Last weekend Scott and I went to Daytona for a wedding. We drove over to Lakeland on Friday because the Dunedin Blue Jays (Chad's 1A Toronto team) were
in town to play the Lakeland Flying Tigers (1A for Detroit). Unfortunately, we didn't see Chad pitch, but we did get to to watch an exciting game (Dunedin
won 5-4 in the top of the 9th) and we were able to talk with him for a few minutes. He was really surpirised and happy to see us. His hair is shorter, but
his smile is as big as ever. Because he's in Florida (his home state), his mom gets to see him much more in the Florida League than when he was with the
NL, so all's well with him. He didn't know if and when he'd be moving up, but if you look at his stats--he's doing an awesome job. It's
just a matter of time. And that's Chad's jersey I was wearing. He was so proud to show it off to his teammates because even the home team doesn't
have their names on their jerseys. It was explained to me that the way they come and go, they wouldn't be able to keep up.
BTW: There were fewer than 300 people there on a beautiful (78-80 degree) Friday night in a stadium that holds 10,000 that fills only when Detroit comes down
for spring training. According to some of the locals we were sitting with, the very low numbers isn't unusual. So I guess we're doing pretty well.
