Today started at 4:30am, because we had to make it from Syracuse, NY to Manchester, NH by 10:30am. The good news is that we hustled and got to Merchantsauto.com Stadium (officially the worst name of a corporate naming ballpark) in time to set up and get settled in the stadium. Unfortunately, the majority of the crowd was filled with kids coming from various local camps, so there was no raffle. The ballpark is only two years old, and features a nice retro manually operated scoreboard. I spent a few innings behind the scoreboard with Dean Lima, who operates the scoreboard and takes photos during the game. Let me just say working a scoreboard is A LOT of work, and those who cannot watch every minute of a baseball game need not apply. I shot a video of Dean in action right after a Fischer Cats player hit a homerun—to which Dean responded by waving a towel out of his window, and then scurried around to update the scoreboard.

Just down the road on the way to Boston are the Lowell Spinners—the Rookie league affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. In case you didn’t know that Red Sox Nation are made up of a bunch of Red Sox obsessed fans—let me present to you the scene at LeLacheur Park around 4:00pm on Monday night. When I arrived, there were probably 300 or so people in line waiting for the gates to open at 5:30pm, with some of the first people rumored to be there since lunchtime. They were all in line for a Mike Lowell bobblehead—quite fitting due to the team’s name. I got in line around 5:45pm, with the line now stretching down the road and around the side of the park, but 10 minutes later I was inside (and yes I did get a bobblehead).

Before the game started there was a group of kids getting autographs from some Spinners in a more interesting way. Kids would throw their pens and items down from the stands and the players would catch, sign and then throw it back. This system was installed probably due to this warning sign, which is one of my favorites so far.The system ran like clockwork as the video will show:

I also ran into Mike Adams of the radio show Planet Mikey on WEEI—which is the number one radio sports show in the country. He was nice enough to have me on during the game for a half inning to talk about the Tour for the Cure. WEEI will also be hosting the Jimmy Fund radio-telethon on August 16th. Last year the telethon raised almost $3 million for the Jimmy Fund, so if you live in the New England area be sure to tune in.