Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Summer's Over

Time to begin the "Road Trip" of another school year

Well, officially, summer is not over, but summer break for me is over as I go back to work tomorrow*. 

*Let's be honest though, I've done work over the summer. 

This summer was good. To go along with the photo I used above, now we begin navigate school year. 

 As a wrote about, I had a blast writing about Fairfield Legion Baseball. 

I did miss the fact that there was no broadcasting of Little League baseball with Rob Adams this summer. That had been a staple the past three years (summer of '18 and "19 and early fall of "20). 

Rob did do a Babe Ruth New England Regional baseball tournament in Trumbull late July and I enjoyed joining him for the one day of that. I couldn't join him for more, as we went on a family vacation to Las Vegas and California to visit family and friends. You can listen to all of the games of the tournament that Rob broadcasted here. 

The vacation was good. We visited my mom's friend in Vegas and did a few Vegas things, including walking the Las Vegas Strip and seeing a show. Then we went to California to visit, my Dad's brother and his family. I took a lot of photos from the trip

Taking photos on a trip or at any event is something I wish I was better at and hope to do more of. It's just a way to document life. People did it years ago but it should be so much easier with smartphones now.

 I wish I wrote more this summer, personally. I wrote for Legion, but not on this blog. I wish I would be like Rob and write all the time about many different topics, items, and thoughts. I feel like when I write, it's only about major topics. I keep saying it, but hopefully I will write more going forward. I just don't have that much interesting stuff to write about. 

Year number four begins tomorrow. I would say it will be an interesting year, especially the start, but every year has been interesting, for one reason or another. None of the previous three years I've been in the job have been so called "regular" years. 

Excited for sports to get going. Football and boys golf (boys golf is now a Fall sport as of this year) are already underway in Connecticut and the rest of the Fall sports get underway on the 26th.

It will be busy and likely crazy but it should be exciting no matter what. We will see what happens. 

Monday, August 2, 2021

Fun Summer With Fairfield Legion Baseball

Both photos are 19U team. Players were missing from each (My photo (left), Sars Ford photo (right)) 

The Fairfield American Legion Post 143 Militia summer baseball program finished their season this past weekend. I had the pleasure of serving in a communications role for the program this summer. I know this is going to come off as being too much about me (It's bad I have to put this disclaimer), but I just enjoyed being able to help promote the Fairfield Legion program and the players. 

Basically, I was covering the games. I wrote game recaps, and handled social media (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram). I also did a lot of their Game Changer*, a scorekeeping app. In an effort to better promote the program, we submitted the recaps I wrote on another blog I created to the Fairfield Patch and the Fairfield Citizen in order to get the team and the players and team noticed by a wider audience than our sites.  In addition, I linked the blog where the game recaps were written to the Fairfield Legion website. 

*Game Changer was something I had seen but never really used before. It is nice to learn a new program. There is a lot of good in Game Changer. I am still a paper scorebook person at heart, but for certain situations, Game Changer is definitely better. 

I hope the coverage I provided them was helpful. Thank you to Sars Ford, the Fairfield GM for bringing me on board and for all his help. Thanks also to 19U head coach Chris Bugyi, his assistants Jim Chaves and Mark Keeney. In addition, thank you to 17U coaches Eddie Klukojc and Seamus McGovern. 

To all the players, it was fun to watch and write about you guys this season. Some players I knew very well, others I knew, but not well, and then there were some I didn't know at all but it was nice to get to know. There are players from Ludlowe, Warde, Prep and other schools where the players live in Fairfield. Some of the players are currently in high school, while others are in college, so it's somewhat of a wide mix age wise. You guys are all great players and young men and have great baseball ahead of you, whether that still is in high school, or in college. 

The 19U team finished 24-7 and made a run to the championship game of the Regional Qualifying Tournament. The 17U team finished the season at 11-14. 

If you want to read about their season, you can go here for all of the game recaps. Some highlights of their season (in my opinion), include the Coopers Cave Tournament in Saratoga Springs (and Sean McAdams' home run during that tournament), Phil Hogan's perfect game against Milford on July 13, and the postseason run they made. I'm sure there are other moments I'm forgetting. Especially considering the few I just mentioned were all games I was not at in person. I was mostly at the home games. 

I look forward to continuing working with them in the future.