Written by I know I shouldn’t complain about getting half a foot of snow yesterday here in Cedar Rapids, given that we’ve had remarkably moderate weather this winter. But I’ve never let the fact that I shouldn’t complain about something keep me from doing exactly that, so yeah… I’m complaining about the weather. I just really have come to dislike winter weather.
It does, however, force me to think about how we’re getting closer to spring every day and that means we’re getting closer to baseball.
I really had nothing of any significance to accomplish this weekend, except to get a haircut. For follically challenged men like myself, that task chews up all of about five minutes at the local Cost Cutters, so I still had plenty of time on my hands to kill on this cold, white Saturday.
Einstein
One thing I am doing this weekend, however, is dog-sitting for my son and his wife. This, so far, amounts primarily to watching TV at their home instead of mine. Yes, of course it also involves trying to remember to feed their dog, Einstein, a couple of times a day and letting him outside to deal with nature’s calls.
“Einey” regarded me a bit suspiciously when I first arrived, but within a few minutes, he apparently decided I wasn’t much of a threat, because he found his way to my lap. This did make it a challenge to draft this post, but it turns out he’s plenty happy to simply lay next to me and share the couch.
This is the first time I’ve been trusted to watch Einstein and my goal is to just not screw it up, on the off chance that it turns out this is some kind of test to see if I’m trustworthy enough to be a grandpa at some point.
On the way over to Einstein’s house, I did drive past Veterans Memorial Stadium, the summer home of our Cedar Rapids Kernels, and took a few pictures.
I’ll share some of them here, but I actually took them to send to Craig Wieczorkiewicz , of The Midwest League Traveler blog. He sent out a Tweet a while back asking for winter pictures of Midwest League stadiums, so I thought today would be a good day to snap a couple and send them to him.
Craig visited all 16 MWL ballparks last season and blogged about it at mwltraveler.com. He’s also writing a book about the experience. It’s a great idea and I’m quite jealous that I didn’t think of it first.
In any event, if you’re interested in minor league baseball at all, you should check out the blog and read back through his posts about his travels last summer. He’s also well worth a “follow” @MWLtraveler on Twitter.
I can’t really decide for myself whether these pictures are depressing, with all the snow on the ballpark, or if they offer a hopeful reminder that there WILL be baseball again, soon. I’ll let you decide that question for yourselves.
- JC
This time of year, there apparently isn't a need to rush to get the parking lot at Veterans Stadium plowed out after several inches of snowfall.
A bit closer look at the home of the Kernels from across the parking lot
I had hoped someone would be in the Kernels office so I could pick up a couple books of tickets for this season and maybe get some decent interior pictures, but no luck. The best I could do was to get a few shots through the external gate.
Yes, this is an exterior picture of Veterans Memorial Stadium, not an excerpt from the movie "Patton"
The tank is actually a part of the Veterans Memorial that gives Veterans Memorial Stadium its name
So long Vets Stadium... I'll be back before you know it.
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