Back at it

Starting a homestand on a Friday? Not totally unheard of, but not the norm on City Island. After a week off, the boys are back in town after dreadful road trip. Ididn't listen to any of the games on radio, but after combing through news accounts and such, they showed some signs of life, but keep making a lot of errors and dumb mistakes and not really hitting a lick. But, hopefully, they'll start the big turnaround tonight. I heard on the news this morning, that it woulld be "rally cap night". When I arrived at the park, all of the staff had their caps on inside out. I tried it, didn't work for me, so I just took it off. It had pretty much threatened rain all day, so the tarp was off, but rolled out still when I showed up. The guys had about 90% of the pregame work done, so we wrapped things up and settled in for the game. Since it was Friday, the post-game fireworks were in place and we accepted that it was going to be a long evening. All hands were in attendance, myself, Doug, Alan, Frank and Izzy. But best of all, it was payday! All of those Saturdays and games from the first homestand were about to payoff! The topic of conversation in the cubby tonight was dirt. We discussed types of dirt, prep, how much water to use, how much drying agent to use when its wet, plus an in depth discussion of the types of rakes, and which were our favorites. I, personally, over the years have found that different types of rakes work better on different dirt conditions. In other words, a rake with longer teeth works better in wetter, deeper dirt. A rake with shorter teeth works better in dry, powdery dirt. Very cerebral stuff. And lo and behold, the boys played a pretty decent game and won for the first time in 13 trys! You'd never know it by looking at the line score, though. reading outhit us 11 to 8 and we made 3 errors, but we beat them 4-2 . On the surface, that screams bad baseball on both sides. But.hey, a W is a W. After the game, we had all of our favorites, Launch-a-ball, fireworks, and the tarp. Pulling the tarp sucks. its my least favorite thing. Actually, 'favorite' doesn't even belong. I hate it. But we saved the best for last. We got to take the grnd tour of the almost completed boardwalk. Its extremely cool! I predict its going to be a huge hit with the fans. The views are totally unlike anything the fans have seen on City Island up to this point. It will be a great place to socialize and catch a little baseball, plus a place for antsy kids to strech their legs. When the whole project is complete, its going to rival anything in minor league baseball.
I'm playing in a golf tournament on Saturday, so I won't be at the ballpark, but I'll check back in on Sunday.