The Lincoln Pinnacle Bank American Legion baseball team is
on the ninth day of a road trip that started in Casper, Wyo., last
week for the Northwest Regional and has now taken it to Cedar
Rapids, Iowa, for the American Legion World Series. Outfielder
Trisden Williams spoke by phone on Tuesday night from his Casper,
Wyo., hotel room about what life has been like for 16 teenage boys
on the road living a dream.
You get $28 a day for meal money, but not everybody on
the team has big-league appetites yet, or has been stingy. What's
the weirdest thing somebody has spent their extra cash
on?
"We went to the video arcade at the Casper Mall, and some guys
got plastic swords so they could have a sword fight. We got some
blow-up boxing gloves so we could box, too."
"There is not a lot to do, so we just hang out at the hotel.
There is a forest fire about 20 minutes away and they're evacuating
people some places, so they don't want us out much. We're staying
at a Holiday Inn that is nice though, and people are really
hospitable. We have four guys in a room with only two twin beds
though, so we rotate with one guy sleeping on a roll-away bed and
one guy on the floor."
How do you kill time between games and
travel?
"We just joke around a lot and do a few practical jokes. We got
(assistant coach Troy Kantor) pretty good. We got in his room and
flipped his mattress over, turned the heat way up, put the T.V.
volume on full blast and set his alarm for 3 a.m."
When you traveled to the regional you flew to Denver
before taking a bus to Casper. Any good stories from the
flight?
"Two guys (Bob Last and Jim Kraus) had never flown before, so we
were trying to get them all nervous about flying. They were holding
the barf bags before we took off, but it turned out fine."
