The Monitor Base Ball Club of Chelsea concluded its 2013 campaign with an exhibition against a team assembled by the Chelsea Alehouse.
The match drew a good crowd of cranks. This crank made lots of new friends:
His name is Hank. When the match concluded he wandered near the field and got comfortable:
That’s it for vintage base ball in 2013, but Hank hopes to see you at next year’s Monitor matches! (The team would enjoy seeing you there, too.)
Friday was Chelsea’s homecoming football game against Adrian. I ended up with too many pictures for one post, so today is just football pictures. The next post will feature photos of the fun around the football game.
Hey, look who showed up for homecoming:
That’s former Bulldog standout Nick Hill, now playing football at Michigan State. (Just to be clear: Nick is on the right. Also, he’s not the Arena Football League quarterback.)
Sometimes people pose for me:
The above catch on Chelsea’s first drive was good. The following sequence on the same drive was even better.
See if you can spot the 15-yard penalty in this next sequence:
Did you see it? The referees didn’t.
Chelsea blocked an Adrian field goal attempt in the first half. The block sent the kick sailing off to the side just past the line of scrimmage, where this gentleman grabbed it out of the air and took off running:
He made it deep into Adrian territory before they tackled him.
There was a video crew filming the game, and they brought with them a small remote controlled helicopter that carried a camera. It wasn’t supposed to venture over the field, but at one point it did end up over the action. Here it is hanging out above the players between plays:
This gentleman would like you to know that the Bulldogs have taken possession:
These gentlemen are pleased that the referee agrees with their ruling on the play:
After the above Chelsea touchdown happened, the Bulldogs were trailing 27-21. But then the defense forced a three and out with a set of nice plays:
And when, on fourth down, the Adrian punter couldn’t handle a bad snap, Chelsea recovered and took over in great field position.
The next play was…well, here, take a look:
The extra point gave Chelsea a 28-27 lead.
Late in the fourth quarter, Adrian drove down the field, even converting a fourth down in Chelsea territory. But when another fourth down presented itself, the Maples decided to try a field goal. The good news for Adrian: unlike the previous attempt, the field goal wasn’t blocked. The bad news for Adrian: the kick sailed wide left.
The Chelsea defense was maybe a little bit excited.
Chelsea was able to gain a first down and run out the clock.
Nick Hill was pleased to see a Chelsea victory.
The Bulldogs were pleased to have won.
Is winning exciting?
WINNING IS EXCITING.
As I was leaving the field, a very different scene caught my eye.
There are always players on the opposite side of jubilation. It was fun to finally see the Bulldogs on the pleasant side of things this year.
Chelsea next faces Lincoln. The game will be in Chelsea on Friday at 7pm. This will be the final home game of this season — be there!
With the demolition derbies done, the Chelsea Fair moved on to the Friday night tractor pull. The name tells you most of what you need to know: different classes of tractors pull a huge sled, and the longest pull in each class wins.
The next tractor is Canadian. It runs on maple syrup and its engine sounds like Don Cherry yelling “NOW YOU KIDS OUT THERE.”*
*(This sentence may or may not be completely false.)
Chelsea football traveled to Ypsilanti to take on the Braves Phoenix Grizzlies. This is the first year for Ypsilanti Community High School — formed as a result of the merger of the Ypsilanti and Willow Run districts — but the school is at the old Ypsi facility, so the football stadium is the same old stadium. Of course, that means it’s the same marvelously old-school scoreboard that has been in use for…well, for a long, long time. Here, take a look:
I hope that scoreboard stands for another 50 years. That thing has character!
Ypsi is one of the few Ann Arbor-area high schools with a real grass football field. That meant Chelsea had to bring this:
As you may have seen in the first sentence, Ypsi has had a few different mascots in recent years: after being the Braves for many years, they switched to the Phoenix only a few years before merging with Willow Run and becoming the Grizzlies. However, the water tower overlooking the stadium prefers to stick with the longtime Ypsilanti High School terminology:
Chelsea dug a bit of a hole in the first half, but this touchdown narrowed the gap:
If you weren’t sure if it really was a touchdown, this may help:
The game started dry, but at some point in the first half it started raining, and that rain persisted the rest of the evening.
Another Chelsea touchdown narrowed the gap even more:
There were a number of turnovers in this game. Defenses tend to get excited about turnovers:
Chelsea’s punter can beat up your punter:
As I said, there were a number of turnovers. Here’s another fumble Chelsea forced:
Artificial turf has its advantages, but from my perspective as a photographer, grass and mud stains make pictures just a little bit better.
Chelsea next faces the Adrian Maples. The game is in Chelsea on Friday at 7pm. There are only two home games left this year — be there!
The Chelsea fair features sheep shearing demonstrations throughout the week. By that I don’t mean there are people protesting sheep shearing — though that would probably also be fun, with signs like “SHEEP SHEARING IS BAAAAAAAD” and “FORCED HAIRCUTS: SHEAR LUNACY” and “WOOL! HUH! YEAH! WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! SAY IT AGAIN Y’ALL” — but that there’s a sheep shearer who shows fairgoers how the whole thing works.
Through the process, the sheep pretty much just hangs out and lets it happen, with the occasional “MMAAAAAHHHHH” thrown in (roughly translated from sheep to English: “Hurry UP man, the Tigers game is about to start!”). Here’s the sheep looking svelte and dapper partway through the process:
If sheep could talk, this one would be saying “How YOU doin’?” right now.
