July 1-4

July began with daytime temperatures in the low 90s, with nothing special on the calendar there was little reason to go outside. On Wednesday Jenny and I did our lunch date since my mother had another eye appointment on Thursday. On Friday the weather was much more comfortable, as the nation celebrated its birthday I marked the occasion by spending the afternoon with baseball on TV and the evening at the ballpark on North Prince Street. The Atlantic League version of the War Of the Roses continued as the Revolution traveled east from York to face the Barnstormers in the opener of a weekend series. This series marked the end of each club's first-half schedule, the Revs needed one win in the three to be played to clinch the first-half division title and a playoff berth in September while the Stormers needed to sweep the series to stay alive. On this night in Lancaster a crowd of close to 8000 was in attendance (no doubt in part for an advertised GIGANTIC post-game fireworks show), they were treated to an excellent ballgame between two evenly-matched rivals. The Stormers struck in their first at-bat, Cole Garner singled and scored on a base hit by newcomer Gabe Jacobo (late of the Toronto Blue Jays organization). The Revs put three on the board in the second on RBI hits from Ofilio Castro, Travis Garcia and Salvador Paniagua to go up 3-1. The Stormers replied with a three-spot of their own in the third, a Jacobo RBI double and a Lance Zawdzki run-scoring single were sandwiched around a Wilson Batista RBI groundout to make it 4-3 for the home team. That lead would stand up the rest of the way as the visitors were denied the chance to clinch, the Barnstormers picking up the crucial 4-3 win. Dan Osterbrock was the winner with relief support from Ross Peeples, Jason Richardson and Jason Urquidez, Rev starter Jorge Martinez suffered the loss. As the game ended I headed out the front gate, there were people sitting all around the parking lot waiting for the fireworks to go up. As for me it didn't matter, I go the game to watch the game. Take care, thanks for reading.