I have been negligent in posting my three most recent trips to the ballpark since the game at Rogers Centre, so here goes...

- A. asked me a while back what I wanted to do for Father's Day, and I'm sure those of you reading this will be shocked when I said that I wanted to go to a ball game. After searching around, we decided to go see the closest thing we have to a local team, the Worcester Tornadoes. The game itself was entertaining enough, with the Tornadoes beating the Ottawa Rapidz (no, that's spelled right) 6-4. Worcester scored five runs in the second and held on the rest of the way, surviving a four run 6th by Ottawa.

After the game, the kids got to run the bases, then the Tornadoes had a Father's Day catch on the outfield grass. The kids and I got out there and tossed the ball around a bit, ending a fun day at the ballpark.

- R. and I made our next trip to Fenway Park the following Saturday for an interleague game against the St. Louis Cardinals. The game was notable as Daisuke Matsuzaka's return from the disabled list. Unfortunately, Daisuke didn't look quite ready to come back, as the Cards beat the hell out of him. Daisuke only went 1 inning plus, giving up seven runs on six hits and three walks. Daisuke was relieved by Chris Smith after loading the bases in the top of the second. Smith, just up from Pawtucket, struck out Rick Ankiel to give us some hope of escaping the situation without too much damage, but then Troy Glaus put one over the Monster. The game was pretty much out of reach after that.

Other than Daisuke's meltdown, the most memorable thing about this game was the heat. Sitting in the bleachers with no cover on a hot, sunny June afternoon was pretty draining. R. and I headed downstairs after the 4th to get some ice cream and we enjoyed a misting fan the Sox had set up under the bleachers. We managed to have a fun time in spite of it all, but it would have better if the game had been more competitive and it hadn't been quite so hot.

Wondering where J. was? He got invited to a birthday party, and they were at the Sox game as well. He had much better seats than we did, sitting in the 4th row of the grandstand near home plate. How come I never get invited to those parties?

- Our last game was last night. We had planned to go back to Worcester on July 3 for their fireworks display, but about 6:30 the skies just opened up with a pretty intense thunderstorm. It was pretty apparent that the game wasn't going to start on time if it was played at all, so we went to our favorite Worcester restaurant, the Brew City Grill, for dinner. The rain had stopped by the time we finished, so we drove over to the ballpark to find out that the game had, indeed, been rained out.

R. was looking forward to fireworks, so we promised her that we would go see some on the 4th. We looked at a variety of options and finally settled on another ball game, this time the Brockton Rox. By chance, the Rox happened to be playing the Tornadoes, and we were treated to another fun game. Worcester scored a bunch early, taking a 5-0 lead and holding on for a 6-3 win. The Rox made it interesting in the 9th, scoring a run and bringing the tying run to the plate before finally going losing.

We settled in to wait for the fireworks to start. Since they were being done in conjunction with the nearby Brockton Fair, they weren't scheduled to start until 10:30 so we had about a 45 minute wait. The Rox "Fun Team" did a nice job keeping us entertained during the wait, but at about 10:20 we were told that the Brockton Fire Department had pushed things back to 11:00.

Normally, I would have been pretty ticked off about this, but the Rox did what all good businesses do when they don't meet your expectations: they made it up to us. The Rox announced that, to make up for the inconvenience, last night's tickets would be good to be exchanged for any other game the rest of the season. So we waited not quite another half hour (the show actually started around 10:55) and saw a very nice fireworks display. R. was happy, we were tired and we finally headed for home. All in all, a fun evening, despite the wait.