Because of the rainouts on Sunday, Monday promised to be a long day. We were fortunate that the schedule worked out that none of the teams who were rained out on Sunday were scheduled to play on Monday. As a result, we could do the two lost games as well as the rest of the schedule without anyone having to play a double-header.
As it worked out, my crew was scheduled for the 5:00 game on Sunday, which turned into an 8:00am start on Monday morning. Thus, it was an early morning. We arrived, dressed and were escorted over to the field at about 7:50, only to be told that the field was going to take another half-hour to be ready. So, we headed back to the umpire room, waited the half-hour, came back and got things rolling.
Rick Fletcher had the plate for this one, and I was a third. This game pitted Massachusetts, who was 1-0, against Vermont, who was already 0-2. Being both an early morning game, and on the back side of the front that had come through, this game was a delight weather-wise. Vermont jumped out to a 2-0 lead early, but then Massachusetts came back, and we were tied 3-3 after five innings. We thought we might have another extra inning game on our hands, but Vermont scored 2 in the top of the sixth and then shut Massachusetts down to notch their first victory.
The other crew then had two games in a row – what would have been the 8:00 Sunday game, and then what would have been the 11:00 Monday game. Our second game of the day got underway about 3:30, and turned into a slugfest between Rhode Island and New Hampshire. We had cycled back around to where we started at this point, which meant that Jerry Fisher had the plate and I had first base. Rhode Island wasn’t terribly happy with either of us – Jerry didn’t have his best strike zone for this game (he said afterwards that he was disappointed in his own performance) and I had a series of close plays and fair/foul calls at first base, all of which seemed to end up going against Rhode Island. In the end, however, it was New Hampshire’s bats that told the tale – they scored in almost every inning, including a trio of titanic home runs. One of them came right after a pitching change – a grand slam on the first pitch the reliever threw. This was our longest game so far time-wise, running just over 2:30 – most of the games had been running about 1:45 or less.
After the other crew handled their final game, we took the field for what was originally scheduled as the 8:00 game. By this time it was after 9:00, so Doc dispensed with the normal player and umpire introductions in order to get things moving and make sure we didn’t run into curfew problems. I was out in right field for this one. Connecticut rolled over Maine 15-2. This was the first outfield game for which I had any action – the previous ones were pitchers’ duels with nothing much in the way of fly balls. This game, however, had plenty, including one low line drive that nearly ate me up on the foul line – it was coming down right about where I was standing. I tried to step forward to get under it, but the first baseman was pounding right at me. Fortunately, we avoided a major collision and I was able to make the required (foul) call.
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