Work quickly, change speeds, throw strikes..

Wednesday evening, game 3 of the home stand, rain in the forecast. What? Rain you say. Why it hasn't rained since, when, yesterday. Definitely not looking forward to tonight's game. We dodged the bullet the last couple of nights, but I think our luck is going to run out tonight. We also had some fast games the past 2 nights, with good pitching and good defense and low scores. That tends to speed things up. In fact the title of the post are the words of Ray 'the Rabbit" Miller, who I remember as the pitching coach of those, oh so close to being champions, Pittsburgh Pirates teams of the early 90's. I grew up in western PA, and it was all Pittsburgh, all the time. That was his mantra, and I believe it still rings true today. Games usually take at least 3 hours to play today and there's a lot of farting around by pitchers and batter. In fact, way too much. I was reading an article in this weeks' Sport Illustrated that really magnified the difference between today's game and the players and those of 30-40 years ago. The article was "The Greatest Game Ever Pitched" it was about the perfect game that Harvey Haddix threw for 12 innings against the Milwaukee Braves in 1959. I was all of about a 10 months old at the time, so i don't have any first hand knowledge of the game, just what I've read since. When Haddix took the mound in the bottom of the 13th inning, the article states that the game was 'approaching its third hour' Approaching the 3rd hour. That's quick work. The other thing I thought was kind of funny was that after the 2nd inning, Dick Groat lit his cigarette in the dugout while the Pirates were batting. Smoking in the dugout? Its just weird to think about it today. The game did move along at a brisk pace, and like the evening before, the Sens had 1 big inning and it was all they would need. The rain picked up pretty well after the no-drag drag. Just raking tonight. Every half inning we made a trip to the mound and plate to rake the junk off and spread some Turface. We even had to spread some out on the infield at short and second, because it was even getting a little slick out there, too. The 2 relief pitchers were exact opposites when it came to the mound. Andrew Kown was slipping on the Turface and wanted it raked off. Dave Williams wanted a lot. To each his own I guess. After the game was over, the post game cleanup was short and to the point. We just raked off the junk, quickly filled what few holes there were threw some more Turface around and covered everything up. Bing, bang, boom, just the way I like it. Tomorrow's game is a day game. I'd like to be there, but can't make it. Maybe they boys can get their third win in a row. It would be the first time this year I think. Well, we'll see. I check back in after Friday night's game. The forecast is for, you guessed it, rain. Later.