The Defenders were able to split the opening series of the season with a 15-something defeat of the New Jersey Jackals. The offense really came alive and starter Nick Asselin gave us five great innings and Rob Riley got a four inning save, the first of his pro career.
Before the game we had all of the pregame festivities one would normally associate with opening day. About a hundred little leaguers walked around the field before the game. I'm not really sure what the point of the walk around the field is, but they seem to enjoy it here in Nashua. They also had a ceremony to honor some of the Nashua area sports "legends". The plan is to make the sports legends ceremony a annual event with the honorees being enshrined in the form of granite (NH is the GRANITE state by the way) plaque which will be displayed in front of the ball park. We also had an extensive national anthem ceremony which included the anthem itself as well as some military bugle favorites, "reveille" and "taps". I think the only bugle tune that was left out was the "call to post" familiar to horse racing fans. I shouldn't complain though, it may have been that rousing reveille that brought our bats to life on this night.
One other event of note from Sunday's game was the unfortunate drop in temperature as the game wore on. I think it was in the 70s when we started at 5:20pm and by the time the game ended a few hours later I believe it was about 50. It was windy and cold and annoying. Of course, during the worst of the temperature decline, the Jackals offense decides to show up and starts hitting everything thrown at them. We were finally able to pitch out of the inning and we headed to the clubhouse with a 2-2 record under our belts. In other exciting news, no players had any equipment stolen following the game...perhaps any would be theives were deterred by the fact that we began the game in prayer and they didn't want to offend any higher beings. Doubtful, but we can hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment