Winds of Winter Haven

If you watched the game today (The Indians 9-5 win over the Phillies), you noticed a lot of fly balls and pop ups dropping that normally would have been caught. The wind was blowing about 20 to 30 miles-per-hour at times, and the fielders were having all kinds of trouble figuring out where the ball was going to come down. Now I know those of you in Ohio do not feel too bad for the ballplayers, but those of us down here in Florida knew what obstacles the Indians and Phillies were going to face before the game started.

But all those of us could do in the truck was watch in wonder. While you were scratching your heads as to what was going on while watching on television, we were oohing and awing every time the ball went in the air in the truck. And I hope we did it justice. Every time a wind-blown ball dropped or was barely caught, we showed a replay. It's not that we were poking fun at any one player, it was just baseball. It's always a fine line to draw as to whether to show something simply for shock value, or as part of the game, but this was something that needed to be seen. The wind just added an element that normally is not a factor during a baseball game.

And of course, when the game was over, the wind stopped blowing. As we were leaving, I heard one player say "Oh sure, the wind stops blowing now." Such is life in windy Winter Haven.