Night with the stars

Breaking out of my Ocean City/Kennywood pattern over the last couple weeks to highlight a local star on the national stage tonight.  In case you don’t follow baseball, the Pittsburgh Pirates have not been over .500 for the last 19 years, the longest such stretch in any major sport.  Ever.  Having a new stadium (PNC Park) has helped to draw fans to the games over the last decade or so, but their futility over that same span has made it difficult to find a silver lining at times.  This year is much different though.  One of the best stories in baseball this year, the Pirates are just out of first place and own their best record at the All Star Break since 1992.  Games are selling out, people are starting to believe and the team is finally putting wins together.

It’s always been a sort of revolving door in the Pirates closer role, one that at times has been one of the brighter spots on the team.  Joe Hanrahan is taking that to a new level though.  Tied for second in the league with 26 saves on 26 chances, Hanrahan is currently in Phoenix, Arizona, getting ready to participate in his first All Star game.  Since the game is tonight, I thought that I would showcase him today in recognition of his achievement.  I took this shot a few weeks back at an afternoon game against the Baltimore Orioles which the Pirates won 5-4.  Joel game in for the last inning, and from our seats I knew what kind of shot I wanted to get.  This was the last pitch of the game too, with the Oriole batter flying out to center field.

I actually took 5 images of him going through his windup, but the first and the last were too close to the second and fourth that I decided to just go with the middle three.  I started with the first Joel, on the left, and masked in the middle one.  I purposefully did not mask in his arm, as it blended in nicely with the jersey of the one on the left, so I left it go.  I then mask in the final Joel, on the right.  Added a Tonal Contrast Filter, desaturated the entire image and increase overall vibrance, as well as added a green curves layer for the grass.  Finally, added a Turbo Boost and Progressive Sharpening in onOne before calling it a day.

Congrats again to Joel (as well as Andrew McCutcheon, another Pirates All Star) and good luck to the National League tonight.  Thanks for stopping by folks.