It was a beautiful sunny day on Thursday afternoon in Maple Grove, Pa. Though the temperature was comfortably settled in the low 80s, the humidity was as high as it typically is for this time of year and made it feel a lot hotter. Nevertheless, it looked like it was going to be a great evening for the highly anticipated NHRA softball game staring the Brown Bombers vs. the Scelzi Superchargers. Sorry, I guess I'm getting a little ahead of myself, so before I continue, let me give you a little background on our teams.

We had all gotten together on Friday morning in Brainerd for a practice and scrimmage and of course our team (the Bombers) whupped up pretty good on the Superchargers. Let's see, I think the score was something like 22-2. We all thought that we were doing really great, until the sore muscles of our competitive workout set in. Just imagine putting together 25 super egos, all with highly competitive natures; no such thing as taking it easy with us. I will tell you that we could all make a trip to the grocery store a contest! Anyway, by Sunday morning, I don't think that I was the only guy hobbling across the stage for driver introductions. It was unbelievable. It isn't like we are a bunch of sedentary guys and girls; most of us have a workout program that we adhere to, but wow, were we sore!

Fred Simmonds (GM Motorsports) was on the starting line during driver introductions and had the chance to talk to all of us softball players. He came back to my trailer, where I sat looking at my computer and asked me, "What in the world did you guys do at practice on Friday? I have never seen such a sore group of guys. Not one of you could walk across the stage...how are you going to drive the race car?"

"Not a problem, I have it all under control," I answered as I chugged down my Advil and winced in pain. Ok, maybe we all had just overdone it just a little bit, but we had a blast and the game was to benefit a great cause - DRAW. We couldn't wait to get to Reading

Anyway, back to my story. Here it was Thursday afternoon, Jamie, Toni, Al and I had gotten everything done early, Melissa had arrived with my uniform pants, we loaded up the rig, grabbed a handful of waters and headed towards First Energy Stadium (home of the AA Reading Phillies). I was so excited to finally get to play our game. Jamie, who played baseball in high school, had his glove and was going to help me warm up, Melissa was covering the PR side of things and Toni and Al were my cheering squad.

The stadium was about 25 minutes from the track and we were all joking and talking along the way. Suddenly, Jamie looked up and said, "Dad, doesn't it look really dark over that way?" Well, it did look a little threatening towards Reading, but you know those summer storms, if anything it would shower and move out, so no worries. We arrived at the stadium a few minutes later, parked the car, open the car door and there it was...plunk, plunk, plunk...oh boy, huge raindrops! By the time I had run into the stadium the lightning was flashing, the thunder was booming and it was literally raining sideways, Okay, this was not funny!

Once inside the stadium we all met inside the visitor's locker room where we spent our time telling stories, eating snacks and admiring each other's awesome new uniform shirts, courtesy of Bob Vandergriff. Hey, we may not be pro softball players but thanks to Bob, we sure looked the part! The rain continued to fall as thousands of loyal NHRA fans lined up around the entire inside concourse of the stadium getting autographs from all of us and waiting for the announcement from Bob Frey that it was time to play ball! We waited, we ran to the doors to look at the field, we looked out of the windows at the darkening sky, we told more stories, we joked, we looked at the field again, and we waited some more. We even believed Steve Johnson when he kept looking at the skies and yelling, "I see a window opening up! It's going to stop any minute!" Of course, Steve was probably getting a real good view of this window because a huge bolt of lightning lighted up the sky accompanied by a large clap of thunder.

Game time was scheduled for 7:00 p.m. but by 8:00 we knew that the decision was inevitable. The game had to be called. All of us drivers were so disappointed that we couldn't play, but we felt even worse for all of the fans that had stayed to watch us and didn't even get to watch one pitch. Bob Frey called all of us up into the stands to talk with the remaining fans and then a few of us took our gloves and hit the infield for a short game of catch. Cody Anderson gave his dad, Greg, a good workout, while Jamie and I played with Doug Foley's son. Hey, at least we got to throw the ball.

We were having a good time in the misting rain until the stadium manager told us we had to leave the field as they were turning off the lights. Well, I guess it was time to pack up and head back to the hotel.

For those of you that were at the game, thanks for all of your support. We were told that $7.000 was raised for DRAW even though a lot of people didn't come because of the weather. How fantastic was that! I will tell you, that all of the players of both teams plan on having our game. We are not sure at which race we will be able to obtain a field but there is talk of perhaps rescheduling it for Memphis or Dallas. We still have our awesome jerseys and I think that, after we finish playing our game, they will be auctioned off as well.

So, keep watching my website and the NHRA website for future plans of the Brown Bombers once again whooping up on the Scelzi Superchargers! Hope you enjoy my pictures!