
Large soft drink	$5	$5.50
Nachos	$5	$4.50
Bottled water	$3.50	$4
Draft beer	$6	$6
Chicken & fries	$11 w/drink	$8 no drink