July 27-30

Saw some pictures on the Internet of the tornado damage in Elmira, reports are that the winds were in excess of 100 miles per hour. I guess it's a good thing we went to visit when we did, it's going to be a long recovery period in the Southern Tier. On Friday Jamie joined me once again since he was rained out of his chance to see New Britain on Thursday. This was the start of a long (I mean L-O-N-G) weekend in Baseballtown, the game on Friday started at 7:05 and wound down at 10:50. The R-Phils won it 10-9 as Cesar Hernandez hit a three-run homer, Tug Hulett went yard with a man on, Leandro Castro had a two-run single, Sebastian Valle had an RBI hit and Jiwan James picked up a ribbie on a sac fly. Austin Hyatt went five innings for the win with Colby Shreve, Tyler Knigge and Jay Johnson working in relief. Better than 9700 in the park for fireworks but as usual I was more interested in getting home before midnight. On Saturday morning I was with Jenny, after lunch she and her mother were along for the evening's doubleheader. The lengthy game on Friday was a mere warmup for this night, we got started at 5:35 and ended at 11:20. We had a 37-minute rain delay during the first game, the between-games intermission was thirty-six minutes. The R-Phils won both games by scores of 5-4 and 6-0, in the opener Darin Ruf had a homer and two RBI, Jiwan James had a run-scoring hit, Tug Hulett plated a run on a groundout and Troy Hanzawa had a sac fly. Trevor May was the winning pitcher, Frank Gailey picked up the save. In the nightcap (which didn't start until 9:10) Julio Rodriguez pitched six innings of shutout ball for the win as Leandro Castro hit a two-run homer, Cesar Hernandez had a two-run double, Troy Hanzawa had an RBI hit and Sebastian Valle had a sac fly RBI. Once again we had fireworks on the schedule but the ladies and I were gone ASAP, Jenny slept in the car on the way home. With it all I walked in my front door at 12:50 in the morning very glad for the fact that Sunday was not a day game. At the ballpark on Sunday it got very dark around 3:45, the grounds crew tarped the field just in time for a rain shower. Jenny and Helen had planned on coming on this night as well but "doubleheader burnout" prompted them to stay home. The rain moved on and the game got going right on time at 6:05, the ballclub completed the four-game sweep with an 8-3 verdict. D'Arby Myers hit his first home run as an R-Phil, Darin Ruf had two doubles and two RBI, Leandro Castro had a hit and two ribbies, Cesar Hernandez had a RBI double and Sebastian Valle had a run-scoring hit. Mario Hollands won it with Johnson, Knigge and Jordan Whatcott in relief. Another marathon contest as we finished at 9:20, the ballclub is back home on August 3rd. Monday was an off-day all the way around, with nothing on the schedule I enjoyed a rare evening at home. Take care, thanks for reading.