celebrating the 4th of July ... in Canada

so I'm in Vancouver to celebrate the Fourth of July. sweet scheduling, Northwest League.

last night was a barrage of conflicting emotions and sensations. It was a perfect night for baseball again, one of those "I love my job" moments. But the people back at the studio were really airheaded, so instead of my normal pregame show 15 minutes before first pitch, I got on the air five batters into the first inning. Our starting pitcher walked 5 and hit 1 in 2/3 of an inning, facing 10 batters and allowing 8 runs. So we were down 8-0 before we even came to the plate. And this was in front of our biggest crowd of the year (2,296, which felt really big). Things were so bad and I was so out of it that I miscounted and said it was 7-0 going to commercial. Then in the next inning, this guy grounded out but was sent to first base on catcher's interference. Nobody realized it, though, and I thought he was out and went to a commercial break. The Spokane broadcaster, this legendary veteran, did the same thing. It was awful. 14-1 after three innings.

After that everything settled down and it was an okay broadcast aside from the 17-3 scoreline. And the fans stayed the whole time because they were there to see postgame fireworks, and despite the score it ended up being pretty fun. So after the game, I was doing the postgame show with the fireworks exploding overhead, and it just felt so perfect. Classic minor league baseball, with our mascot just sitting on the third base line watching with everybody else. Tried to capture it with pictures, I'll post them tomorrow or something.

So afterward, since it was the last night of a homestand, our whole staff stayed around to play ball on the field. The reason we all work in minor league baseball. Midnight on a Sunday night and we're playing under the lights. I threw BP to most of the staff, and my arm got really tired, but it was so much fun. Scraped up my leg sliding for a groundball, and just had a blast.

We didn't leave until like 1 a.m., though, and I still had work to do and packing, so I decided to stay up all night until meeting the team bus at 6:30 a.m. So I headed back to the house, with my host family away for the weekend. And I couldn't get in through the garage! I messed up entering my access code and tried to hit cancel or something to start over, but instead hit a button that like scrambles the signal or something. I don't know, but I was freaking out. 'Cause nobody was home. And all my stuff was inside, and my host and her kids were away. Oh man. It was like the worst time for that to happen. I was more than a little unnerved. So I called my host at 1 a.m. and she basically talked me through breaking into her house. I literally pried the screen off a window and climbed in through an open window. I felt SO sketchy. But at least it all worked out.

Anyway, so I'm in Vancouver now. I get my own room on road trips, which is cool but kinda lonely, as expected. I'm getting to have a lot more jokes with the players, though, from hanging around the batting cage. I can even carry on a gestured conversation with the Latin players, mostly consisting of a lot of grins and fist pounds. So I've got to do a game tonight on about 90 minutes of sleep. Should be a blast. Best job in the world.