Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here...Spring HS Baseball winds down.

We started the regular season game at Elida at about 4:15 yesterday...visiting Paulding had a senior awards banquet scheduled for early evening and wanted to be sure to get back in plenty of time...lucky we got it going early.  As the final out was being made at Ed Sandy Field, a bolt of lightning came down somewhere to the south and west.  This would have meant an automatic 30 minute delay, at least....but we finished up the 9-6 Elida win, just ahead of the storm, which ironically moved to the south of town and near the Allen/Auglaize County Line. 

As I headed south to the local BP station on Lima's southwest corner, where I filled the van, at $4.09, thank you Master Obammy, you sorry son of a bitch, or are you still blaming the evil George Bush for the economic collapse you are fostering?  That filling took $55, the beer I purchase for the evening, another $7...making a grand total of $62 dollars spent, my fee for the Varsity baseball game was $60....damn boys, we be getting rich doing these games.  As I pulled out and headed towards Wapak Road, I called Patricia, who informed me Celina was in a major downpour, and they were reporting hail, large and heavy hail, to the north near Mercer and Neptune...the second town being right on my rural route home. 

After hanging up(do you "hang up" a cell phone?)...I approached the intersection of Wapak Road and State Rt 117....the hail mixed with rain was coming down pretty heavy, real heavy...the ice was about dime size...and rather than continuing my trip on Wapak, I cut to the west on 117 towards Spencerville and Kossuth....a mile or so down that road, the rain ceased and the hail was gone...I had lucked out.  The rest of the trip, as I picked up State Route 197 through Neptune into Celina, was uneventful...it had rained and there was hail, but that all was heading east.  Walking into the house the air was heavy....and I decided to fire up the Central A/C for the first time of the season....drawing the humidity out of the air, I kicked back and watched the Reds defeat the Astros...and then Detroit's Red Wings, once down 3 games to none, come from behind once again, and even that best of 7 series with San Jose at 3 games a piece.

Baseball, where did the season go?

Yesterday's unneeded and unwelcome rain storm, was just another fly in the ointment of the long, wet, and up until the past couple of days, cold spring.  The farmers have yet to touch the fields, and are running a month late in most cases...they have to be getting antsy....and with the extended forecast, it appears that they won't be getting anything planted in the foreseeable future, maybe early June?

The high school baseball season, usually my favorite time of the year to work sports, has fared somewhat better.  Despite the rains, which occur on a almost daily basis, I have so far I have gotten in 30 of 46 scheduled games...frankly about average.  I usually expect to get 2/3rd of my scheduled number in...and we are close to that so far.  Despite not getting the number of Tournament game assignments as the past few years...I am happy with the schedule, just not so much with the weather.  The past 2 games have marked just the fourth and fifth time that I wore short sleeve shirts, without a jacket...and that is a rarity for the season, despite the weather's usual ups and downs.

I have at least one game scheduled for next week, after my return from Michigan...then my Spring season is finished, and the ACME and American Legion season will begin in late May and last through June and much of July....by that time, I am sure we will see plenty of hot weather games...with short sleeve shirts.

That will finish this blogging thing for the next few days...I will return late Sunday or Monday, and hopefully with Mushrooms and plenty of good photos from the trip to Boyne, Michigan....time now to get things in order for the trip....

back later>>>>>