Gary Santaniello reviews the nomadic season of the Hartford Yard Goats.

In March 2015, Hartford’s soon-to-be first professional baseball team in 44 years announced to much fanfare that it would be known as the Yard Goats, an old rail yard term for an engine that switches trains between tracks.

As the team’s first season nears its merciful end, catcher-infielder Ashley Graeter has a more appropriate name for his club: the Yardless Goats.

That is because when its season ends on Labor Day, the Class AA Eastern League affiliate of the Colorado Rockies, which relocated after the 2015 season from nearby New Britain, will have played all of its 141 games on the road.

This was a good team that likely lost a chance to make the playoffs due to bureaucratic nightmare that is Dunkin’ Dounts Park. On the other hand, this may bode well for future Rockies teams. The Yard Goats manager Darin Everson on his team:

Everson, whose 14-year-old son, Jared, had been with him from spring training until he returned home to start school, said he was always conscious of his team’s “heartbeat” as the season progressed.

“They’ve been a really tight-knit group,” he said. “They have fun whether they’re on the field, in the dugout, out shopping, or razzing each other on the bus.”

Jemiola said, “It’s a good group of guys.”

I suspect this experience will make them a very tight knit group when they reach the majors.