Preparing For The Invasion

Today, I wore chainmail to work. I was equipped with a katana, a ray gun and a spatula. After the first three days of the season, I was convinced that something horrible was going to happen and I believed an alien invasion was the most likely scenario. I don't think my ray gun actually works, so I brought the katana so I would be armed (it's the fastest weapon you can swing). I brought the spatula in case they were friendly, hungry and willing to buy tickets. I know how to build the fan base.

But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here.

The season opened on Thursday night. All week, it had been record-settingly warm. We knew there was rain coming, but it was supposed to come later in the evening. We all figured we could get five innings in (making it a complete game that would end if the field became unplayable), put the tarp on and be out early.

The game was trucking along and the Baysox took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the third inning. In the bottom of the fourth inning the tarp crew (meaning every front office employee) was called to the field. We got through the bottom of the fourth with the Baysox still leading. Three more outs and the game was official.

Our pitcher got the first guy out as the rain started to fall. Two more outs to go, we were so close. The next batter hit a ground ball, and reached on an infield single. No problem - a double play ball and we're out of there. The next batter hit a ground ball to second, to potentially end the inning, and the fielder couldn't make the play. Two runners on ... and then the skies opened up. We rolled the tarp out. We started spreading it across the field. The rain was pouring, the wind was whipping and just as we were about to get the infield covered ... we stopped. Too much rain had fallen on the tarp. We couldn't move it. I was standing at first base, one foot away from having the infield covered. And we couldn't do it. I flailed at the tarp, trying desperately to get some air under it, to give it just enough to get us covered, but to no avail.

It was one of the singularly worst moments of my life. Drenched, exhausted and unable to get it done. If the field gets too wet, you can't play the game. If the game isn't official, it would be a doubleheader tomorrow. And doubleheaders are the WORST.

The rain let up little, we took the tarp off the field and dumped the water in the outfield and were able to cover the field on our second try. But it was too late, the opener was suspended, and would be finished as the first game of a doubleheader on Friday.

As if the doubleheader wasn't bad enough on Friday, it was cold. FREEZING. And windy. We finished the opener and won, then lost the second game 2-0. It was my first gameday with my new assistant, and that meant we had a lot to go over, so we didn't make it out of the stadium until shortly after one a.m.

I went home and went to sleep immediately ... until my roommate got in the shower at 3 a.m. Our shower is right next to my bedroom, and it is LOUD. And I am the type of person who hates to be woken up unexpectedly, so I woke up PISSED. And I can't sleep when I'm mad, so I was awake until some time after 4 a.m.

Overall, it was back to back terrible days.

And then there was Saturday. Saturdays are our biggest days, we get big crowds and we had a bunch of kids coming for a reading night. At least they thought they were coming, until our ticket system crashed, and we had no access to our will call list and our reserved seating assignments. We had to hand-write tickets. And we had to try to remember where all our season-ticket holders sat.

While dealing with the ticket crisis, a call came across the radio. All available staff were asked to come to our lower reserved seating section behind home plate. We had had a company painting seats, and to do so they had to remove all the seat backs from all the aisle seats. Normally it isn't a problem, unless the company finishes for the day and goes home ... with four sections of seat backs laying in the aisles.

You need a special screwdriver head to adjust the bolts on our seats. Unfortunately, we didn't appear to have any in the stadium. The staff was screwing on seatbacks back on the best we could with our fingers. Eventually they found the appropriate head, and had two teams of two reattaching the seats. The ticket system came back online roughly an hour before gametime, so most of the crisis was averted, but it still made for an awfully stressful day.

Fortunately, Sunday turned out to be much better. The invaders really like hamburgers. While they enslave mankind, I'll be assigned the relatively easy task of flipping burgers for the rest of my life.