Monday, July 31, 2006

Reviews: The Blue Rocks and Pirates 2

Amy and I spent Friday night at a church outing to the Wilmington Blue Rocks with about 270 other people from the congregation. For those not in Delaware, the Blue Rocks are a full-season Class-A minor league baseball team affiliated with the Boston Red Sox (formerly affiliated with the Kansas City Royals but they got traded). Amy and I love going to Blue Rocks games. I like the small park feel of Frawley Stadium. Amy likes watching Mr. Celery and now has a Property of Mr Celery t-shirt to show for it.

Friday night's game against the Kingston Indians was especially good. The Blue Rocks were out to an early 2-0 nothing lead thanks largely to an error by Kingston's third baseman. But the tide quickly shifted, an error by the Blue Rocks third baseman saw that lead erode away. Kingston slowly nibbled their way ahead. By the bottom of the ninth, the Rocks were down by two. But the home team pulled ahead on the last play of the game to squeak out a victory. And then there were fireworks. Good times.

Saturday we got work done. Literally for Amy since she had to work 3 hours in the morning. I slept in and then did chores.

We stopped by Jakes for dinner. The burgers were good and, more importantly, reasonably priced. While Red Robin and the Charcoal Pit also have good burgers and shakes, Jakes gives them to you at a superior price. Although the Charcoal Pit's triple-thick black-and-white is still the king of shakes in my mind.

We went from there to the F&G on mainstreet and finally saw Pirates. It was ok. Not great. But ok to good. The middle of the movie is just paced poorly. I remember having similar concerns with the first one. Keira Knightly was lovely and acted well, but her character was unevenly written. I think we'll wait for the rental on the third.

UPDATE: Oops, I got my farm systems backwards. The Blue Rocks are in the Carolina league which was High-A ball until the destinctions were dropped in 2002. Wikipedia has a good article on this. For comparison, the nearby Aberdeen Ironbirds are a short-season A team.

No comments: