The one day of the week when you can count on even less being here. So we make up with it with pretty pictures. More often than not, though, they are very average. They often have reasonably interesting stories though, so let’s stick with that.
From the swimming and diving meet last Thursday. Did I mention The Yankee was a diver? She’s twisting here, and she probably doesn’t like that, but it looked cool:
Did I mention she won? This guy, meanwhile … As I suggested to the judges, a diving coach and whomever else was standing nearby, if you make a sound, you earned extra points. Have a heart, judges of America:
Those dives were off the one-meter board. And, yes, you can spring high enough to generate enough velocity to land with a resounding smack that catches the attention of everyone in the natatorium. It happened.
Here’s The Yankee swimming:
She was warming up for her three races. She won one of them, a 4×200 relay:
And they aren’t just out there for giggles. There were some serious competitors on that pool deck:
I am disqualified as I can’t swim in a straight line. We all have our burdens in life.
To the baseball! This is a fan from Brown. He’d come all the way down from Rhode Island, avoiding winter and enjoying our beautiful pre-spring weather and walked over to tell the hecklers in Section 111 that he’d enjoyed listening to them all weekend. That was pretty awesome.
Here are a few more crowd shots from Plainsman Park. There’s a story below, too, so keep scrolling.
Auburn claimed a sweep of Brown with today’s 6-3 win behind Rocky McCord’s 6 2/3 innings and eight strikeouts. This is his last pitch of the day:
Here are the game highlights.
But the man of the hour was Brown head coach Marek Drabinski. He’s also coaching third when Brown is at bat, and that brought him a weekend’s worth of good-natured ribbing from the hecklers.
By late Saturday he was even talking back to that section of the crowd a bit. Hecklers were trying to get him to stand in his box, but he refused:
Fans were chatting with him and ultimately trying to bribe him. At one point we invited him to sit in the stands. It is hard to imagine Skip Bertman or Jim Wells getting that offer. Appealing to Drabinski’s northeastern tastes the offer became “Dunkin Donuts if you’ll only get in the box!” On Sunday afternoon he asked where his Dunkin was. We had to sadly tell him that our Dunkin Donuts wasn’t running yet. But it would be built by next season, if only he’d bring his team back down.
He teased us all with the box. He’d walk over to the edge, look down and walk away. He’d slink over and put one foot in. He’d come back later and but one foot inside the box and just over the other foot above the box. On Sunday he promised he’d get in the box later.
And at the end of the game, with his team down, but rallying to try and avoid the sweep, Drabinkski walked over to the box in the last at bat.
He’d disarmed us all with his charm by then. The guy was enjoying himself with the hecklers, and they were enjoying his good spirits.
Coach of the year? Coach of the year. And a great reminder of what college sports is supposed to be. We all kind of hope he brings his Bears back down this way next year, so we can treat him to Dunkin. And make him get in the box.
That was the most fun we’ve ever had with a coach, easily, including when you can see the hecklers getting into their heads.
Finally, here’s a picture of my friend, Stephen’s, daughter. It was her first Auburn game, but she loves baseball:
I took a picture of their family together at the park, four generations. What a great way to wrap up a weekend at the park.
Then I went out for a bike ride. I’ll talk about that tomorrow.
