Opening Day - The Postponed Version

Opening Day was scheduled for yesterday (Friday, 4/12/13), but it rained, so festivities were moved to today. It was cold. Of course, it's April, this is Syracuse, so yeah, it's supposed to be cold.

Saw many familiar faces before the game started: Tim Fox, with his son Ryan, Bill DeLapp from the Syracuse New Times. Maven was there, as were Sandee and Anthony. It was good to be among friends.

The stadium has a new name, because Alliance Bank changed their name: NBT Stadium.

New sign over scoreboard

Brandon Triche from the Syracuse University Orange men's basketball team threw out the first pitch.

Brandon Triche hot-dogging for the fans.

Ryan Tatusko is back in Syracuse.

Ryan Tatusko coming on to field as he is introduced.

Carlos Maldonado was there and waved to us. He even played the last couple of innings, which was great to see.

At one point, it rained quite steadily. It felt completely normal to be chatting with Sandee under our umbrellas while watching the game.  It's been seven months since we've seen each other, and we just picked up where we left off. 

Eury Perez, who's been doing really well with the team so far this season, was hurt fielding a ball because the field was so wet from the rain. My hands were numb and it took me a few minutes to get my camera and turn it on, etc., but here he is getting ready to play after a delay of game while Tony Beasley and the team trainer and others checked on him. He didn't get up for what seemed like a very long time.

Perez getting ready to play after being hurt.

Moves were made in the next inning when Perez didn't come back, and we later heard he was en route to the hospital with a wrist injury. Hope it's nothing serious.

Even though there wasn't much of a crowd, there was one overly-enthusiastic fan who just had to "ride the train with Pops" on the top of the dugout, and who didn't understand why he wasn't supposed to be up there dancing.

What if he fell? He wouldn't fall onto the field. He'd fall even further, into the dugout -- I've heard 60 feet, but not sure if that's true -- and land on concrete. So scary! But no, when security tells these people to get down, they have to argue about it. 

And, as you can see in the above photo, the stadium was nearly empty. Granted, this was late in the game and the Chiefs were shut out, plus it was cold and drizzly, but it was opening day. Baseball is back!