Abducted!

Game 131, August 26, DBAP
Charlotte Knights 10, Durham Bulls 4
Season: 74-57; Streak: 0-4; Home Games Remaining: 5
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun, Indy Week

I think I’ve figured it out.

The road from Norfolk to Durham goes through some pretty dark places. Last Sunday night when the Durham Bulls were on their way back to Durham they were abducted. The team on the field this week isn't the real Durham Bulls. Those guys in baseball uniforms at the DBAP for the last four games are aliens. They're visiting the Earth to experience the game, but they aren't very good at it. What other explanation could there be?

The real Durham Bulls went 7-3 on the last road trip. They averaged 4.1 runs a game. They only allowed 2.7 runs per game. In the last four games the Bulls let in 32 runs — 8 runs per game! Gotta be aliens on the field.

Anything good to come out of last night? Well, yes. Those of us on the third base side got a wonderful view of weather in action. One of the outer bands of Hurricane Irene was up there in the eastern sky as the sun was setting behind us. We could see the edges of the clouds rotating around from the northeast and back down to the south. Very pretty as it crept our way and then blew in gusts of rain to put the grounds crew to work.

Anything else? Sonnanstine's first two innings, J.J. Furmaniak's 9th inning (J.J. struck out Charlotte's Dallas McPherson who'd hit two home runs for 6 RBIs earlier in the game). But if they were all aliens then hard to tell if they even understood the concept of winning and losing.

If we're lucky two things will happen today.

• The storm will keep moving on and we'll have baseball tonight.
• The aliens will have finished their experiment and release the real Durham Bulls back to the Earth.

Remember: No double header today (Saturday). Two 7-inning games tomorrow starting at 4:00.