Is anyone else slightly concerned about what’s happening in California? Not the wild fires, but rather the sheer size of the kids that are taking the field in the Little League World Series Tournament. There were several games from the national bracket televised this weekend, and nearly every time I tuned in some 12 year old with a beard was crushing a hanging curveball over the outfield fence. Yeah, you read that right, curve ball. I also saw 80mph fastballs, changeups and even a couple of knuckleballs. The team I watched last night, Chula Vista, CA, have outscored their opponents 72-9 and lofted 28 homeruns to date in the tournament. This has been accomplished with the help of their pitcher/first baseman who is 6 foot, 2 inches tall and weighs in at 206 lbs! This kid looks like he could drive a Chrysler and have a mortgage! I’m not suggesting we test this kid for HGH, beaver tranquilizers or miracle grow, but maybe the fences could be moved back just a bit. Like, maybe to the front door of the local thyroid specialist.

I just got back from my surprise 30th birthday trip . My wonderful wife set the whole weekend up for me. I woke up Thursday and the only thing I knew was that we were going somewhere. That somewhere turned out to be Colorado. We missed our original flight that morning, but luckily Alaska Air got us both on a direct flight to Denver. My brother picked me up  at the airport while my wife drove to Ft. Collins. He had sweet tickets for both of us at the Rockies game that afternoon. I would love to do more sports photography, but i don’t have credentials or a 500mm lens.  However, I didn’t need either of them with the seats we had! We were just off of home plate and only two rows back. I took this in the bottom of the 7th as Right Fielder Brad Hawpe waited on deck. I love this photo; probably some of my best post processing work yet.  A big thanks goes out to my brother for making it possible. I’ll post more photos from the weekend later as this game was only the first of many birthday surprises in store for me over the weekend.

My buddy Craig was at my first pitch game with his daughter. He does a lot of photography work for the Beavers, so naturally he had all of his gear with him. He sent me this series of frames last week. I must say for not playing a lick of baseball,  I think its decent form. He’d be mad if I didn’t post his photo of the Beaver’s mascot roughing me up after the pitch. I would say it’s along the lines of Disney meets Shawshank Redemption… He choose the file name, not me.  A link to Craig’s blog is over to the right.