Ninety Pitches.

Danville tonight, and a big kid on the mound for the bad guys who only needed ninety pitches to throw all nine innings. And it was a five-hit shutout, too, until a single and a pretty little home-team triple and a sac fly in the bottom of the ninth. Still, as nice a 4-2 complete game as you'll ever see in Rookie League ball, folks. Damn near professional.

And weather up there: quick thunderless showers, fantastic and pervasive humidity, a fog in the outfield.

God, I love a ballgame. I love Danville in particular, love how specifically Southern it is up there, how the people there look like people nowhere else. It's particular in Danville, is what it is. It's particular here, too, and in Burlington, but there was something about Martinsville, back when the Astros had a team there, and there's something about Danville. Something more particular. Martinsville used to raffle off a grandfather clock at the end of the season. Danville plays bingo, reads out letters and numbers after every home-team at-bat.

High summer. Very. Sticky. Rain on the way, I'd hope. Drink out of your lucky coffee mugs tomorrow. Look out west. Cross yourselves. Bow. Genuflect. Dance the dance that works.