The West Michigan Whitecaps play in the Midwest League, two steps up from Rookie league in the Tigers’ system. They took on the Beloit Sky Carp on Thursday. The weather was gorgeous and our seats were right behind the dugout. We had a little trouble getting in: I printed out our tickets but one of them was showing up as “invalid” at the gate. The guards directed us to the ticket office. I checked my phone and something did seem screwy about one of them, but the very pretty girl in the ticket office just printed it out for us in paper ticket form and we sailed through without further ado.

It was Thrifty Thursday — made for me — so dinner was two dogs, and a 20-oz Yuengling for $9 total! What is this, 1966? If that’s not enough, the guy sitting next to me asked me if I was hungry. I told him we ate already but he said he had a bunch of vouchers he had to get rid of, so he handed me two for more dogs and sodas! Geez Louise — doubles!

The game was close, with the Caps nursing a lead until the wheels came off the Carps’ bus in the sixth. We entered the ninth with a fat 8 run lead (10-2). Then, the unthinkable started taking shape. Walks, hits, a hit batter, and before you knew it, the Carp was one pitch away from bringing the tying run to the plate!! The batter popped the ball straight up, way up, and the catcher, a Bronx boy who was having a good night, circled under it, but shakily. He didn’t have a good bead on it and it fell, untouched, in fair territory! But the ump invoked the infield fly rule so the batter was out. Wow. It should only be invoked for popups that can be caught “with ordinary effort” and the catcher didn’t seem to be exhibiting that. But there was no argument: The Carp didn’t carp. (You must have seen that coming.) The next batter grounded out and the game was (finally) over. Good show boys!

LMCU Ballpark is a nice stadium. Good place to watch a game. A little north of Grand Rapids: a two-hour drive from Annie Arbor. We had a nice lunch at one of the town’s many brewpubs (City Built), a nice walk over some bridges spanning the Grand River, and some relaxing time in a coffee shop near Ferris U. All in all, a very nice day trip from Annie Arbor.

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This Crossworld crowd is a tough crew. In today’s puzzle, the clue at 17A was “Size between mini and maxi,” and and the answer was MIDI. Commenter Gary, who is definitely worthy of membership in our Dirty Old Man Dept. despite being under 50, noted: “The only correct size is mini.” And a nitpicker carped: Midi is not a “size,” it’s a length. Srsly?

Check out this tune:

Three answers on Sunday were METES, MENU, and WANTON.

Here’s my brilliant work on them:

When my wife and I finally figured out 41D, I exclaimed “We have the METES!”

All-male college: MENU

Profligate consommé: WANTON soup.

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Our week in Annie Arbor was great. Good weather for a lot of nice walks. Great eats, of course, and nice times with Sam, Sarah, and the g’kids. Does some language have a word for the feeling you get when you see your son turned in to a great dad himself? Japanese? Some Native American language? Anyway, whatever it may be called, I got that.

The ride to Altoona was through amazing rainfall. We made it, but were too tired to catch the ballgame that night, which the Curve won with two in the ninth, 4-3. Woulda been good. Instead we took a nice stroll to an incredible custard place and hit the hay early. The ride home today was much easier.

So now it’s ” back to our miserable lives.” It’s amazing how different different cultures are. I used that line to our limo driver to the airport in Dublin and he roared and said he’d be stealing it. And I used it with a nice young Arab man on the staff on our Viking cruise and he said, “no, no, no,” and told me how his grandfather taught him that every day and every situation is precious in it’s own way.

Last Friday, LYDIA from “Pride and Prejudice” visited the grid. Son Volt shared this tune with us in her honor.

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So after trading Curtis Mead away, the Gnats also said goodbye to lefty slugger Luis Garcia, Jr., whom we also loved. Slugger indeed — he was leading the NL in slugging percentage. If he keeps it up with his new team, the Yankees, he won’t be looking back. I’m not gonna say the trades were bad: they need the pitching they got, and I have faith in the team’s leadership. But they’ve dropped five in a row now and can’t seem to score runs anymore.

Good luck Luis.

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Rest in peace, Glen Hansard. If you got to know him a little from the movie “Once,” you got to know him enough to love him. He was only 56 and died in a motorcycle accident.

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See you tomorrow!