Braves in Boston

Hey everyone! The last 2 days have been incredibly exhausting and I've been working a ton, but I finally got some time today to catch up and get some rest for work for the rest of the weekend. From pulling a 16 hour day on Thursday and a 15 hour day on Friday I was definitely ready for a quick rest. I go into work today at 5 PM, and as right now it's looking as if rainy weather may stay away for tonight, however, I'm certain tomorrow we won't be as lucky. I'll go ahead and give a recap of the past 2 days.

Thursday: I arrived at work at 7 AM, knowing that sometime during the day Thursday we were going to get some bad weather. We did the usual jobs prepping the field for the game, made it to lunchtime, and then as soon lunch ended we realized that bad weather was imminent. At about 12:30 PM we ended up putting out the tarp to cover the field during the rain. The radar looked pretty bad and we were wondering if we'd have a chance to get the game in, and then, around 5 or 6 PM there was a break in the weather, and we removed the tarp, and then worked to fix the field and make sure it was ready for a game. We knew that the league would try and get this game played, no matter how long it took because of the fact that this would be the last time the teams were to meet in the season because of interleague scheduling. We had the field ready for the game, and sure enough, early into the game the rain started again. However, the field was holding up pretty well, and we could tell the umpires wanted to get through at least 5 innings so the game could be official. At 9 o'clock, in the top of the 6th inning, the head umpire called a rain delay, and once again we pulled the tarp, put in the pipes, and headed to the dugouts to wait out the rain delay. I ended up sitting in the Marlins dugout. Most of the players had already headed to the clubhouse by the time we got there, but there were still a few hanging around. We ended up sitting in the dugout nearly 1.5-2 hours, until about 11 o'clock when the umpires officially called the game. At this time, we did a few things before leaving the park, but I made it home by about 11:30. I cleaned up and went to bed by midnight, knowing that Friday would probably be another rainy and long day at the ballpark. Oh, my roommate and I did see a little of "Baseball Tonight" on ESPN when we got back and before going to bed, and our buddy Drew who is on the grounds crew was shown by ESPN catching raindrops in his mouth and the commentators made a joke about it. After showing Drew in the rain they showed all of us hopping on the wall to move the tarp, so, once again I made an appearance on ESPN!

Friday: I arrived at work at 7 AM, and the rain was drizzling/misting on us, so we pulled back the edges of tarp along the baselines and home plate and went to work patching the clay and prepping these areas for play. All the weather forecasts we saw for Friday were predicting a variety of things, so we didn't have much of a clue as to how the rain would affect us that day. We pulled the tarp off at about 11 o'clock for the day, and we worked on the skin to prep for batting practice and the game. After we had all this worked on, we had to put the tarp on again to protect from pop up showers in the afternoon. We pulled the tarp off a second time and Boston began batting practice. Oh, right before Boston began to hit, Atlanta Manager Bobby Cox was sitting in the dugout smoking a cigar, when he proceeded to ask a question to us grounds crew guys about the weather. I was the closest, and he was looking at me, so I took the liberty of telling him I had no clue what was going on. So, yesterday I talked to Bobby Cox. In the middle of Boston batting practice the rain came again, so we cleared the field and applied the tarp again. The rain finally went away, we fixed the field a final time, and the game began. The weather stayed away for the rest of the night, so in all we had to take the tarp off 3 times yesterday, with massive repair to the field needed after each pull. I was on drag again yesterday, so I ran the drag on the infield after the 3rd, 5th, and 7th innings again. It was really awesome seeing one of my favorite players from growing up out there, such as Chipper Jones. I was walking behind him in one of the hallways under Fenway Park yesterday, and you don't realize how big and athletic these players are until you're right next to them. I got off work and got home about 11, and took care of some stuff before heading to bed.

Luckily, work doesn't start for me until 5 PM today, so I was able to knock out a lot of laundry, mainly of wet and nasty Fenway Park work clothes that were in need of cleaning. I'm not sure if the game tonight is televised outside of Atlanta or Boston, but I imagine I'll be on drag again or something considering I'm only going in at gametime. Once again, hopefully the rain will be gone! Tomorrow, I don't think we're going to be that lucky. Okay, time for a quick dinner and then another night at the ballpark. Hope everyone who is reading this is doing well and having a nice summer and saturday afternoon. I'll be back tomorrow!

Oh, and one more thing, congratulations to the Wise family with Sarah getting married today, wish I was there in Nashville with everyone. Congrats!