Baseball has begun!

[Mike Buckley]

The first three games of the 2017 Major League Baseball season took place on Sunday, April 2 and the other twelve games involving the remaining teams are scheduled to take place on Monday, April 3. Opening day for my local team, the Washington Nationals located in America's capitol, is scheduled for Monday. Twenty-nine teams are located in America and Canada has a team in Toronto.

This photo is of a major league baseball that was used in an official game in 2006. I caught it barehanded in my right hand while holding a large, full glass of lemonade in the other hand and without spilling a drop. (I have no shame in bragging about that because I'm usually a klutz.) Immediately after the game, my wife and I joined her sister and fiance for dinner to celebrate that they had become engaged that week. They now have three children.

Setup
A small continuous-light lamp on the right side was raking light across the surface to display the texture. I placed the lamp as far away from the ball as my tiny makeshift studio would allow so the shadows would be as hard as possible. The hard shadows helped define the texture in the leather and the stitching. A polarizer eliminated glare in one small area on the right side.

[Shadowman]

Nice composition.

[bje07]

Beautiful rendering of the material.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to John and Jean!

Our local team won their first game of the season. Not hugely important but better to win than lose the first one.

[AlwaysOnAuto]

I thoroughly enjoyed watching a couple of opening day games on TV.
This is going to be a good season, especially for the Cubs and all those young players they have.
It will be hard for those guys NOT to become a dynasty in the next couple years.