June 26-27

Tuesday got off to a rotten start, when I went to my car in the morning I discovered my left rear tire was flat. There is a small garage up the street from me, they found a puncture and patched it so I could drive to a local tire center. All four of my tires were wearing down and with the driving I do it made sense to start fresh so I had them all replaced, with it all it was after 2:00 before I finally got out of there. I went home and took the fastest shower in the history of mankind, from there I headed to Jenny's place. She and Helen were going to the ballgame, Jamie Burkholder joined us so I had a full car. After a 3-5 road trip the R-Phils got the homestand going on a bright note with a 10-2 win over Richmond. Leandro Castro had two doubles and four RBI, Troy Hanzawa hit a double and a triple and knocked in three runs, Brandon Tripp had an RBI hit and winning pitcher Mario Hollands helped himself with a run-scoring hit. Hollands joined the club from Clearwater during the road trip, this night was his first appearance in Baseballtown. The game ended shortly before 10:00, by the time everybody was home it was past 11:30. On Wednesday morning we were at it early, I was on the road by 8:30 for the 12:05 start at the ballpark. This was a special camp kids' game, we had 7600 in attendance and probably 6000 of them were youngsters. On this afternoon the ballclub made it two straight with a 7-4 verdict. Brandon Tripp hit a two-run homer, Leandro Castro had another two-RBI double and Darin Ruf had two ribbies on a sac fly and a bases-loaded walk. Julio Rodriguez pitched six innings for the win, Lisaberto Bonilla and Justin Friend worked in relief. This was our next-to-last afternoon date at home, from here on out they are all at night save for one Sunday in July. I was home by 4:00, the remainder of the day was spent in the quiet of home far from the din of the sports arena. Take care, thanks for reading.