Matchup: Bulls vs. RailRiders; And the Ultimate Durham Bulls Trivia Question

A small story first:

The year before last there was a Triple-A baseball team that played their games in Moosic, Pennsylvania. Moosic is sort of near Scranton and Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania. The team went by the name of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees and they were the Triple-A affiliate of the New York Yankees. The field in Moosic had a lot of problems, so it was closed for a year. The team was renamed the Empire State Yankees and played baseball last year as essentially tenants of various parks, mostly in New York. Now the team is back in Moosic and they are to be known as the RailRiders. There is apparently some regional connection to trolley manufacturing. Although, who are Bulls fans to judge a name? Who among you is even old enough to have even seen a pouch of Bull Durham tobacco, much less rolled a cigarette using the contents?

So, there they are, the Scranton/Wilke-Barre RailRiders, henceforth to be shortened to SWB. What other baseball park has a view of a golf course and a ski run?

The RailRiders are in the middle of the pack of the North Division and the Bulls have an edge in the matchup.

May 23, 2013	W-L	RS	RA	Diff	BA	OPS	ERA
Durham	27-19	234	187	47	.273	.748	3.77
SWB	21-23	169	166	3	.244	.689	3.84

However, the really, really big deal coming up is the possibility of a repeat of the all-time Durham Bulls trivia question. Here’s the question:

What two ex-Durham Bulls faced off in the bottom of the 9th inning in the most celebrated game in recent baseball history?

Answer:

Game 162, 2011, Tampa Bay Rays vs. New York Yankees, 9th inning, two strikes, pinch hitter Dan Johnson (a 2011 Durham Bull) faced …

Cory Wade (also a 2011 Durham Bull) ...

We all know what happened.

So here we are in 2013 and guess who’s in the Bulls’ bullpen? Cory Wade.

Cory Wade

Guess who’s playing for the RailRiders? Dan Johnson.

Dan Johnson

What are the odds of them facing off sometime in the next four days? Excellent. Probably not tonight since Wade pitched last night. But it will happen. Watch this space.