Today there another company picnic at the park, except this one was a lot bigger than the last one. There were carnival games in the parking lots, games on the field, and fireworks later in the night. Before the picnic started I finally got to mow the outfield. Mowing is harder than I had originally thought. Mowing is hard because you have to mow straight without leaving any mohawks and that is easier said than done because the mower pulls you all over the place. I had to double cut the outfield, so once I cut it one way I got comfortable with it and mowed the opposite way a lot better. I just erased the old pattern we had in the outfield, so I didn't have to be too precious while I mowing. After that we all directed or parked cars into and out of the stadium. We couldn't do anything while the picnic was going on. After everyone went home we washed out the infield edges and we have tomorrow off. Now I want to talk a little bit about how yesterday went. Yesterday was just a mess all around. Before the game everything was good and we got the field ready for batting practice and then it decided to rain. It rained so much that we had to cancel batting practice (a first since I have been here). We got a little break in the weather and we were able to get the field one final prep before the game at 7:05pm. We knew it was going to start raining again, so we got the tarp back on the field right before it let loose. It rained for close to three hours and we got a lot of rain. We had standing water in the warning track and we spent three hours trying to get the warning track playable; unfortunately we had to cancel the game because we quickly ran out of Quick Dry and we could not get the warning track in playable condition.

These next couple of days will be very interesting days. Mike left for San Francisco today for three days, which means that Tyler is in charge (yikes!). So hopefully the field doesn't burn down. Today went pretty smooth with just three of the interns there (Tyler had the day off). We leveled the bullpen plates, spot aerated, and raked the warning track, so it was a pretty easy day. Tomorrow we have to fix the away bullpen mounds and plate, we have to fix the other home bullpen plate, while also patching the game mound and plate, edging and backfilling, and leveling first base. On top of mowing in the morning. And all of that has to be done by 6:30pm. There will be batting practice on the field for a company picnic at 7:00pm. Mike said before he left that I will hopefully be mowing the outfield here soon, which is exciting because I have not been able to mow at this point yet. I mowed the greens and tees at the golf course, so mowing here shouldn't be that hard. It is hard to believe that I have less than a month left here. Time has flown by and I have really enjoyed my internship so far. 

The six game home stand is finally over! It was a long one, hard one. Blake had to leave because of a family emergency and we broke all of our tamps except for one, so patching was a longer process than usual. We usually have four tamps going after the game to patch everything, so having only one really takes forever. The last game of the home stand might have been the worst because it was close to 100 degrees before the game and I was left to patch everything by myself. When the game started we only got one inning played before it started to rain, so we had to put the tarp on the field. The tarp stayed on the field for over an hour and a half. We did not leave the ballpark until after 1:30 in the morning. Then we have to wake up early tomorrow to put a stage on the field for Party in the Park and the Taste of Grand Rapids events. Talk about a quick turnaround.

It has been awhile since I have done a blog post. June and July have been busy months. We had nine days of no games in June, but we had an event on the field every day. The same thing is set to happen in July after this six game home stand. Our last game is Monday and Tuesday morning we set up a stage at second base that will be on the field until Saturday. The event is called Party in the Park and there are a bunch of different events going on over those couple days. Today marked the one month day of the internship. I only have one more month here in Grand Rapids, which seems impossible. It seems like I have only been up here for a couple of weeks. It has been a great time and I not ready to move back to Tiffin 

Today was a really long, hard day. We pulled out home plate so we could level
it; the plate was about a half inch too low. After we pulled it out it
started to rain, so we were never able to put home plate back in the ground, and
there is a game tomorrow. So before the game tomorrow we will be scrambling
around to get home plate put back. We were able to re-slope the game mound,
which is always a long task because it has to be exact with all the
measurements, whereas the bullpen mound do not have to exact, they can be off by
a little bit. After we got the game mound re-sloped, Tyler and I edged the
infield while Drew and Blake mowed. While edging the infield is when it started
mowing, so we had to pull the tarp because we start the six gamer tomorrow. The
tarp was on the field for over two hours, so obviously we couldn't do much to
the field during that time. After we pulled the tarp off we finished edging and
backfilling the infield. By the time we finished doing that it was 9:30pm, which
is longer than we usually stay when there isn't a game. Tomorrow before the game
we have to: edge the warning track, paint the logos, coaches boxes, and lines,
and put home plate back in the ground. The game will start at 7:05pm. So
tomorrow will be yet another long day. The good news is that this the last six
game home stand of the year.