Playing at home is much better than traveling and playing on the road. However, home games also bring duties which you like to forget about. You have foul ball duties, running balls to the umpire, taking the screens on and off the field, and by far the worst phrase in baseball-- "Tarp Duty". In my career I don't know if I've ever gone through a full weekend series without tarp duty. Something about the northeast brings rain at least once a weekend. Few programs have the luxury of a field crew to do the tedious job and we're not one of those programs. Putting the tarp on is no problem. It's taking it off that is a nuisance. You have to dump the water, bring it back where it was, pull it to the outfield to put it in line with the wall, fold it up, and roll it back in a line to the wall. With 35 guys a job that should take 15 minutes or so always takes longer because there's never any organization. Tarps are normally pulled in the early morning as the sun is rising and there's never enough time to go back to the dorms. With this weekend being our first home series the duty has already been set for 6 tonight.
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