September 19-20

Saturday lunch in Quarryville with Jenny and Helen, in the evening we were back at the ballpark. The Barnstormers had eleven scheduled home Saturdays, Jenny and her mother made it to nine (one was ruined by rain and the other because Jenny wasn't feeling well). Their personal tour of the Atlantic League was completed on this night, Long Island was the only opponent they had yet to see. This game started poorly for the Stormers as the Ducks scored three runs in the top of the first. Kevin Rivers' solo home run in the second got the Stormers on the board but by the seventh inning Long Island held a 5-1 lead. At that point it was getting late and Jenny was getting tired so we headed for the exits. When you get about five miles south of the city the radio broadcast signal fades out so I had no idea what was happening at the ballpark until I was back within range on the way home. The Barnstormers rallied for four runs in the ninth to tie the game, in the tenth the Ducks went back ahead 7-5. Refusing to be outdone the Stormers struck for three of their own in the bottom half and pulled out a wacky 8-7 win. With it all the game wasn't over until almost 11:00, four hours after it had started. On Sunday afternoon the regular season ended with a 1:00 game, with cool temperatures and low humidity in the forecast I elected to make an exceedingly rare daytime appearance. In the eleven-year history of the franchise this was just the fourth time I can remember being there for anything that started prior to 6:00, I'm just not crazy about afternoon heat and humidity. Before the game Pete Andrelczyk was presented with the club's community service award, fellow reliever Scott Gracey was named via fan vote the team's player of the year. Manager Butch Hobson was also honored for recently becoming the ALPB's all-time victories leader. The game itself was all Home Team from the word Go. Lance Zawadzki's first-inning home run put the Stormers ahead 1-0, in the fourth Brian Cavazos-Galvez doubled and scored on a wild pitch. A six-run fifth put the matter to bed, a Zawadzki RBI double was followed by a two run home run from Yusuke Kajimoto. Two more runners reached for Luke Hughes who went yard to make it 8-0. A two-run double by Kevin Rivers in the sixth and a Tyler Bortnick RBI double in the seventh closed out the scoring, Shunsuke Watanabe started and worked six innings for the 11-0 win. The club's final mark checks in at 75-65, the first round of playoffs starts on Wednesday the 23rd. Take care, thanks for reading.