April 28-30

Thursday was a dreary day from start to finish, it rained well into the late afternoon. With more in the forecast for the evening hours we postponed the night's street hockey schedule with May 15 as the makeup date. On Friday Jenny was in town, we met for lunch at the plaza. In the evening I made my first regular-season visit to the ballpark on North Prince Street, the Barnstormers hosted the Somerset Patriots. The Stormers won five of seven on their season-opening road trip, they opened at home on Thursday and got the game in despite the adverse conditions. The Patriots took the Thursday game and on this night made it two straight. It was a chilly night with light mist following through the middle innings but I was under cover in the grandstand which was about all that made it tolerable. The Stormers trailed 3-0 in the third, in the bottom half they scored twice thanks to three former big-leaguers. With two out infielder Jeff Kobernus (Washington) doubled and scored on a two-base hit by outfielder Caleb Gindl (Milwaukee), Gindl crossed the plate on another double by ex-Oriole Josh Bell. Somerset posted single runs in the fourth, fifth and ninth to put it away, the final was 6-2. Former Twins property Brandon Bixler made his Barnstormer debut and took the loss, returnees Bryan Evans and Pete Andrelczyk worked in relief along with ex-Arizona Diamondback Matt Reynolds and former Atlanta property Mark Lamm. On Saturday it was still cool and windy, after lunch in Quarryville Jenny and her mother came back to town for the evening's game at the ballpark. I wouldn't have blamed them if they had elected not to come but living fourteen miles out of town doesn't afford them the opportunity to get out much unless it's within our universe. The game started at 7:00, by 9:00 Jenny was getting tired and it wasn't getting any warmer so we headed home. The Stormers were down 2-0 in the seventh when we left, when I got back to town I heard that the game was in extra innings as the 11:00 hour approached. They had a postgame fireworks show scheduled but city ordinances prohibit it after 11:00 so a lot of people were likely going home disappointed no matter how the game turned out. Take care, thanks for reading.