Not quite the same but wonderful nonetheless

After last night's exciting game I had to go home do a bit of work and then sleep for 3 1/2 hours so I could make a 6 AM flight to our nation's capitol. The defect of that was that I would miss the Pacific Division Championships at Raley Field. I arrived at Reagan at about 4 PM and went immediately to the Red Carpet Room. My thought was that I could at least see the box score as it developed. The radio broadcast over the net has never worked very well - but I thought I would be able to track the progress of the team in increments. So that is what I did. Attendance at this Sunday day game was only 5000 - I suspect it may bump a bit for the PCL finals.

The Bees jumped out to a 2 run lead in the first. And until the fifth both sides were scoreless. Then Petit got a single, Blasi one too, and then Merloni. Then up comes Daric Barton who hit a home run. That put us up 4-2. I thought I could safely go from the airport to my hotel. When I got to the hotel I again dialed into the Rivercats site and watched the end of the game unfold. I now think I know something of the early wire reporters for baseball who would recreate the action for the radio by reading the game log which was teletyped from the field. The last play of the game was also fitting - Merloni to Barton for the final out.

The Cats now go up against New Orleans which made pretty easy work of Nashville. During the regular season the Zephyrs won only 75 games but they have been on a hot streak - winning 7 of their last 10 games in the regular season and 3 of the four playoff games they played against the Sounds. New Orleans was only six games over .500 and in both their home and away records they were only three games up (home was 37-34). We ended the regular season with 14 games over .500 and won the last 4 and 8 of the last 10. The Zephyrs are also the team that suffered two major injuries on their last visit to Sacramento. We joked at the time that they might well not want to come back to Sacramento. This is the end of the season for the PCL championship - and I suspect they will put away those worries. The first two games are in New Orleans starting on Wednesday then they come to Raley's starting on Friday.