Bandits beat Greys 12-7

From coach Gregg: Our Bandits get a taste of victory tonight--we played some much improved defense against the 0-5 Greys....

We were 12-1 in the bottom of the 5th- Michael pitched one inning and gave up only one run. So, we were 12-2 in the bottom of the 6th- Luke P. closed that inning and gave up 5 more. But, in the end we had enough, final: 12-7. The boys were happy.

Luke MT can pitch now (he did not pitch tonight). He cannot bat, but the umpire allowed him to play defense. Neil has a sore elbow, so we gave him lighter duty and he didn't pitch tonight either.

Peter ran the bench tonight and kept score, too. Thanks Peter. And, Joe (Joey's Dad) was happy to coach third base...

Bandits snack schedule update and coach John away

Google Docs - HGRA Majors Bandits 2008 has player positions and snack schedules. I think we have complete snack coverage.

Tim and I will be away through July 2nd and I think Marty is away for a week too. John's Dad, Peter, will be helping out, but we'll need help at practices!

Luke MT is healing and may be able to bat soon, it will be good to have him back.

Gregg and Marty are working on scheduling our make up game, could be in place of our next practice (they will have details soon).

We will be thinking of the Bandits as we travel!

Directions to Riverside 1 field (tonight)

I've discovered the HGRA web site doesn't have directions to Riverside One field.

5 – Riverside 1 – (Lexington and W. 7th, by the school bulding.)

You can see it on Google maps.

When I go south down Lexington, I turn left on Albion Ave (just before Lex meets 7th) then look to park. I think there's school parking we can use.

There are two fields seen in the sat map, I don't know which we use. The north one looks bigger.

HGRA All Star Game - Sunday June 22nd - RSVP by 6/13

The All Star Game is 12 days away. We have to give Commissioner Dennis our player list by the 14th at the latest.

Eligible bandits include:

Miles Austin
Michael Brauns
Neil Gaworski
Joey Oconnor
Luke Peterson
McKinley Skinner

Collin Marrone (will play)
Tim Faughnan (will be away)

Please email coach John at jfaughnan@spamcop.net and let us know if your Bandit can play.

Here's some more information ...

all star 08

HGRA’s major league all star game is scheduled for Sunday, June 22. Here are the important details:

1. All Major Leaguers with birthdates before 8-31-97 are eligible. This is our way of rewarding the kids who stay with the league.

2. We generally play two games – one at 12:30 and one at 3:00. Players are assigned to the teams at random. We will notify them of which game they are in during the week leading up to the game.

3. The games are loads of fun – we give the kids all-star shirts, have an announcer and sound system, play games and contests between innings and have a concession stand.

4. The game will be played at the Highland Senior High softball field that we regularly use.

Thanks for helping get us this information!

Update: Our All Star Bandits will be

Miles Austin
Michael Brauns
Neil Gaworski
Joey Oconnor
Colin Marrone

NO GAME today - absences, rotations and snacks

Update 5:45 pm

Game is off for today. Marty is phoning and Emily sent out an email. Very stormy!

For the next game if anyone won't be attending please let us know so we can revise rotations.

We're going to try a different rotation pattern. We'll have one player with a strong glove in the outfield (LF or CF depending on corresponding infielder) and we'll rotate less confident gloves into 3rd base and 2nd base.

We'll probably double up on snacks next game!

Practice tonight – dress warmly! Also, notice of site updates

Tonight’s practice seems like a milder version of our game

Saint Paul Weather Forecasts on Yahoo! Weather

Tonight: Cloudy with a few showers. Low near 55F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.

We all know now (I’ve learned my lesson) to have rain jackets, two layers of shirt (long sleeved and short sleeved), etc. A pair of lightweight cotton/wool gloves and/or batting gloves can help too.

I doubt we’ll cancel practice but if we do I’ll update here and send email.

I was asked about getting email notifications when this page changes. The service we’re using for this blog (Google’s Blogger) doesn’t provide email notification of changes. Instead it handles notifications through a “feed” which is consumed by a “feed reader”.

Feed readers are newer tools, mostly used by geeks like me. There are services that will send you email whenever a page changes. I’ve used www.changedetection.com/monitor.html. If you give them the address of http://hgrabaseball.blogspot.com/ and your email you’ll get emailed with every change to this page, including new or revised articles.

In terms of feed readers, I use bloglines as my personal feed reader, Google Reader is also popular. These are web-based “feed readers”.

In addition to these web based solutions, the latest version of OS X Mail.app (10.5.3) will handle feed changes as though they were email; Outlook 2007 will do this as well. Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2, and Safari 3 will all track feeds and notify users of changes. IE does the nicest job of this set. See the application help files for more information.

For major things, like a game or practice cancellation, I do send out an email to every Bandit address I know of.