June 3-5

With the R-Phils on the road for the weekend and nothing else going on I finally had a chance to kick back and enjoy some games as a spectator. On Friday Jenny and I saw our first Atlantic League game of the season, the Lancaster Barnstormers (or as we kiddingly say, the "BSers") opened a series with the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs. The Lancaster team has been in the league since 2005, the Blue Crabs (from Waldorf, MD) began in 2008. The popular Phillie Phanatic appeared at the game on this evening, he'll be in Reading on June 21. On Saturday Jenny and I had lunch as usual, in the evening Dick Myers and I were back at the ballpark on North Prince Street for game #2 of the series. After a 10-4 win on Friday the BSers made it two straight with a 5-4 extra-innings victory. It was a post-game fireworks night but Dick is like me in that regard, when the game is over we are gone. There was a light mist falling during the late innings, shortly after the game ended it opened up and poured but I was safely at home by that time. The rain was gone on Sunday morning, in the afternoon Dick and I went west to York for another Atlantic League game. The York Revolution hosted the Road Warriors in the finale of their weekend series, the Warriors won it 4-2. The Revs joined the league in 2007, they are the current defending champions. The Road Warriors are the league's so-called "travel team", they are owned by operated by the league itself. The Atlantic League has been around since 1998 and there have been some years when the league has had an odd number of cities. During those seasons the league uses a travel team to even up the schedule, since they have no home city the Warriors play all of their games on the road (hence the name). The team is not built to win (the roster is mostly players released by the other teams in the league) but its existence is vital, it allows every other team to play a regularly-formatted schedule. The game in York was rapidly played, it started at 5:00 and was over before 7:30, Dick and I were back in Lancaster before 8:00 (we won't complain about that at all). Take care, thanks for reading.