Saturday lunch with Jenny and her mother, in the afternoon they came back to town with me for the evening's ballgame at the ballpark. This was the first time Helen was at my place since February 2020 (before The Madness began the next month), Jenny had been here in May when she had a medical appointment on a day I had a haircut. At the ballpark in the evening the Barnstormers put up another eight-spot on the way to a second straight win over West Virginia. The visiting Power (wearing "Charleston Charlies" uniforms in a nod to their city's baseball history) took a 1-0 first-inning lead, the Stormers replied in the bottom half on ex-MLBer Alejandro De Aza's two-run single scoring Caleb Gindl and Melvin Mercedes. WV tied it in the fourth, in the Stormer half Anderson De La Rosa walked and trotted home on Gindl's two-run home run making it 4-2. In the fifth the Power put three on the board to take a 5-4 lead but again the Barnstormers replied loudly in their half. Base hits from De Aza and Trayvon Robinson started the rally, Kelly Dugan's sac-fly RBI tied the score at 5-5. Blake Allemand drew a walk, De La Rosa followed with a two-run double to put the Stormers up by two. Back-to-back walks loaded the bases for Mercedes who drew a free ticket himself forcing De La Rosa home with the inning's fourth run making it 8-5. The Power scored a single run in the ninth but that was as close as it got, the final was 8-6. It was a night for newcomers on the pitching staff, manager Ross Peeples used five men and three of them were making their debuts. Ryan Evans (Grambling State product) was the winner in relief of starter Cody Boydstun (from Longwood University), returning veteran Scott Shuman picked up the save. The Stormers finished the series sweep on Sunday afternoon, I was in Rothsville for week #8 of street hockey at Lions Park. On this day Hillside beat Warwick and Ephrata outlasted Township via shootout but that was of little importance in light of what happened on my way home. There are several rural roads I use as shortcuts on my way to and from Rothsville, about two miles south of Lions Park I witnessed an approaching bicyclist wipe out violently and hit the pavement. I was about a quarter-mile away from him when he lost control, when I reached him I pulled up alongside to ask if he was OK and he was completely unresponsive. I noticed a pool of blood on the road right under his head and immediately called 911. Another motorist was right behind me at the time, he pulled over and we stayed with the man until the ambulance arrived. Rothsville has a volunteer fire company, the ambulance came from there and it arrived within ten minutes. They got the man on board and to the hospital, the initial thought was that he had broken his collarbone. Needless to say I hope he'll be OK but I'll probably never know for sure. All I can say is nobody with a conscience can see something like that and just walk away from it. Take care, thanks for reading.
