By MICHAEL LEWIS
mlewis@poststar.com
Will Groff was expecting to be showing his baseball teammates his expertise on the diamond this week.
Instead, he's been showing off his angling skills and his gifts as a tour guide.
Groff, a member of the NYCBL's Glens Falls Golden Eagles, has had no baseball action to speak of the past four days, as Thursday marked the third straight day the Eagles were rained out. They also had a scheduled day off on Monday.
So to fight off cabin fever, Groff and teammate Justin Mattes (a fellow Queensbury native) have been showing their out-of-town teammates the sights.
"The guys all thought Lake George was something else," Groff said. "There's a lot of guys from down south who've never seen rain like this, so we're trying to keep everyone busy."
Besides tours of Lake George, Groff and some of his teammates have visited Saratoga Springs and taken in the sights, as well as gone fishing in the Hudson River.
"I'm a trout guy; me and Jimmy (Dougher) have tried to go out a little bit," Groff said. "Anything to just stay active."
After starting the season with three straight losses, the Golden Eagles are desperate to get on the field and start winning.
But nobody knows when they'll get the chance; perhaps tonight at East Field against Amsterdam at 7 p.m.
"One good thing is that we've gotten to know each other a little bit, just hanging out and talking," Mattes said. "Some of the guys saw Americade and had never seen anything like that before."
Coach John Mayotte was able to organize a group outing Wednesday to The Sports Barn in Clifton Park, an indoor training facility where players were able to take batting practice and pitchers could play long toss.
"We're trying to make sure the kids don't drive their host families nuts," Mayotte said with a laugh. "I'm sure they didn't expect to see the guys this much."