- We spent part of Father's Day today watching the Worcester Tornadoes play the North Shore Spirit at Fitton Field today. Believe it or not, despite the fact that Worcester is only about 35 minutes from our house and the Tornadoes are in their third season, we had yet to make it to a game there.

The ballpark itself is very bare bones, but they make the most of what they have. It's on the campus of Holy Cross, right by I-290. There is a grandstand that seats about 3,000 and concessions at the top. That's pretty much it. The seats were very comfortable with tons of legroom and great sightlines of the field. We had box seats behind the visitors dugout and we were right on top of home plate.

I also have to compliment the Tornadoes on their fine beer selection. On top of the usual standbys, they had a couple of microbrews and good foreign beers at very reasonable ballpark prices. I had an excellent Knuckleball Bock brewed in Maine - I don't remember the name of the brewery unfortunately, but it was good stuff.

There was only one problem. It started to rain and was coming down pretty hard by the third inning, so we decided to leave. We hadn't brought any rain gear, since it was sunny when we left the house. However, we saw some good baseball, including back-to-back home runs by the Spirit.

We had such a good time, we're going back for baseball and fireworks on July 3. I highly recommend checking out the Tornadoes if you have a chance.

- J.'s Little League team moves on to the next round of the playoffs tomorrow night. They managed to win on Saturday, despite the fact that neither team had enough kids to field a full team. However, 8 kids showed up for J.'s team on only 7 for the other team. The league commissioner stopped by and decided that J's team would advance to the next round, since they had more kids.

This is the first time I have ever heard of a team advancing in the playoffs based on attendance.

- I'm feeling a bit less worried about the Sox as they swept the Giants this weekend. The classic game was yesterday's, as Daisuke outdueled San Francisco's Matt Cain in a 1-0 decision. So the Sox picked up a game on the Yankees, who won 2 out of 3 from the Mets. The Sox head to Atlanta next, while the Yanks head west to Coors Field to take on the Rockies. Let's hope the Rockies do as well against the Yankees as the 2 out of 3 they took from the Sox last week.