June 4, 2008 (Day 129) - Rain Delays

I hope thus far this blog has provided my readers with an insight into what its like to be a professional baseball player in the minor leagues. Today's entry should help to add further insight into the nuances of baseball's every day life. We were most recently in Jacksonville, FL which is incidentally a beautiful city. We stayed in a Hyatt Hotel right on the St. John's river (which is, FYI, the only river in the US that runs South to North). The hotel and surrounding area were gorgeous. Within walking distance was the Jacksonville Landing, boasting live music and multiple bars, clubs and restaurants, it wasn't difficult to find something to do before and after games. My favorite was dining on the patio of American Grille and watching the boaters dock their 75ft Sea Rays and join the rest of us for a meal.

With summer setting in in the South, the humid is rapidly on the rise. And with humidity comes some mean thunderstorms. The second to last day of our trip began as any other. We got to the field and changed in our BP jerseys and got ready for stretch. When we were first out side, the sun beat down as hot as ever but there some very dark, very ominous clouds beginning to loom over head. After stretch and about half-way through our pitchers throwing routine, the rain drops and lightning began. Intermittent at first and then more rapidly as the Jacksonville Suns prepared for Batting Practice. About the same time, the pitchers (myself included) had begun our conditioning portion of the program. About that time, the heavens began to open up. The Suns quickly vacated the field to allow the field crew to put on the tarp. Meanwhile, the rest of the pitchers finished up their running and went in. I had thrown the night before and therefore had to run slightly longer than average. What that meant is that I was running in the midst of lighting and hard rain. If their had been film rolling, we could have sold that scene to Hollywood.

Once I got back inside and dried off, I changed into my sandals shorts and t-shirt because we were officially in the midst of one of baseball best and worst features, the rain delay. Luckily for me, one of my teammates had befriended one of the field crew guys the day before and he had mentioned they were going to play Rock Band on the PS3 if the rain came. Well, sure enough, me, and two of my teammates slipped off to the field crews locker room and there they were, 2 guitars, drums and a mic all hooked up and rocking out to a Nirvana song. It wasn't long before the 3 of us were jamming to More than a Feeling. The head field crewman's only request was that we sign his door so he could have a memento of those who had jammed with him and his crew. After about a half hour of this, my teammates and I returned to the club house and then I decided to head to the dugout where about 10 of my teammates were literally just sitting on the bench watching the rain. Talking about anything from the oil crisis and the war in iraq, to the new Indian Jones movie, killing time has become an art form for us.
Back in the clubhouse, our team trainer had the radar from weather.com up and running and we could see the sky beginning to clear. I spent the last half hour getting my game uniform together and listening to my ipod and eating a pregame spread. At about 745, the first pitch was thrown after about a 2 hour rain delay.
So in review, I played Rock Band, watched the rain from the dugout, listened to my ipod and ate food to kill about 2 hours. No one recipe is correct as long as you can remain sane.

The team won that game, but we dropped 3 of 5 for the series. It made for a long bus trip home where we watched Tin Cup, For Love of the Game, and Mystery, Alaska, without pause until we made it home. We're playing better ball now, but still need to get over the hump and string a bunch of wins together.