Anyone who already reads this blog has heard by now the festivities from Thursday night were postponed to July 17 – that is for the fireworks and the torch run. Bobby Dick and the Sundowners will make a special appearance on a date that has not yet been determined.

Baseball

The boys, and men, of summer were smacking the ball around over the weekend at Burch Field in American Legion Baseball.

It was good to hear that the host team Granville Post 323 pulled it together for the rest of the weekend after a sputtering start against Chester. It was an uncharacteristic outing for a team loaded with talent from Granville High School Golden Horde teams past and present and some guests from the area. I have to think other teams come to the area just as loaded with quality players, but somehow expect the Granville team to rise above – as they did for the rest of the weekend.

As for the rally killer from the fifth, or was it sixth inning (?), the umpire appeared to be in position to make the call and I always thought the tie goes to the runner (unless that’s just a Little League thing) so this seemed to be an easy call to make, at least from the fan side of the fence. It was missed, as the pictures from the game clearly show, but one call rarely makes or breaks a game. Some errors early against a good hitting team had Granville in a hole early and they needed everything to go their way to dig out. It didn’t and so they didn’t.

It says a lot about that team that they swept the remainder of their games to take home the title – good work guys.

Not for nothing, but I wouldn’t want to have been wearing the blue for that one. Officiating, “reffing” or umpiring or is not easy and that blown call doesn’t have nearly as much impact if the game is any closer.

Soccer

I noticed some players on the Telescope fields on Sunday evening and it is my understanding that pick up games against the area migrant workers and area youth groups have started up again. With many families engaged in Fourth of July activities there appeared to be just one local player this week, but organizers say they’re looking for anyone who would like to come out and kick the ball around.