Week 3-Zach Prichard-Graceland Baptist Church

Well another week down, 7 more to go. My internship has had its ups and downs, but this past week was definitely a down. After Memorial Day weekend games started back up and everything started running smoothly, we didn’t have any problems with the weather, and the coaches even started coming to me for advice about rulings on the field, and parents gave me praise for the umpiring I had been doing. I was pretty excited for the upcoming weekend, and what it had to offer. Wednesdays are game free, and since not a whole lot needs to be done, Karen has given me those days off. Thursday rolls around and it’s the hottest day of the year so far. I’m out on the fields, dragging them and getting them prepared for the nights games. Karen calls me and tells me that Gary (our church’s landscaper, maintenance man, and anything else you can think of) needed my help on the new soccer fields that they are building next to the 4 new baseball fields they are also building. Apparently, someone had come out on to the property and pulled up all the field marker flags, and fence post flags. I knew right then and there it was going to be a long day. So Gary and I walked around the huge grass area with a hammer, spray paint, and a metal detector. Keep in mind I still need to line the fields, and get the bases out as well. We finally found enough posts’ markings to call it a day, and let me get back to my other duties. Games came and went, and the night was finally over. Friday and Saturday I had off. Monday, June 6th, again, I was the only one out of the fields in the morning getting them ready. We knew that the only games on the Major league field that night we 7-8 yr olds, so the field didn’t need to be watered because they didn’t weight enough to stir up the dusty field. That is one thing I can’t stand about these fields at Graceland, the fields dirt. Karen expects me to understand how to drag and maintain the fields, but this dirt is something I’ve never worked with before. Imagine your at the beech, now put a baseball bat in your hand and a glove, and now your on our fields. It so sandy and dusty that you can barely keep your footing. I don’t know what to do, but do the best that I can with the equipment that I’ve got. Tuesday was a different story, the 9-10 yr old kids were playing that day and they are a little bit more competitive than the younger ones, and I wanted the fields looking better than normal. Around 4 I decided to water the major league field, I spent over 45 minutes watering that thing, I even had standing puddles all over it, and in an hour, it was all dry. But, it was better looking than it being all dusty as usual, so some good came out of it. Tuesday I had to umpire, which is never fun, but it still needed to be done so I did it. Didn’t really have a whole lot of problems, none that aren’t the usual screaming parent or coach upset that you made a safe call when he wanted an out call. 50% of the time someone is going to be upset with the call you make. You just got to live with the call and not dwell on the past ones. Wednesday is my day off, so Thursday-Thursday will be on the next blog!