Last night The Dugout witnessed one of the worst mascot entrances in the history of minor league baseball. The Jupiter Hammerheads' mascot, Hamilton R. Head, usually enters Roger Dean Stadium from behind the left field wall driving a go cart. He is supposed to speed across the outfield warning track all the way around to home plate.
Usually this takes a few seconds but last night seemed to take forever. The drama grew as the P.A. announcer egged him on. Laughing fans were wondering aloud whether the cart would make it to home plate.
Was the cart out of gas? Did it have a flat tire? Was the engine failing? Was Hamilton driving with two left flippers?
When Hamilton finally arrived at home, he jumped out of the cart and waved to a relieved crowd. Then a Hammerheads' staffer jumped into the cart, released the parking brake, and sped off down the left field line.
Add Hamilton to the long list of Florida drivers who prefer to drive slow in the fast lane.
There's no snowing in baseball: As noted in yesterday's blog, not every opening day goes as planned.
The snow and cold weather that struck the east coast on Thursday cancelled games as far south as Richmond. Rain interrupted several Florida State League games, including the one The Dugout attended in Jupiter. Nothing like an hour and 20 minute rain delay to start the season.
While the rain put a damper on the fans, it came too late to please local fire marshals. Palm Beach became the latest FSL team to cancel a fireworks show. The Roger Dean Stadium front office banged tonight's display before the start of yesterday’s game because of drought conditions.
As disappointing as that is for fans, no organization is having a worse opening weekend than Akron. The Eastern League's Aeros postponed their season opener because of snow and were forced to cancel tonight’s fireworks show because of high winds. It's not a great week to be in Ohio.
No comments:
Post a Comment