On a Day of Bad Omens
Thursday, July 2, 2026Malta, NY
Outside the Game:
The stress of the short work week had me up early this particular morning, and it correctly anticipated the stress-filled day of work that I was to have. In addition to being continually yelled at about resourcing and budgeting problems that were out of my control, we were desperately trying to get some work out the door only semi-successfully, as the remaining staff that were there all had a foot out the door or were overwhelmed with the demands of other people who also wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.
I was cooking and doing laundry in the background of the chaos, when the biggest sign from god possible flashed from the heavens and into a telephone pole right outside my house. I was refilling my water bottle in the kitchen when I heard screeching tires, constant horns, and then a crash of metal and then a larger crash of metal, closer than the last. I went out to my porch office to see a car had plowed into the telephone pole fifty feet from my window the way you see in cartoon car crashes, with the entire front end wrapped comically around the pole. The crash had also left the car's horn permanently on. I didn't see what happened, but the other crash-damaged car in the median led me to surmise that those two cars hit each other and sent the former into the telephone pole.
After seeing if there was any danger of the pole coming down (it was unmarked and unaffected by the impact), I saw that all parties in both cars seemed to be uninjured. The police arrived, quickly followed by three additional police cars, three fire trucks, an ambulance, and two tow trucks. The participants in the accident were across the street, both yelling at a neighbor who had apparently witness the accident and neither appeared to like what that neighbor had to say on the matter.
This was a little after 4 PM, and I still had work to do. Specifically, I had to do a lot of math, which was made more difficult by the constant horn that eventually faded out with the car's battery after a half hour or so. The portends for someone who was going to be driving ten hours in the next few days was as clear as day, yet here I was.
The cars all started to leave in the reverse order of their arrival, the tow trucks taking away the stricken cars, then the ambulance (empty, thankfully), then the fire trucks, and eventually all that was left was a solitary cop car, presuming filing paperwork in the hundred-degree heat.
Work eventually wrapped up, and I started planning at about 6 PM. I booked my hotels for the next two nights as I was packing, and then I headed straight out on the road.
There was an unexpected amount of traffic at the crossover into NY for a Thursday approaching 8 PM, but I eventually made it through to clear sailing, until the skies opened up on I-78 at some point in the darkness in NY just before 9 PM. The rain got so intense at points that we were crawling along, trying to keep the tail lights of the car in front of us in view, and during this deluge, I called my mom from the car. As I hung up with her, we finally outpaced the storm, and it was clear sailing the rest of the way to the hotel. I pulled in a little after ten, to be greeted by far too chipper college kids manning the front desk who had me checked in and had me on my way in no time at all. I parked my car, dragged my stuff up to my room, and got ready and into bed by 11:30 PM.
The Accommodations:
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| Hyatt, Malta, NY |
Sometimes, you accidentally book too much room for a sleepover stay. The cost was barely over $100 bucks, but I managed to book a suite in the Hyatt in Malta, NY, just south of Saratoga. The room opened into a living room with pull-out couch and coffee table, across from a small kitchenette and a desk. There was a king-sized bed and end tables in the bedroom across from a dresser and TV, and a vanity sink outside of bathroom with shower and toilet.
I lounged around as much as I could to make the most of it, but it was far more room than I needed just to sleep in and have a lazy morning.
On Into Every Life a Little Rain Must Fall, Again
Friday, July 3, 2026
Malone Border Hounds vs. North Country Thunderbirds
Veterans Field
Empire League of Professional Baseball
Malone, NY
5:00 PM
Outside the Game:
I was up early after having slept poorly for some reason or other. I was at the breakfast buffet just as it opened, and what a buffet it was. Hot food, well cooked, along with all the expected continental stuff. I ate a ton, as I was a little peckish from the night before, and I ate several servings before retreating back up to my room for another make-up nap.
I packed and planned when I awoke, then took a shower and checked out, getting back on the road a little after 11 AM. It was a decent drive for the rest of the way with no major hiccups. I pulled off after an hour to get gas, and found that two gas stations at the exit were either having power problems or hadn't been refilled yet, but the third establishment got me gassed up and back on the road. I decided to wait until turning off the interstate to catch some fast food, and lost my bet when I declined a Subway at the intersection, only top find there was nothing but farm road for most of the remains of the drive.
When I did finally pull into town, I went straight to the drive-in on the eastern outskirts that I had visited the year before and grabbed some ridiculous burger or other with too many fries and a homemade fountain grape soda.
