May 1 - Chicopee Skipmucks at Whately Pioneers

The real season starts this weekend with a Pioneers game Friday evening, a Mustangs (pvotb) game Saturday morning and a Fossils (crvbl) game Sunday morning. I pitch on all 3 teams and I used to think I should pace myself on weekends like this when I have a lot of games. Perhaps not pitch as much as I could in the first game or two so I'd have something left for the 3rd game. However at some point I decided the heck with that. I play one game at a time and do whatever it takes to win that game. I'll worry about tomorrow's game tomorrow.

The weather this weekend is kind of unsettled. Rain was called for Thursday night and Friday into Friday night but it didn't really materialize. We got a little rain Thursay night but it was just cloudy all day Friday with no rain.

I had a stiff neck and back of my pitching shoulder all day Friday. Not feeling that great. Probably from falling asleep on the couch last night watching the Red Sox game. I find it hard to get up for a game when I'm working all day and unsure until late in the afternoon if the game might be called off. I use the ride to the field (about 40 minutes for me today) to get up for the game.

I get to the field at about 5:10 (for a 6:00 game) and Albie and Spider were already there just starting to take BP. I hit after Spider then threw bp to Albie, Hammer, Nails and Pops. Throwing bp is a good way to warm up for a vintage game. It's a little hard warming up playing catch with someone because you don't really feel like it's ok to throw as hard as you might want to. You don't want to hurt someone warming up before the game. When throwing bp you can throw as hard as you want without worry about that. My arm felt loose and ready to go after bp. (I'd taken a couple of Advil at about 4:30 - a little early then I normally would have - to help l00sen up my neck and shoulder).

The game started on time and we were home team again. Buck claims this is the 5th coin toss in a row that he has won. My arm feels great and we get through the top of the first without giving up a run then score 2 in the bottom of the inning. A good start.

The rest of the game goes pretty much like the first inning. The team is hitting and fielding well and we keep tacking on few runs an inning while keep the Skipmucks scoreless until the 4th inning when they scratched out a run. Albie makes a couple of good plays at 2nd on some hard hit grounders and Spider and Hammer combine on a fantastic play on a slow hit ball to short that's dieing in the grass. Spider runs in, bare hands it and throws a seed to Hammer who stretches towards it and catches it one handed (remember he's only got a leather gardening glove on) to get the runner by half a step.

Murph is hitting the ball really well. He showed up in the bottom of the first and was inserted in the 5th spot in the batting order, stepping up to the plate 5 minutes, at most, after arriving and hits a bomb over the centerfielder's head for an rbi double. He rips another ball to left in a later at bat.

I ended up pitching 5 innings. Slappie pitched a 1,2,3 6th and the game was over. Skipmucks 4 Pioneers 11. Awesome steamed hotdogs and rolls courtesy of the Skipmucks and beer, chips and mango salsa courtesy of the Pioneers afterwards.

Tomorrow's Mustang's game is at 10:00am against the Barons. I can't wait.