The rain stays away

With dark clouds overhead and rain coming down as we pulled into the massive parking lot at Citizens Bank Ballpark in Philidelphia, it looked like the scheduled game against the Reds and Phillies was headed for another washout. Luckily, we came prepared with bright yellow and orange ponchos.

No one was getting lost with those things on.

Fortunately, the rain moved away by game time and we weren't subjected to another night of rain delays. Or another really slow grounds crew. Cardinals starter Kyle Lohse was not exactly impressed with the Nats crew Tuesday night saying after the game, "I don't want to get down on the grounds crew ... but maybe they could tighten up a little bit next time." I'm not one to agree with a Cardinals pitcher, but it was suspicious that the crew seemingly "forgot" to re-do the foul lines and had to hurriedly do so with both teams on the field and ready to start playing.

But going into the trip we knew we would have to deal with some weather. So we just tried to keep a positive attitude through the whole thing. Some of us did so better than others.

When the rain finally did blow away, we saw what turned into a great pitcher's duel. Brett Meyers of Philly took a no-hitter into the 7th, but he ended up the tough-luck loser to Cincinnati's Edinson Volquez. Volquez is real, real good. Look for him in the all-star game.

Our seats weren't as good as what we ended up with Tuesday night in Washington, but we got a good overview of the park. It was also nice to see a game in a relatively full ballpark for a change.Besides all the ballparks, there's another benefit to going to all these games: filling out lots of all-star ballots. With all the ballots I've turned in this week, it's no wonder the Cubs are in line to get three starters on the all-star team. But I got a little more creative with my all-star ballot on Wednesday. Since both the Rays and the Marlins are doing surprisingly well this season, I thought I should give the two Florida teams a boost and completed an "All-Florida ballot" with just players from teams from the sunshine state. A picture of the completed ballot is below.


But since this was a Florida ballot, I had a little trouble punching the holes all the way through. A number of hanging chads were left on the backside of the ballot.

These are the type of lame jokes you make with a political science degree.

That's all for now, but stay tuned for some posts on our exciting trip to Yankee Stadium.