Day 163: Don't Rain On My Parade

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~200mm, f/4, 1/1000, ISO 800)

A little rain never hurt anyone, but how about a lot of it? 

All hopes for no rain on Friday were washed away (pun intended) when I awoke the following morning to the sound of heavy rain.  Still, the game went on with me arriving late due to indecisiveness on my part.  I was also not sure when the CCSA would decide to call off their games, so was stuck right up until when the first game was slated to begin (at 2 PM) until I called one of the players to learn that "they were starting to warm up".  I was a bit peeved that I missed about half the game, but much of the anger faded once I got to the diamond and started shooting rather than cursing myself in my head for not just going out to the park.

(Nikon D60, 18-55 VR @ 18mm, f/5.6, 1/160, ISO 200)

The game had already started by the time I made my way there, about half an hour late.  Rain was still coming down somewhat, so for short period of time, I was shooting with the umbrella looped through my left hand and resting on my shoulder - allowing the front portion of my lens (such as the hood and focus ring) to get rained on.  I'm a little too cheap for a rain cover at the moment, and too lazy to ad-hoc it with a garbage bag.  I know... I'm wierd and it's going to bite me in the ass one day.  On the upside, my lens got "cleaned".  I think the key is to minimizing any harm is to keep drying it as quickly as possible, which I found myself doing quite often, wiping it down with my t-shirt.  Aside from that though, I enjoyed not having to shoot in broad daylight.  Good light/exposure and better ISO performance on the D90 helped to minimize the impact on the photos from noise.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~130mm, f/3.5, 1/2000, ISO 800)

Play was intense by all three teams across the two games that day.  Second base was a hotbed of activity (pictured from photo above, to the following four below) with several plays taking place over the course of the day. 

 (Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 @ ~120mm, f/4, 1/1000, ISO 640)

 (Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~70mm, f/3.2, 1/1250, ISO 640)

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~92mm, f/2.8, 1/1600, ISO 1000)

I often find that plays involving base running are usually pretty easy to anticipate, though it does require one's attention and situational awareness of the game.  For most of the above shots, the common factor was a runner on first, and a ground ball being hit.  Given the nature of these teams, you can guess that someone is going to slide into second, which always makes for a much more interesting shot than something a simple force-out.  Often times if you pay attenton to your peripheral vision, you can prefocus on the next base if you notice the runner commiting to taking that extra base, as was the case in the first of the series of pictures at second (third from the top). 

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~200mm, f/3.5, 1/2000, ISO 800)

Other times though, you just never know what'll happen.  There was a thrown bat during the first game, seen above.  It had been raining a lot, so there was a chance that it simply slipped.  Thankfully, no one was hurt.  Although the bat did land pretty close to where I usually stand along the third base line.  If you look closely, you'll notice that the batter is out of focus.  Normally, something like this would be unacceptable to me, but a moment like that is just too good to pass up.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 70mm, f/2.8, 1/1000, ISO 1000)

At the end of the day, Ekklesia managed to win both games, though barely in the case of the first game.  The level of play (ableit a bit sloppy on Ekklesia's end during said first game) reminded me why I prefer to watch the Senior Division games of the CCSA - there's a level of intensity interwoven in with the sense of community created by the teams.  Junior Division games are fun to watch too, but given the choice I would choose to watch a Senior game any day.  It just seems so much smoother, and is often times significantly more intense, rather than an outright blowout on the scoreboard.

Afterwards, we headed for a team dinner and then to a team member's house - Hazel - for potluck dessert and to belatedly celebrate as a team, her recent birthday.  Good times all around, in spite of the bad weather.