Thus fortified, I made the short drive to the hotel and checked in with another all-too-pleasant desk clerk. I parked up and unpacked for the day before taking a nap to get the drive off of me. I was back out the door at 4:30 PM, and I arrived shortly thereafter, enduring a small rain shower on my commute.
Later than I was expecting, I was out of the park after the game with a newly washed car. I needed to stop at the Walgreens by the hotel because I forgot to pack toothpaste, but I pulled in just to find out they had just closed. I went across the street to the convenience store and paid through the nose for a travel toothpaste and some snacks.
I was pack at the hotel and up in my room in a flash. I showered up and tried to call my mother as I caught up on podcasts and the like for the rest of the evening before an early night's sleep.
The Stadium & Fans:
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| Center to home, Veterans Field |
Veterans Field is literally an old VFW field that they upgraded by adding a scoreboard, some clubhouses made of barn parts, a covered grandstand behind home plate, and a batting cage and additional bleachers. It was a very stripped-down affair, but it had its own appeal. The supports for the grandstand blocked the field a little, but you hardly noticed.
The scoreboard a simple box-score digital affair, and it wasn't well insulated against the weather, as it glitched out when the rain came later in the game. The lack of lights came into play even with a 5 PM start-time, as the rain delay pushed the game to eventually be called early for darkness.
The only entertainment between innings was the PA announcer and some music piped in through the system. Locals gave a burly hound dog chant in support of the team, and as both of the teams that called the place home were playing each other, it was a mixed bag of supporters, especially after the rain caused everyone to seek shelter in the grandstand.
Unlike some Empire League parks, there was a concessions stand that served up cheap grub, so it had that going for it. Also worth mentioning was that the umpires were comically dimorphic, with the home plate umpire being a tall, burly gentleman and the field ump being a diminutive fellow of slight build.
At the Game with Oogie:
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| Red Hot and Gatorade |
This was a small-time affair, and once I paid my admission at the gate, I had the run of the park. I took my pictures as I needed and then went to the concessions stand. There were a bunch of elderly volunteers running the place, and I ordered up a local hot dog and a Gatorade and grabbed a seat in the covered home plate grandstand before the game started.
There were about a hundred or so people at the game spread out around the park, which is actually a percentage point or two of the small town's total population. An older couple were in front of me, a grandma with her granddaughter on my right, and the guy doing the play-by-play for the online radio feed was sitting at the top of the bleachers behind me. (I was able to pick up a bit about the game from him.)
During the rain delay, I got to talking a little with the couple in front of me. Everyone was watching the players/groundskeepers trying to get the field into playing shape for two hours. The crowd reduced by a little, but most people stayed. I figured some of them were the rides for some players after the game, so they couldn't leave until they did.
I went to the concessions stand to get an order of onion rings before they closed it up for the night, and I got talking to a player who thought I was press because of the camera. He said that they didn't have any Diamond Dry, so they were just hoping the field would soak up enough of the water that they could continue playing, but he wasn't optimistic.
He was proven wrong, as play did resume, and as the game ended, I turned to the play-by-play guy to ask about the courtesy runner the catcher had gotten in the first. A guy in the bottom the stands answered, and also asked me if I was press. He was the father of one of the players for the Thunderbirds. He had been playing in the Atlantic League for the Long Island Ducks until last week when he got cut, so he came up here to continue playing. The family eventually pulled him away, so I said my goodbyes and went out to my car.
The Game:
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| First pitch, Border Hounds vs. Thunderbirds |
This was a weird one for a bunch of reasons. To start, the North Country Thunderbirds were sharing the field with the home-team Malone Border Hounds, so the Thunderbirds were the home team for this game.
The top of the first began promisingly for the Border Hounds, with a leadoff error and an infield single ultimately going for naught. North Country similarly stranded a two-out double and a walk. Things got going in the second with back-to-back homers to get Malone on the board with a 2-0 lead. That lasted until the bottom of the inning, when the Thunderbirds hit got an infield single and a homer to tie the game before getting another double and walk to strand again. The Border Hounds got the lead back in the third with a leadoff single, a passed ball, and another single regaining the lead at 3-2. North Country took the lead right back with a walk, hit batsman, and a home run to get it to 5-3 at the end of three.
Malone just had a stranded single to show off for the top of the fourth, while the T-Birds manufactured another run, but with a break. Rain began to fall after the first batter walked, and he stole his way to third before a thunderstorm warning pulled the teams off the field with two outs. As the teams had rainouts in their pockets already and they were trying to get to a complete game before nearby lightning forced them off the field, they were trying to sneak in five innings before the rain got too bad. Two hours later, they resumed play, after the players-groundskeepers got the field in working order again, for a walk and a single to drive in the runner at third to make it 6-3. The Border Hounds just had a walk to show for the top of the fifth (and an official game at last), and North Country just had a walk in the bottom of the inning. Malone got on base with a two-out error in the sixth, but stranded him, and the Thunderbirds had a two-out hit batsman that was also left on base.
