In the month of July we were supposed to have one day off. That scheduled off day has not come yet, but we have already had two days off from games because of intense rain. It's summer time here in Florida, but its also the hurricane season. I've never seen anything like the 10 day forecast that the weather channel presents for our area, the little picture that accompanies the weather stats is the same every day, a dark cloud with thunder and rain.
This little rain icon on the forecast comes with a grain of salt for us because our stadium and most stadiums here in the FSL (Florida State League) dispose of water like I've never seen before. It can absolutely pour for an entire half of a day and when we get to the field it will look like nothing had happened, its pretty amazing to say the least. Our grounds crew does an amazing job at keeping our field looking perfect despite the amount of rain it gets.
This is why yesterday and the day before was such an anomaly for us. We had two rain outs in row which hadn't even come close to happening all year long. Needless to say, everyone's bodies have enjoyed the unusual amount of rest that nature has provided us these last two days. That's not to say that when we get rained out that we don't do anything.
Typically a team will run through almost all of its pregame routine even if there is a torrential downpour going on outside because we always assume that the park staff and GM will find a way to wait out the storm so the game can be played. We hit and stretch out and if you want to take advantage of the time, get a good lift in, then we wait. Its not unheard of to get to the field at the normal time, say around 3pm and to look at the weather radar which shows storms coming for the next 10 hours and still having to wait until 7pm or later to finally hear that the game has been cancelled. So obviously, a lot of down time on rainy days can mean a lot of goofy stuff happening in the locker room. Mostly a lot of card games and listening to music and reading, but sometimes delirium sets in and some pretty funny stuff can go down.
So its time to get back to the grind, we have a double header today to make up for lost time.
Oh, as I got to the end of this post I was a little disappointed that you didn't tell a little bit more about some of the "goofy stuff" that happens. :-) I always enjoy a little comedy. It is nice to know though that you ballplayers do have some reasonable variation in your day to day routine. From an external point of view it would seem like the same ol' stuff would happen day after day since what we see from the stands seems pretty repetitive to some degree.
ReplyDeleteYa gotta have some fun to make it interesting!
Pops