baseball with Mister Willie!

Such a beautiful, blue-sky afternoon,
with love in the air -
literally!
See "love you" in that upper bank of clouds?
(smile!)

The beauty of the day was only enhanced by the presence of Mister Willie Smith, Junior, in the stands!
Not only in the stands at Grayson Stadium... but in his seat!
In honor of the Bananas, he was wearing his yellow shirt, too!
(smile)
The team honored him by announcing his presence before the game! That was a wonderful surprise and led to a steady stream of folks coming to wish him well -

long live the King of baseball in Savannah!
(It should be noted that the King of Rock and Roll
was also in the house for the game.
His presence led to my reminiscing about Ryan Pelton and Austin Irby and Cody Slaughter and Michael Chambliss and Ryan Pelton... yes, that one needs to be mentioned twice! I look forward to seeing them next month at Elvis Week in Las Vegas!)

As for the game against the Florence Redwolves...
well, the score came close, but no bananas.
This was taken in the bottom of the 6th, when Alex Rodriguez, the 3rd base man, drove in two runs.
That brought the score up for the Bananas to 5...
but the 'Wolves had 6.
And that was the final score when the game ended.

No amount of cheering from Mister Willie could coax any more runs from the home boys.
Both teams turned the remainder of the game into a pitchers' duel, changing out men so often it was hard to say who was on the mound!
Sure, I exaggerate... but not by much.
I'm so glad that Willie was able to be at the game tonight... and grateful.
He's been here every summer since he was seven years old.
He'll be eighty in October.
His niece, Jackie, has already invited me to the family birthday party for him!
Now, excuse me, but I need to drive him home now...
I hope we'll be doing this again on Tuesday!

i thank You, God, for this beautiful night of shared baseball.