Can you dig it???

Thursday August 6th, counting tonight's game there are 14 home dates left in the 2009 season. There are actually 15 games to be played, due to a double-header to make up a rain-out from earlier in the year. Tim made the call for all hands for tonight's game. There was some speculation of an announcement at tonight's game. What could it be? Presentation of the Eastern League Groundskeeper/ crew Award? Turns out, no. It was for extra help due to the Diamond Dig after tonight's game. As we were leaving Wednesday night, the lights had all been turned off and Tim and Knute were taking measurements for the burying of the box that would contain the fake diamond necklace. The real McCoy would be given to the woman who dug up the box later on this evening. When I arrived on City Island, the whole gang was there. Knute, Alan, Frank, Doug, Izzy, and even day-guy Ben. Pre-game prep was under way and, with that much help, we were done in record time. There were several big topics to discuss tonight. First and foremost was the suspension of 2 Senator players, Edgardo Baez and Offilio Castro. Seems they had tested positive for performance enhancing drugs, each drawing a 50 game suspension. So that will do it for their respective seasons and probably do some serious damage to their careers. i don't believe either was either on or high up on the prospect list. Not good. So there was at least 1 new face in the lineup tonight and a lot of juggling of position players. As we expected, the boys fell behind quickly, with the usually reliable Erik Arneson struggling on the mound. by the end of the 3rd they had fallen behind 5-0. By the way that the Mets were smacking the ball around, it seemed like it should be a lot more. The Sens were able to post up 3 runs in the later innings with a few small rallies, but came up short in the end. After the game, the "fun" was about to begin. We had heard there were about 120 women registered for the Diamond Dig. It sure looked like a lot more than that lined up outside the gates. The attendance tonight was surprisingly larger than what was expected, with about 4500 or so in the park. The pre-sale was less than a quarter of that, so the walk-ups must have heard about $2 beers and a shot at a $2500 diamond. We roped off the infield and lined off 4 sections for the women to dig in. As we were setting up, the office personnel were handing out plastic spoons to the participants and boxes of spares to us to hand out in case of breakages. Once the women had all chosen a spot, the rules were announced. They could dig anywhere in the infield dirt in their chosen section for 5 minutes. If no one had located the diamond in that time, which they hadn't they would eliminate 2 sections and the women would move to those sections. As they started, it soon became apparent that it wasn't going to bee all that easy. The infield was almost as hard as the street and digging with a plastic spoon was, well, difficult. I had several offers of cash for any insight as to where the diamond might be, but, alas, I had no idea. As I met up with the rest of the guys from the crew, we all agreed that the best part of this event was the B & B Show (boob and butts). The women were so focused on what they were doing, some fanatically so, that modesty had flown out the window. That was the upside. The downside was the huge mess they were making of the field. After the 2nd segment had ended with no one locating the diamond again, the women all moved to section 1 near 1st base. While they were there, we started picking up all the broken spoon pieces, filling in the holes they had managed to dig, and raking the dirt that had been thrown into the infield grass back into the infield. When the time had finally expired, no one had located the diamond. At that point, the map and locator string was brought out. The women were instructed to place their right foot on the spot they thought the diamond was located and hang tight. Once the spot was located, and it took a little digging, the box was uncovered and 1 woman was very happy indeed. The rest, not so much. After we had herded everyone off the infield, we finished picking up pieces of spoons and brought out the tractor to try and return the infield to its previous state. All told they girls went through almost 1000 spoons. My guess is we'll be finding little pieces of them until the end of the season. After all that hoopla, what could top off the evening? Why another visit from a skunk! A small skunk came waddling through the 1st base gate, and right in to the 1st base cubby. We had it cornered and were waiting for Ben to bring the pellet gun. In the meantime, the skunk was trying to make a break for it. When he made it to the top step, Izzy nailed it with a rake, mortally wounding it. needless to say, the smell was powerful indeed. we managed to scoop it up with a shovel and deposit it in the garbage can from the dugout. My guess is that the garbage can stayed there until the next morning. After that, we all sat down to have a beer and cool off for a few minutes. After a beer it was pretty late, so we all packed it in for the evening. Next game is not until the 14th, so we'll take a break until then. Talk to you on the 15th...