Delaware Park

Continued from Page 30 limited hours: 11 a.m. to 4 a.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, plus continuously from 8 a.m. Thursdays to 3 a.m. Sundays.

Table games run 10 a.m. to 4 a.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, plus continuously from 10 a.m. Thursdays to 4 a.m. Mondays. Poker runs 11 a.m. to 3 a.m. daily. Sports bettering runs 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekends. Simulcast horse racing runs 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.

Delaware Park Racetrack opened in 1937 (providing the name for its brewpub). It entered a new era in 1995 with video lottery terminals (legalese at the time for slot machines). Parlay sports betting started in 2009, followed by table games in 2010, online gaming within Delaware state lines in 2013 and full sports betting in 2018.

To learn more about Delaware Park Casino & Racing, visit https://delawarepark.com.

By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer

In the United States, there is a general line of regional demarcation that separates early-season baseball games played in moderate temperatures from those that get underway in a manner that turns a ballpark into a wind-blown icebox.

Delaware falls in the latter category.

As Delaware Blue Hens’ starter Bryce Greenly begins his warm-up tosses at Bob Hannah Stadium in Newark on the afternoon of March 31 against the College of Charleston, he does so before dozens of fans huddled in the Nanook of the North fashion of overcoats and blankets, who come prepared to see baseball through fabric.

Growing up in a dugout

When Johnny Ray was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates on August 31, 1981 for Phil Garner, he became the teams’ second baseman for the next six-and-a-half seasons.

When measured purely by statistical analysis, there was very little about Ray’s career that could be categorized as spectacular. At a time when baseball was becoming known less for its small ball strategy and more for its bombastic home runs (“Chicks dig the long ball”), the switch-hitter’s achievements on the diamond seemed carved from the culture of discipline, not from a Madison Avenue marketing campaign.

When he was a kid growing up in DuBois, Pennsylvania –about 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh -- Greg Mamula carried one of Ray’s baseball cards in the back pocket of his Little League uniform. The connection and similarities to the ballplayer were natural: Mamula, like Ray, was a second baseman and also relatively small in stature. Like Ray, Mamula relied heavily on using the lost artifacts of the game: getting on base, putting the bat on the ball, hitting behind the runner and playing the field at a level of consistency that earned few headlines but protected leads and saved games.

DuBois was also where Mamula learned the game under the watchful eye of his father Larry, a long-time high school baseball coach. In the shadow of the Mamula family house, the boy would field ground ball after ground ball his father hit to him, and then join Larry at the high school, maintaining the high school’s field and serving as the team’s batboy.