Afternoon delight?

Thursday, Aug. 20th. Only 9 home games in 8 days remaining in the 2009 season. After this home stand, the old ballpark will start to change shape. The left field bleachers will be taken out to prepare for the next phase of renovations to the old ball field. It was hot and humid again as I headed to City Island from work. The game was under way when I arrived, so I changed and headed to the cubby to meet up with the boys. When I arrived it was Knute and Cullen. (Cullen is one of the day guys. This is his last game, since he is heading back to school next week) Altoona had already jumped out to a 2-1 lead, so the boys were working from behind again. The game moved along nicely, but it was starting to cloud over again. We were keeping an eye on the radar, watching a small storm heading our way. We managed to dodge the rain until the 7th inning when a light rain began. It looked like it would be short-lived, but wasn't stopping. After the top of the 7th, the umps called for some Turface, so we went out en mass to spread what we had. We were running low on Turface trying to stretch it to the end of the season and save the budget, so we could only do so much. It became apparent that the rain wasn't stopping, so we ran for the tarp. The tarp was covered with Turface and still pretty wet from the night before, so we knew it was going to be a bear to roll out. We finally got it to the home stretch, when the back of the tarp hit the infield dirt. The infield, at this point, was wet and sticky like glue. Add to that the fact that it was covered with water and the tarp stuck to it like a magnet. We hadn't gotten past the 3rd base line yet, and it would not move another inch as hard as we pulled. So that was that. The 3rd base line was like a moat. It was obvious that this game was in the book. When it finally stopped raining, we took the tarp back off to survey the damage. There was still standing water everywhere and the infield was a muddy mess. The umps and managers took a quick look around and decided that that was it. We rolled up the tarp, cleaned up as best we could, and called it a day. It was only 3:15, so we had a few beers and then headed for home. I know things will look a lot different when I come back next week, so it should be interesting. And it will be the final home stand of the season, the end of my 14th year in the dirt. So I"ll talk to you then. Later.