Black Sox Regular Season Finale

Tonight we played our final regular season game at Calfee Park in Pulaski. For those of you who don't know the area that well, Pulaski is a small town about 20 miles south of Blacksburg. Calfee Park is home of the Pulaski Blue Jays, a rookie affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays. The park was built in 1935 and is simply an amazing place to play a baseball game. We rarely have an oppurtunity to play there, but since the Blue Jays season is over, we had the oppurtunity to make up one of our rained out games there tonight.

We typically play all of our games on high school fields in the area. It's amazing the difference between a high school field and one that is used for minor league baseball. The field doesn't raise or lower an inch from the backstop to the warning track. The infield is so smooth you just want to run around on it all day because it makes you feel fast. The infield grass is cut so close you would think it was the green of the 18th hole of a golf course. The pitching mound is the proper height and there are no big holes to slip and fall into. The batters boxes don't have huge divots from people standing in the same spot all year. The fence is so far away you couldn't imagine ever hitting a homer. The dugouts are actual dugouts (like lower than the field). The stands and bleachers look nice and comfortable. There are actual bullpens to warmup relief pitchers in between innings. I love playing on this field, you feel like a professional the moment you step on the field.

Unfortunately, we got our butt kicked tonight. We barely made it out of the first inning. I think the final score was 26-15 or something crazy. (Although scoring 15 runs is pretty good for our team.) I was 0-3, I guess I've been playing too much softball. Although we lost, I had as much fun playing as I have had in awhile. First, I know most of the guys on the opposing team and if you are going to get hammered I'd rather it be by a team that is a good group of guys rather than a bunch of a-holes. Second, I got to play catcher for three innings. I normally play centerfield, and I got to play second base several times this year, but I really don't like being the catcher. But, my opinion of the position changed dramatically tonight. I really had fun back there behind the plate tonight. One reason is that the pitcher did a good job of keeping the ball out of the dirt. That's the hardest part of being a catcher is trying to stop all the balls from going to the backstop on those low pitches. Second the pitcher didn't throw particularly hard or have nasty stuff. I would say he had decent stuff, but it's stuff that is very easy for me to catch. Last year I had to catch for Mannin and he throws pitches that are unbelievably hard to catch. Just really nasty pitches that break hard, late, and are thrown really fast. Last summer I caught an entire game for him on the hottest day of the summer and I thought I was going to die. Tonight, totally different. It was a blast and I'd definitely do it again, but not for Mannin, haha.

Our first playoff game is this Sunday at 10:00am. Yep, 10:00am. We get the first game of the quadruple header for our league at Calfee Park. It should be a blast. We finished the season in 5th place, which means we get to play the 4th place team in the first round. A game that is very winnable (we have already beat them 2 times this year). But nothing is ever easy for the Black Sox so wish us luck, we will need all of the help we can get.