July 21

When I posted my most recent entry here (July 17-20) I was notified that it was the 1000th post in this blog since I started keeping it in November of 2010. I actually started an online blog in January of that year, when the original blog's hosting site became unmanageable I started this one here at blogger.com. That original blog regrettably no longer exists online but I was able to preserve it in print, maybe someday I'll publish my memoirs and it will come in handy. I can't imagine who would buy that book but I know this blog has an audience so one never knows. The steamy weather conditions that moved in earlier in the week were still with us on Friday, in the evening the Barnstormers opened a series with the Long Island Ducks. On the 14th in York the Revs played at home for the first time in eleven days (a seven-day road trip followed by the four-day All-Star break), on this night the Stormers were returning home from a similar absence (the A-S break followed by a week-long roadie). The ballclub lost two more players during the break as Caleb Gindl (San Francisco) and Vladimir Frias (Arizona) were signed back into affiliated ball. As a result the Stormers had four new players in the lineup including a returning favorite and two others making their season debuts. The returning favorite was Cole Garner, a member of the Stormers' 2014 championship club who spent part of '16 in the ALPB with New Britain, his solo home run in the second inning gave the Barnstormers an early 1-0 lead. Garrett Weber and Josh Bell (activated from his coaching position) followed with back-to-back singles, Weber scored on Anderson De La Rosa's RBI double. Bell came home on a single by new addition Beau Amaral (from the Cincinnati Reds organization and the son of ex-bigleaguer Rich Amaral) to make it 3-0. In the fourth the visiting Ducks posted a single run, the Stormers replied in their half when Garner singled and scored on De La Rosa's second RBI double of the evening. Rico Noel's solo shot in the seventh put the cap on a 5-1 victory, Jarrett Leverett went six innings for the win with support from Daniel Moskos, Scott Shuman and Anthony Carter. The organization is celebrating Farm Show Weekend, similar to the theme used when the All-Star Game was played here in 2016. There were a good number of agriculture-themed exhibits and farm animals displayed around the ballpark, a appropriate motif for our area (as opposed to some others I know but that's a rant for another time). Take care, thanks for reading.