Last Saturday afternoon shortly before 1 pm, as I settled into my seat at Fitton Field at Holy Cross, I watched the groundskeepers roll a tarp over the infield.  Not a good sign, I thought to myself, and sure enough, after I sat in the drizzle for an hour, the game between Worcester and Quebec was called, without one pitch being thrown.

We were told we could exchange our tickets for any of the remaining home games, so at 7 pm this evening, I again took my seat in the grandstand to watch the last home game of the regular season between the Worcester Tornadoes and Rockland Boulders.  Folks, our team plays in the Canadian-American League; we’re not a farm club for Major League Baseball.  But this is still professional baseball, and we watched a pretty good game.  The Tornadoes treated their fans to an exciting finish, winning 4-3 in the eighth.

I'm looking across the infield at traffic on 290

Fans are wearing their orange Tornadoes caps

Team captains and umpires confer at home plate

The home team is at bat

The visitors are at bat

So what about that Hurricane Irene?  Most of my town did not lose power, but we were drenched with rain, and strong winds did take down trees.  Here’s a tree down on my street:

I'm driving toward Ward Street

I'm looking behind me at the tree

More worrisome was the damage to the Town Hall bell tower.  Pieces of trim fell off, and the intersection was cordoned off.  For public safety reasons, the Town Selectmen decided to remove the tower from the top of the building and transport it for storage.

The bell tower was removed from the Town House