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| Double-duty |
As the seventh began, the sun was setting quickly on the lightless field, and the officials announced that any delay of game of more than 15 seconds would be called an out. Malone tried to get something go with a two-out hit batsman, but it died on the vine in the fading light, ending the game for darkness after 7 played.
The Scorecard:
I was trying out the notebook-formatted small ball Scorebook from 72DoublePlay.com. It is an interesting experiment to get a truly pocket scorebook by using the Reisner method of continuous scoring, no stat lines, and a minimum of space.
Each team had nine player lines with space for one replacement. There were six contiguous scoring columns. There were space for six pitchers with no stats, and six lines for notes. At the bottom of the visitor's part of the inning was a box score, and at the bottom of the home team page was a stat line for the game. Each scoring square had four diamond points to fill in the baseline as the runner progressed.
It was an intriguing experiment, but the printing came off with any erasing, so that needs to be fixed. I found myself re-writing in scorecard lines that had erased away. Also, I wonder if the scorecard can handle a high-scoring game, as this one only went seven and there was a chance of running out of room.
As for the game itself, there weren't a lot of interesting scoring plays of note, outside of the increased fielding errors, hit batsmen, and walks you expect in the low indies. The pitcher for the Thunderbirds hit for himself and got cries of "Ohtani" when he raked a homer early in the game.
To account for having to show pitcher and inning changes, I used red ink for pitching changes and black lines for inning changes. I'd probably do squiggles for pitcher changes if I only had one color.
The league has a courtesy runner rule for catchers on base to speed up the game not waiting for catchers to put back on their gear. I noted the various rain delays, as well as the 10-minute warning at the end of the game that had 90-second inning breaks and any delay of game more than 15 seconds was an automatic out.
I also wrote "called for darkness" for perhaps the first and last time at a pro game.
The Accommodations:
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| Red Roof Inn+, Malone, NY |
I hadn't stayed at a Red Roof in a long time, having had it conflated in my mind with Motel 6 and bad experiences therein. It is a budget hotel to be sure, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought I remembered.
The bathroom with tub was right at the entrance to my room, and the room itself held two queen beds and nightstands on one side and a desk, dresser, and TV on the other.
It was a little shabby at the edges, but it was meticulously clean and maintained.
On the Holiday
Saturday, July 4, 2026Clifton, NJ
Outside the Game:
I was up early after an odd evening of sleep with some odd dreams.
As soon as the breakfast opened, I wandered down to be greeted by a cheery front desk manager and made up a decent breakfast in the definition of a decent breakfast spread. I loaded up on bread and cereal in the indelible Red-Roof colored plastic bowls and sat and ate as wave after waves of active-duty Army personnel strolled through. I'm not sure what the deal was, but a ton of army men were at the hotel with me.
After I ate, I wandered back to the room for a nap. I woke up again to pack up and exercise before checking what was on the agenda for today. Roadside America yielded nothing of interest along my driving route, but there was an antiques market on the way out of town.
I packed up my car and check out right at 10 AM, but upon driving over to the antiques market, I found it was closed, likely for the holiday. So I pointed my car southeast and headed out to the road.
I clearly didn't check my Google Map closely, because I was again dragged through the country farmland roads, though in the morning daylight this was less of a concern than the dark of night in inclement weather. I did have one big scare, as the map directions took me on the main street straight of some town or another in upstate that was prepping to have its July 4th parade down the road I was on. I lucked out in that I was going in the opposite direction of the soon-to-happen parade, so I snuck through at the last minute, and after an hour or so I was very happily on the interstate south.
There as not much to it after that. Once on the NY Thruway, I stopped at a rest stop for a lunch at Panera. I picked up some snacks for the car, added in some scones and figs at a farmer's market set up outside, and then was back on the road for the rest of the drive home. After five hours, I became quite goofy for the last half hour of the drive, mostly screaming the chorus for Home on the Range for reasons that seemed valid at the time.
After that half hour, I found myself in my driveway baking under 100-degree heat, but happily unpacking and ready for some laundry and settling up. I grilled a porterhouse for dinner and that was about that for "America 250," as the neighborhood sounded like Beirut from fireworks both professional and amateur.
The Accommodations:
Home, sweet Clifton
