Triangle Offense

• File Photo by Al Drago
• Russ Canzler had a homer for the second day in a row.

DBAP/DURHAM The Durham Bulls come into tonight’s game carrying some pretty good momentum, on the heels of a three-homer contest on Monday that was their first win over the Columbus Clippers this season.

Columbus comes in with Triple-A Baseball’s best record at 35-16, while the Bulls hold a three-game lead over the Gwinnett Braves in the International League’s South Division.

The Clippers come with one of the hottest pitchers in baseball in Zach McAllister (7-0, 2.29), while the Bulls answer with Brian Baker (3-3, 6.21) who about a month ago was a spot-starter.

This time Baker comes up the winner, allowing just two hits in seven innings as the Bulls win 4-1.

• Tennessee Williams

When the Bulls hit the road about a week and a half ago for their annual trip to Ohio, we were still riding out a long, cool, wet spring in the Triangle. The Bulls have had an inordinate number of rainouts and delays this year—a whopping 11 so far, if I recall correctly, or about 20% of their games. While the Bulls got swept in Columbus and then took three of four games in Toledo (waiting out some major rain there, too), the cool weather trend more or less continued around here until last weekend. A torrential storm on Friday shut down businesses and flooded streets and delayed ACC Tournament games at the DBAP until the wee hours of the morning. Basically, the Rapture, a few days late.

Then out came the sun and dried up all the rain—and then it stayed out even after all the rain was dried up. It was about 95 degrees in Durham on Monday, Memorial Day. As someone in the Press Box put it, "Can't we just ease into summer?" No, sir, no we cannot. Not only has summer arrived, and suddenly; we've been enraptured into the very heat, the very heart of it, and it's going to stay that way all week. Ladies and gentlemen, start your air conditioners.

Kind of appropriate to the current, uh, current of the Bulls, in a way, this power outage; but not for the reasons you might expect. The Bulls are in fact scoring at will lately, having put up an impressive 54 runs in their last eight games—the 6.75 runs-per-game average would be tops, by far, in just about any league. No, the problem is that, while the Bulls have hit a five-game skid, including a just-concluded four game series sweep at the hands of the IL-best Columbus Clippers (they lost earlier today, 5-3), they have allowed 56 runs.

So it makes a certain kind of sense that the power on my street went out today not because of system over-taxing—temperatures have shot up into the 90s, suddenly, prompting air conditioners to crank all the way up—but because someone drove his or her car into a utility pole at the end of the block, taking down the lines. In other words, it's an attacker's power surge, not the limitations of the local grid itself, that has done the damage.

They hadn't liked the show or the dinner. In fact, they walked out of the Pacino show before it was over, despite the cost of the tickets. And one of them had only eaten about half of what was on the plate.

Wouldn't it be good if, having deemed your entertainment or your food of poor quality, despite having consumed it, you were entitled to your money back?

That thought crossed my mind after after the Louisville Bats beat the Durham Bulls last night, 9-8, an ugly game in which both teams played poorly much more than they played well—the pitching especially was flavorless and amateur on both sides. If you appreciate quality baseball, there was a little to admire (there always is) but plenty to deplore on Friday, right down to the very last out.

But you pays your money, you takes your chances, like the man says (although it isn't clear which man). Maybe the baseball they serve you is bad, but there ain't no refunds, and the only games good for exchange are the ones they don't play, i.e. the ones that get rained out.

Surely Brian Baker wishes this one was.