Dexter softball faced Chelsea.







Chelsea softball faced Dexter.















After the games, I took a photo of one of the pitchers for an upcoming feature article.

Chelsea held its annual Memorial Day parade and ceremony.














Chelsea baseball faced Dexter.


If you’ve been reading this blog for a few months, you’ve seen this pitcher before…





Back in modern baseball, Dexter faced Chelsea.









The Chelsea Monitor Base Ball Club was a real baseball team that played back in the mid-19th century, when baseball was called base ball, nobody wore gloves and hits could be fielded on one bounce for an out. The club was recently resurrected by a determined group of local citizens, and after a short break of more than a century, the MBBC played base ball once again when the Royal Oak Wahoos came to town.
Oh, and if you’re wondering about the post title, the very helpful game program explains:
“Should a ballist [player] lack effort, implore him to “Show a little ginger!”
Also, before I get to the photos, let me add that vintage base ball is wonderfully entertaining. You can find the club’s schedule on its website; if you’re in the area, I’d highly recommend going to a game.
And now, on to the photos.

Hank the friendly English bulldog enjoyed his afternoon at the game.






Chelsea has seen very little sun and very few clear skies this spring, so when I spotted that bright hot sphere thing in the sky and saw something other than clouds, I took a walk around Chelsea to get a few photos. I expect to do more of this as more clear skies make the apparently grueling commute to Chelsea.




Yeah, yeah, I know everybody takes pictures of it…

…but I think I’d be exiled to Dexter if I didn’t take at least one photo of it.




Just outside the library I encountered a man who was installing clay tiles that were created by Chelsea middle schoolers back in October. He, too, had been waiting for a sunny day to start work.


Chelsea softball faced Manchester.
At Chelsea’s softball stadium, there are few good open vantage points for photography: there are no breaks or low points in the fence, and the umps often aren’t excited about having a gate open even just a little. (That also puts me in the way of players entering and exiting the field.) The best answer, then, is to shoot over the fence, which leaves one real option: the roofs of the dugouts.
Though it would be nice to be able to shoot the game at field level, the dugout roof does offer two advantages: first, some players are hilariously startled when they see a person in a usually unpopulated location; second, I get a little bit of a different perspective for some interesting photos. This is one such photo:

The other such photo — one of my favorites of the year — is later in this post.








Here’s the other fun photo I got thanks to my spot on top of the dugout:

Manchester softball faced Chelsea.









One particular Manchester player — the one at second base — made a lot of outs. She had a couple spectacular plays that were impossible to miss, but when I went through the photos, I realized I had a lot of shots of her making plays:





Chelsea soccer faced Lincoln.
It was one of those odd days when the field could be bathed in sunlight yet covered by ominous clouds. Even better: when it looked like this, it was also raining.










After the game, my editor and I set up a photo for an upcoming feature article on one of the Chelsea athletes. This was the result:
