Lining the field.... with wedding bells

I had to shoot a baseball game and a wedding as two of my assignments on Saturday. And the best part of it was I didn't even leave the ballpark. Al Scott is a huge baseball fan, his dad is the namesake for Abilene Christian University's baseball field. So he figured what better place to tie the knot than at home plate between games of a doubleheader.

This wasn't a traditional wedding, the groomsmen were ACU's baseball coaches and the bridesmaids, ACU head coach Britt Bonneau's four daughters (bottom photo). Judy "walked down the aisle" through an archway of baseball bats from the team. For a baseball fan it was one of the coolest weddings you would find. I guess since these two were later in life and it isn't their first wedding (Al's first wife died about five years ago) they could break with tradition some.

One of the best parts about it for me at least was there was only a 30 minute break between games. Normally I don't shoot both games of a doubleheader, time constraints prevent me from doing that. But there have been plenty of times I've shown up in the last inning and didn't get much so I had to sit around waiting for the second game to start and had nothing to do. This time, however, I planned it that way. I had a few assignment before the game so, I told the reporter to call me when the fifth inning was starting (college games are 7 innings when playing doubleheaders). This way I could show up and shoot the end of the first game and the wedding and still be there for the second game should I need to. I got a few decent shots in the first game, but since I had nothing else I figured I'd stick around for part of the second game to see what else I could get.

I got a few shots I really liked after the wedding, but it turned out to be a pitchers duel... one of those game I'd love to sit in the stands and watch but not shoot since there wasn't a whole lot. About the only big play in the first few innings was when ACU's Chris Hall took out the shortstop on a double play (above). I was shooting from behind home plate in the stands and got a nice shot of it, including the base runner rolling into the shortstop and the ball flying errantly away. I stuck around for a little bit after that, but didn't get anything and figured I needed to get back to file photos since the wedding was slated for the front page.