Most of you who have been following me for some time know that I frequently work for Janice of Big Dog Little Bed. When I went to photograph her and her husband Sean a couple of years ago, Janice mentioned in her questionnaire that Sean plays on a sandlot baseball team called the Durham Dirtbags. Geoff, who has played baseball for most of his life, was on hiatus from a team and looking to join a new one, and loved the idea of a sandlot team, especially one named the Dirtbags. And because of my work for Janice and BDLB, I also know Tyler, who told me that Geoff was welcome to contact them for the team. So I already knew 2 lovely people on the Dirtbags before Geoff joined them a couple years ago.
Fast forward to now, and I’m happy to say that we know and love all of the Dirtbags, and we’ve become a bit sandlot-obsessed. This is a group of genuinely amazing people who are funny, kind, supportive, and – most importantly – just want to have fun playing baseball. They’re goofy and weird and have welcomed my mascot and merch-loving self to the games with open arms. So when the Dirtbags were invited to Austin to play some sandlot teams down there (The Texas Tallboys, East Austin Ramblers, and the Meat City Smoke), we enthusiastically went – Geoff to play baseball, and me to root for team and photograph them all having fun together. It was a great, silly, fun time. We did not see any bats (the mammal) but we did see a lot of bats (the wooden type). I bought a shirt with a worm wearing a cowboy hat on it (thanks, Nightcrawlers). The Dirtbags won and lost – but technically we were all winners. Life was good (and bigger) down in Texas.
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