Once again it is time for an update on my meanderings through the Eastern League, so come on in and stay for a while.  Since last report the major new development is that of the season having begun.  I and my teammates with the Akron Aeros opened up our season on the road at NYSEG Stadium against the Binghamton Mets, which was unfortunate on a lot of different levels.  The first has nothing to do with Binghamton or the stadium, but instead simply with being on the road to start the season.  Having broken camp Sunday we as players had until Wednesday afternoon when we departed Akron for Binghamton to arrange for our housing and all the various things that come along with it, which is an added stress that isn’t any fun for anybody.  Some of us were fortunate enough to get through the background checks, credit checks and income verification processes that usually take a couple weeks and get our leases signed so we’ll have somewhere to stay the night we get back from the road trip.  Some guys didn’t and even those of us who did will probably be making due until we can get some furniture arranged.  Ah, what a wonderful life indeed.  Beyond the fact of starting on the road, Binghamton has an older stadium and just isn’t that great of an atmosphere to play in.  Much of the hype and excitement usually attendant to opening day was lacking and it was a lackluster experience to say the least.  Whatever other issues there were with the road trip, however, we did take three out of the four games in the series from the Mets and I picked up two saves which has to bring me close to my season total from last year, which it now occurs to me to lookup.  I felt good in my back-to-back outings, which is a very good sign this early in the year, as is the fact that my velocity was around my typical midseason range in the cool weather.  Overall, an encouraging start to the season and something to build as the season moves forward.

 

Away from the field there has not been much happening other than getting housing arranged and sitting on the bus to Binghamton and on to Trenton, where we are opening a three game series tonight against the Thunder.  As usual I have taken advantage of the time on the bus and in the clubhouse to plough my way through some reading material, including both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the sequel Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, neither of which I found especially interesting.  The so-called “red queen effect” based on a sequence in Looking Glass is something I have always found interesting since being introduced to it in a book by Richard Dawkins, but other than that I was only marginally entertained by the two books.  Of much more interest to me was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Mark Haddon.  It is a bit different and may not be for everyone, but I would definitely recommend it.  Anyhow, I suppose I should leave of there for now before I bore everyone to death and end with a poem in honor of National Poetry Month.  Enjoy.

 

Here the Frailest Leaves of Me

By Walt Whitman

 

Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest-lasting:  

Here I shade and hide my thoughts–I myself do not expose them,  

And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.