Thursday, April 9, 2009

Take me out to the ball game...

First off, I must apologize for being absent on the comments side of the blog these last few days. I have read all of them and thanks for all the kind words!

Sunday morning I drove about 18 hours before a snow storm and whiteout conditions in Indiana made me stop about 1 hour shy of my destination. Yesterday I left Michigan at 8am and after driving 19 straight hours I was home. I got about 3 hours sleep after I got home. And then I sketched this out for today's post. Why the baseball cutie? Tonight we are going to the season opening game for the Clearwater Threshers! They are the minor league affiliate of the Phillies. Imagine the turmoil down here during the World Series last year. The Phillies spring train here in Clearwater so there are a lot of fans for both the Rays and the Phillies locally.

We love going to Thresher games. Fun, fun, fun! We have gone to a couple of Rays games, and while we enjoy that, we do like the intimate feel of Brighthouse Field. Smaller, outdoor, and not a bad seat in the place. You can even bring a blanket and lay out on the grass that over looks the outfield. Frenchy's (one of our favorite restaurants) even has a tiki bar out there! Maybe I will post some photos during the game through Twitter.

Our pitcher was done in pencil in my sketchbook with colors added in Photoshop.


8 comments:

Royce Thrower said...

Nicely done Gene! I see you incorporated the logo onto the cap! Your pitcher is a real cutie. Guess you could say she is not really a "SHY" Young contender. She appears to have a lot of confidence in those eyes. I have no doubt her era is impressive. The batters are probably WAY too distracted to concentrate on the ball.

This would make a great new series for your CILM ( the name escapes me at the moment) packages... sports cuties. Baseball, football, basketball, soccer. etc.

Craig Zablo said...

She's a winner!

What part of Indiana did you end up in? I'm from Terre Haute.

Gary M. Peiffer said...

I think baseball attendance would sky rocked if they had long legged cuties like this take the mound!.

I agree with you Gene, while major league baseball games are fun, minor league games are more intimate, less costly, and those guys play real hard!

Glad you made it home safe!

Gary

Gene Gonzales said...

Thanks Royce! You could be right about CILM. I might have to think about it.

Thanks Craig. I got stuck in Auburn, Indiana. I was lucky, I couldn't see the road anymore because the snow covered it up, and the falling snow was so dense it was reflecting my headlights. I was basically blind out in the middle of no where with no other vehicles around until a semi came by, clearing the road for a bit and giving me some tail lights to follow. Whew!

Thanks Gary, the drive home was uneventful compared to the drive there.

Royce Thrower said...

Here is the latest update on Kevin for those interested...

Rather than post a lot of text here, I will post a link to the info on Frank cho's message board.

http://tinyurl.com/dlqevg

Check it out if you get a chance.

Glad you made it back home safe and sound yourself Gene!!

Brian Jones said...

Homerun Gene!

Great news about Kevin...thanks for the update Royce!

Gene Gonzales said...

Royce, thanks so much for the update. I am so glad to hear that Kevin is doing so well. If he is at HeroesCon, I would really like to meet him. Think you can arrange that? Thanks again!

Royce Thrower said...

If he comes to HeroesCon, you will definitely meet him Gene. If he can't make it, then you'll have to just put up with ME for three loooong days! :-)

Hopefully, many of the guys that frequent this blog can make it to Charlotte. That would be cool!