Sophomore finale

As my second full year of college is rapidly drawing to a close, I'm getting a chance to look back and reflect over the semester. One of the highlights of my semester was being the baseball photographer for my College team. Last Saturday was their season finale, which they played in the home of the Staten Island Yankees (the Class A Short Season Affiliate for the New York Yankees).

I know the guys loved the opportunity to play in a Minor League Baseball stadium and I loved having the opportunity to photograph it. Hopefully there'll be more chances in the future. Here's a few of my favorites from the game. (I had a tripod, place to photograph and everything! No, it's nothing to really get excited about, but normally where the team plays I have to shoot through a fence, so hence my excitement at the legitimacy of the Richmond Bank County Ballpark. :D)

To give you an idea of exact where the team was playing, this was my perspective looking out to right field. In the back ground are the Empire State Building and One World Trade Center. The ESB is a bit hard to pick out--it's to the left of the pole and still has the faint silhouette of the iconic building, so you should still be able to pick it out.

Now this next photo isn't necessarily one of my favorites. But there's a reason. The first baseman caught the throw and kept his foot on the bag before the batter ran through, yet he wasn't called out. In fact, in the photo, the batter hasn't even touched first base yet. 

That missed call eventually led to four unearned runs, a momentum shift, the coach being ejected by the umpire who missed the call and a downward spiral.

Almost immediately after the umpire blew the call, I showed the athletic director of my college the photo. He said once the inning ended, he wanted to show the head umpire. However, several miscues and four unearned runs later, there was nothing the head umpire could do about it even though we (my College) had photographic proof of the umpire missing the call.

Despite the miscues, missed calls and eventual loss, playing and photographing in this venue was a nice way to end the year and start off finals season. It's just too bad the umps were blind. They missed a great game.