April 16-17

Thursday morning: took copies of the street hockey schedule to Don's wife Brenda, she works in town and I called her ahead of time so she knew when I'd be by. On Friday Jenny was in town on business, we saw each other over the lunch hour. From there I made my way to Clipper Magazine Stadium on North Prince Street. The last time we were there was the night the Barnstormers won the Atlantic League championship, spring training camp for the new season opened earlier in the week. On this day the Stormers hosted the Camden Riversharks in a 1:00 exhibition game. It was not heavily promoted and there was no admission charge, I'd estimate there were about a hundred people there. The Barnstormers list several returnees on the training camp roster including pitchers Pete Andrelczyk, Chad Beck, Cody Eppley, Dan Osterbrock, Scott Patterson, Matt Packer, Nate Reed, Jason Urquidez and Shunsuke Watanabe. Catchers Juan Apodaca and Keith Castillo are on the roster as are infielders Yusuke Kajimoto and Lance Zawadzki, outfielders Blake Gailen and Jerry Owens round out the playing returnees. Butch Hobson is back as manager, Rich Rundles returns as pitching coach and former pitcher Ross Peeples aka The Mayor has retired and become a coach as well. The Barnstormers lost the game 6-4, they begin the regular season on the road on April 23rd with the home opener one week later. Take care, thanks for reading.