Rainy Day Baseball Again...

Last year I can't remember one weekend that any of my assignments got rained out. Hell, I can barely remember many days that we got any rain last year. This year, for the second week in a row the skies were filled with grey clouds. Last week, it was a full on rainy weekend and everything happening outdoors got cancelled. This week, there were clouds in the sky most of the week, but there was no rain, just a bunch of humidity. On Saturday it was drizzling as I was walking into the Cooper softball game. I ended up shooting the first half of the first inning and between innings there was a huge lightning bolt in the sky. By rule any time the teams are pulled off the field it the teams have to stay off the field for at least thirty minutes after the most recent lightning. So, I figured I'd go back to the office and put in the St. Patrick's Day parade pix I had shot in the morning.

I ended up going back to the field after about an hour and they had just gotten started again. I got there in time to shoot Cooper batting in their half of the second inning. There were hitting pretty decent and scored a few runs. Then the rain started coming down, not too hard but coming down. Then the rain starts getting a little harder, there was 2 outs in the inning so, my plan was to tough it out till the end of the inning, one more out and go shoot from one of the dugouts. Well, I guess the umpires were tired of the rain getting heavier and called the players off the field again. Well, that was it, I've been to this game twice and only gotten a grand total of five outs, I'm done here.

After that I went to shoot McMurry baseball and was hoping for a little better luck down the street. I got to the game and it looked like the players were warming up. Woohoo! I guess they were getting ready to play, finally I may get to shoot a get without it being stopped. I go in the press box and find out they were warming up, getting ready for the second game. As I'm walking out on the field it looking like the sun is peeking through the clouds, well, I guess one out of two ain't so bad. I made a few nice frames, but, I know I'm still a way away from having my baseball timing down, at least it's Spring, hopefully we'll have some nice days to shoot.

The Boys of... Late Winter?

I love baseball, grew up playing it. It's a thinking man's sport and involves a lot of strategy. And I'm all for playing baseball in the spring, summer and even the fall. However, when games are being playing on a weekend when snow is in the forecast... well, it's just to early to be playing. Rant over.

So, last Friday, with the weather being in the 40's and the wind blowing pretty hard, I shot the first game of ACU's doubleheader against Colorado Christian. At this point of the year my goal is just to get a semi-decent photo and try to get my timing down, and come back with a photo that not awful and my best image not coming from second base. I don't have a problem with second base shots as my #2 or #3 photo, but not my #1, except on the rare occasion that it's a spectacular photo. The shot of the left fielder, at this point in the year made me happy, it's a decent start to the season... even if I was bundled up.

Basketball season... it's not sucking as much as usual...

It's normally at this point in the season that I'm starting to despise basketball season, but this year is different. Normally I'm still waiting on shooting a game I'm not totally disgusted with, however, this year, I'm finding myself liking a lot more of my shots. I think some of this could do with me not shooting as much of the city schools and more of the area teams, who play better basketball. But even with the local colleges I'm liking my shots more. It may have something to do with trying to make sure I don't shoot the whole game from the baselines and I'm getting up high to shoot. I shot these games Friday (the high school game) and Saturday (the college game) and I was pretty happy with both games. In fact, the high school game I had a news assignment that needed to be shot only 30 mins after the game started so I had to leave after the first quarter. Now, had this been a bad game like some of the stinkers I get shooting Abilene High or Cooper I'd be all for it, but this was a good game and I was liking what I was getting. Well, I guess it's good I got something good early since I had to leave so quick.

Diving for the prize....

This weekend was different than it was supposed to be. I didn't have any high school sports to shoot because of this ridiculous pig flu molehill turned into a mountain causing the state of Texas to cancel all high school events until May 11. So I had the start of the Lone Star Conference baseball tournament instead of the regional track meet. The good thing is the UIL (the governing body for high school event in Texas) came to their senses and rescheduled the regional track meets instead of going with their original idea to take the four fastest times in the region from the district meets. So, anyway, ACU's first game of the Lone Star Conference baseball tournament was against Southeastern Oklahoma State. The game was pretty boring, a lot of routine plays nothing visually exciting, until the fifth inning when the outfielders started diving for balls and the runners were crashing into home plate. Sadly, I was on the wrong side of the field for those. But I was able to get a nice diving catch in the outfield. Not bad for the first day of the tournament. Hopefully it will get better.