Saturday evening found me in Wilmington, Delaware for a minor league baseball game with the Wilmington Blue Rocks playing the Lynchburg Hillcats. As they say, it was a beautiful night for a ballgame.
I haven't been to the ballpark in a few years, but I used to go about five times a year. The place only holds about 5,000 people, so the game is right on top of me. The sounds of the game are audible and sometimes I can pick up chatter between the players. If you're a baseball fan, it's a great experience. Wilmington is the single-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals. Some of these players end up in the Major Leagues and some end up selling insurance.
I could bore you with the fifty or so action photos I took, but they all kind of look like this, with different players. I was testing out my new zoom lens, and I must say it passed. That's the ball by the catcher's head.
The ballpark is right off Interstate 95, a couple of miles from downtown Wilmington, which is pretty much an office park and some row homes.
One of the ushers noticed I had a camera, and he was nice enough to invite me to sit in the front row so I could get some better photos. I don't think your average Major League usher would do anything like that, which is part of what makes minor league baseball so charming.
Between innings, there is plenty of entertainment. Since the tickets are cheap and the food is reasonably priced, they figure they should keep us entertained too. Saturday was Country Night, with different types of Western performers doing stuff like rope tricks and line dancing. One of the acts was a guy with a whip, who had a kid put a stick in his mouth with a rose on the end. The object (as you can see) was to break the stick with the whip.
An enlargement of the frame shows the stick cracking and two small chards broken from the middle. I can offer no explanation other than serendipity. With a shutter speed of 1/80th of a second and a whip breaking a stick, the odds are astronomical of finding the exact moment, but there it is.
So, that's part two of Holiday Photo Weekend. Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow.
3 comments:
whoa.
money definitely well spent.
i'm totally diggin' that fisheye.
Concerning serendipity I'd like to think that you are just a gifted photographer!
Lucky shots like this never happen to me. But everyone has their talents.
You are so awesome Anthony. And your camera is like, hawwwt. I wanna come hang out with you sometime.
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