Life in the fast lane

I may or may not have mentioned in previous posts, that I thought that Monday night games always seem to go faster. This Monday's game was another one in the fast column. As I arrived on City Island, the weather, once again, looked iffy. Once we started with pre game, though, things were starting to clear out. In attendance, Frank Alan, Ryan and myself, as well as Knute. No problems with pregame, although I noticed that the areas on the infield that usually show wear the earliest were lot worse than they usually are this time of year. All the rain, the tarp coverings, and the early work are starting to take their toll. It doesn't generally look this bad until around the 4th of July. But Knute said they've got renovation plans for the next break, which is a little longer than the last few. He said he didn't feel too bad, because a lot of the major league fields on the East Coast have re sodded the wear areas already. The weather is beating them up too. The heavy wear areas on a baseball field are in front and back of the pitcher's mound, the inside corners in front of home plate, the walk up areas from the dugouts behind home plate, the infield edges where the 2nd baseman and shortstop stand, and the areas where the outfielders usually stand. So after we finished up, we took up residence in our usual spot in the 3rd base cubby and watched/listened to a very pretty young lady sing the National Anthem. It was a typical, thin Monday evening crowd. A shame, since it was a decent Monday night. The foe this evening were the New Hampshire FisherCats, in for their only visit of the season. Once again, is was a little "Old Home Week", as their pitching coach this year is Tom Signore. Tom was the Senators' pitching coach back in '04 or '05. As the game progressed, none of us wanted to say it out loud, but it was moving at a rather quick pace. Before we knew it, it was the top of the 5th and the interns had joined us to prep for the drag and their "routine". Tonight's dance was to be to 'Greased Lightning'. They changed their stop point, so there would be less confusion as to which way to go when they were done. Well it was a nice thought. They still screwed it up, so I don't think the little 'chalk talk' I gave them, complete with diagram, before we went out helped much. Oh well, back to the drawing board, so to speak. After that, the game just kept rolling. It was a close one with New Hampshire only leading 2-1 going to the 9th. And it was only 9:10pm. Win or lose, it would be an early night for a change. The Sens lead off with a base hit and and then bunted the runner over to 2nd. another out was recorded and that left the man at 2nd with 2 outs and Luke Montz to the plate. he worked the count and the drove a pitch to deep right center field. From our vantage point in the new bullpen we couldn't see too well, but found out it was caught at the wall. If it had been hit to any other part of the park (except left-center) it would've been gone. And it would've been a walk-off win. But that' sour luck. Afterwards, it was a quick cleanup and we went happily on our way, about 40 minutes earlier than usual. Bonus. See you tomorrow,same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.