swing and a miss on these blogs

I'll knock myself on the job I've been doing on keeping my fans updated. I know. I suck at it.

We're in Syracuse now. Cleveland was an awesome experience, especially seeing the Victor Martinez-less Indians get owned by the Twins. The atmosphere in the Jake is absolutely dead. The fans there are hurting, to say the least.

Michelle just reminded me of the day before the Indians game, which was an Independent League match up between the Lake Erie Crushers and Kalamazoo Kings. This game, by contrast, was AWESOME. The crowd loves the team, which is made up of all types of players--from former major leaguers, to aspiring major leaguers, to guys who just love to play ball. The GM of the Crushers, who we met with before the game, came down to where we were sitting to hang out with the USM group, a really unique gesture that makes you feel that the fans matter as part of the picture.

We also got to see an A-ball club--the Lake County Captains (Indians affiliate) and got to walk out on the field. It was neat to get that perspective of a stadium.

Tonight we watched the Auburn Doubledays (Blue Jays affiliate) play at Falcon Park, another Class A club. It was the first extra-inning game we've seen, with Auburn winning when Vermont's 3rd baseman bobbled a grounder, sending in the run from 3rd.

So we go to Cooperstown tomorrow. It'll be my first trip to the Hall of Fame, so I'm pretty stoked. We'll be in Albany for the night, then on to Fenway Park Saturday.