Monsoon season?

Last night’s O-Royals game was rained out, which created a double-header tomorrow. Tonight’s game was also rained out, which created…we don’t know. A double-header Saturday as well? I asked a few players, but no one seemed to know if it’s possible to just cancel a game and never make it up. Mike Aviles gave the best answer, saying neither Omaha nor Round Rock needed this game, so why make it up?
The rain delay and eventual cancellation provided some interesting opportunities for me, my coworkers, and my brothers who were at the stadium. My brother Brad and I were desperately hoping that Mike Sweeney would be hanging around the clubhouse in preparation for his game with Omaha tomorrow, but he apparently was not there. Or if he was, he is very good at hiding. But I did get to have him (my brother, not Sweeney) come out by the dugout with me so he could meet Angel Berroa and just be around the team, because every good fan should get to be around their team at some point, right?
The owner of the Omaha Royals was here for tonight’s game but obviously did not get to see his team in action. Sadly, he was only planning to be around for today’s game, so bummer. The promotions staff was planning on putting on our best performance EVER for him, too, but instead we all just huddled up in the hallway next to the Royals clubhouse in a feeble attempt to stay dry. (The attempt was not feeble because rain came in, but rather because Aviles and Fernando Cortez found our bucket of water balloons we were going to use for a promotion, so we bore the brunt of a few of those watery explosions.)
I guess I’ve always wondered what it would be like to hang around the clubhouse with a bunch of pro ballplayers, and I gotta say it’s a lot like hanging around the playground with my Little League teammates. The guys are a bunch of little kids trapped in grown men’s bodies — I’m not saying that’s a bad thing; it’s perfect for their jobs! But it’s just funny how much my coworkers and I have to watch our backs around them, lest we get pinched, tickled, de-ponytailed, or nailed with a water balloon.
Tonight was the season’s final Thirsty Thursday, so fans who were “Here for Beer” got to sit and have as many dollar Hi-Lifes as they wanted (in quantities of only two per customer per visit, of course) while they waited for the rain to let up. And then again after the rain let up and then came down again. And again. And again. I wonder how concession stands do during a long rain delay when all the fans gather on the concourse to stay out of the rain.
– Last winter I decided to emulate one of my favorite MLB players, Mark Teahen, by suffering a torn labrum in the shoulder of my throwing arm. OK, that may not have been the reason it happened, but the subsequent surgery and long immobilization of my arm made school ridiculously difficult. I still managed to scrape together a 3.4 or so for the semester, but I’d rather not EVER go through a semester without my writing hand ever again. I bring this up because I think I may have re-torn it. Whoops.
– I moved my first car load of stuff to my new dorm today (the moving might be related to the shoulder thingie). It didn’t rain much during my drive from Omaha to Lincoln, but the minute I eased my car into its parking spot, the heavens opened and I began my moving process in a downpour. Of course that’s how it would happen with me. I am only half-heartedly committed to moving, which is evident in the fact that my computer is still here in Omaha. I suppose I’ll finish moving eventually, but I have a MiLB season to finish!
– Here’s how much baseball has permeated the lives of my brothers and me. My brother Ryan, who got married last weekend, is also in the process of moving out of the current house (which he so graciously shared with me this summer) and into his wife’s condo. He told me that he had some items that I could claim off of waivers, but if I did not claim them before the season was over, they’d lapse into free agency and some other organization might nab them. I claimed a GameCube and a bunch of games that way. Hooray for waivers!
– Lastly, please say a prayer or two for someone very close to me who is making a career change. Thanks!

Labels: baseball, life in general, Omaha Royals, random

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