Sun sets on Giants’ hopes, but fans ready to rise again

By Jim Sacco

Published: June 6, 2008

PULASKI
What is it they say again when it heats up and standing outside is about as comfortable as sitting in a hot-dog steamer? Don’t they tell you to check on the young? The sick? The infirm?
Don’t they want you to stop by the elderly couple’s place next door with the open windows and no AC to make sure they’re OK?
Well, don’t worry. Frank, 77, and Mimi Bragg, 85, were doing just fine Friday morning despite a Calfee Park scoreboard that flashed the time — 9:48 — and the temperature – 93 degrees.
“The heat don’t bother me,” said Frank, a Korean War veteran.
The couple is a common sight at baseball diamonds in and around Waynesboro. They’ve followed Waynesboro baseball “about 20 years,” Mimi said last week during the Region III tournament at Amherst — early evening games that featured high temps, though nowhere near the 90s, and fire-red sun that scorched the mountains of Southwest Virginia on Friday at the Group AA semifinals.
The heat certainly didn’t bring any bouts of malaise to the purple-and-gold old timers as they sat in lawn chairs under the roofed section of the stands along the third-base line.
“Get ’em going, Jim!” Mimi yelled at Waynesboro coach Jim Critzer after the Little Giants gave up three runs in the bottom of the first.
Frank was as spry as he could be, shouting, “Come on, guys!” after three straight pop outs sent Powhatan down in order in the second.
When a Powhatan error in the top of the third tied the score at 3, Frank cupped his hands around his mouth and let everyone within ear shot know that, yes, “It’s a new ball game now!”
And when Joseph Lucas popped out to end the game, a 15-3 Waynesboro loss in the Group AA semifinals, the couple sighed and remained in their seats.
“Fine season,” Frank said.
Mimi smiled. “See you next year.”