Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Fighting the broken bus blues

The Dugout woke up early and hustled up to Jupiter, Florida's Roger Dean Stadium to catch some minor league Dodgers games. It would have been the first – and possibly only – chance to talk face-to-face with L.A. farmhands this season.

The Double and Triple-A clubs were slated to play the Cardinals, but that game never materialized. The story being told by Cardinals' players was that the Dodgers bus broke down on the way to the game, so the team never showed up.

There are some pretty funny stories in The Funniest Thing I've Ever Seen: More than 100 crazy minor league baseball stories that deal with bus problems. There are a couple of instances where the bus caught fire. In one, the players were jumping off the bus while it was still moving, scattering players along the highway for about a mile.

In the other, players boarded a second bus to the game. When they returned past the original bus, they were shocked to see that it had burned almost completely to the ground. Only the shell remained.

Fortunately for the Dodgers, their problems were not nearly that bad. If the game was a regular season contest, they certainly would have found alternative transportation. During the laid back times of Spring Training, they just decide to scrap the game.

How many times have you started your car in the morning; then wished aloud that you didn't really have to go to work?

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