Minor League Baseball High A Central Finals Game 4: Quad City River Bandits Vs Cedar Rapids Kernels

It’s been a few weeks since my last game, and I was looking for a game to go to in potentially my last opportunity of the season. I was hoping to catch the American Association finals, but it was a little too far away from home. However, the playoffs were awesome! I’m planning a post in a few days with a recap. Also, if this ends up being my last game of the season, stay tuned because I’m planning on doing more posts in the off season! I have quite a few ideas in mind to keep this blog active throughout the entire year. However, I’m also hoping to catch an MLB playoff game this year. It will depend on how things go in the playoffs. If interested, there’s an option to subscribe with an e-mail address at the bottom of the page. This will send notifications when I make future posts. Make sure to check out the video below this paragraph, and the full blog post below the video!

It’s my first River Bandits game since September of 2019. Throughout the years, I have been to Modern Woodmen Park numerous times when it was in the Midwest League. It’s now called the “High A Central Division.” The River Bandits were the closest team to Clinton, and it was my first real experience at a game on the road. All the way back when I was in high school, I had the opportunity to see a very small amount of life on the road in baseball, and that was all thanks to the road games in the Quad Cities. It’s always been a special place to visit to me, and it was very tough knowing that this friendly rivalry, along with Cedar Rapids, were ruined from the Minor League contraction. These matchups were huge when it came to my life in baseball, along with my longtime passion for being around Minor League Baseball. Fast forward to 2021, both of those teams matched up in game 4 of the finals.

Since my first game in 2004, this ballpark has developed so much! A major renovation was done on the stadium that year, and It’s all gone up from there. Modern Woodmen Park is right next to the Mississippi River, and the view is beautiful. The view comes with a cost though. Whenever the river is high, flooding occurs in downtown Davenport. Because of the big renovation, this stadium is the only place that will stay dry. There are pictures on Google that show the flooding, and the stadium being completely surrounded by the water, but not in the water. In recent years, the stadium has added numerous amusement park rides, a new scoreboard, a ferris wheel, along with many other amenities. I’ll have pictures and videos of everything at the bottom of this post!

This was a win or go home game for the River Bandits. In the best of a 5 game series, the Bandits were down 2-1. I love these types of games. The weather was absolutely beautiful, and made the atmosphere even better for fall baseball. The game was tied for almost the entire game. Cedar Rapids looked like they would have the upper hand on the River Bandits, but this is baseball and nothing is ever guaranteed. The Kernels left a lot of runners on base, and missed that big hit they needed throughout the game to bring them in. In the bottom of the 9th, this happened.

Another awesome walk off home run caught on camera! My timing has been great this year when it comes to clutch hits. Game 5 will be coming up, and I’m debating going still. This might be the only time we see an Iowa matchup for the High A Central championship series, since Minor League Baseball changed the playoff format due to the season being different this year. Normally, these teams would be in the same division, so the winner would go to the finals against a team in the east division. I didn’t know any of this until I went to the game, because I haven’t paid much attention to MILB this season. I’ve been mainly focused on independent baseball. Next season, I’ll have to make it to a game in Cedar Rapids to share the experience. I lived in both the Quad Cities and Cedar Rapids at different points of my life, and both stadiums are special to me As always, I’ll have the pictures and videos below. If this is the last baseball game of the year, thank you to everyone that’s visited the blog this season!