Week 2-Zach Prichard-Graceland Baptist Church

Well week 2 got started off on the wrong foot from the beginning. We had terrible rain weekend the week before, so getting the fields ready Monday morning was going to be a hand full. I got in on Monday around 9 and me and Karen, (the Recreation Director) got started on getting the water off the field, and scratching up the dirt so that it could have some time to dry. Lucky for us it was actually a really nice day, so the fields had a lot of time to dry before the games at 6 that night. Karen has been doing this job for 35 years, so by Karen giving me most of the responsibility to get the fields dry was not a big deal to me. On the major/minor league field, the water was mainly on home plate, the mound, and 3rd base area. There was standing water, but with the kind of dirt they have on the field it really soaks it up really well and gets it dry pretty fast. By 4 we had all the fields hand raked and ready to be dragged by the mule. So I got the mule and nail drug the fields, and followed it by dragging them with a mesh drag. Me and Karen had the fields in tip top shape, and we were very happy with the way they looked. After lining the fields for game time, and getting the pitching machine out to the softball field for the 6-8 yr old girls game, me and Karen went into the concession stand to make sure the youth kids were getting everything set up for the games that night. At 5:30 we walked out of the concession stand and couldn't believe what we saw. It looked like we were in another town, I couldn't believe how it could go from being completely sunny, and a beautiful day to so many clouds and it looking like it was going to thunderstorm. We went over to the softball field to get them started, just hoping it was clouds and not rain, at 6 we started seeing the lighting show. The other team that is not affiliated with Graceland Baptist decided they were just going to leave, which they kind of left too quickly, but it turned out they left right on time. We took the mule over to the major league game and told the coaches to get the kids in their cars with their parents. I drove the mule up to the church to drop off one of the workers and when I came back down to the fields, Karen yelled at me to go get the pitching machine off the softball field before it started pouring. Just as I leave the field with the pitching machine I got drove the mule into the bus barn (barn where they keep the mule and lawn mowers), it started raining so bad that I thought the building I was in was going to come down. I started looking around at all the tools and thinking to myself, this reminds me of the movie twister where they are hiding out in an underground garage and a character gets his head sliced open by a table saw. Never the less I was scared out of my mind. There were trash cans getting knocked over, port-o-potties being knocked over, I just didn't know how I was going to get out of there. Luckily, the rain slowed down just enough for me to run to my car and get out of there. We decided to leave the bases on the field and just deal with it tomorrow. Well, Tuesday roles around and again, another beautiful day, still, you could of bet me 1,000 dollars that we were going to have games that day, and I would of happily taken that bet. But, I would have been wrong. I was so dumbfounded by the way that dirt soaks up the water, and sure enough, we had the fields ready by game time. It was a little muddy for my liking, but it was still playable. The games ran smoothly, and we got the field cleaned up afterward and went home for the night. Wednesday night we had even more rain, and more rain Thursday morning, this was a day we were not going to play. We made the call around 3:45 that the games were going to be canceled, so me and Karen started calling all the people that needed to know. We also put a message up on the answering machine that parents can call to find out if there will be games or not. So lucky for me, I got off a little early that day. Friday is Karen's day off, and since there were not going to be any games that week because of Memorial Day weekend, I didn't have to work on the fields. I got started early on the equipment room that needed some serious cleaning out and re-arranging. Lucky for me, I had a pretty good sized table to use that I could set stuff on so I could re-arrange the shelves. I looked at all the baseball equipment, and started setting aside things that we could still use, and things that just needed to be taken to the dump. I also set aside stuff that we could take to Goodwill. I got the first 2 racks done, and that was all that was able to get taken care of that day. Because I knew some teams were going to make up one of their games on Monday on their own, I decided to go ahead and drag the fields myself so that at least the fields would be ready for them on Monday. That was the end of my week since there were no games on Saturday, and Monday was Memorial Day. See ya next time!