Frustrating Season.....

*This article has some baseball but is mostly focused on my life outside baseball.

I remember back in March/April of this year thinking that the 09 season was going to be a great one. I was looking forward to making 30-40 trips to City Island to watch the Senators; as well as trips to Hagerstown, Frederick, Reading and Williamsport. I had driving directions mapped out to each ‘away’ stadium, schedules tagged with dates I planned on traveling and the camera bag ready to go. But that all changed…..

Early on every trip I had planned there was about a 70% chance of thunderstorms (not good for the camera) or it was already rained out. Weather in Harrisburg basically sucked this year (overcast or raining) on game days. Overcast is typically okay for photography BUT overcast or heavy clouds at 7 PM is not good, there are many technical reason but I won’t get into that. There were some good days but they were few and far between at least in my opinion.



My wife and I are State Employees. My job required that I work extra hours during the budget negotiations starting in June. Due to the ongoing budget negotiations July and part of August were particularly difficult as there was no state budget so we were not getting paid.

At some point in July I started to experience health issues. I was in the Emergency Room and had several test done but they found nothing. Follow up with my family doctor were pointless. There was some concern about my heart (I was born with a heart problem), so I followed up with my cardiologist and all tests came back fine.

By mid-August everything was looking good, our pay was starting to get caught up and I was starting to physically feel better. Another positive is we were able to refinance our house (saved almost 2 percentage points and went from a 30-year fixed to a 15-year fixed). Because our closing fell at a good time our first payment will not be due until October. Things were starting to look up……

Well that was until this past Saturday (8/22) morning when we received a call from Target thanking my wife for opening a Target charge card, which she did not do. Needless to say the past few days have been a mess as we come to find out that someone stole my wife’s identity and took it upon themselves to open countless charge cards and potentially purchased a car in the surrounding states. During this ordeal I’ve been extremely surprised at the efforts, or lack thereof, of law enforcement officials at every level.

Just incase you ever have the unfortunate pleasure of being a victim of identity theft I want you to know in most cases nobody is there to help you. The victim is left to “play detective” and research everything. Your local police department is responsible for investigating the entire case and unless they ask for help from the State Police or the FBI your case is probably going to be closed with NO investigation. Our local police had the audacity to laugh it off and said the person will probably never be caught and they don’t have the resources to investigate a case all over the state.

The point is, people DO NOT care until it happens to them.

Go To: milb multimedia and select 8/24: Photos of the Week to view all of the photos of the week