Like middle schoolers, sheep have the remarkable ability to look astoundingly bored no matter what’s happening:
When the whole thing was done, here’s what was on the floor:
The Chelsea Fair offers lumberjack shows throughout the week. I have yet to see a full show, but on Friday I arrived in time to catch part of one.
This chainsaw was craaaaaazy loud:
This chainsaw was just regular loud:
He was carving a chair for the crowd between events.
The last event was the boom run. This involved the two lumberjacks running across a set of logs. Here’s how it looked:
Notice the spiked shoes. The logs are held in a line by a rope, but they’re free to spin and bob, and they’re (obviously) wet, so the shoes are important.
For the spectators, part of the fun of this event is that the lumberjacks don’t always make it across the logs.
Sometimes the falls are…a bit more cringeworthy.
Mostly, though, they run across and back in a big hurry without incident.
Saline traveled to Chelsea to take on the Bulldogs. The students had fun customizing their wardrobe before the game.
It was Future Bulldog Night, so the middle school football players watched warmups from the sidelines.
There were also miniature cheerleaders in attendance.
The band joined in the colorful theme.
In keeping with the apparent theme of the season, there was another minor snafu during the entrance:
The Bulldogs next travel to Ypsilanti. The game is on Friday at 7pm.
Thursday night was the figure 8 demolition derby. I’d never been able to see a figure 8 derby, but my schedule finally allowed me to get to this year’s derby to see what it was all about.
As it turns out, the figure 8 derby is substantially different from the regular derby. The point of the regular derby is to be the last car running, and the method of removing other cars from the running is repeatedly smashing into them until they stop running (and hoping your car doesn’t give out because of it). On the other hand, the figure 8 derby is a race. It’s a full-contact race, but it’s primarily a race. The cars drive in a figure 8 pattern around two large tires for 12 laps. The first car to complete 12 laps wins. There were far fewer collisions in the middle of the 8 than I expected; most of the contact occurs around the turns. It’s highly entertaining, but in a different way than the regular derby. It certainly seemed faster paced!
Here’s one of the tires marking one of the turns:
The figure 8 derby uses smaller cars than does the regular derby.
It was difficult to figure out the makes and models of some of the cars, but one was immediately obvious to me:
Do you know what that is? That’s an old Dodge Neon. It looks like one of the earlier models.
Some of you might look at the smoke coming out of this car, read the car’s number, and then chuckle:
This driver pushed this old Saturn as hard as possible, and it showed:
The Pac-Man car caught my eye:
That’s it for the 2013 demolition derby photos, but stay tuned: there are more fair photos yet to come!
Chelsea football traveled to Belleville for its second game of the season. As usual, the Bulldogs took the field by running through their banner, but this time things didn’t go as planned. Here are the photos:
Here’s the above sequence animated:
Do you see what happens when you don’t stay in your lanes, gentlemen?!
The rest of the team took the field with no trouble.
This was the scene during the anthem:
Among the pictures I take, there are a scant few that have made me sit back and just look for a minute. The above is one such picture.
This was happening during the game:
Unfortunately, this was happening at halftime:
This tackle stopped Belleville just shy of the end zone on third down:
Sadly, Belleville kicked a field goal to take a 17-14 lead, and that ended up being the final score.
The Bulldogs next face the Saline Hornets. The game will be in Chelsea on Friday at 7pm. Be there!
The second evening of the derby drew another big crowd.
MWAH:
Every once in a while a car loses a sliiiiiightly important part.
The driver wasn’t amused by that development, but as you can see in the above photo, the crowd enjoyed it.
Another car got stuck on the wall.
When the heat was done, the car that lost more than just a tire needed some help to exit the arena.
Here’s a closer look at the damage.
If you had told 10 year old me I would see this device doing this task at a demolition derby someday, I probably would have said “A WHATphone?”
I also probably would have said “Where do you put the VHS tape?” and also maybe “Who are you and why are you talking so confidently about the year 2013?”
Partway through the derby, the officials stopped the action and the firefighters rushed to a car that clearly wasn’t on fire.
Before long, paramedics joined the firefighters.
From my angle I couldn’t see what they were doing, but they worked for a bit — maybe 10-15 minutes — until the driver emerged with her arm heavily reinforced.
I got a chance to talk to the driver a week later. It was an unpleasant injury that’ll take time to heal, but she’ll be okay. Injuries like that aren’t common in the derby — I couldn’t remember seeing a stoppage like that, and another spectator could remember seeing only one other similar stoppage — but things can happen when you crash a bunch of cars into each other.
When everyone was clear, the derby resumed. And there were more people recording the action.
There was a young fan enjoying the derby, too.
A bit later there was a very minor fire.
Fires like that aren’t uncommon in the derbies, and they’re typically short-lived and inconsequential. This one was no exception. But it made for a fun photo!
There was a pickup truck heat during the Wednesday derby. Since trucks are built to stay in one piece and run forever, the truck derbies tend to be a lot of fun.
Remember what I said in the Tuesday derby post about the moment when a radiator explodes with a loud POP and a cloud of steam and the crowd laughs and cheers? This is what that looks like:
Now that I think about it, perhaps SHUMP would a better description of that sound. Would you agree, derby aficionados?
MWAH:
When the trucks were done rumpling metal, the cars came back out for the Wednesday final.
That’s it for the regular demolition derby photos, but there are plenty of fair photos to come!