November 2006 - Ft Myers, FL

Paul was invited to play with the South Dakota Pheasants Over 60 baseball team in the Roy Hobbs Wooden Bat tournament in Ft. Myers, FL from November 12 -19th. Games are played at a number of fields in Ft Myers, but mainly at the Twins spring training site, the Lee County Sports Complex, and the Boston Red Sox fields.

We left MN on the 7th of November and drove to Morton, IL where we spent the night with Cathy and Norm Durflinger. We were joined for chicken dinner at Spooners, a local watering hole, by Vickie Ayres who was in Morton helping daughter Tracy care for her kids as she deals with her store and caring for husband, Monte, who is suffering with cancer.

After dinner, the Durflingers hosted desert at their house. Thanks to the Oestmanns, who brought very tasty brownies,pumpkin bars and ice cream, Triggs, Kinneys, and Christensens who spent sometime with us there.

On Wednesday we drove to Dalton, GA where we spent the night in a Comfort Inn.

Thursday, we drove on in to Ellenton, FL and stayed that night and the next with Aunt Jessie and Unk Lea. We did some repairs around their home and generally relaxed on Friday.

Saturday, we drove to Ft Myers. After checking in at Hammond Stadium, we went to our hotel in Ft Myers Beach where we waited for the welcome cookout for the players and others back at the ball park at 6:30 pm. The championship game for the AAAA Over 50 teams, who were finishing their week on Saturday, was also played in Hammond Stadium that night. So, we got a plate of grub and watched part of the game.

The rest of the team arrived between about 9:30 and midnight.

Sunday the team met up at noon and headed to our game at Lee County Sports Complex, field 2. We played the Georgia Classics and came away with a 3-2 victory. Paul batted 10th in a "shared batting order" concept. What this meant was he shared the 10th spot in a 12 man batting order with another player. And, since the other player batted 1st in this "sharing" arrangement, Paul got only one at bat. BUT, he made the most of it with a sharp single to right center. Unfortunately, trying to stretch it into a double, he was thrown out by a perfect throw from the cutoff man to the shortstop.

The team was not happy with getting only 8 total hits against questionable pitching, but was still quite pleased with a "W"

Dinner was ribs at a joint just down the road from the hotel.

Tomorrow we play the Western Silver Foxes at the Boston Red Sox Player Development Park.

October 2006 - Las Vegas Baseball

From October 23 - 30, Joan and I were in Las Vegas where, for the third consecutive year I played baseball with a team from South Dakota in the National Adult Baseball Association national tournament. And for the second year in a row, in spite of my participaton, the South Dakota Pheasants beat the Denver Fossils for the Over 60 age group championship. (And for the second consecutive year, our "brother team", the Over 50 age group South Dakota Jackalopes lost to a team from San Diego; last year in the semi-finals, and this year in the finals.)

The format of the tournament is one game per day from Monday through Thursday. Records in these four games seed each team into a bracket. There is another game on Friday, essentially a semi-final game for the respective bracket. Winners of the Friday game in each bracket play on Saturday for the championship of the bracket.

In our age group, the Over 60s, there were only six teams. We and the Fossils had not played each other and were undefeated after the first four games. So, regardless of the outcome of our game on Friday, both teams were in the final on Saturday. We had some uncharacteristic errors in the Friday game with the Fossils and lost "bragging rights" (of going through the tournament undefeated) 8-7. But, we got the one that counted on Saturday!



The trip didn't start out quit as happily though. We decided to fly to Vegas, rather than drive, and found a good rate on Southwest Airlines. Flight time was 3:40 pm on Sunday. This would have gotten us to Vegas at 5 pm, in plenty of time to check into the motel and go to checkin/registration with the other guys.

When we got through secuity and to the gate area, we were advised the plane was at the gate, but was on a mechanical hold. They had a part on order from Atlanta (Northwest doesn't have any 737 parts in Minneapolis that they could borrow? I guess you don't help the enemy!) but it hadn't arrived yet. It WAS expected "soon" and we should be on our way by 8:30 local time. To make a veeerrrry long story shorter, we never did get on that plane, but took one that came in from Boston, left at 9:40 and finally arrived in Vegas at about 11:30 local time. But, that wasn't the end of the fun. After approaching the gate, the pilot come on the intercom and advised there was no space for us and we would have to wait on the apron for about thirty minutes. An hour later, we got off the plane and an hour later we got our bags and rental car and thirty minutes after that we got to the motel. Fortunately, our game on Monday was at 11:30 am and not 8:45.

Since we played only one game each day, we had time to do some site-seeing. After one of the games, we drove about 30 minutes south of Henderson, NV to Hoover Dam and toured this impressive structure.






The area is in the 6th year of a drought and the water in Lake Mead is about forty feet lower than normal. That would be about half way up the alkaline (light colored) scum on the wall. The top of the line is the mark from the all-time high water mark, which was seven feet from the top of the dam. I don't remember what year that was.

A couple of evenings we went to the strip and watched the water and light show at the Bellagio. This is very impressive.




Another day we went to Red Rocks Canyon in the Summerlin area west of Las Vegas. This beautiful rock formation is essentially petrified sand dunes with various colors and shapes.





We could save over $300 (after the extra night in the motel)by leaving on Monday, so we did. Monday morning we had lunch in the new Wynn Casino, a beautiful new casino in downtown Las Vegas with an 18 hole golf course on the premises. For only $500 one can play!



We got home about 11:30 Monday night and have spent the last few days cleaning up the mail and getting ready to leave next Tuesday for Ft Myers, FL where this same group of old farts will be playing in the Roy Hobbs Wooden Bat tournament. Games start on Sunday, November 12. Our next update will probably come from Florida.