June 24-26

Friday night baseball on North Prince Street and my first look at the Atlantic League's newest franchise. The Camden Riversharks were a part of the ALPB for fifteen years, during the winter the franchise was sold and moved to New Britain, Connecticut. New Britain (aka "The Hardware City") hosted an Eastern League club from 1983 to 2015, chiefly as an affiliate of the Minnesota Twins. In 2016 the city's new ALPB franchise debuts as the New Britain Bees. This was game #2 of a four-game series, the Barnstormers lost the opener on Thursday night in a game played despite the weather conditions. On this night it was more of the same, the Bees led 2-0 in the fourth when the game went into a rain delay. After a one-hour and seventeen-minute wait play resumed, New Britain added two more in the seventh to go up by four. The only score for the Stormers came on a Charlie Cutler solo home run in the ninth, Bryan Evans was the pitcher of record in the 4-1 loss. On Saturday the rain was long gone, as the old cliche says "it was a beautiful night for a ballgame". Jenny and her mother made their customary Saturday appearance, before the game Jenny got photos with some of the players. Back in May we had a chance meeting with Pete Andrelczyk and pitcher/infielder Justin Jackson, on this night they were kind enough to grant a photo request and for good measure Caleb Gindl and outfielder Josh Whitaker posed with her as well. The game itself was all Stormers from the word Go, Lance Zawadzki's first-inning grand slam made it 4-0. In the second a solo home run by K.C. Hobson and a two-run shot by Gindl upped the lead to seven. A six-run seventh inning put it away on RBI hits from Jackson, Cutler, Sean Halton and Kevin Ahrens, two more runs scored on an error and a wild pitch. The final count was 13-3, starting pitcher (and ex-York Rev) Kelvin De La Cruz worked into the sixth inning and earned the win. On Sunday the series finished with a rare 5:00 game, for that very reason I made an even rarer Sunday appearance. On this late afternoon/early evening the Stormers took a 1-0 lead in the second thanks to a Sean Halton long ball, the Bees tied the game with a single in their half of the fifth. In the sixth inning Lance Zawadzki became the first player in club history to hit a grand slam home run in consecutive games, his shot over the picnic tents in right field put the Stormers up 5-1. A solo home run by Josh Bell in the eighth wrapped up the 6-4 win, Tanner Peters worked six innings for the victory with Andrelczyk picking up the save. The ballclub starts a series with Bridgeport on Monday, street hockey playoffs continue at Reservoir Park as well. Take care, thanks for reading.