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The Islandian Times
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Around the Town in the IPA
Bay St. Clair Buccaneers
Owner: Louis "Sugar Lips" Charles
GM/Manager: Guy Rondre (pronounced "Gee Ron-dray")
Bay St. Clair is a major port, tourist destination and petroleum and railroad center, located in southwestern Tycobbia on its namesake, Bay St. Clair, a great natural harbor. It is a town of 117,000 resting on the Appian River, which empties into the Kelnyck Ocean. The town was established in the 1850s by a group of American abolitionists from the North and the South, who saw the coming Civil War. They wanted to set up a country free from slavery and religious intolerance.
Offshore oil rigs in the Southern Sea provide a great boost to the local economy and a thriving petroleum business. Noxxe Oil Corporation is one of the nation's biggest and its home office is in Bay St. Clair.
Breathtakingly beautiful white beaches and luxurious hotels dot the coastline. Bay St. Clair has a multicultural heritage with French and Creole backgrounds. It is known for great music, exquisite cuisine and good times. Bon Temps ("Good Times" in French) is a lenten carnival, famous for parades, costumed balls and frivolity. Jazz funerals are a noted part of the town's culture.
Another important annual event and tourist lure is the Bay St. Clair Jazz and Music Heritage Foundation's "Razzmatazz". This is ten days of jazz, blues, gospel and rock greats.
Bay St. Clair is also home of the Buccaneers baseball team of the Islandian Pro Alliance. The Bucs are in the Tycobbian Union's West Division. They are owned by jazz immortal, Louis "Sugar Lips" Charles. This Creole singer and trumpeteer loves his baseball just about as much as his music. He was one of the league creators along with Jock Ewing, Rob Jackson and John Banson.
The club plays at Shoreline Stadium, which looks out on the beautiful white beaches and blue-watered bay. A brass band, often led by "Sugar Lips", entertains the fans at all Buccaneers' games. At the seventh inning stretch, the band plays "When the Bucs Go Marching In". And when the opposing teams have to go to the bullpen for a relief pitcher, the band welcomes him with a funeral dirge, a sad and mournful song. When the game is decided in favor of the Bucs, they begin playing a lively Dixieland victory tune and parade around the stadium.
Concessions are great with wonderful Creole soul food, gumbo (seafood soup), red beans and rice, jambalaya (seafood casserole), hot beignets (pronounced "ben-yays"), hot out-of-the-grease doughnuts, covered in powdered sugar, cafe au lait (chicory coffee with hot milk), pecan pralines (candy), snowballs, topped with sweet condensed milk, and the traditional hamburgers and hot dogs.
Bay St. Clair's GM and Manager is hometown boy, Guy Rondre, a fine southpaw in his industrial league days. He was known for a great fastball and was nickname "Lightning".
Shoreline Stadium (1940)
Capacity: 11,900
Dimensions:
LF Line 332
LF 360
LCF 388
CF 400
RCF 381
RF 350
RF Line 325
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