Mr. OOB upon arrival at McKechnie Field. Here I am showing my enjoyment of the Pirate logo by posing in front of the Clubhouse Store, one of my favorite pictures from the trip.
Given the amount of time "Big Jake" spent cruisin' for babes, it is pretty sad that this was his only catch: A Seven Foot Parrot (left).
Faces in the crowd (below): from left to right, Jake, Clayton, and the Lizard catch a spring game in the shade.
(Above LtoR Josh, Big Jake, The LIzard) Showing our form in the pitching booth. Surprisingly, no one tried to sign us to a contract. More surprisingly: two things happen when you walk up cold and, after not having thrown a baseball for three years, haul off and chunk it as hard as you can:
1. You don't break 50 on the radar.
2. Your arm hurts the rest of the week.
I snapped this covert shot (above) from way down the first base line. Here we see a typical game for my three trip companions. Clayton and the Lizard on your right, watching the game carefully and engaging in sage wisdom and commentary from their respective viewpoints. Big Jake, on the left, checking out some girl in section 102 as he goes downstairs to look for "Spring Break Chicks."
In an attempt to erase the nightmare in the pitching booth, Big Jake turns to "his sport" as he called it, and sinks three to win an old-school Pirates hat, which he donned for the remainder of the trip. Couple this performance with his daily calls to his bookie and brother regarding "March Madness," and Big Jake had us convinced that roundball was, in fact, "his sport."
In another monumental display of bachelordom, Big Jake scopes out his favorite babe of the trip. . . in the players' wives section! We snapped this close-up for his edification, though he was largely uninterested once he saw she had a baby carrier. He is a professional, though. Notice how he faces the field, but cuts his eyes to the side to check her out. Sheer babe-watching genius.
