A New Life: Spirit Fannium

So today was the first time I've ever actually seen the Spirit play, thanks to joegrav for getting me into fanship, or whatever you want to call it.

Unfortunately, we were at the hell-hole known to these parts as Yale Field, home to the team with the not-so-rabid fan base, the New Haven County Cutters. So I could not see "The Cleanest Ballpark in America...If not the world" According to Joe and Dave (Sosayethi2006), but its a start.

Before the game even started, we had some hilarious moments. I'm told that De Vries once or twice did not run out a ground ball and that Joe and a few others ripped on him for it.

Now, me and Joe have front row, on the field seats literally right next to the Spirit dugout. And De Vries comes out and walks up to us and says to Joe, "Hey, aren't you the one who always tells me to run it out?"

"Uhhh...Yeah?"

"Why do you do that?"

"Because there was a couple times that you didn't"

"Did you see that play that I didn't run out?"

"Yeah, it was a ground ball"

"Yeah, well I hit it so hard that I wasn't even out of the batters box when it hit his glove!"

It was hilarious, here he was explaining himself--in full--about why he didnt run out a ground ball. This would NEVER happen somewhere out side of an independant league.

So the game starts, and Sandy DeLeon, the Cutters' catcher, screams 'ONE OUT'...'TWO OUTS...TWO!!" after every single play...Joe and Dave knew this about him and immediately start with their own "TWO OUTS!!!" "HOW MANY OUTS SANDY???"...etc. Which would have been funny enough.

The most hilarious part is that Sandy could NOT ignore us. He absolutely HAD to have the last word! If we said "How many outs sandy?!?!" he would almost always HAVE to scream it! At one point when he was batting, he struck out to end the inning, and we screamed 'HOW MANY OUTS?!?!' and he held out his arm while walking away from us and held out three fingers! We couldn't believe it, I personally was laughing my ass off.

So, late in the game, we're still on him, hard as ever, and this time we say it right as he goes in the crouch. "HOW MANY OUTS, SANDY!!" There was one. but, he didnt respond. So I say to joe and dave, 'you know what? I bet he put down one finger, for the fastball...." and sure enough, fastball! Next pitch, same thing 'how many outs??' no responce, but another fastball. So the next out, with 2 outs, we say 'he cant POSSIBLY throw that curveball if we say 'how many outs' now, can he?

And, sure enough, "HOW MANY OUTS???'...first pitch, CURVEBALL. We--all three of us--we just absolutely rolling.

I think Sandy has something wrong with his head. Or he's, as Joe says, just a big ham.

So the game itself was awesome, Morse shutting everyone down, only allowing one runner to third...just the scuffling offence managing a ferocious THREE hits. But we get the win. EXCELLENT. More to come tomorrow and thursday from Yale Field.

-Grant Salzano