I only have a week left here in Grand Rapids. The time has surely went by fast. This whole internship has been a great experience and I have learned a lot. There is more in getting the field game ready than most people realize. Then when we a couple days of no home games we have outside events like concerts, picnics, and other community events; which makes it difficult to get major projects done. And after the season ends there a few high school football games played on the field. So the field takes a beating the whole time it is playable. I am going to enjoy this last week and get ready to come back for my senior year at Tiffin. There has recently been a ticket position open up with the Whitecaps and I have talked with a guy in charge of hiring and maybe I will be back up here after graduation. You never what will happen. I would be open to returning, I have nothing bad to say about the Whitecaps. It is a well a run organization with management and ownership that truly cares, which makes everyone's job better. 
 
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.
 
The last two days have been very long days. Yesterday, all of the interns volunteered for the Kent County Habitat for Humanity. We reframed a house so it can be remodeled and sold to a family in need of a new house. It was a good time and I enjoyed volunteering for the Habitat for Humanity organization. I have never done anything with construction before, so I learned a lot about what goes into building a house. I mainly patched holes in the floor and I also helped put in a couple of walls in the house. Today, we got the field ready for the upcoming six game home stand. We painted all of the logos, I raked and drug the warning track, spot aerated along the foul lines, and started to reslope the away bullpen mounds. The away bullpen needs a lot of work done to it because it is the bullpen that we drive all of our equipment over. So it will be a couple day process of getting it to the point it needs to be at. It was a busy day for sure and we got a lot of stuff done.
 
It has been a long three weeks. We are going on close to three weeks straight without a day off. This week there was the Midwest All-Star game and six additional road games, but we have had events on the field almost everyday which makes it hard to get anything done. Today we did some resodding behind the mound. Resodding is pretty easy, it is just very time consuming. I have resodded before at the golf course, so nothing was new to me. We will continue to re-sod tomorrow and we will also level first and second base. So tomorrow will be a pretty busy day and hopefully we will be able to have Sunday off. On Tuesday all of the interns are volunteering at the Habitat for Humanity here in Grand Rapids. One of the requirements for the internship is an intern volunteer day. All of the interns pick from a list of organizations to volunteer at and this year it was the Habitat for Humanity. We will be helping frame a house. Then on Wednesday another home stand starts up. 
 
It has been a long home stand. We had eight games in six days with two doubleheaders on Saturday and Sunday. Thankfully we only have three more games left in the home stand. Today was a little break from the norm for me, because today I did my shadow day. For my shadow day I chose to shadow tickets. But before going up to the ticket office I worked until lunch with the guys getting the field ready for the games. Early in the morning I spot aerated bad areas around the plate, mound, shortstop, second base, and where the umpires stand. Those areas get really compacted because of all the foot traffic those areas receive on a daily basis. After spot aerating those areas I went up and did my shadowing of the guys in the ticket office. While shadowing I learned how to: use the two ticket programs the Whitecaps use (they use Ticket Return and File Maker), how to talk on the phone and sell tickets that way, how to total the nights attendance, and a lot more. I chose to shadow tickets because tickets is the easiest way to break into professional sports and knowing how to sell tickets and work a ticket program are key to getting a ticket position. Today was a pretty slow day in terms of selling tickets because of the weather conditions, so I didn't get to work a ticket window, but I watched them do it and it seems pretty easy. Overall, it was a good experience and it was nice to get away from the grounds crew for a day even though I did drag the field during the games. Selling tickets and working a ticketing program is just another skill I can add to my resume. Coming up in June we have the Midwest League All Star game, our first intern lunch with management, and our intern volunteer day. It is cool how they have the interns come together and spend a day helping the community of Grand Rapids. Things are still going grea 
 
Today was a pretty productive day. We got the shop cleaned up and we did general housekeeping things for the first half of the day because of the rain. We then resloped the pitchers mound. Resloping takes a removing old clay and conditioner and then adding new clay and tamping it until it resloped. We also things set out for another concert that we are having on the field this weekend. I am not working the concert because my parents are coming up this weekend. But I will be helping tear down everything on Sunday. Our next home stand starts on Wednesday, so it will be a pretty busy week. Overall, the first month of my internship has went great and I learned a lot of new things. And to make today even better, we got paid, my first pay day!